Wrangling over Iraq government; 4 US troops killed

By Mariam Karouny and Hiba Moussa

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Last-minute competition for jobs among
and within Iraq’s main political blocs kept a national unity
government on hold on Thursday but negotiators were hopeful of
a deal in time for a parliamentary vote on Saturday.

Four U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were killed by
a roadside bomb near Baghdad, the kind of violence Washington
says a viable coalition of Shi’ites, Sunnis and Kurds can
confront in order to bring stability and let U.S. forces start
withdrawing.

While the insurgency against the occupying forces and their
mostly Shi’ite allies goes on among the once dominant Sunni
minority, five months of political stalemate since an election
in December has seen sectarian violence mount on all sides.

More than 20 Iraqis as well as a fifth member of the U.S.
forces were reported killed on Thursday in incidents that
attracted attention. With 30-50 people found killed daily in
Baghdad alone, it is clear many attacks go largely unreported.

The police chief of Iraq’s second city Basra survived an
assassination attempt at the height of a bitter public dispute
with the local governor and intense Shi’ite factional fighting.

Officials were trying to secure the release of 15 members
of the national tae kwondo martial arts squad, kidnapped as
they drove through a rebellious desert region for training
abroad.

Though broad agreements have been struck on which posts
will go to each party, senior negotiators told Reuters that
several candidates were still in the running for many of the
top jobs.

Parliament has said it will vote on Saturday to confirm
Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s new team in office.

“All options are open,” a top negotiator said.

COMPETING BIDS

Several cautioned, however, that Maliki risked being
overwhelmed by competing bids for nominations, not least from
the various factions of his own Shi’ite Islamist Alliance bloc.

A source close to Maliki said Shi’ite former army officer
Nasser al-Amery was close to securing the Interior Ministry,
the most sensitive post in the complex geometry of the
government.

However, opposition to Amery, a little-known figure said to
be close to the powerful Alliance party SCIRI which has run the
Interior Ministry for the past year, meant a compromise
candidate might be needed, other negotiators said.

Complaints of Shi’ite domination of the Interior Ministry
and police under the interim government had led to demands from
minority Sunnis and the United States for non-partisan figures
to run the ministry in the new, full-term administration.

The choice of interior minister has largely been left to
the Alliance. But it has agreed to find a figure acceptable to
all. Under the deal, a Sunni is likely to head the Defense
Ministry.

Under a constitutional deadline, he has until Monday to
present his cabinet to parliament. The speaker said on
Wednesday that parliament expected to vote on the government on
Saturday.

The United States, which has 133,000 troops in Iraq
suffering daily casualties three years after Saddam Hussein’s
overthrow, hopes a broad-based coalition will help end
violence.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told senators on
Wednesday he could not promise to withdraw any U.S. troops this
year but hoped to do so. Italy’s new centre-left prime minister
Romano Prodi, calling the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 a “grave
error,” said he would propose withdrawing all of Rome’s 3,000
troops.

In the five months it has taken to form a government since
the mostly peaceful and well supported election in December,
sectarian and ethnic violence has increased, particularly after
the bombing of a major Shi’ite shrine in Samarra in February.

Hundreds of people are killed every month in Baghdad alone,
their bodies turning up often handcuffed and mutilated. Tens of
thousands of people have fled their homes in fear of falling
foul of religious and ethnic hatred among neighbors.

Gunmen killed six Baghdad laborers going to work in a
minibus and a bomb in the capital killed seven people,
including four policemen. A U.S. sailor was killed in western
Iraq.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed, Fredrik Dahl, Aseel
Kami and Alastair Macdonald)