Iraq Elects Kurdish President
Jailed Saddam Hussein Watches Parliament From His Jail Cell
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Play CBS Video Video Iraq Elects Interim President Although it wasn't a high-tech vote - the parliament votes were tallied on a blackboard - Iraq selected an interim President, Lee Cowan reports. The Kurdish president will select a prime minister.
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Video Forming Iraq's Government Attacks are escalating in Iraq as officials are set to meet and select a new president. The leader of the Kurdish alliance is the favorite for the largely symbolic role, Lee Cowan reports.
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Newly elected Iraqi interim President Jalal Talabani holds a press conference after the National Assembly meeting in Baghdad, Iraq Wednesday, April 6, 2005. (AP)
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Kurdish youngsters celebrate the election of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani in Sulaimaniyah, April 6, 2005. The Iraqi parliament's choice reached out to the nation's long-repressed Kurds. (AP)
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Iraqi troops secure the area after mortar attack on hotel in Baghdad, Iraq, April 6, 2005. (AP)
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Interactive Two Years Later Major events, photos and more on the rebuilding of Iraq.
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Interactive American Heroes Profiles of U.S. soldiers who've died in Iraq, a look at the war's toll and pictures of mourning.
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Interactive Attacks Map Details on the insurgency and terrorism that has continued to take lives since the fall of Saddam.
Jalal Talabani was elected to the largely ceremonial job of president — with Shiite Adel Abdul-Mahdi and interim President Ghazi al-Yawer, a Sunni Arab, as vice presidents — bringing Iraq a step closer to Iraq's first democratically elected government in 50 years.
U.S. President George W. Bush called Wednesday's session a "momentous step forward in Iraq's transition to democracy."
"The Iraqi people have shown their commitment to democracy and we, in turn, are committed to Iraq," the president said in a statement. "We look forward to working with this new government, and we congratulate all Iraqis on this historic day."
But, as CBS News Correspondent Lee Cowan reports, the role of the president chosen this week is largely symbolic.
"[His] main job is to elect the prime minister. That's the person who in effect will be the chief executive of the country," Cowan said from Baghdad. "And will really run things day to day."
Saddam and 11 of his top aides were given the choice of watching a tape of the session in their jail cells, and all chose to do so, Human Rights Minister Bakhtiar Amin said. Saddam watched it by himself, and the others watched it together.
"I imagine he was upset," Amin said. "He must have realized that the era of his government was over, and that there was no way he was returning to office."
In other developments:
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