BAGHDAD - Iraq`s newly appointed prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari began the process Friday of building a cabinet which he said must include efficient technocrats and nationalists with a `clean history`.
Despite the weeks of delay and bickering in nominating Jaafari, the United States expressed hope Iraq`s political calendar providing for a permanent constitution and definitive elections by the end of 2005 would be respected.
Jaafari said Thursday after his official appointment by the newly-sworn-in President Jalal Talabani that he would work to form a the government within two weeks, although he theoretically has a month to do so.
"The ministries need efficient technocrats, nationalists with a good and clean history and team players who are comfortable working within a diverse setting," Jaafari told reporters.
"I am going to appoint more than one deputy."
He promised "to fight corruption and institute administrative reforms" after several members his United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), parliament`s largest bloc, accused the outgoing government of Iyad Allawi of breaking the law and hiring senior members of the banned Baath party of ousted leader Saddam Hussein.
Parliament is expected to vote on Sunday on an UIA-proposed motion to rebuke and sanction Allawi`s government.
Jaafari refused to go into details over the government line-up but one of his senior aides and UIA member Jawad al-Maliki said a quarter of the some 30 posts will go to women.
Maliki said the UIA, with 146 of the 275 parliament seats will have the all important ministries of finance, interior and oil.
He said their Kurdish coalition partners with 77 seats will retain the foreign ministry currently headed by Hoshyar Zebari and "may get the planning ministry as a consolation for oil which they had been fighting to clinch."
As for Sunni Arabs, who largely boycotted the elections but are assiduously being courted by both sides, they will get at least six ministries including defence, he said.
Talabani, who took oath along with his two deputies Shiite Adel Abdel Mehdi and Sunni Arab Ghazi al-Yawar in an emotional ceremony on Thursday, defended the quota system and the divisions in the government along sectarian and ethnic lines, which has been assailed by many new MPs.
"We are going through special circumstances that require national conciliation until we have a new constitution, but after that it will be purely electoral considerations that rule," said the former Kurdish rebel leader.
The verdict is out on whether Talabani`s passionate plea for Sunni Arabs and even insurgents to join a political process many of them regard illegitimate will bear fruit.
And in a taste of the challenges that lie ahead for Jaafari, partisans of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr who led a bloody rebellion one year ago planned a million-strong demonstration in Baghdad`s centre on Saturday to demand the withdrawal of US troops two years after Saddam`s fall.
It will start in Ferdous Square, where his statute was toppled.
Jaafari and Yawar have ruled out a timetable for the withdrawal, saying Iraqi forces remain weak.
The US military said it was considering giving shorter tours of duty of six and nine months to troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan -- if improving conditions allow commanders to scale down.
The 12-month tours will continue as long as the situation in Iraq or Afghanistan requires the current level of forces, now at about 145,000, General Franklin Hagenbeck said.
"But what I would tell you is that we think multiple shorter tours is the ideal way to go ultimately," he said.
US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher shrugged off any suggestion that the new government would not be able to meet a timetable for a constitution due by August 15 to prepare for elections and a definitive government by year`s end.
"The first day of the new presidency is not the day to say that he and the government are not going to achieve their goals set for the end of the year," he said. "They are very, very aware of the tasks before them."
Meanwhile, Iraq marked the the death of Prophet Mohammed in 632 AD as thousands of Shiites flocked on foot for the occasion to the shrine city of Najaf, where the prophet`s cousin Imam Ali is believed to be buried.

04/08/2005 09:55 GMT