Sunnis Drop Demand for Iraq's New Cabinet

[cal04]

Sunni Muslim politicians dropped their demand Monday to include former members of Saddam Hussein's party in Iraq's new Cabinet in a bid to get more ministries. The Sunni minority is believed to be the backbone of the insurgency and many blame the impasse in forming a new government for a resurgence in violence.

As leaders of Iraq's main Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish factions continued their backroom wheeling and dealing, Prime Minister-designate Ibrahim al-Jaafari again put off his long-promised Cabinet announcement.

The National Dialogue Council, a coalition of 10 Sunni factions, initially requested 16 Cabinet seats. It submitted a list of candidates Sunday that included former members of Saddam's Baath party, said Jawad al-Maliki, a senior member of al-Jaafari's United Iraqi Alliance. But when that was rejected, they dropped the demand, he told reporters.

Alliance members, who control 148 seats in the 275-member National Assembly, refuse to give any top posts to members of the party that carried out Saddam's brutal suppression of the majority Shiites and Kurds.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050425/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. The demand was dropped, but how will this play in the streets?

They can play all the games they want to in the shelter of the "green zone", however what matters is what goes on down in the streets and towns. This "government" won't last 5 minutes without the support of US piloted tanks and guns.