Iraq set for unity government
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-05-20 08:53 VACANCIES
Under a constitutional timetable, Maliki's 30 days to form a government end
on Monday. Despite confident assertions last month that he would need only a
week or two, wrangling among and within Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish blocs came
close to thwarting him, as it did his ally and predecessor Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
Still, the key security posts at interior and defense have eluded his
dealmaking skills, even though all parties are agreed that the jobs should go to
a Shi'ite and Sunni respectively.
If no 11th-hour solution is found before the 275 members of the Council of
Representatives vote in the fortified Green Zone on Saturday, Maliki will occupy
the interior ministry for a week and Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi will
run defense.
Complaints among Saddam's once dominant Sunni minority that the Shi'ite
majority brought to power by the U.S. invasion was abusing its control of the
interior ministry by running death squads within the police focused attention on
the interior post.
An upsurge in sectarian killings, some carried out by men in uniform, after
February's bombing of a major Shi'ite shrine has prompted growing alarm about
the threat of civil war.
Hundreds of people are being killed every month in Baghdad alone and tens of
thousands have fled their homes. Some fear the communal violence may have gone
too far to reverse.
Maliki, a tough-talking defender of Shi'ite interests since his return from
exile in 2003, has won praise from Sunnis for his willingness to seek consensus.
But many question whether a government cobbled together according to religious
and ethnic labeling can overcome centrifugal forces tearing Iraq apart.
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