5/11/2005: "King Abdullah of Jordan has agreed to pardon Ahmed Chalabi, the controversial Iraqi political leader, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for fraud after his bank collapsed with $300m (£160m) in missing deposits in 1989."

5/8/2005: "The Iraqi parliament has approved appointments for six cabinet vacancies, handing four more positions to the Sunni Arab minority. But the Sunni selected as human rights minister turned down the job, saying he cannot accept a position awarded on sectarian criteria. Less than half of the National Assembly, 112 of the 155 legislators present, approved Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's six nominations on Sunday, including Shia Arab Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum as oil minister and Sunni military man Saadoun al-Duleimi as defence minister."

5/4/2005: Ahmad Chalabi has received a congratulatory call from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about his new Iraqi Cabinet posts. While it was just last year that the US accused Chalabi of spying for Iran, he has remained a favorite of the Defense Department and NeoCons. Following the US invasion, Chalabi was given surviving records from the Iraqi ministry of the interior, which he has apparently used to blackmail politicians who, the documents show, were on Saddam's payroll.

On Wednesday April 27th, Iraqi Prime Minister-designate Ibrahim al-Jaafari announced he had formed a cabinet. It appears that the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) will get 17 cabinet posts, the Kurds nine (including the Foreign Ministry), Sunni Arabs will get seven, including the Defence Ministry and the Christian and Turkmen minorities will get one ministry each. Sadun al-Dulaymi is slated to become defence minister and Roj Nuri Shaways, Ahmad Chalabi and Saad al-Lahabi will be Jaafari's deputies (Iraqi cabinet list). Chalabi, a man once convicted of embezzling millions from a Jordanian bank, will get the post of Oil Minister on an interim basis.

During arguments over the formation of the new new cabinet, three key Sunni Arab lawmakers resigned from the dominant United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) in protest against the attempt to marginalise Sunni Arabs. They also expressed resentment against what they called foreign interference in ministry-making decisions. While the US had been complaining in public about the time it was taking for the new government to form, the Sadr Movement has charged that Iyad Allawi was attempting to obstruct the formation of a government in order to make them withdraw the names of cabinet ministers who are not liked in Washington. It is reported that when Adil Abdul Mahdi, an Iraqi vice president, was in Washington a few weeks ago he was pressing the White House for permission to give the Ministry of the Interior to the his own SCIRI party. In order to secure the post, he had to give the Americans assurances his party would not adopt policies that contradicted the security plans of the US military in Iraq.

Jafari's Government: The House of Cards | Talabani Fears Baath Military | Al-Ahram: De-nationalising Iraq