World

Iraqis Try To Form Cabinet

April 26, 2005 / 9:17 AM EDT / CBS/AP

Iraqi politicians tried again Monday to end a deadlock over the formation of the country's new transitional government, and the death toll from two well-coordinated militant attacks against Iraqi police and civilians rose to 29.

On Sunday, lawmakers loyal to Prime Minister-designate Ibrahim al-Jaafari said he was ready to announce a Cabinet that would exclude his interim predecessor, Ayad Allawi.

Al-Jaafari had decided, some members of his political bloc said, to shun further attempts to include members of the party headed by Allawi, the secular Shiite politician who had served as prime minister as the country prepared for elections Jan. 30.

Members of Allawi's Iraqi List, which controls 40 seats in the National Assembly, said his party had not been officially informed of the development. Allawi loyalists were bidding for at least four ministries, including a senior government post and a deputy premiership.

In other developments:

Three roadside bombs aimed at U.S. military convoys exploded in the capital on Monday, including one in western Baghdad that killed an American soldier, said Army Lt. Col. Clifford Kent.

The U.S. military said a suicide car bomb exploded in Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, wounding two civilians and slightly damaging a U.S. Marine vehicle; and a 20-year-old Iraqi man died at an American military hospital of injuries he suffered two weeks ago while attacking coalition forces.

Insurgents launched two separate attacks aimed at Iraq's oil industry in the north, setting fire to oil pumps near Kirkuk, and opening fire on police guarding a convoy of oil tanker trucks, officials said. Two policemen were wounded and three insurgents arrested in a one-hour gunbattle over the convoy, police said.

Iraqi police have discovered the bodies of three people in a river in the center of the country, one of them dressed in an Iraqi Army uniform, the Polish military said Monday. The bodies were found late Sunday evening near Al Tahir, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of Diwaniyah, said Lt. Col. Zbigniew Staszkow, a spokesman for the Polish military in Iraq. One of them was dressed in an army uniform and the others in civilian clothes, Staszkow said, adding that Iraqi police are investigating the case. Poland leads a multinational security and training force in an area south of Baghdad.

Italian news reports said Italy and the U.S. disagree over the findings of an investigation into the accidental shooting death by U.S. soldiers of an Italian intelligence agent in Baghdad. Both Milan daily Corriere della Sera and Rome daily La Repubblica said Italy was deciding what line to take in view of the differences. But Rome daily Il Messaggero reported that the two Italian experts had decided not to sign off on the conclusions. Without citing sources, Il Messaggero said the American conclusions "exculpate from every accusation" the U.S. soldiers.

Thousands rallied across Romania on Monday to call for the release of three Romanian journalists kidnapped in Iraq, a day before a reported deadline on their captors' demands. Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu said the government would not tone down celebrations for Romania's signing a historical agreement to join the European Union because of the ultimatum given by the kidnappers. "To change our decisions... would be exactly what the kidnappers, the terrorists want," he said.

In Baghdad on Sunday, a vehicle packed with explosives was driven into a crowd gathered in front of a popular ice cream shop in Baghdad's western al-Shoulah neighborhood Sunday, police Maj. Mousa Abdul Karim said. Minutes later a second suicide car bomber plowed into the crowd. At least 23 people were killed and 41 wounded, officials at two hospitals said Monday in an update of the casualty numbers.

In Tikrit on Sunday, two remotely detonated car bombs exploded in quick succession outside a police academy, killing at least six Iraqis and wounding 33, police and a hospital official said.

Many Shiites have long resented the secular Allawi, accusing his outgoing administration of having included former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, which brutally repressed the majority Shiites and Kurds.

"I don't see how it can be national unity government without our participation," Iraqi List legislator Hussein al-Sadr told reporters Monday.

Members of al-Jaafri's United Iraqi Alliance, the largest bloc in parliament, met Monday afternoon and more talks were scheduled at night about the formation of the Cabinet.

Sunnis initially tried to include former Baathists on their list of names for ministerial posts, said Jawad al-Maliki, a lawmaker and senior member in the alliance. But when that was rejected, they dropped their demand, he told reporters.

There had been intense pressure to end the political bickering about the Cabinet after a recent increase in insurgent violence that many in Iraq blamed on the continuing political turmoil nearly three months after Iraq's historic parliamentary election on Jan. 30.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoned Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdish Democratic Party, to ask him to finish forming a government as soon as possible, two U.S. State Department officials said Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity. Rice did not provide a formula of her own in the Friday phone call, one of the officials said.

Rice also met at the White House on Friday with Adil Abdul Mahdi, a senior Shiite politician who is slated to be one of Iraq's new vice presidents, one official said. Rice conveyed the message that the Bush administration wanted to see a government formed quickly.

President Jalal Talabani told a Turkish newspaper that Iraq's Kurds won't accept the establishment of an Islamic state. Talabani, a Kurd, added that Iraq's Islamic identity would be respected. "We Kurds will never accept the formation of an Islamic regime in Iraq," Talabani was quoted as saying in Monday's Sabah newspaper.

"Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Sunni, Shia, Muslims, Christians all live together, and this structure would not allow an Islamic regime," he said.

"All of us, including Islamic parties, want a democratic, federal, united and independent Iraq. We will never pass legislation that is contrary to Islam."