Iraqis Piecing Together New Cabinet

Members of Iraq’s leading political parties horse-traded late into the night Saturday, vying to secure interim government appointments to head ministries and to fill three top posts that remain undecided: the presidency and the two vice presidencies.

Two prominent Sunni Muslim politicians appeared to be in a deadlock for the presidency: Ghazi Ajil Yawer, a young tribal leader favored by fellow members of the Iraqi Governing Council; and former Foreign Minister Adnan Pachachi, a Governing Council member strongly supported by U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority administrator L. Paul Bremer III and U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.

The council named secular Shiite Muslim politician Iyad Allawi to the post of prime minister -- the most powerful slot in the government -- on Friday.

“Everybody on the Governing Council except Pachachi is supporting Sheik Ghazi for president,” said Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish member of the council.

“Tomorrow [Sunday] we will vote and Sheik Ghazi will be in. Mr. Bremer and Mr. Brahimi will be unhappy because they were for Pachachi,” Othman said. “But they cannot force their will on the Governing Council.”

The struggle, which was not expected to be settled fully until sometime today, raises the possibility that the international community will still try to broker a compromise or find another significant position for Pachachi. It was clear, however, that the interim government posts were being divided primarily among the same political parties that controlled the U.S.-backed Governing Council -- a group that does not have much credibility with the Iraqi public. The interim government would rule Iraq from July 1 until free elections are held seven months later.

Also apparent was that some of the toughest bargaining was done by Kurdish leaders who were furious that Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a longtime supporter of American interests, had failed to win one of the two top posts: prime minister or president.

“We and all the Kurds do not accept that Talabani or Massoud Barzani [leader of the other major Kurdish party] ... is not in the top of the government,” said Adel Murad, a senior aide to Talabani. “We suggested that we would have one of two posts: prime minister or president, and if we don’t get either one, we don’t accept a vice presidency.”

It appeared, however, that the Kurds’ politicking had won them leadership positions in six ministries, including two of the most powerful: defense and foreign affairs.

Hoshyar Zebari, a well-respected diplomat before Saddam Hussein took power who is currently serving as interim foreign minister, will move to the Defense Ministry, and Barham Salih, the prime minister of the eastern part of the Kurdistan region, will become Iraq’s foreign minister, Othman said. The Reuters news agency cited the same names, quoting different sources.

Kurds probably will also lead the ministries of human rights, social affairs, irrigation and municipalities, Othman said. But in an example of the state of uncertainty that still prevailed, some reports said that Kurds would lead the Oil Ministry. Others suggested that they would not.

“A lot of ministers are changing every hour in negotiations,” said Hachim Hassani, a leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party, the most powerful Sunni group.

“Everything changes -- you move one part, and the entire puzzle must be rearranged. Every minute they jostle -- only tomorrow will all the pieces fit.”

The top five ministries are prime slots because they are highly visible, and if the officeholders are successful, they will be in strong positions to run for places in Iraq’s permanent government, due to be elected early in 2005.

Other ministries offer advantages to political parties because of their large numbers of employees and their offices across the country. They include the ministries of education, health and social affairs.

At the moment, some of the ministries have a distinctly sectarian or ethnic flavor. For instance, the Health Ministry is predominantly Shiite, with large numbers of female employees who wear the head covering known as a hijab. The walls are adorned with posters of leading Shiite clerics, including several from the revered Sadr family, whose scion, Muqtada Sadr, has been disrupting civilian governments throughout southern Iraq. Shiites make up a majority of the Iraqi population.

The Oil Ministry will probably be assigned to a technocrat. Thamir Ghadhban, who briefly served as interim oil minister during the first months of the U.S.-led occupation, is considered technically proficient and apolitical and is a leading candidate, said Othman and aides close to the Governing Council.

The focus on the Kurds, who account for probably no more than 20% of Iraq’s population, appears to reflect a desire by the United States and the United Nations to build up a group they can work with in the coming months.

For the key posts, especially those that involve security, U.S. officials appear to be pushing for people they feel comfortable negotiating with and with whom the United States has already built some trust. One of the first jobs of whoever holds those positions will be to negotiate the terms on which U.S. troops will operate in Iraq and the level of involvement of the Iraqi government in military decisions that involve the Americans.

The Kurds, whose northern Iraqi region has been run autonomously since the United States and Britain declared a “no-fly” zone after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, are chief among those who have already worked closely with the American military. They are among Iraq’s best-organized politicians and administrators as a result of their more than a decade of independence from the Hussein regime.

Both major Kurdish parties receive funding from the U.S. government.

The United Nations is also paying attention to the needs of the Kurds, aware that if they declared independence, it might alarm neighboring countries including Turkey and Iran that have significant Kurdish minorities and prompt them to take military action -- a potential disaster for the already-unstable Middle East.

The Kurds also have leverage over the United States in their unspoken threat of seeking to separate from Iraq if their demands for representation in the government are not met.

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Times staff writer Maggie Farley in New York contributed to this report.