Iraq's unity government sworn into office
(AP)
Updated: 2006-05-21 10:12 The greatest drama of the day underlined the difficulties al-Maliki faces in
calming those sectarian passions.
Sunni Arab lawmaker Saleh al-Mutlaq demanded the government's swearing-in be
postponed until the security ministries were allotted, delivering an angry
speech that lasted nearly 10 minutes before the microphone was taken away. Then
he and about 10 other Sunni deputies from his Arab nationalist faction stalked
out in protest.
Much more than restoring security is at stake for the government and the
United States, which designed and engineered much of the transition to democracy
in the three years since it invaded Iraq and set the stage for al-Maliki's
coalition of Shiites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds.
Ashraf Qazi, the U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's envoy in Iraq, urged the
new government to "undertake a major reconstruction of Iraq's political and
social fabric."
"Iraq's citizens deserve nothing less and have every right to expect that
competent, transparent government would yield improvements both in terms of
public security and in the delivery of public services," Qazi said.
Many analysts fear the country's violence has assumed some characteristics of
an irregular civil war, including targeted assassinations, sectarian bombings
and armed groups seeking power and attacking the central government and its
employees.
Many of Iraq's insurgent groups are led by Sunni Arabs, and a goal of the new
government is to win the support of that formerly dominant minority and to
recruit as many of them as possible into Iraq's security forces _ especially in
insurgent strongholds like western Anbar province.
One of Saturday's attacks, a suicide car bombing at a police station that
killed at least five people and wounded 10, took place in Anbar city of Qaim.
In the day's deadliest assault, 19 people died when a bomb hidden in a paper
bag exploded in Baghdad's Sadr City district next to a line of day laborers
waiting for work.
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