U.S. Urges Swift Work on Cabinet

Bush administration officials said Monday that they have stepped up pressure on Iraqi political leaders to quickly form a government.

Deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Friday in Washington with Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mehdi, a prominent Shiite Muslim figure, and then spoke by telephone with Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdish Democratic Party.

Ereli stressed that Rice made no attempt to influence Iraqi negotiations on assigning ministerial posts and other influential jobs, but that she tried to convey a sense of urgency that the protracted talks must be concluded soon.

“We hope the process can move forward,” Ereli told reporters Monday. “We all understand that this is a complicated process, it’s a new experience for the Iraqis, that there are a variety of interests and compromises that have to be negotiated, and that that process is going to take some time.”

Another senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Vice President Dick Cheney delivered a similar message of urgency in a White House meeting with Mehdi on Wednesday.

Iraqi legislators and their party leaders have been locked in tough negotiations over the shape of the new government since voters defied insurgents to turn out for the election Jan. 30.

So far, the lawmakers have chosen a president and two vice presidents. Those three then selected Ibrahim Jafari as the prime minister. But Jafari’s efforts to put together a Cabinet have been slowed by jostling among large Shiite and Kurdish parties for key ministerial posts.

Over the weekend, the dominant Shiite and Kurdish slates blamed outgoing interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi for holding up the formation of a Cabinet, claiming that he was demanding more posts than his slate’s third-place showing in the election warranted. Allawi’s allies contend that his demands are legitimate.

Since the Iraqi election, President Bush and high-level members of his administration have said they understand that negotiations can be difficult for groups that historically have dealt with differences through violence. However, as weeks have dragged by, concern has grown in Washington that the delay could generate disillusionment among Iraqi voters and endanger the fragile nation-building experiment.

Insurgents, who seem to have been thrown off balance by the large turnout in an election they tried to prevent, have taken advantage of the postelection inertia to reorganize and launch a series of deadly, well-coordinated attacks in recent weeks.

With Iraq as the centerpiece of the administration’s agenda of spreading democratic reforms in the Middle East, the stakes are high for the White House.

After adhering to a hands-off policy for several weeks, mid-level U.S. officials began prodding the transitional National Assembly this month. Pressure by Rice and Cheney reflects a growing sense of frustration and urgency within the administration.

U.S. officials denied that they were pressuring the Iraqis to select specific individuals or that they were working against Jafari, a Shiite conservative.

“This is not about picking and choosing who gets chosen. It’s about getting a government in place,” Ereli said. “The best person for the job is the person the Iraqis agree upon.”