New step toward Iraqi self-rule

In a postwar Iraq in which things have begun to look more precarious than during the war itself, the US-chosen governing council Monday introduced a team of 25 ministers. Many hoped the appointees would be received as catalysts in the mired process of turning over authority to Iraqis.

The willingness to rethink the pace of that transition became apparent over the weekend. The most recent of three ghastly car bombings suggested that US-led occupation authorities desperately need to get more Iraqis involved in securing the country - and in preparing to direct their own affairs.

The choice of cabinet ministers was a reflection of the balance that US brokers tried to achieve in July when they hand-picked the interim governing council, including 13 Shiites, five Sunni Arabs, five Kurds, one ethnic Turk and an Assyrian Christian. But many skeptical Iraqis are continuing to dismiss the appointees as American minions.

"If we don't have a sovereign government out of this council, I think it will be a disaster," says Entifadh Qanbar, a spokesman for former exile Ahmad Chalabi, who took over Monday as the president of the governing council for September. "The only way to solve the problem of security is to bring it as a result of Iraqi sovereignty, not the other way around," says Mr. Qanbar.

Iraqis say they are waiting to see whether the people chosen to run the ministries will be professionals with managerial experience - or political appointees who, like the 24 members of the council, were chosen mainly in an attempt to balance competing religious and ethnic groups.

The 25th member of the council, Mohammed Bakir al-Uloum, resigned Saturday from the council because of what he said was the coalition's inability to protect prominent figures. On Friday, a car bomb killed Ayatollah Mohammed Bakir al-Hakim, one of the country's most senior Shiite leaders and an advocate of cooperation with the US, along with about 125 others while at worship in Najaf.

Monday's appointments reflected efforts to make sure each of the most influential groups would feel it gained its fair share of the pie. Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum, a Shiite, was appointed to be oil minister. His is a central role since he will direct Iraq's most significant source of revenue - if he can help harness the country's rattled and sabotaged oil resources. Hoshyar Zebari, a well-spoken senior official in the Kurdistan Democratic Party, was named foreign minister. Former exile Nouri Badran, a Shiite, was appointed interior minister, and Kamil Mubdir al-Gailani, a Sunni, will serve as finance minister.

Many Iraqis complain that they don't like the precedent that this kind of official sectarianism sets up, claiming that it, combined with the onslaught of violence, will drive Iraq towards the kind of divisiveness that led to the outbreak of Lebanon's civil war in 1975.

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