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It may have taken five
months of wrangling for Iraq’s competing sectarian
and ethnic groups to form a working coalition, but
many of the new ministers have at least one thing in
common.
Five of the most prominent figures in the new Iraqi
Government spent much of their long period in exile
in Britain.
Barham Salih, the Deputy Prime Minister in charge of
national security, fled to Britain in 1980 to escape
the persecution of the Kurds by Saddam Hussein. A
member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) he
spent ten years here, where he studied engineering
at the University of Wales.
Hussain al-Shahristani, the Oil Minister, came to
Britain after the Gulf War in 1991 when he escaped
the notorious Abu Ghraib prison where he had spent
11 years in jail for refusing to co-operate on
Saddam’s nuclear programme. A devout Shia Muslim
from the holy city of Karbala, he has vowed to share
out the country’s oil wealth with the people. His
last job before returning home was as a lecturer at
the University of Surrey.
Hoshyar Zebari, the Foreign Minister, is credited
with reestablishing Iraq on the international stage
after the overthrow of Saddam. A leading figure in
the Kurdish Democratic Party, he spent two decades
living in Britain where he graduated from the
University of Essex and brought up a family.
Fawzi al-Hariri, the new Industry Minister, is an
Assyrian Christian from northern Iraq. He lived most
of his adult life in London, where he worked for 16
years as a manager at British Airways.
Latif Rashid, the Water Resources Minister and a
member of the PUK, received a degree in civil
engineering from the University of Liverpool and a
PhD in engineering from Manchester.
Timesonline co.uk
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