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BAGHDAD, Iraq May
20, - On a day heralded as a new beginning for Iraq,
many Iraqis seemed divided Saturday between hope and
pessimism about whether the country's newly
inaugurated national unity government will be able
to curtail sectarian violence in their country.
"We have been waiting for a genuine change in Iraqi
life since the fall of Saddam's regime in 2003, but
the security ... has deteriorated from worse to
worst," said Zakyaa Nasir, 52, in the southern city
of Amarah. Her husband was an Iraqi soldier who died
during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
Parliament inaugurated Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
and his new Cabinet during a special legislative
session in Baghdad's heavily guarded Green Zone on
Saturday. But as the new government of Shiites,
Sunni Arabs and Kurds was formed, deadly sectarian
violence and attacks by insurgents continued in the
capital and other areas of Iraq.
Al-Maliki also had to temporarily fill the country's
top three security Cabinet posts because of
difficult negotiations about who should lead the
ministries controlling Iraq's army and police
forces, and their battle with insurgents and
militias.
For many Iraqis, the process was symbolic of the
country's sectarian conflict.
Issam al-Rawi, the head of the University Professors
Association in Baghdad, said a government of Shiite,
Sunni and Kurdish representatives will only succeed
if Iraqis can set aside religious, sectarian and
ethnic divisions to stand together under a national
identity.
"We have some reservations," al-Rawi said. "The
ministers have to give up their sectarian and
factional and racial affiliations and be loyal only
to their country."
The Cabinet nominations took months of negotiations
after Iraq elected a new parliament last December.
The new 40-member Cabinet is Iraq's first
constitutional government since the fall of Saddam
Hussein.
Fuad Ali Kadom, 42, a power station engineer in
Baghdad, said the new government was "a real
beginning of a new Iraq."
"We don't care for names as much as we care for the
services they will offer," he said. Iraq's
infrastructure remains dilapidated and many Iraqis
don't have electricity as the summer heat
approaches.
One of the new government's programs calls for the
restoration of Iraqi infrastructure, including a
program detailing an entire reconstruction plan for
the country.
The United States hopes a unified government can
calm tensions, curb violence and pave the way for
Washington to begin withdrawing American troops by
the end of the year.
Many Iraqis on Saturday echoed that hope and said
they look to a day when Iraq's security forces are
trained, equipped and capable of operations that now
depend largely on coalition forces three years after
the U.S. invasion.
"The forming of a new government is a cheerful day,"
said Sawsan Yalman, 31, a Turkoman student. "But the
government has to solve essential problems,
especially the security problem and fighting
terrorist and armed groups."
Violence swept through the country Saturday,
including suicide car bombings in Baghdad and Mosul,
where a suicide bomber reportedly trying to target a
U.S. military convoy instead killed three Iraqi
civilians.
In Baghdad, Police Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammedawi
said 19 people were killed and 58 wounded when a
bomb hidden in a paper bag in a Shiite district of
Baghdad exploded.
Continued violence in Iraq was worrisome a
government could be effective in calming the
violence and reason not to be distrustful, said
al-Saied Mohammed, 44, a former Iraqi soldier who
lives in Amarah, 290 kilometers (180 miles)
southeast of Baghdad.
"I am pessimistic," said Mohammed. "They are working
for their personal interests."
AP
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