Iraqi parliament approves a partial Cabinet

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq's interim National Assembly approved a Cabinet lineup on Thursday after nearly three months of political wrangling, laying the groundwork for the first elected government since Saddam Hussein's ouster to take power soon.

However, two posts in the 37-member Cabinet went unfilled, five others including the key portfolios of defense and oil were only filled on a temporary basis and the list failed to incorporate in a meaningful way the Sunni Arab minority due to a dispute over the suitability of Baathists who served in Saddam's regime.

The naming of a new government had been seen as a key step in ending Iraq's insurgency, which is believed to be largely driven by Sunnis, and there had been fears that the political bickering had emboldened militants who have staged a series of well-coordinated attacks in recent weeks.

The Cabinet list also marked another surprising political comeback for former Pentagon favorite Ahmad Chalabi, a Shiite who will be one of four deputy prime ministers and acting oil minister.

Prime Minister-designate Ibrahim al-Jaafari told reporters that decisions over the vacant and acting Cabinet positions will be made in three to four days.

Lawmakers said the new Cabinet was expected to hold its first meeting later Thursday to discuss the handover between outgoing Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and al-Jaafari.

Iraqi politicians have been under increasing U.S. pressure to get a transitional government in place so they can focus on taking over efforts to suppress the insurgency.

Al-Jaafari said the challenges the new government faces over security, services and reconstruction are big, but the Iraqis who "challenged tyranny" by voting for a new parliament Jan. 30 "will help this government to succeed and will not be intimidated."

A total of 180 of the 185 lawmakers present approved the list by a show of hands, Speaker Hajim al-Hassani announced to applause. Ninety lawmakers were absent for the vote.

"This is the first step in building the new Iraq," al-Jaafari told lawmakers. "The main thing to keep in mind is that no one will be excluded. Whether in the Cabinet or not, all sides will have the right to participate in the political process."

Ghazi al-Yawer, Iraq's deputy president, himself a Sunni, said he was disappointed by the new Cabinet. "The number of ministries given to the Sunnis is not enough," he told reporters.

But he also said the issue could be resolved in the near future as Iraq's democratic transition continues. It will involve the writing of a constitution, its passage in a public referendum and an election for a new government by year's end.

Saddam, meanwhile, spent his 68th birthday in U.S. custody. A defense lawyer said Wednesday that he was in good health and high spirits.

Al-Jaafari submitted a broad-based Cabinet, including members of Iraq's main Shiite, Sunni, Kurdish and Christian factions. But disputes remained over two deputy prime ministers' slots and the defense, oil, electricity, industry and human rights ministries.

Allawi's Iraqi List party was not included in the new Cabinet. Many Shiites have long resented the secular Allawi, accusing his outgoing administration of including former Baathists in the government and security forces.

Al-Jaafari himself will be acting defense minister, a position that was supposed to go to a Sunni Arab.

Kurdish official and former Vice President Rowsch Nouri Shaways will be another deputy and acting electricity minister.

Al-Jaafari has struggled to reconcile the competing demands of Iraq's myriad factions since the landmark Janurary elections.

Shiite leaders rejected his initial choices for a Sunni deputy prime minister and defense minister because of suspicions they had ties to Saddam's Baath Party, which brutally repressed Iraqi's majority Shiites and minority Kurds.

Al-Jaafari also faced infighting within his Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, the largest bloc in parliament, over the oil and electricity portfolios.

The approved ministers include 15 Shiite Arabs, seven Kurds, four Sunnis and one Christian. Lawmakers earlier said two more ministries were destined for Shiites, one for Kurds and two for Sunnis.

The Cabinet includes six women, responsible for seven portfolios.

President Jalal Talabani and his two vice presidents signed off on the list before Thursday's historic vote.

Shiites make up 60 percent of Iraq's 26 million people. The Kurds make up 20 percent, and the Sunni Arabs, who largely stayed away from the elections either in boycott or for fear of attacks, are roughly 15 percent to 20 percent.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad offered its condolences to the family of Lamia Abed Khadouri al-Sakri, 50, a Shiite Muslim legislator in the National Assembly who was shot and killed Wednesday at her home in Baghdad. She was the first elected official slain since the parliamentary elections.

"We condemn this cowardly attack on a woman who was working to bring democracy to Iraq, and we admire her courage and her dedication to making life better in Iraq," embassy spokesman Bob Callahan said in a statement.

In new attacks Thursday, insurgents fired at least six mortar rounds toward a U.S. military base Musayyib, 40 miles south of Baghdad, but hit a nearby bus station instead, killing four Iraqis and wounding 21, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. The attack took place during the city's busy morning commute.

U.S. forces sent a five-man medical team to the bus station, including a doctor, to help the wounded, and Iraqi forces brought medical supplies, the U.S. military said in a statement.

A suicide car bomb also exploded near an Iraqi army checkpoint, wounding four Iraqi soldiers, three U.S. soldiers and seven Iraqi civilians, the U.S. military said. The attack occurred outside Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, U.S. Maj. Richard Goldenberg said.

In the capital, Lt. Col. Alaa Khalil Ibrahim, who worked in the visa section of the Interior Ministry, was shot dead on the way to work by gunmen in an eastern Baghdad neighborhood, police said.

Associated Press writers Jamie Tarabay and Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.

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