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Iraqi Premier, Cabinet Sworn In
U.S. soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division patrol the scene after suspected insurgents set off a bomb near a food stand where men gathered to wait for jobs as day laborers in the Sadr City area of Baghdad, Iraq Saturday, May 20, 2006. The bomb killed 19 people and wounded 58, as the Iraqi parliament prepared to inaugurate the country's first fully constitutional government since the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime three years ago. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)
(Karim Kadim - AP)
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The session proceeded smoothly from that point, as parliament members approved each cabinet appointee by raising their hands.
Maliki then outlined a 33-point program. "This government faces three major challenges," he told the gathering, "namely, terrorism and terrorists who are killing people at random without any respect for human life; corruption at all levels by those who are stealing the country's wealth. . . . The third challenge is to provide services for the people."
He also pledged to rebuild Iraq's languishing economy and to guarantee rights to women, prisoners and journalists.
It was unclear whether the walkout of Mutlak's party, which holds 11 seats in the 275-member parliament, and the departure of a handful of members of the main Sunni coalition, would cause serious problems for Maliki's government.
Khalilzad played down the importance of the walkout, observing that 85 percent of the parliament, including most of the Sunni coalition, remained united behind Maliki.
But Abdul Nasser al-Janabi, a member of the Sunni coalition, said that his group would withdraw from the government unless Maliki chose the interior and defense ministers quickly and redistributed other cabinet seats.
After the meeting, Shiite politicians said that the argument was simply part of the trials of a newborn democracy. Several contrasted it to the parliament of Hussein, where political discussions, to the extent they happened at all, were irrelevant.
"You can see today that the Iraqi parliament is not Saddam's parliament," said Mithal Alousi, a secular politician. "There is life there."
In other violence Saturday, a suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest inside a police station in the town of Qaim, 200 miles west of Baghdad near the Syrian border, killing six policemen and wounding 19, said Hamdi al-Aloosi, the director of the Qaim hospital.
The bomber entered the station in civilian clothes, carrying a file folder. U.S. troops cordoned off the area and did not allow anyone to leave or enter the town.
In Musayyib, 40 miles south of Baghdad, police found the bodies of 15 Iraqis in civilian clothes who apparently had been kidnapped and tortured, police Maj. Muhammad Abdul Hassan said.
And in Najaf, a Shiite holy city south of Baghdad, armed men attacked a convoy of Ammar al-Hakim, son of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the largest Shiite political party.
One bodyguard was killed, and two were wounded; Ammar Hakim was not in the convoy, Abdul Hassan said.
Special correspondents Bassam Sebti, Naseer Nouri and K.I. Ibrahim contributed to this report.
