Iraq’s PM-Designate Drafts Cabinet List

BAGHDAD, Iraq – After months of haggling over the makeup of Iraq’s post-Saddam Hussein government, Prime Minister-designate Ibrahim al-Jaafari drafted a proposed list of Cabinet ministers and will submit it to the president, a spokesman said Tuesday.

Al-Jaafari met with President Jalal Talabani to discuss the draft, said al-Jaafari’s spokesman, Abdul Razak al-Kadhi. If the list is approved by Talabani’s three-member presidential council, al-Jaafari could submit it to the 275-member National Assembly for a vote later Tuesday.

Iraqi politicians have been under U.S. pressure to form a new transitional government nearly three months after Jan. 30 elections. Insurgents emboldened by the impasse have launched well-coordinated attacks on U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces in recent weeks, killing dozens.

Al-Kadhi provided no details of the Cabinet proposal, but lawmakers from al-Jaafari’s Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance said it included 31 ministries distributed between Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni factions.

Last-minute discussions were continuing, and Sunnis could be given one additional ministry, increasing the Cabinet’s size to 32, alliance lawmaker Ali al-Adib said.

The party of outgoing Prime Minister Ayad Allawi was not included, he said. Allawi’s Iraqi List controls 40 seats in the National Assembly.

Many Shiites have long resented the secular Allawi, accusing his outgoing administration of having included former members of Saddam’s Baath Party, which brutally repressed the majority Shiites and Kurds.

There had been intense pressure to end the political bickering after a recent increase in insurgent violence that many blamed on the continuing political turmoil nearly three months after the elections.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoned Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdish Democratic Party, to ask him to finish forming a government as soon as possible, two State Department officials said Monday on condition of anonymity. Rice did not provide a formula of her own in the Friday phone call, one of the officials said.

Rice also met at the White House Friday with Adil Abdul Mahdi, a senior Shiite politician who is slated to be one of Iraq’s new vice presidents, one official said. Rice conveyed the message that the Bush administration wanted to see a government formed quickly.