Iraqi leaders agree on unity government

By Mariam Karouny and Fredrik Dahl

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi leaders have agreed on a unity
government to be presented to parliament on Saturday,
negotiators said on Friday, adding that the key interior and
defense ministry portfolios would be filled later.

“The government will be announced tomorrow,” a senior aide
to Prime Minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki told Reuters.

The aide said parties had given themselves a week to reach
a deal also on the interior and defense ministries, crucial
jobs for efforts to quell bloodshed plaguing postwar Iraq.

Maliki, a Shi’ite Islamist, would, in the meantime, take
charge of the Interior Ministry while Vice President Tareq
al-Hashemi, a Sunni, would head the Defense Ministry, he said.

The agreement on a grand coalition of Shi’ites, minority
Sunni Arabs and Kurds, which the United States counts on to
halt a slide toward civil war, signaled an end to months of
political deadlocK following December’s elections.

Parliament is scheduled to meet on Saturday to approve
Maliki’s government, a vote that is largely seen as a formality
as most of the assembly’s parties would be represented in the
new cabinet.

Political sources said the oil ministry top job would be
given to nuclear scientist and Maliki’s fellow Shi’ite Islamist
Hussain al-Shahristani, an important portfolio for lifting
Iraqis out of poverty.

The formation of Iraq’s first full-term government since
the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 will be hailed as major progress
in Washington and London, which are keen to start drawing down
their combined 140,000 troops in the country.

But analysts cautioned that while a government encompassing
Iraq’s main ethnic and religious groups was a key step forward,
that may have been the relatively easy part in a country where
people risk their lives by just venturing outside their homes.

Maliki, whose no-nonsense approach and inclusive discourse
have won him grudging respect from rivals, faces huge
challenges in tackling bloodshed and rebuilding the economy.

POVERTY AND POWER

Many Iraqis complain that daily life has worsened since
Saddam Hussein’s ouster, with a dearth of jobs and frequent
power and water cuts. Four million people now live in extreme
poverty, according to a U.N.-backed Iraqi study released this
month.

The oil industry, which has yet to see the recovery that
Washington had expected would follow the invasion, suffers from
sabotage, smuggling, corruption and political interference.

Analyst Joost Hiltermann said stability in Iraq apart from
a unity government also required the revision of a constitution
approved in a referendum last year and the building of security
forces free of sectarian and ethnic agendas.

The once-dominant Sunni minority fears the constitution as
it stands, by giving Iraq’s regions more powers, would deprive
them of revenue from oil-rich southern and northern areas
dominated by majority Shi’ites and Kurds.

“I think (forming the government) is the easiest to
accomplish,” said Hiltermann, of the International Crisis Group
think-tank.

Sectarian violence has soared after the bombing of a
Shi’ite shrine in the city of Samarra in February, with
hundreds of people killed every month in the capital, Baghdad,
alone, sparking fears of full-blown communal conflict.

The United States’ 133,000 troops in Iraq also suffer daily
casualties. One soldier was seriously wounded when his vehicle
struck a bomb in Baghdad on Friday, a day after a similar
attack near the capital killed four soldiers and an Iraqi
interpreter.

In Dubai, the family of a kidnapped United Arab Emirates
diplomat in Iraq said they had heard he would be released on
Friday, Al Arabiya television reported.

Naji al-Noaimi was abducted in Baghdad on Tuesday after a
short drive from the embassy to visit a colleague. His driver
was shot in the kidnapping and later died.

Hundreds of foreigners, including Arab diplomats and other
embassy workers, and thousands of Iraqis have been kidnapped in
the last three years. Many are freed after a ransom is paid.

(Additional reporting by Ibon Villelabeitia, Omar al-Ibadi
in Baghdad, Heba Kandil in Dubai))