Iraqi Vows 'Maximum Force' to End Attacks

Unidentified youths believed to be relatives comfort each other outside Ibn al-Nafees hospital, after a suicide bomber killed at least 13 people and injured 17 when he blew himself up in a downtown Baghdad restaurant frequented by police in Baghdad, Iraq Sunday, May 21, 2006. The attack came as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pledged to soon fill vacancies in his two key security ministries. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed) (Khalid Mohammed - AP)

In neighboring Jordan, King Abdullah II said he hoped the seating of al-Maliki's government proves a "significant step toward building a new Iraq that would be able to fulfill the aspirations of its people for a better life, democracy, (political) pluralism and stronger national unity."

Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said the new Cabinet could open the way for a conference in Iraq bringing together representatives of the country's diverse ethnic and political forces, possibly as early as next month.

Kuwait's leader, Emir Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, whose country was invaded by Saddam Hussein's army in 1990, expressed hope the Cabinet members will succeed in "closing their ranks and using their capabilities in building Iraq."

Political infighting, however, kept al-Maliki from filling the defense and interior posts before the Cabinet was sworn in Saturday.

Sunni Arabs are demanding the defense ministry, which controls Iraq's army, to counterbalance the Shiite-controlled interior ministry, which is responsible for the police.

Al-Maliki has said he wants to accelerate the pace at which army and police recruits are trained in an effort to speed up the withdrawal of U.S.-led international troops from Iraq.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the new government must "get the security ministries to transform in such a way that they will have the confidence of the Iraqi peoples."

"The next six months will be truly critical for Iraq," he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said al-Maliki needed five or six days to pick the two men to head those two ministries.

"The prime minister has made very clear to us and to the people in the other parties that he wants to have people in whom he has supreme confidence because of the importance of this," she told Fox News.

She said al-Maliki told her during a visit in late April about the need "to re-establish confidence in the police, to re-establish confidence in the ability of the government to deal with this."

President Bush telephoned al-Maliki on Sunday to assure him the Untied States would support his government.

"I fully understand that a free Iraq will be an important ally in the war on terror, will serve as a devastating defeat for the terrorists and Al-Qaida, and will serve as an example for others in the region who desire to be free," Bush said.

Shortly after the first Cabinet meeting, a suicide bomber killed at least 13 people and wounded 17 by blowing himself up among filled lunch tables in a downtown Baghdad restaurant popular with police officers. Three of the dead were policemen.

The attack at the Safar restaurant was part of a spree of bombing that killed at least 19 Iraqis and wounded dozens Sunday.

One bomb attack hit a busy fruit market in New Baghdad, a mixed Shiite, Sunni Arab and Christian area in an eastern part of the capital. Police found one bomb and detonated it after trying to evacuate the market, but a second, undiscovered bomb exploded moments later, killing three civilians and wounding 23.

A car bomb targeting a police patrol in northwestern Baghdad killed a bystander and injured 15 people.

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Associated Press writers John Daniszewski and Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.