Prime Minister Focuses on Iraq’s Security Issues

A day after winning approval of most of his Cabinet, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki conducted a rapid set of meetings with top government and security officials -- part of an orchestrated effort to signal urgency and leadership following a five-month power vacuum.

After a meeting with his ministers, Maliki pledged to use “maximum force against the terrorists and criminals” and repeated his intention to dismantle Iraq’s armed militia forces.

Continued violence in Baghdad underscored the difficulty of the task:

* In a crowded downtown restaurant, a man detonated explosives strapped to his waist, killing at least 13 people and wounding 18 others.

* In an eastern neighborhood, curious shoppers gathered around Iraqi policemen attempting to defuse a bomb planted at the entrance of the New Baghdad Market. The device exploded, killing three people and wounding 20.

* In the northwest, a bomb in a car parked along a road killed three Iraqis and wounded 15.

* Officials at a hospital reported receiving seven shooting fatalities and 13 people wounded by gunfire.

On Saturday, Maliki won parliamentary approval of a 36-member Cabinet. He still needs to name leaders for the two most powerful ministries, interior, which controls the nation’s police forces, and defense, as well as the National Security Ministry. He promised to do so this week.

At a news conference, Maliki said he expected he would be able to name the remaining ministers in two or three days and acknowledged that establishing some sense of security was the most immediate issue his government faced.

“We are aware of the security challenge and its effects. So we believe that combating this challenge cannot be by the use of force only. Although we will use maximum force against the terrorists and criminals, in addition to military power, we also need national reconciliation in order for trust to prevail among all Iraqis,” he said.

Explaining Sunday’s series of meetings, spokesman Salah Abdul Razzaq said the new prime minister “wants to leave the impression that he is very concerned about security and that he wants to start right away to make plans for a new security program.” The meetings were attended by ministers, top generals, police leaders and Americans, including Army Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. military official in Iraq.

Hashim Hassan, an Iraqi political analyst and communications professor, said Maliki was using media coverage of the meetings to project an image of a leader ready to face the country’s many challenges.

“He is trying to say, ‘I am strong, firm and able to defeat terrorism,’ ” Hassan said.

Bush administration officials sought to make the same point, seizing on Maliki’s new government as a sign of progress in Iraq.

President Bush told reporters at the White House that he had called Maliki and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani on Sunday morning to congratulate them and promise continuing U.S. support for Iraq’s fledgling government.

Formation of the government marks “a new chapter in our relationship with Iraq,” Bush said, adding that he had “assured them that the United States will continue to assist the Iraqis in the formation of a free country.”

In an interview with NBC’s Tim Russert, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the formation of the Iraqi Cabinet was “a real step forward” because “you have the first elected government that is there to govern, not just to prepare elections or to prepare a constitution, but to govern permanently.”

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who was deeply involved in the negotiations that helped bring Maliki to power, told the Associated Press that the Cabinet “completes the political transition in Iraq.”

Despite significant future challenges, “Iraq has been put on the right trajectory,” Khalilzad said.

The new government also received praise from the rulers of Jordan and Kuwait and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

In the capital, at least some Iraqis appeared to take heart in Maliki’s flurry of activity, contrasting him with former Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari, who was criticized for what some saw as indecisiveness and ineffectual leadership.

“It looks like he is trying to do something,” said Hamza Khudaier, 26, a Shiite Muslim engineer.

“We are fed up with Jafari’s speeches and with explosions. It looks like [Maliki] wants to do something for the people.”

Ali Abdullah, a 31-year-old Sunni Muslim engineer, said he liked Maliki’s statements about solving Iraq’s violence and hoped the new prime minister would be more effective than previous administrations.

“Most of the things that he mentioned are steps that Iraqis have been waiting for a long time,” Abdullah said.

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Times staff writers Raheem Salman, Zainab Hussein and Saif Hameed and special correspondents contributed to this report.