Shiite Leader Named Iraq Premier to End 2 Months of Wrangling
By ROBERT F. WORTH

Published: April 8, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/08/international/middleeast/08iraq.html?th&emc=th&oref=login  (must register to view original article)

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 7 - The Shiite leader Ibrahim al-Jaafari was appointed Iraq's new prime minister Thursday, crystallizing the leadership of the first elected government in decades and ending more than two months of divisive negotiations.

Dr. Jaafari, a doctor and the leader of one of Iraq's major Shiite religious parties, was named by the new president, Jalal Talabani, shortly after Mr. Talabani was sworn into office with his hand on a Koran.

Hours earlier, Ayad Allawi, who has been the prime minister in Iraq's interim government, submitted his resignation, opening the way for the new government to take power. Dr. Allawi will remain head of a caretaker government until a full cabinet is chosen.

Dr. Jaafari, 58, had long been expected to be named prime minister - the most powerful post in the new government. Still, the announcement brought a palpable sense of finality and relief among Iraq's leading political groups, which had spent weeks locked in bitter talks on power-sharing and other issues that tried the patience of many Iraqis who risked their lives to vote on Jan. 30.

The appointment was also a long-deferred moment of triumph for the Shiites, who represent 60 percent of Iraq's population but were brutally suppressed by Saddam Hussein.

The Shiite coalition to which Mr. Jaafari belongs was formed under the auspices of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most revered Shiite cleric, and Dr. Jaafari has made clear that he favors a strong voice for Islam in Iraq's new constitution, although he is vague about specifics.

Dr. Jaafari's appointment also underscored the anxieties expressed by some Arab leaders about Iran's influence in the region. During 20 years of exile from Iraq, Dr. Jaafari spent time living in Iran and forged close ties with Iranian leaders, as did many members of his Dawa Party.

As a member of the American-appointed Iraqi Governing Council set up shortly after American forces ousted Mr. Hussein two years ago, he pushed for a broader role for Islam in the interim constitution that now is in force in Iraq. When pressed for his personal views about what elements of Islamic law should be reflected in Iraq's new constitution, Dr. Jaafari offered few details during an interview last month.

"I understand that Iraqis all have different views and different political thinking and different religious thinking," he said. "The majority are Muslim, but that doesn't mean others are canceled or excluded."

He described himself in the interview as a supporter of a strong political role for women, and he said he would never favor laws forcing women to wear head scarves in public. Asked for his views on whether adultery should be criminalized in Iraq - as it is in some Arab countries - he said simply that this was an issue for the parliament to deal with, not him.

"This day for me means a new democratic political era in Iraq," Dr. Jaafari said Thursday after being named by the new president, Jalal Talabani, a Kurd who was selected on Wednesday. "It is one of the most important moments in the new democratic process in our country."

As he picks his cabinet, Dr. Jaafari will be facing a range of difficult issues that have already tested the fragile coalition between his Shiite alliance, which won just over half the assembly's 275 seats, and the smaller Kurdish alliance to which Mr. Talabani belongs. In addition to the role of Islam in the new government, those issues include the extent of Kurdish autonomy and how to split revenues from Iraq's oil industry.

On Wednesday, some assembly members called for Dr. Allawi's government to be dissolved as soon as Mr. Talabani was sworn in, but that issue may have been defused by Dr. Allawi's resignation.

Barham Salih, a member of the Kurdish alliance, said Dr. Allawi's government would now remain in office as a caretaker government until Dr. Jaafari finishes naming his cabinet. Dr. Allawi is also a member of the new Iraqi national assembly.

Dr. Jaafari offered no hints about whom he would name to his cabinet. He added, though, that the new government would include women and representatives of Iraq's various ethnic and religious groups.

But an agreement has been reached to name a Sunni Arab as head of the Defense Ministry, said Jawad al-Maliki, a national assembly member and deputy leader of the Dawa Party. Over all, the Sunnis will be given no less than six ministries, and the Foreign Ministry portfolio will go to Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd who holds the same post in the interim government, Mr. Maliki said.

Sunni Arabs largely stayed away from the polls during the January election, and granting them powerful positions is seen as crucial both in forming a stable government and in defeating the insurgency. The Defense Ministry could be particularly important in that effort. Sunnis dominated the higher echelons of Mr. Hussein's military, and many joined the insurgency after his fall.

Mr. Talabani made his own overtures to the Sunnis after he took the oath of office on Thursday, along with his two deputies, in an auditorium packed with members of the new national assembly.

The Shiite and Kurdish alliances, Mr. Talabani said, "should respond to the legitimate demands of our brothers the Sunni Arabs and respect their rights as one of the most important elements of the Iraqi people."

Like some other Shiite leaders, Dr. Jaafari initially refused a year ago to sign Iraq's interim constitution, which sets up the procedures for writing the new constitution, because it allowed a two-thirds majority in any three of Iraq's 18 provinces to nullify the final constitution when it goes before voters later this year.

That provision was particularly important to Iraq's Kurdish minority. But Dr. Jaafari said at the time that he found it undemocratic. He signed the law, but has since said he may lead an effort to reverse that provision - a possibility that alarms many groups here, including the Kurds and the Americans.

Dr. Jaafari, a soft-spoken man who smiles easily, was born in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, where his father worked in the Imam Hussein shrine. He fled Iraq in 1980, when Mr. Hussein began killing and torturing thousands of Dawa Party members. After traveling through Syria and Iran, he arrived in London. He returned to Iraq shortly after the American-led invasion two years ago.

"The last person I bade farewell to when I left was my mother," Dr. Jaafari said in the interview last month. "When I came back to Iraq I went to Karbala. I visited my mother again, this time in the cemetery."

His mother had died naturally, but one of his brothers and four of his cousins were executed by Mr. Hussein's government, Dr. Jaafari said.

A voracious reader, he said he was reading Bill Clinton's autobiography. He said that he liked reading contemporary Arabic poetry and that his favorite Western writers were Shakespeare, Dickens and Tolstoy.