Cabinet expected to be announced

The new Cabinet will include four female ministers.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraqi Prime Minister-designate Nouri al-Maliki is expected to submit his Cabinet for parliament's approval Saturday, legislators said Wednesday, a step that will mark the formation of the country's first permanent government since U.S. troops toppled Saddam Hussein's regime more than three years ago.
It was still unclear whether al-Maliki would name new heads for the ministries of interior and defense, which oversee the police and army, respectively. Shiite Muslim legislators familiar with the negotiations said new ministers would be named, but al-Maliki's spokesman, Salah Abdel Razaq, later told Knight Ridder that it was possible that al-Maliki would name himself to the posts while he decides on qualified and independent ministers.
The ministries, considered key to stopping Iraq's violence, have been among the most closely contested in the five months of talks that have ensued since Iraqis voted for a new government Dec. 15.
Four female ministers
The new Cabinet will include four female ministers, Abdel Razaq said. He didn't say which ministries they'd lead.
The selection of a Cabinet will be a major step for Iraq. Since the end of Saddam's regime, Iraq has been governed by an interim U.S. authority, an interim government picked by the United States and an interim elected government whose primary responsibility was writing a new constitution and holding the December vote. The al-Maliki government will serve for four years under Iraq's current constitution.
Some politicians and U.S. diplomats have blamed the months of political haggling over the al-Maliki government for a security vacuum that's allowed rampant violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims since a Feb. 22 bombing devastated a Shiite shrine in the city of Samarra.
Still unhappy
Sunni politicians remained unhappy with the delay Wednesday, with the Sunni vice president-designate, Tareq al-Hashemi, charging that the delay had been a deliberate move to allow Shiite militia members to fill Defense Ministry ranks before an independent Sunni candidate took over. Al-Maliki has promised that a Sunni will head the Defense Ministry while a Shiite will head the Interior Ministry.
Al-Hashemi said Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's administration had instructed the current defense minister, Saadoun al-Dulaimi, to absorb 308 members of the Iranian-backed Shiite Badr Organization militia into the ministry.
The Badr Organization is the military wing of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a powerful Shiite political party. While the militia was theoretically disbanded and brought into the political process, its members still carry weapons and have been accused of using their ministry posts to kidnap and kill Sunni Arab men.
The Interior Ministry, whose current leader has close ties to Badr, also has been accused of being a haven for Badr members.
Three names have been floated as possible interior ministers: Ahmad Chalabi, a former Pentagon favorite who presided over the purge of former members of Saddam's Baath party from the government; Maj. Gen. Nasr al-Ameri, a 20-year veteran police commander who's a member of the same tribe as the current head of the Badr Organization, and Qassim Dawoud, an independent Shiite legislator.