Ibrahim Jaafari named as Iraq prime minister

BAGHDAD, April 7 (Reuters) - Islamist Shi'ite Ibrahim Jaafari was named as Iraq's next prime minister on Thursday, moving the country a step closer to its first democratically elected government in more than 50 years.

Jaafari announced his own nomination shortly after Iraq's new president, Kurdish former guerrilla leader Jalal Talabani, was sworn into office in parliament, along with two deputies.

"Today represents a big step forward for Iraq and a big responsibility for me," Jaafari, who spent more than two decades opposing Saddam Hussein from exile, told reporters.

His appointment to the most powerful post under the interim constitution had long been agreed in principle but was held up by weeks of bargaining over other posts among the Shi'ite and Kurdish groups that dominate the parliament elected on Jan. 30.

Jaafari said interim prime minister Iyad Allawi had resigned from his post but would continue as caretaker while Jaafari worked on putting the finishing touches to his cabinet line up.

"I hope within one or two weeks maximum I will name the cabinet," a smiling Jaafari said after his formal appointment by Talabani and the Shi'ite and Sunni Arab vice presidents.

"I am going to do my best to finish within two weeks."

Talabani, 71, took the president's oath of office a day after his election by parliament, as political and religious leaders looked on at a ceremony inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, seat of government and the vast U.S. embassy.

"I swear by God the great that I will work with devotion to preserve the independence and sovereignty of Iraq and to preserve its democratic and federal system," Talabani said.

"I will work to preserve all freedoms and the independence of the judiciary, and respect all laws, as God is my witness."

Afterwards he was given a round of applause and briefly raised his arms in triumph. Shi'ite Adel Abdul Mahdi and Sunni Arab tribal elder Ghazi Yawar, previously the interim president, were sworn in as vice presidents immediately afterwards.

NEW HANDS AT THE HELM

Talabani's appointment is a landmark for Iraq's Kurdish minority, which was oppressed for decades under Saddam. He also becomes the first non-Arab president of an Arab state.

While the president's role is largely ceremonial, the prime minister's post is much more powerful and will give the leaders of Iraq's 60-percent Shi'ite majority a tight grip on power.

The naming of a Kurd as president and a Shi'ite as prime minister seals the political transformation that has taken place since Saddam's overthrow, with Shi'ites and Kurds, once targeted by Saddam's Sunni Arab-dominated regime, running the country.

Efforts are being made to ensure the Sunnis are not frozen out, an attempt to defuse rising sectarian tensions.

While only 17 of the 275 members of parliament are Sunni Arabs -- a reflection of the fact most Sunnis either boycotted or were too afraid to vote in the historic January ballot -- Sunnis are being given several top posts in the government.

In his short speech after his swearing in, Talabani reached out to the 20-percent Sunni Arab minority.

"It's about time that our Arab Sunni brothers took part in building the new Iraq and we are very hopeful that they will participate with us in doing so," he said.

"We can never dispense of the role of our Arab Sunnis."

Most of Iraq's Kurds are also Sunni Muslims.

Talabani's election led to celebrations across Kurdish regions of mountainous northeastern Iraq on Wednesday, with thousands crowding streets, dancing and waving Kurdish flags.

U.S. President George W. Bush, who has told Americans their troops will come home as Iraq establishes a stable new government, said on Thursday: "The Iraqi people have shown their commitment to democracy and we, in turn, are committed to Iraq."

MUCH YET TO DO

While the naming of a president and prime minister marks progress after more than nine weeks of political impasse, Iraq's lawmakers still have a long way to go.

The cabinet is expected to be named in the coming days, but there is still intense squabbling over one of the top posts, the oil ministry, which is crucial to Iraq's economy and rebuilding. The ministry is coveted by both Shi'ites and Kurds.

Once a government is in place, lawmakers will have to knuckle down to a possibly even tougher task -- drawing up a constitution before a mid-August deadline set under a plan drawn up under U.S. occupation with the help of the United Nations.

Many Iraqis have complained that politicians have let them down by taking so long to form a government. Several Iraqi officials say the delay has benefited Iraq's insurgents.

On Thursday, a suicide bomber blew up his vehicle near a U.S. convoy in Tal Afar, in the far northwest of Iraq. Hospital officials said 19 civilians were wounded in the blast, four of them critically. Al Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility.

In western Iraq, police said they discovered the bodies of 11 Iraqis. The victims worked at an American military base.

But overall, figures show the insurgency appears to have weakened since the election, with attacks against U.S.-led forces down by more than 20 percent. At the same time, more than 250 Iraqi security force members were killed last month.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/b2591178-a76f-11d9-9744-00000e2511c8.html

Shia Jaafari 'is new Iraqi PM'

Staff and agencies
Thursday April 7, 2005

One of Iraq's leading Shia politicians, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, said today he had been officially chosen as Iraq's next interim prime minister.

Mr Jaafari, a 58-year-old former London GP, said he would form a new government within one or two weeks, and officials said the previous interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, had formally resigned.

