Iraq gets new government as bombs kill 24

By Mariam Karouny

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq’s parliament finally approved a
new national unity government on Saturday, ending months of
deadlock as bomb attacks that killed 24 people served a grim
reminder of the security challenges it will face.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s cabinet was approved by a
show of hands, minister by minister, after a turbulent start to
the parliamentary session, when some minority Sunni leaders
spoke out against the last-minute deal and several walked out.

Eleventh-hour battles over the key posts of interior and
defense left those jobs vacant for now, filled respectively by
Maliki, a tough-talking Shi’ite Islamist, and his Sunni deputy
premier, Salam al-Zobaie.

The main Sunni Arab leadership, which controls the bulk of
the Sunnis’ 50-odd seats in the 275-member chamber, held firm
after the walkout by the dissidents. Washington hopes their
presence at last in a full, sovereign government can draw
Saddam Hussein’s once dominant minority away from revolt into
politics.

“We will work within a framework that will preserve the
unity of the Iraqi people,” Maliki told parliament as he listed
34 policy priorities highlighting security and the economy.

The chamber then approved the program clearing the way for
the government to be formally sworn in.

Sectarian wrangling has delayed formation of a government
since an election in December. Faction fighting over cabinet
jobs within the main groups, Sunnis, Shi’ites and Kurds, added
to Maliki’s difficulties since he was nominated a month ago.

BOMB ATTACKS

Just hours before parliament sat in the heavily fortified
Green Zone, protected by U.S. military firepower, a bomb killed
at least 19 people in the poor Shi’ite Sadr City neighborhood
of Baghdad, blasting a spot where crowds of workers had
gathered in the hope of being hired for day laboring jobs.

A further 58 people were wounded in a blast that was
typical of attacks by Sunni Islamist groups like Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi’s al Qaeda in Iraq. Baghdad and, especially, the
Shi’ite-dominated south of Iraq has also seen violence between
Shi’ite factions.

Witnesses and police said the bomb appeared to have been
planted in a spot where the attackers knew large crowds of men
would gather shortly after dawn, hoping to be hired for a day’s
casual labor. Such spots have been targeted in the past.

“When will this stop? Where is the government?” one
teenager sobbed as he stood amid pools of blood. A man beat his
face with his hands as he hugged his dead brother lying on the
floor. Survivors rushed the wounded to hospital. A dozen
bodies, their faces covered with cardboard, lay on the hospital
garden.

In the Sunni town of Qaim, near the Syrian border, a
suicide bomber detonated his explosive-packed vest inside a
police station killing five policemen and wounding 10, police
said.

Iraqi police and troops, many drawn from the Shi’ite
majority, are key to U.S. hopes of drawing down some of the
130,000 American troops still occupying Iraq.

“HISTORIC DAY”

Launching a crucial new phase in the U.S.-backed project to
install democracy, Maliki struck a basic deal on Friday.

“It is an historic day for Iraq and all Iraqis,” said
Shi’ite deputy speaker Khalid al-Attiya. “For the first time a
permanent national government is formed after the toppling of
the regime. All Iraqis participate in this government.”

The government can be sure of an enthusiastic welcome in
Washington, where frustration with Iraq’s sectarian and ethnic
haggling has grown over the five months since an election
hailed as a final step from Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship to
democracy.

Iraqis too, who turned out in large numbers to vote in
December polls, have been growing impatient for a leadership
that can address their massive problems — security certainly,
but also a devastated economy and poor basic public services.

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 by men in uniform,
after February’s bombing of a major Shi’ite shrine has prompted
growing alarm. Hundreds of people are being killed every month
in Baghdad alone and tens of thousands have fled their homes.

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.

(Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald, Fredrik Dahl
and Ibon Villelabeitia)