Iraq's parliament approved three key security officials Thursday, ending an
impasse that had threatened Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's plan for Iraqis to
gradually take over security from U.S. and other foreign troops.
Iraqi Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki, left, introduces his new security ministers, from second
left, Sherwan al-Waili, Shiite head of national security, Shiite Interior
Minister Jawad al-Bolani, and Sunni Defence Minister Gen. Abdul-Qader
Mohammed Jassim al-Mifarji, as Iraqi parliamentarians raise their arms in
approval, Thursday June 8, 2006 in Baghdad. Iraq's parliament approved new
ministers of defense, interior and national security on Thursday, ending a
three week stalemate among Iraq's sectarian and ethnic parties over the
crucial posts. [AP] |
The three men were sworn in just minutes after al-Maliki in a separate event
announced that U.S. forces had killed terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,
whose al-Qaida in Iraq group has been blamed for some of Iraq's bloodiest
bombings.
While welcoming his death, Iraqi and American officials warned that many
insurgents remain, and at least five bombings killed at least 39 people and
wounded around 120.
The new appointments are considered crucial for al-Maliki's government to
implement a plan that foresees Iraqi soldiers and police taking over
responsibility for Iraq's security within 18 months. That would open the way for
the eventual withdrawal of foreign troops.
Efforts to name the defense, interior and national security ministers had
been snarled by squabbling among the Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish parties in
the unity government that took office May 20. The frictions were fed by the
surge in sectarian conflict in recent months.
Iraq's new defense minister is Gen. Abdul-Qader Mohammed Jassim al-Mifarji, a
Sunni Arab. Members of that formerly dominant minority are the backbone of the
insurgency, and many people feel it is crucial to have Sunnis deeply involved in
the new government to weaken support for the guerrillas.
The other two ministers came from the Shiite majority, Jawad al-Bolani as
interior minister and Sherwan al-Waili as minister of state for national
security.
Sunni Arabs demanded the Defense Ministry, which runs the military, to
balance the Shiites' control of the Interior Ministry, which oversees police
forces and some security services. The National Security Ministry runs Iraq's
anti-terror efforts and its war against corruption.
Despite the weeks of negotiations, the choices didn't meet universal
approval.
A Sunni Arab from Anbar Province, an area west of the capital where
insurgents are active, complained that the new defense minister took part in
military operations in the region.
"As I represent those who elected me in Anbar Province, and especially in
Fallujah, I'm here to express our rejection for Abdul-Qader Mohammed Jassim,"
said Sheik Khalil Jadou of Ramadi.
Al-Mifarji, who is not affiliated with any Sunni Arab party, told the
275-member legislature that he graduated from the Iraqi military academy in 1969
and was thrown out of the army and Saddam Hussein's Baath Party in 1991 after he
criticized the invasion of Kuwait. He said that led to his conviction by a
military court in 1994 and a seven-year prison sentence.
"All my properties were confiscated," he said. "In 2003, my only house was
returned. Then I joined the new Iraqi army as the commander of operations room
and then commander of military operations in western Iraq, and finally the
commando units of the infantry."
Noting that he doesn't belong to any political party, al-Mifarji said that as
defense minister "I will work for all Iraqis and will not work according to my
tribal, religious and ethnic background. I will be only an Iraqi and will spare
no effort."
The new interior minister is an independent member of the biggest Shiite
political bloc, the United Iraqi Alliance. He is an aeronautical engineering
graduate of Baghdad's University of Technology and worked as an engineer in the
Iraqi air force until 1999.
Al-Waili is a member of the Iraqi Dawa Party, which is not related to the
Dawa party to which the prime minister belongs.
A graduate of Iraq's military school of engineering, he was jailed following
the Shiite uprising of 1991 in the southern city of Basra, which came after a
U.S.-led alliance drove the Iraqi army from Kuwait.
He later served as head of the provincial council in the city of Nasiriyah,
and then as undersecretary for public works. He had been an adviser for regional
affairs in the National Security Ministry.
While legislators accepted the new security chiefs, violence claimed lives
across Baghdad.
A bomb targeting a police patrol killed two officers and four civilians and
wounded 11 people in the New Baghdad area in the eastern part of the city, Lt.
Ali Abbas said.
The worst bloodshed came about an hour later, when a bomb exploded at the
entrance to a fruit market in the same area. Thirteen people, including two
women, died and at least 39 people suffered wounds, police Col. Ahmed Abod said.
A parked car loaded with explosives blew up in the northern suburb of
Kazimiyah, killing six people and wouding 15, police said. Police Capt. Mohammed
Al-Waili said the attack appeared aimed at day laborers.
Another parked car exploded in the capital's eastern Amin market area,
killing five people and wounding more than a dozen, police said.
A car bomb later hit an outdoor market in the al-Shaab neighborhood, a mixed
Sunni-Shiite neighborhood in eastern Baghdad, killing at least nine people and
wounding 42, police Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said.
