Parliament gathers to approve Iraq's new government

A bomb killed 19 people and wounded 58 in a Shiite district of Baghdad today as parliament prepared to inaugurate the country’s first fully constitutional government since the collapse of Saddam Hussein three years ago.

Police also found the bodies of 19 Iraqis who apparently had been kidnapped and tortured by death squads that plague the capital and other cities.

Despite the violence, legislators began to arrive at Baghdad’s heavily-fortified Green Zone for a session of the 275-member parliament that was to approve Prime Minister-designate Nouri al-Maliki's new Cabinet.

The United States hopes the new national unity government of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds can calm the violence and pave the way for Washington to begin withdrawing troops.

“This is an historic day for Iraq and all its people,” deputy parliament speaker Khalid al-Attiyah said at a nationally televised news conference as the legislators gathered.

“It is the first time that a full-term, democratically elected government has been formed in Iraq since the fall of the ousted regime. This government represents all Iraqis,” said al-Attiyah, a bearded Shiite cleric wearing a white turban.

The challenge the new government will face was apparent Friday when al-Maliki failed to reach agreement with political leaders on who will run the key defence and interior ministries. He said he would present his Cabinet to parliament anyway, with temporary heads in those posts.

His decision to push ahead with forming a government was yet another sign of his determination to waste no time addressing Iraq’s security – his administration’s top priority.

At 6.30am today, several hours before legislators began to arrive at the Green Zone, suspected insurgents set off a bomb in a Shiite district of Baghdad, killing 19 people and wounding 58, police said. The blast happened near a food stand in Sadr City where men gather to wait for jobs as day labourers, police Major Hashim al-Yaser said.

“It was a huge explosion,” said Mohammed Hamid, who works in a bakery in the area. “We carried many of the injured to ambulances and helped remove the bodies.”

Police Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammedawi said 19 people were killed and 58 wounded. Many of the injured were taken to nearby Imam Ali Hospital, where hallways were filled with doctors and nurses treating and bandaging the wounded.

Sadr City is the stronghold of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who operates a powerful militia, one of many that exist in the capital outside the control of the government. Al-Maliki hopes to disband such militias and integrate them into the country’s military and police forces as a way of reducing violence.

Elsewhere, police also found the bodies of 19 people who apparently had been kidnapped and tortured, four in Baghdad and 15 in Musayyib, about 40 miles south of the capital. It was unclear when the victims in Musayyib had been killed and taken to a morgue, which prepared to bury them today, police said.

However, all 19 bodies appeared to be victims of death squads which kidnap and kill hundreds of people in Iraq, to settle personal vendettas, because of sectarian hatred, or in an effort to win ransoms.

Meanwhile, Iraqis waited to see who would be in their new government and how effective it would be at reducing violence and solving many other problems in the country, including frequent power outages in homes and businesses.

On Friday, al-Maliki said he would temporarily fill two posts in the new cabinet, the defence and the interior ministries, because of disputes over the portfolios.

Minority Sunni Arabs want the Defence Ministry, which runs the army; the majority Shiites want the Interior Ministry, which controls the police.

In the interim, deputy parliament speaker Khalid al-Attiyah said, al-Maliki will serve as interior minister and Salam Zikam Ali al-Zubaie, a Sunni Arab, will head the Defence Ministry. He said they would serve for a week to allow for an agreement on permanent appointments.

Al-Zubaie is the Sunni nominee for deputy premier, and his political group is part of the main Sunni Arab coalition, the Iraqi Accordance Front.

The Cabinet list, its members or its number, were not made public ahead of time. It remained unclear what would happen if any nominee is rejected, though it was unlikely al-Maliki would risk presenting a deal lawmakers would not approve.