Iraqi president names Haider al-Abadi new prime minister, defying Maliki

by **Bama Diva** Mon 11 Aug 2014, 2:22 pm

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Post n°1

Iraqi president names Haider al-Abadi new prime minister, defying Maliki

by Bama Diva Mon 11 Aug 2014, 2:22 pm

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Iraqi president names Haider al-Abadi new prime minister, defying Maliki

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BAGHDAD — Iraq’s president named prominent Shiite politician [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] as the country’s new prime minister Monday, dislodging incumbent Nouri al-Maliki after eight years in office despite a show of force as he clung to power.

President Fouad Massoum called on Abadi, a member of Maliki’s ruling party and the deputy speaker of parliament, to form a new government.

Maliki has been standing his ground despite mounting pressure from domestic opponents and the Obama administration for him to step aside. He has been widely blamed for the growth of an insurgency by Sunni Muslim extremists that has ravaged the country.

“Now the Iraqi people are in your hands,” Massoum said as he shook hands with Abadi in a ceremony in Baghdad after Shiite politicians named him as their candidate. Massoum took office last month.

But the security situation in the capital remained tense as Maliki refused to give up his fight. He appeared on television Monday evening flanked by 29 supportive members of the 328-seat parliament.

Maliki did not speak during the appearance, but the group announced that it would fight the appointment of Abadi and that it reserved the right to sue anyone who violates the constitution.

Jumaa al-Adwani, a member of the ruling State of Law coalition, said others in the bloc have “stabbed us in the back” by supporting Abadi.

Maliki sent a letter to the country’s Supreme Court on Monday morning, reiterating that he was head of the State of Law coalition, which alone should be charged with choosing the new prime minister.

The coalition is only represented by its head . . . Mr. Nouri Kamel al-Maliki, and no other member in the leadership has the right to sign any papers or documents or agreements,” Maliki said in the personally signed letter.

“We are entering a potential clash,” said an Iraqi official who spoke on the condition og anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic. “On the ground, we have tanks and armored vehicles. It’s a very complicated situation with the army.”

Maliki consolidated power during his time in office, assuming the posts of head of the armed forces and minister of defense and interior.

However, the army indicated Monday that its loyalties do not lie with him.

“We are the army of Iraq, not of Maliki,” the armed forces said on its official Twitter account. “We will continue to fulfill our promises, and for our nation we shall be defenders.”

Iraqi leaders called for calm. Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said all parties should be responsible and not resort to violence.

In phone calls Monday morning with Massoum and Abadi, the White House said, Vice President Biden “relayed President Obama’s congratulations and restated his commitment to fully support a new and inclusive Iraqi government, particularly in its fight” against the radical Islamist fighters of the group calling itself the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].

Biden told Massoum that he has “the United States’ full support for his role as guarantor of the Iraqi Constitution,” a White House statement said. It said Biden commended Massoum “for meeting this key milestone.”

In Biden’s conversation with Abadi, the White House said, “the Prime Minister-designate expressed his intent to move expeditiously to form a broad-based, inclusive government capable of countering the threat of the Islamic State . . . and building a better future for Iraqis from all communities.”

Earlier Monday, the United States warned Maliki that he risked further destabilizing Iraq and jeopardizing international support by clinging to power.

Secretary of State John F. Kerry made it clear that Maliki, who became prime minister in 2006 with U.S. backing, had lost Washington’s support.

“We believe that the vast majority of Iraqis are united in an effort to be able to have this peaceful transition” to a new government, Kerry said shortly after arriving in Australia for annual security and diplomatic talks. “We believe that the government formation process is critical in terms of sustaining stability and calm in Iraq, and our hope is Mr. Maliki will not stir those waters.”

Kerry spoke a day after Iraqi special forces teams and army tanks surrounded the Green Zone housing the country’s government as Maliki resisted giving up power, escalating a political crisis at a time when Iraq is facing a lethal challenge from the Islamic State.

In actions that had all the markings of a political coup, Maliki gave a defiant speech in Baghdad late Sunday saying he would lodge a legal case against the country’s president, who had resisted naming him as a candidate for another term as prime minister.

