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Iraq: Jaafari ready to give up its candidature for the post of Prime Minister BAGHDAD - Ibrahim Jaafari was ready Thursday to be given up her candidature for the post of Prime Minister after having lengthily insisted to succeed itself, opening the way at an exit of the political crisis in Iraq. "Doctor Jaafari was selected like candidate by the Iraqi unified list (AUI, the block Shiite) and it asks today this block to decide its candidature", declared one of its close relations Jawad Al-Maliki with the press. Outgoing the Prime Minister thus leaves with his block the choice...

The majority of Iraqis overall view the recent parliamentary elections as valid, are optimistic that their country is going in the right direction and feel that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein has been worth the costs. Sunnis, on the other hand... The poll was conducted for WorldPublicOpinion.org by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland and was fielded by KA Research Limited... Among the Shia and Kurds optimism is even higher. Seventy-six percent of Kurds and 84% of Shia say they think the country is headed in the right direction. the ethnic divisions are very...

ALARM - Opening of the inaugural session of the new Iraqi Parliament BAGHDAD - the Iraqi Parliament elected on December 15 opened Thursday its first session in Baghdad in the medium of imposing safety measures, according to correspondents' of AFP.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's president said Monday he would convene the new parliament for the first time on March 12, beginning a 60-day countdown during which lawmakers must elect a new head of state and sign off on a prime minister and Cabinet. A string of explosions in Baghdad and north of the capital, meanwhile, killed at least 14 Iraqis and wounded 52. A U.S. soldier was reported killed in insurgency-plagued western Anbar province, pushing the American military death toll to 2,300 since the beginning of the war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The violence underscored...

al-Jaafari's nomination to continue for four more years as Iraq's prime minister is already in trouble, according to Iraqi sources. "I doubt he will be confirmed," said a member of the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shia political coalition that last week nominated al-Jaafari. The nomination by the UIA, the largest political group in the new Iraqi Council of Representatives, or parliament, was supposed to make confirmation a formality. But al-Jaafari is unpopular with the Kurds, the second largest bloc in the council. And his most powerful backer, anti-American Shia militant Muqtada al-Sadr, is anathema to another bloc, led by former...

February 13, 2006 Unreported History in Baghdad By Lieutenant Colonel John M. Kanaley The silence was deafening and the seats were empty. The western press was nowhere to be found. The location was Baghdad and the event was a February 10th, 2006 press conference announcing the final verification of December's election results. Although the final allocation of parliamentary seats did not change from last month's tentative reports, the conference was nonetheless significant for American and Iraqi history. What was equally significant was the absence of members of the western press. If the pre-release of the topics to be discussed included...

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, and former Iraqi Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, right, leave the Prime Minister's office after a meeting, in central Baghdad, Iraq Friday, Feb. 11, 2005. Secular and tough-minded, Ayad Allawi seems the perfect U.S. choice to run Iraq's security forces. But many fellow Shiites have never forgiven Allawi for decisions taken when he was prime minister and seem ready to fight to keep him on the political sidelines.

Shiite lawmakers chose Ibrahim al-Jaafari today to continue as prime minister in Iraq's next government, after a contentious internal ballot that exposed the growing power of anti-American fundamentalists within the new Iraqi Parliament. The selection of Jaafari, a moderate Islamist, is the first step toward the creation of a full-term, four-year government. They will now begin negotiating in earnest with the leaders of Iraq's other political groups to create a cabinet. That task, which is expected to take months, could be complicated by the surprise selection of Mr. Jaafari, who has been widely criticized for his tenure as prime minister...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Shiite lawmakers Sunday chose Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari to head Iraq's new government, Shiite officials said. Al-Jaafari won 64 votes, one more than Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi, officials said. There were two abstentions. More than 100 lawmakers from the Shiite coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance, gathered to vote. The choice of the umbrella Shiite alliance is assured of becoming prime minister because Shiites won the most parliament seats in the Dec. 15 national elections. Shiite lawyers cast their votes at the heavily guarded home of Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the head of Abdul-Mahdi's party. Al-Jaafari's supporters gathered in the...

Iraqi elections solve little (21 January 2006) Glen Rangwala looks at how the elections in Iraq are unlikely to bring national reconciliation, and how the US is deepening the hostility with every bomb dropped. Published in Labour Left Briefing (February 2006) All the talk in Iraq’s official political circles since the national parliamentary elections on 15th December has been about forming a government of national unity. This, we are told, would bring in the main political groups from all three major ethnic and sectarian groupings – the Kurds, the Sunni Arabs and the Shi‘a Arabs. The new parliament, elected for...

