By Oliver Poole in Baghdad
The announcement that Baqir Soulagh, a member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), is to be interior minister risks alienating Iraq’s Sunni Arab community whose support is needed if the insurgency is to be defeated.
Sciri is one of the principal partners in the coalition of Shia groups that won the majority of seats in January’s election.
But it is loathed by many ordinary Iraqis as its leaders spent two decades in exile in Iran and its 10,000-member paramilitary wing, the Badr Brigade, fought against Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war.
The appointment was confirmed when the national assembly voted to approve the 37-member cabinet submitted by Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Iraq’s new prime minister.
It had been hoped a full list of cabinet positions would be announced, bringing to an end months of political wrangling that has emboldened an insurgency that yesterday carried out a string of attacks, killing 19 Iraqis. But five posts, including the key defence and oil ministries, have yet to be finalised.
Shia members had opposed a number of ministerial candidates put forward by Sunni groups on the basis that the candidates were too closely associated with Saddam Hussein’s regime.
The failure to agree on the appointment of many Sunni ministers further added to the community’s concern about the new government’s composition.
The Sunni vice-president, Ghazi al-Yawar, said the cabinet was a disappointment. ”We’re not happy,” he said, warning it needed to be finalised quickly to promote national unity.
The prominent role for Sciri is likely to fuel widespread concern that Teheran’s influence is expanding in Iraq.
US government figures have recently alleged that intelligence reports document an Iranian espionage campaign.
The reports, it is claimed, reveal that many Iranian agents are in Sciri’s Badr Brigade and its operatives have been instructed to infiltrate Iraqi security agencies.
Sciri’s leader, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, has previously worked with coalition forces and dismisses as “lies” accusations that his party is a front for Iranian interests.
He maintains that recruiting the brigade into the police and army is part of a national agreement that armed militias should be brought under the umbrella of the state.
But in the climate of acute mutual suspicion in Iraq, his enemies have seized on the party’s promise to purge the security forces of many former Ba’athists that were recruited by the interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi.
Mr Allawi had argued that their enlistment was essential to provide a backbone of experienced officers in the fight against the insurgency.
In recent weeks the policy has been re-examined after it emerged that earlier vetting procedures had not been rigorous enough. Hundreds of former recruits have already been dismissed amid concern about their loyalty.
But to Sciri’s opponents promises of more purges are merely a pretext for removing rivals to the Badr Brigade from the security forces.
Iyad al-Samari, of the Iraqi Islamic Society, a Sunni organisation, warned that if the policy was mishandled it risked fuelling accusations of sectarian bias, further polarising the country. “We are in a critical situation,” he said.
Mr Jaafari pledged yesterday that a Sunni would become defence minister and only former Ba’athists with suspected links to the insurgency would be expelled.
