BAGHDAD, March 27: US officials in Iraq have voiced reservations over some of the names put forward to lead the defence and interior ministries in the next government, a member of the winning Shia alliance said on Sunday. “The American side has stayed away from the forming of the new government, but it has reservations over candidates that have contact or are in some way being influenced by certain neighbouring countries like Syria and Iran,” said Fawaz al-Jarba, a Sunni member of the Shia-dominated United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), when asked about the US involvement in picking the security posts.
“I have heard them express these reservations,” Jarba said in an interview, declining to be more precise.
Jarba, who hails from the powerful Shammar tribe and is a second cousin of outgoing president Ghazi al-Yawar, said he was a candidate to be the next speaker of parliament, vice president or defence minister.
Other names that have been floated include Hadi al-Ameri, the head of the Iranian-trained Badr Corps for the interior ministry, and Ahmed Chalabi for a security portfolio.
Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress party, was under investigation by US authorities last year for spying for Iran, but has said that he has since repaired his relations with Washington.
A US embassy spokesman denied that any of its officials had expressed their views on any of the candidates, insisting they were staying on the sidelines despite the fact that talks on forming the new government have already dragged on for weeks.
“We have not expressed any view about any individual candidate,” Richard Schmierer said. While US authorities have gone out of their way to appear impartial, senior US diplomats hold meetings regularly with political figures from across the political spectrum
US officials and the government of outgoing Prime Minister Iyad Allawi frequently single out Syria and Iran as the main backers of the insurgency still raging in the country almost two years after Saddam Hussein’s fall. Jarba said 11th-hour talks were going on to try to include Allawi and members of his list, which came third in the elections, in the coalition government.
“Several invitations by both the (Shia) alliance and the Kurds have been extended to (Allawi’s) Iraqi list to take part,” said the 49-year-old tribal chieftain from Rabia, west of the northern city of Mosul.
He said Allawi could be named deputy prime minister with responsibility for security. The UIA has already nominated Ibrahim al-Jafaari for the premiership.
The newly-elected parliament is expected to reconvene on Tuesday after its inaugural session on March 16 to elect a speaker and two deputies and possibly a presidential council, made up of a president and two deputies.
Both Shias and Kurds are hoping figures like Jarba can rally the support of embittered Sunnis who largely boycotted the elections. He said all parties were in agreement that the posts of defence and interior ministers would be reserved for Arabs, a Shia and a Sunni.
Jarba graduated from military college in 1982 and was immediately sent to war against Iran as a member of the special forces. As an officer he refused to take part in the 1990-invasion of Kuwait and fled the country after being sentenced to death.
He took refuge in neighbouring Saudi Arabia and returned two years later to Iraq, where he remained under house arrest in Rabia until the fall of Saddam’s regime in April 2003.—AFP