The new government will be Iraq's first democratically elected one for about 50 years.

Today's development is likely to be cautiously welcomed by many Iraqis, who have expressed exasperation at the delay in creating a new government after the January 30 election, the first national poll since the US-led coalition toppled Saddam Hussein in April 2003.

News of Mr Jaafari's appointment came after Iraq's new president, the Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, was sworn in earlier today.

Mr Talabani and his two vice-presidents, who were all elected yesterday after weeks of sometimes vexed negotiations, are understood to have appointed Mr Jaafari immediately.

Despite the political horse trading it has been clear for some time that Mr Jaafari would emerge as the new prime minister, despite Mr Allawi's attempts to keep his job.

Mr Jaafari, a conservative Shia with strong religious beliefs, leads the Islamic Dawa party, Iraq's first Shia Islamic political party, which is a major player in the dominant United Iraqi Alliance. The UIA holds more than half of the new national assembly's 275 seats.

He also has ties to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most influential Shia leader. Mr Jaafari's wife is a distant relative of the cleric.

Mr Jaafari's rise reflects power shifts in Iraq, where both the Shia Arab majority and the Kurdish minority have new influence after decades of brutal oppression under Saddam's Sunni-dominated regime.

The Shia have a majority of seats in the national assembly, which is located in the green zone in Baghdad, while Kurds form the second largest bloc; Sunni Arabs have disproportionately few seats, largely because many boycotted the elections or stayed at home for fear of attacks at the polls.

Iraq's new prime minister spent more than two decades in exile, mostly in Britain and Iran, helping to lead anti-Saddam opposition forces in his party.

The new administration will be the second interim government since the US-led invasion in March 2003. Once a cabinet is finalised, Mr Jaafari's government will begin working on drafting a permanent constitution. This is supposed to be finished by August 15, before new elections.

Headlines in Iraq's newspapers this morning predicted Mr Jaafari's appointment today but some Iraqis, jaded by two years of conflict, showed little excitement.

"We, as Iraqis, are demanding security first," said Kadim Jassib, a 32-year-old Shia vendor. "This is a very important point, and the other problems will resolve themselves automatically. Then we can ask the coalition troops to withdraw from Iraq."

Like Mr Jaafari, Mr Talabani was a longtime opponent of Saddam. He spent some 40 years opposing the dictator and successive governments in Baghdad, and is the first Kurd to be Iraq's president.

His role will be more ceremonial than the prime minister's, but Mr Talabani, who wants a federal Iraq with Kurds running their own region, will have another platform from which to advance his aims: he leads the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which controls the eastern part of the Kurds' self-rule area.

After he was named as president yesterday Mr Talabani urged Iraqi insurgents, who are believed to be mostly Sunni Arabs, to begin talks.

Adel Abdul-Mahdi, a Shia, and the outgoing interim president, Ghazi al-Yawer, a Sunni Arab, were elected vice-presidents.

Saddam and 11 of his top aides were given the chance to watch a tape of yesterday's national assembly session in their prison. All chose to do so, according to Bakhtiar Amin, human rights minister in the outgoing interim government.

The minister said Saddam watched by himself while the others viewed it as a group. "I imagine [Saddam] was upset," Mr Amin said. "He must have realised that the era of his government was over and that there was no way he was returning to office."


http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1454391,00.html

Friday, April 08, 2005

Jalal Talabani appears to have had a senior moment of some magnitude. In the course of announcing that Ibrahim Jaafari will be Iraq's new prime minister, he says he suffered a memory lapse and had to leave the podium so an aide could remind him of Jaafari's name. The superstitious took it as an ill omen.Friday, April 08, 2005

Jaafari Appointed Prime Minister

Jalal Talabani appears to have had a senior moment of some magnitude. In the course of announcing that Ibrahim Jaafari will be Iraq's new prime minister, he says he suffered a memory lapse and had to leave the podium so an aide could remind him of Jaafari's name. The superstitious took it as an ill omen.

Ash-Sharq al-Awsat reports that Jaafari pledged to make headway on Iraq's poor security, and that he sharply criticized the outgoing government of Iyad Allawi for letting Baathists serve in the security and intelligence forces. Jaafari appears set to purge them.

The same newspaper says that 10 Iraqis were killed in separate incidents in the ongoing guerrilla war on Thursday, and another 11 corpses were discovered near Ramadi (usually these turn out to be police or police recruits).


Ash-Sharq al-Awsat reports that Jaafari pledged to make headway on Iraq's poor security, and that he sharply criticized the outgoing government of Iyad Allawi for letting Baathists serve in the security and intelligence forces. Jaafari appears set to purge them.

The same newspaper says that 10 Iraqis were killed in separate incidents in the ongoing guerrilla war on Thursday, and another 11 corpses were discovered near Ramadi (usually these turn out to be police or police recruits).

http://www.juancole.com/2005/04/jaafari-appointed-prime-minister-jalal.html