Iraqi government fails to appoint ministers

BAGHDAD - Iraqi leaders have failed to meet their own deadline for naming new interior and defence ministers, officials have said.

Besides the failure to decide on the ministerial posts rival religious and ethnic political groups also bickered about the powers of the Sunni Arab speaker of parliament, eight days after the self-styled government of national unity took office.

The disagreements highlighted the tough task Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki faces at the helm of an unwieldy coalition which Washington is counting on to tackle sectarian bloodshed that threatens to tear Iraq apart.

Intense wrangling forced Mr Maliki to leave vacant the two ministerial posts, crucial for restoring stability three years after Saddam Hussein's fall, when he announced his grand coalition of Shi'ites and minority Sunnis and Kurds on May 20.

Negotiators had said the sensitive jobs would be filled within a week. But a meeting of senior figures on Saturday evening local time failed to produce any compromise candidates.

"There was no agreement," said Adnan al-Dulaimi, head of the Iraqi Accordance Front, the Sunni bloc in government. "The prime minister must finish this issue in the next two days."

While Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim majority holds sway, the support of Sunni politicians is vital because insurgents draw support from the minority community - once dominant under Saddam.

The choice of ministers was complicated by infighting within the main Shi'ite and Sunni groups - each will head one ministry - as well as by disagreements between them, party sources said.

The Interior Ministry job has been particularly controversial. The previous minister was accused of failing to halt Shi'ite militia death squads operating among the police.

The appointments are also important for any plans to start withdrawing 150,000 foreign troops, most of them American.

Mr Maliki said last week his newly trained army and police, due to number about 325,000 by December, could take charge of security across Iraq by the end of 2007.

A US military official said on Saturday US troops could hand control of Baghdad to local police by the end of 2006.

But the US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad warned against pulling out troops too soon in comments published on Sunday.

"There is a challenge of staying too long, and there is a challenge of leaving too soon, and if one does leave too soon there are great dangers," he told US Cox newspaper group.

- REUTERS