Three Iraqi electoral lists, consisting of 80 seats, have agreed to unite to bolster their negotiating position in the future government, liberal politician Adnan Pachachi said Friday. Pachachi said that along with the secular list of former prime minister Iyad Allawi's 25 seats, the new group will include the religious Sunni National Accordance Front, with 44 seats, and the more secular Sunni National Dialogue Front of Saleh al-Mutlaq and his 11 seats. Pachachi, who ran on Allawi's list, added that a number of other smaller political parties are interested in joining, which might increase the group's size to 88 seats....

THOUGHTS ON THE IRAQI ELECTIONS & THE NEW YORK TIMES In its December 15th cover story on the eve of the Iraqi Elections, Dexter Filkins of The New York Times writes of an expected split between secular and religious groups with ominous foreboding, and prints as substantiated fact, what is most likely Sunni Propaganda. Firstly, why is a split between secular and religious groups a concern? Is Islam in its holiest and noblest form anathema to the development of a free market society? Certainly this is not supported by history. Or am I to assume that the NYT and its...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 16, 2006 — This week marks the end of an era in Iraq with the transfer of authority ceremony between the XVIII Airborne Corps and Task Force Victory, 5th Corps. Lt. Gen. John R. Vines and his XVIII Airborne Corps have performed superbly, executing the tactical missions vital in achieving the successes we all benefit from today in Iraq. In the past year, the Corps has moved mountains. They secured the borders, especially those crossings in the Al Anbar province; denied safe havens to the terrorists and foreign fighters in operations such as Operation Sayaid in the...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - An international assessment team on Thursday cited numerous violations and cases of fraud in Iraq's Dec. 15 parliamentary elections, but it did not question the final results. The International Mission for Iraqi Elections, a 10-nation monitoring body led by Canada, recommended changes for future elections but made no call for repeating any voting from the December parliamentary vote. The release of the mission's report opens the way for the announcement of the results, which was delayed amid complaints by some Sunni Arab leaders about fraud allegations. Shiite Muslim parties are believed to have preserved their...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraq's electoral commission ruled Monday that more than 99 percent of the ballots from the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections are valid, opening the way for a new government to start coming together. Final election results have been delayed by fraud complaints mainly lodged by the Sunni Arab minority, and groups looking for a political edge in dealing with the Shiite Muslim majority could still make further protests and hold up the naming of new leaders for two or three months. A U.S. Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopter crashed north of Baghdad, killing its two pilots. A...

The Suuni choose Allawi as their leader, the Kurds unite their administrations. Stage two of the current phase of the political in Iraq which we anticipated a few days ago has just begun and its beginning is marked by the emergence of a new large political bloc. The new bloc was announced today in Baghdad after the largest three blocs of Maram-the Iraqi list, the Accord Front and al-Mutlaq’s Dialogue Front-signed an agreement to form one unified political body. This agreement will grant the new political body a significant political weight with a total of approximately 80 seats in the...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, JAN. 10, 2006 (Zenit.org).- An Iraqi bishop says his faithful were faced with a "nightmare" after hard-line Muslims claimed victory in the country's general elections. Adding his voice to widespread allegations of fraud in the Dec. 15 polling, Auxiliary Bishop Andraos Abouna of Baghdad described how the hopes of the country's Christians were dashed after the elections. Iraqi Christians, victims of random kidnappings, bombings and intimidation, had hoped that the elections would signal the end of instability and halt Iraq's slide into an Islamic theocratic state, the Chaldean prelate told the charity Aid to the Church in Need....

Jan 9, 7:52 AM EST Statement Rips Sunnis for Voting in Iraq By MAAMOUN YOUSSEF Associated Press Writer CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- An Internet statement in the name of the al-Qaida in Iraq terrorist group rebuked Sunnis for participating in last month's Iraqi elections, saying they had "thrown a rope" to save U.S. policy in the country. The purported statement by group leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi also said his fighters decided not to disrupt the elections with attacks "to avoid killing some of the Sunnis who were confused" about whether to vote. He also called President Bush a liar, saying:...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 4, 2006 — The beginning of a new year is a time to reflect on the past and look toward the future. Last year was a monumental year. The year began with the successful election of a transitional government, the Iraqi people wrote and ratified a constitution and recently held another successful election. Along the way, more than 15 million Iraqis registered to vote and an increasing number voted in each event, due in part to an increasingly secure environment. A key to the improved security environment was the growth and capability of Iraqi police and army...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Until almost the last minute, Muhammed Wattan had been willing to buck the trend. The 33-year-old Baghdad resident and Shiite Muslim was determined to vote for Ahmad Chalabi's slate of secular candidates in the Dec. 15 parliamentary election. Wattan figured that Chalabi was just the man to establish order and prosperity in war-weary Iraq. On election eve, however, Wattan decided that defending his religious sect was paramount and switched his vote to a religious Shiite ticket. "I felt that we are at war," said Wattan, a college-educated clerk. "Chalabi is not the man for this war." Interviews...