Hasani shook hands with the outgoing speaker of the U.S.-backed interim government and took over the dais with a call for God's protection.
As relieved lawmakers talked to reporters minutes later, an explosion boomed nearby. Witnesses said a mortar shell had hit just outside the Green Zone, site of the four assembly sessions so far, each of which has been punctuated by mortar blasts.
Votes for parliament speaker were ticked off on a whiteboard during a session of the Iraqi National Assembly. Discussion over the speakership went far smoother than last week, when talks dissolved into a shouting match.
(Pool Photo Karim Sahib Via Reuters)
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Hasani attended colleges in Nebraska and Connecticut and lived in Los Angeles until U.S.-led forces routed President Saddam Hussein's government in 2003. Hasani was industry minister in the interim government.
His Shiite deputy speaker, Hussain Shahristani, is a nuclear scientist who spent 12 years in solitary confinement during the Hussein era.
"In the solitary cell, all my dreams were that one day I'd be free to look for the missing ones in the mass graves," he said, referring to the tens of thousands of people believed killed by Hussein's government.
"If we neglect our duties and fail . . . then the people will replace us with others," Hasani reminded lawmakers on Sunday.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported that at least one insurgent was killed in the attack on the Abu Ghraib prison. One of two car bombs set off during the attack appeared to be intended to blast through a perimeter wall, but the explosive detonated before it reached the wall, the military said.
It was unclear whether the attack was mounted to free any of about 3,400 detainees held by the United States there. Authorities said no inmates escaped.
Also, the body of a Kurdish police officer was found Sunday in the northern city of Mosul, two days after he was kidnapped, a local official said. The man had been shot in the head and abdomen, a hospital said.
Bombings killed a U.S. soldier Sunday in Tikrit, about 90 miles north of Baghdad, and a U.S. Marine on Saturday in Haditha, 125 miles northwest of Baghdad, the military said.
Correspondent Caryle Murphy in Baghdad and special correspondent Dlovan Mrwari in Mosul contributed to this report.
