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Vice President Ghazi al-Yawer
Al-Yawer speaks to the media, Feb. 1, 2005.
(Photo:
AP
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U.S.-educated businessman Ghazi al-Yawer was named as one of the new government's two interim vice presidents. The ticket led by al-Yawer, who was president in the first government to take over from the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority, won less than 2 percent of the vote in the January 2005 elections.
Al-Yawer is a prominent Sunni member of the Shammar tribe. He was born in 1958, the same year Iraqi army officers overthrew his country's monarchy. His grandfather, Ahmed Ajil al-Yawer, had served as a member of the king's parliament.
In 1959, al-Yawer's Shammar tribe supported an aborted military revolt against Gen. Abdul Karim Qassim. One of the largest tribes in the Gulf region, the Shammar includes Shiite as well as Sunni Muslim clans.
Al-Yawer is a civil engineer, who received his degrees in Saudi Arabia and at Georgetown University. In the mid-1980s, he moved with his family to Saudi Arabia. Returning to Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein, al-Yawer built good relations with Kurds and Shiites.
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