Shi’ite leader Jawad al-Maliki has been given 30 days to form Iraq’s first full-term post-Saddam Hussein government after being nominated as prime minister to end a four-month political deadlock.
United States President George Bush hailed al-Maliki’s nomination on Saturday, saying the move toward establishing a new government in Baghdad ”will make America more secure”.
”The agreement reflects the will of the Iraqi people who defied the terrorists by voting to choose the men and women who will lead their nation forward,” Bush said in California.
”This historic achievement by determined Iraqis will make America more secure,” he said, suggesting it could lead to a drawdown of US troops in the country.
Iraq’s re-elected President Jalal Talabani called upon al-Maliki on Saturday to form the Cabinet, signaling an end to the deadlock that coincided with a surge in sectarian violence across the country that has left hundreds dead.
”On this occasion, I call upon my brother Jawad al-Maliki to form the next Iraqi government,” Talabani said in the landmark Parliament session, only the second one since the body was elected in December. ”We think he has all the qualities required to head the government.”
Following his nomination, al-Maliki vowed to rein in militias by incorporating them into Iraq’s security forces, while working with all the country’s ethnic groups to tackle the insurgency.
”I intend to form a national unity government that will face the challenges of terrorism and corruption,” he said. ”Arms must be in the hands of the government. There is a law to integrate militias into the security forces.”
”Each ministry will be run professionally and not as minister’s own property, dictated by his ethnic background,” he stressed.
He was alluding to Sunni Arab accusations that forces under the command of the Shi’ite-run interior ministry have been carrying out sectarian killings of civilians in revenge for attacks by Sunni insurgents.
Kurdish leader Talabani said the government will aim for ”security to prevail, society to be united, and to rebuild infrastructure. The interests of Iraq should transcend all ethnic, sectarian or personal interests.”
Earlier on Saturday, al-Maliki was formally approved as the new Shi’ite compromise candidate for the government by Iraq’s dominant Shi’ite United Iraqi Alliance.
His nomination came after former premier Ibrahim al-Jaafari withdrew his candidacy on Thursday, which was strongly opposed by the country’s Sunni and Kurdish parliamentary blocs and the US.
Al-Maliki is deputy leader of the Dawa, the same Shi’ite religious party headed by al-Jaafari, but his nomination was swiftly welcomed by political parties representing Iraq’s other religious and ethnic groups.
”We welcome the choice of al-Maliki and believe that we can now form a national unity government in Iraq which will be non-sectarian,” said Zhafer al-Ani, spokesperson of the National Concord Front, the main bloc representing Iraq’s Sunni Arab former elite.
Also during the Parliament’s two-hour session, Shi’ite leader Adel Abdel Mahdi and Sunni politician Tareq al-Hashemi were elected as the two vice-presidents, and Sunni MP Mahmud Mashhadani was voted in as the new parliamentary Speaker followed by Kurdish lawmaker Aref Tayfur and Shi’ite MP Sheikh Khalid al-Attiya as his two deputies.
However, Sunni MP Salah Mutlak, whose coalition holds 11 Parliament seats, criticised the proceedings. ”This is not a team for national unity; this is a sectarian arrangement,” he warned.
On Saturday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the agreement to nominate al-Maliki an ”important milestone” and said Iraqis are ”well on their way” toward forming a national unity government.
But both Bush and Rice warned more work is needed to stabilise the volatile country, in which lethal attacks and bombings by insurgents grew as the political stalemate continued.
”The new government has the responsibility to deploy the growing strength of the Iraqi security forces to defeat the terrorists and insurgents and establish control over the militias,” Bush said.
”The new Iraqi government will assume growing responsibility for their nation’s security. And as more Iraqi forces stand up, American forces will stand down,” he said, adding that there will be ”more tough fighting ahead”.
Meanwhile, more violence struck the country on Saturday as ten Iraqis were killed in Diyala province, north-east of Baghdad.
The US military announced the deaths of four soldiers in a roadside bombing south of Baghdad. A fifth soldier died later in a bomb attack south of Baghdad, the military said, but it was not clear if it was the same blast. — AFP
