Good overview of positive developments in Iraq: The Real Iraq

AP's coverage of today's cabinet appointments.

CNN: Iraq's first permanent government since the fall of Saddam Hussein was approved by parliament and sworn in on Saturday, despite the failure to fill two key ministry posts because of political disputes. "The main problem now is security, and they could not appoint defense and interior [ministers]," said prominent Sunni Muslim politician Saleh al-Mutlag, who walked out of the proceedings. "This session is illegal," al-Mutlag said. "They added seven ministries without getting approval." Al-Mutlag said he and others had asked the government to wait longer to try to fill the critical posts. Prime Minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki said he would temporarily run the Interior Ministry, and he made a temporary appointment to the Defense Ministry -- Salam al-Zobaie, a Sunni politician who also had been designated as a deputy prime minister. There are 37 Cabinet posts in all and parliamentary terms last four years. [...]

BBC News (largely repeating earlier update): Iraq's PM-designate Nouri Maliki says the make-up of the cabinet has been finalised but the posts of interior and defence minister will be filled later. Mr Maliki will present the cabinet for approval by parliament on Saturday. Shias, Sunni Arabs and Kurds have been in dispute over the make-up of the unity government since elections in December, causing a power vacuum. US and Iraqi officials have said the unity government is the country's best chance avoiding a full sectarian war. The Shia-led United Iraqi Alliance won most seats in parliament in Iraq's first full elections, held last December. [...]

AP: The incoming Iraqi prime minister said Friday he had failed to reach a deal with coalition partners on naming defense or interior ministers, but he still would inaugurate his Cabinet on Saturday.

Nouri al-Maliki said after meeting with officials of other political coalitions and parties that a decision had been made on the rest of the Cabinet "except for defense and interior ministries," and he would present it Saturday for approval to the 275-member parliament — known as the council of representatives. "Both will be acting (temporary) ministers until we will choose the best ministers for those posts," he said.

AP update:

On Saturday, legislators plan to swear in a new prime minister and Cabinet, completing a democratic transition that began in December with the election of its parliament. A main goal of the new government will be to restore security in Iraq, where sectarian violence and attacks by insurgents and militias have killed many people and led thousands of Iraqi families to flee their homes. The Bush administration hopes that full-scale democracy can unite Iraq's complex mix of Shiites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds, reduce public support for insurgent groups and militias, and make it possible to begin withdrawing U.S. troops sometime this year. In a speech in Baghdad on Thursday night, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad praised Iraq's outgoing prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, and said the inauguration will be a "historic step in Iraq's transition from dictatorship to democracy."

Philadelphia Inquirer: New Iraq leader firmer, even if prospects aren't

AP: President Jalal Talabani met with representatives of seven armed groups and is optimistic they may agree to lay down their weapons, his office said Sunday. It was the first time a senior Iraqi official has acknowledged talks with insurgents.

BBC News: The new Iraqi parliament has held its inaugural session, three months after the general election. The meeting had been brought forward by three days from its postponed date, but the BBC's Jim Muir in Iraq says this is not a sign of accord. Unresolved differences between the parties and wrangling over the top jobs are likely to delay a new government. The short session was held against a backdrop of increasing sectarian violence and predictions of civil war. A pianist played as representatives of the country's main ethnic and religious blocs - many in traditional Arab and Kurdish dress - filed into a convention centre behind the concrete blast walls of Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone. [...]

BBC News: Iraq government talks in disarray. Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari has cancelled a meeting with senior political leaders, apparently to protest against a campaign to oust him. [...continues, but not much more detail...]

Christian Science Monitor: After a weekend of sleepless nights, emergency meetings, and an unprecedented three-day curfew, Iraq has managed to stave off its worst fear after last week's destruction of a major Shiite shrine: That the country's small-scale civil conflict was about to bloom into a bloody and wide-ranging war between its sects. But disturbing signs are emerging that Iraq's sectarian powder-keg is still highly volatile. A pattern of politics drawn along sectarian or ethnic lines has strengthened in the wake of Saddam Hussein's rule. Leading moderate voices like Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani have taken harder lines, and the growing authority of unelected clerics in determining Iraq's future is presenting new hurdles to the unity government most experts believe is needed to bring stability. On Saturday night, representatives of militant Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and Sunni clerics from the powerful Muslim Scholars Association prayed together in a televised ceremony from Baghdad's Abu Hanifa mosque, a Sunni landmark. The clerics condemned recent attacks on Shiite and Sunni houses of worship and jointly forbade any actions leading to fitnah, or strife among Muslims. Political leaders from all factions, who received a series of personal calls from President Bush on Saturday, echoed those sentiments in a separate meeting. "Last night [at] the meeting between the different political parties, we agreed on some important points that might cool things down, like promises not to attack mosques,'' says Saleh al-Mutlak, a leader of the main Sunni front in parliament. "The general environment was not that bad, they are listening now, [the] Shiites know the civil war will hurt everybody including themselves." [...continues...]

Aljazeera.net: Iraqi political leaders have agreed to push ahead with US-sponsored efforts to form a government and condemned sectarian violence in an attempt to ease the gravest crisis in postwar Iraq. Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Shia prime minister, flanked by Kurdish and Arab Sunni leaders, called on Iraqis on Saturday to unite and fight terrorism in a news conference carried live to the nation on state television. With the gravest crisis since the US invasion threatening his plan to withdraw 136,000 troops, George Bush, the US president, made calls to Iraqi leaders on all sides urging them to work together to break a round of attacks sparked by the suspected al-Qaida bombing of a Shia shrine on Wednesday. Those top leaders then met for talks directed at getting plans for a national unity government back on track. Film of the meeting, attended by the US envoy, was broadcast live on state television in a clear effort to defuse sectarian tensions. The White House announced after Bush's calls to Baghdad that: "He [Bush] encouraged them to continue to work together to thwart the efforts of the perpetrators of the violence to sow discord."