Iraqi leader hopes to form government in a week

By Terry Friel

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi Prime Minister-designate Nuri
al-Maliki said on Thursday he hoped to form a government within
a week after meeting Washington’s top defense and foreign
affairs officials and two of Iraq’s most powerful clerics.

As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld flew out, Maliki pledged to fill the
key posts of interior and defense ministers with appointees
free of divisive sectarian associations — a key demand of
Washington.

Maliki has 30 days from last Saturday to present his
cabinet to parliament for approval but has said he wants to
move faster on creating a grand coalition of majority Shi’ite
Muslims, Sunni Arabs and Kurds to combat the violence scarring
the country.

“The dialogue is still ongoing with the different parties
from which the government will be formed, including on the
important ministries,” Maliki told reporters after meeting
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in the Shi’ite holy city of
Najaf.

“God willing, it will be settled next week.”

Maliki also met firebrand Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr,
an influential political leader who condemned the U.S. visits.

“It is a shocking intervention in Iraqi affairs,” Sadr told
a joint news conference with Maliki, adding the new
government’s first duty was to ensure Iraq’s stability and
independence, including a timetable for the withdrawal of
foreign troops.

As Maliki works toward building a government to avert civil
war, gunmen killed a sister of one of the newly appointed vice-
presidents on Thursday, the latest high level assassination.

Meysoun al-Hashemi, sister of Sunni Vice President Tareq al
-Hashemi, was gunned down in Baghdad. Hashemi’s brother was
killed on April 13 and the brother of another leading Sunni
politician was also kidnapped and killed this month.

Last October, the brother of the other vice president,
Shi’ite Adel Abdul Mahdi, was also murdered.

CHOOSE WISELY – U.S.

Rice and Rumsfeld arrived on Wednesday for talks with
Maliki on his efforts to draft a cabinet, a strongly symbolic
visit showing how much importance Washington places on the
task.

“All these Iraqi leaders recognize the challenges before
them, recognize that the Iraqi people expect their government
to be able to meet those challenges,” Rice told reporters.

“The key now is to get the government up and running, to
get ministers who are capable and who also will reflect the
value of a national unity government, and then to get about the
work of dealing with the security situation, dealing with the
economic situation.”

Last weekend, President Jalal Talabani asked Maliki to form
a coalition cabinet to end a bloody insurgency and mounting
sectarian violence that threatens to drag Iraq into civil war.

But a U.S. military spokesman said bloodshed had fallen in
Baghdad, one of the most troubled areas, over the past week and
the risk of civil war was fading.

“When the government is formed and truly reaches out to the
people, we believe you’ll see a great decline in violent
activities in Iraq,” he said.

Rice said the government must have a “non-sectarian
mindset.” From Iraq, she headed to a NATO foreign ministers’
meeting in Bulgaria while Rumsfeld went to Washington.

Sistani, whose backing and guidance is crucial for any
Iraqi Shi’ite political leader, urged Maliki to end the
violence.

“The next government must work in all its capacity to
regain full sovereignty over the country, politically,
security-wise and economically,” a Sistani aide said.

In one of the worst recent attacks on U.S.-led forces, a
roadside bomb killed three Italian soldiers in Iraq on
Thursday, exposing long-standing divisions within Romano
Prodi’s government-in-waiting on the timing of a withdrawal.

The blast was in Nassiriya, base for the Italian contingent
of 2,600, which Rome plans to withdraw by year-end.

Prodi narrowly won this month’s polls and must balance
demands for an immediate pullout from his far left with his own
pledges of a gradual withdrawal.

And in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, 11
people, including four rebels and five police died when
hundreds of insurgents attacked several police checkpoints.