Sunni deputies unhappy with new government

IRAQ: After five months of wrangling over posts and policies, Iraq's parliament confirmed a new government on Saturday when Premier Nuri al-Maliki presented 37 ministers and a 33-point programme.

However, this cabinet, the first to be appointed by a full-term assembly since the US ousted the Baathist regime in 2003, is not the national unity government that Mr Maliki and US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad promised. It is, in- stead, a government of expediency comprised of ethnic and sectarian factions which continue to vie for influence and office. There are 19 Shias, eight Sunnis, eight Kurds and one Christian. They belong to five blocs or parties: the dominant Shia United Iraqi Alliance, the Sunni fundamentalist Iraqi Accord Front, the Kurdish alliance, the secular Iraqi National party, and a Christian grouping. There are only four women.

The alliance, the premier's bloc, holds the main portfolios of oil, finance, education and health, while the Kurds have foreign affairs, industry, planning and water. In spite of a pledge to award Sunnis key ministries, the Sunni fundamentalists have, so far, received only four minor portfolios; the secularists, the justice ministry; and the sole Christian, human rights. Fifteen Sunni deputies left the session to protest the allocation of portfolios and the first item on Mr Maliki's programme, suppression of the Sunni-led insurgency.

They criticised the programme for its failure to make a distinction between Iraqis they argue are resisting foreign occupation and foreign Muslim militants carrying out attacks on Iraqis as well as US and British forces.

Critics point out that outgoing interior minister Bayan Jabr, a Shia militia commander who was selected for the finance portfolio, is responsible for the rise of Shia death squads in the police and that Hussein Shahristani, a Shia nuclear scientist with close ties to Shia Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, has no experience in administration or in the oil sector.

Mr Maliki was unable to name appointees to the ministries of defence, interior and national security because these posts are still disputed. His failure demonstrated that he is not in control of the three main parliamentary factions which have contradictory agendas.

While proclaiming his intention of filling these posts by next week, he took over the interior ministry. Kurdish deputy premier Barham Saleh was put in charge of national security and Sunni deputy premier Salam Zobaie assumed the post of temporary defence minister. It is expected that these three senior ministries will be awarded to the three main communities, reinforcing the practice of ethno-sectarian governance adopted by the US occupation administration in June 2003. The parliamentary session was masterfully stage-managed by Mr Khalilzad, who played a determining role in the formation of the cabinet.

Since the line-up fails to meet the primary demand of Iraqis for a national unity government, analysts argue that it is unlikely to create effective national police and armed forces, restore the administration which was dissolved by the US in 2003, amend the controversial constitution, and negotiate a timely withdrawal of foreign forces.