Iraqi Assembly Approves Partial Cabinet

In the end, President Jalal Talabani and his two vice presidents -- Yawar and Adel Abdul Mahdi -- approved the cabinet list, as was needed ahead of the assembly vote. But Yawar said Jafari must come back to the three-member Presidency Council for approval of those picked to fill the vacant seats.

The assembly vote was 180 to 5, with 89 members absent. Lawmaker Lamia Abed Khadouri Sakri was gunned down Wednesday.

"If ours was a government of victors, then the [Shiite] alliance and the Kurdish coalition would have formed the government and gotten it over with. Nor would we have wasted those three months," Jafari told reporters outside the assembly.

Jafari intends to have the vacancies resolved by Tuesday, when he plans the cabinet's swearing-in, said Laith Kubba, a spokesman.

The cabinet will also continue discussing concerns emphasized by Sunni Arab politicians this week, Kubba said, including demands for restraint in an expected purge of Hussein-era officials, particularly from the security forces.

Chalabi is disliked by Sunni Arabs in particular for having pushed the de-Baathification of the military under the U.S.-led occupation. On Thursday, he raised the prospect of removing Baathists who had been rehired under interim prime minister Ayad Allawi, saying, "We shall do our best to rectify the situation."

"We also aim at speeding up the trial of all the criminals of the former regime, including Saddam, of course," Chalabi told reporters. "This is a people's demand. Saddam carried out murders and genocide, but the trials will be according to the laws."

Chalabi, who headed an exile group that opposed Hussein with Pentagon funding, fell out with Washington after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion over complaints he had exaggerated grounds for the U.S. offensive and had subsequently supplied information to Iran. Chalabi denies the allegations.

Approval of the government came on Hussein's 68th birthday.

Also on Thursday, a bomb was detonated in a crowded east Baghdad neighborhood as two pickup trucks carrying police drove by, killing two policemen and wounding two others, according to Haidar Hussein, a police official. Insurgents "know in this area that people are happy. They don't like to see the Iraqis happy," Hussein said.

Insurgents fired at least six mortar rounds toward a U.S. military base near Musayyib, south of Baghdad, but hit a bus station instead, killing four Iraqis and wounding 21, police Maj. Gen. Qais Hamza said.

In the capital, Lt. Col. Alaa Khalil Ibrahim, who worked in the visa section of the Interior Ministry, was shot dead on his way to work in an eastern neighborhood, police said.

The U.S. military said one American soldier was killed and four were wounded when a bomb detonated Thursday near Hawija, about 150 miles north of Baghdad, the Associated Press reported.

Special correspondents Khalid Saffar, Bassam Sebti and Naseer Nouri in Baghdad contributed to this report.