Tanks rumbled onto major bridges and roads in the capital as security forces were put on high alert, with militiamen also patrolling Shiite neighborhoods. The special forces teams surrounding the Green Zone were taking orders directly from the prime minister, security officials said.

But there were indications Monday that Maliki’s actions had turned the tide further against him.

“It has backfired and was unwise,” said Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd who served as foreign minister in the Maliki government. “We have passed the stage of military coups and taking power by force.”

He said there was a “major defection” from Maliki’s political coalition in the wake of his “aggressive” speech, with 127 signatures gathered from Shiite members of parliament Monday morning backing Abadi.

Maliki’s critics accused him of overseeing the de facto fragmentation of the country, with extremists from the Sunni-dominated Islamic State marauding through territory in the north and west and threatening Baghdad. They say Maliki, a Shiite, has persecuted and alienated members of the Sunni minority, driving them into the arms of radical groups.

Although Kerry said the choice of leader is up to Iraqis, he made clear Monday that U.S. patience with Maliki has run out.

“Iraq has clearly made a statement that they are looking for change,” Kerry said in Sydney.

Maliki dug in his heels as his majority Shiite bloc swung away from him and prepared [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] as prime minister. The United States has backed Iraq’s president in a constitutional standoff with Maliki as the country missed a deadline last week to name a new prime minister.

Maliki accuses Massoum, from the ethnic Kurdish minority, of violating the constitution by missing the deadline. The political crisis is paralyzing Baghdad as the Islamic State surges across the country’s north and west. The United States agreed last week to Maliki’s long-standing request for American airstrikes against the militants, but U.S. officials stress that the military action is not intended to gird Maliki’s political position.

“We stand absolutely, squarely behind President Massoum,” Kerry said before the appointment of Abadi as the new prime minister.

“Among the Shia, it is very, very evident that they have three candidates or so for prime minister, none of whom are Mr. Maliki,” Kerry said.

He urged calm and a speedy move to form the new government.

“There should be no use of force, no introduction of troops or militias into this moment of democracy for Iraq,” Kerry said.

“There will be little international support of any kind whatsoever for anything that deviates from the legitimate constitutional process that is in place and being worked on now,” he added.

In Twitter messages after the appointment of Abadi was announced, senior State Department official Brett H. McGurk said the United States welcomes Massoum’s decision.

“ The United States stands ready to fully support a new and inclusive Iraqi government, particularly in its fight against” the Islamic State insurgents, said McGurk, who serves as deputy assistant secretary of state for Iraq and Iran.

The United States began [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]in northern Iraq on Friday as the al-Qaeda-inspired Islamic State threatened previously stable Kurdish territory, sending thousands of minority Christians and Yazidis [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. But Obama has established limited goals in the air operation, linking further assistance to the formation of a new government in Baghdad that is more inclusive of Sunnis.

The latest crisis came on a day when Kurdish forces expelled Islamic State extremists from two northern Iraqi towns, in the first signs of a turnaround for the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]after a week of stunning losses to [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. Their success came in the wake of U.S. airstrikes on the towns.

A senior State Department official would not say whether the United States is providing arms to the Kurdish pesh merga forces but made clear that the Obama administration is participating in some way in a coordinated international effort.

“They are being armed from various sources,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to give limited details on the secretive operation.

“They’re getting some things pretty rapidly,” the official said.

Gearan reported from Sydney. Mustafa Salim in Baghdad; Liz Sly in Fishkhabour, Iraq; and William Branigin and Hunter Schwarz in Washington contributed to this report.

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by **Rocky** Mon 11 Aug 2014, 2:38 pm

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Post n°2

Re: Iraqi president names Haider al-Abadi new prime minister, defying Maliki

by Rocky Mon 11 Aug 2014, 2:38 pm

Iraq president spurns Maliki and nominates new PM

Today at 11:39 am

Baghdad (AFP) - Iraq moved closer to turning the page on Nuri al-Maliki's reign when an alternative prime minister was named Monday to steer the country out of a raging war and save it from breakup.

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"The country is in your hands," President Fuad Masum told Haidar al-Abadi after accepting his nomination by parliament's Shiite bloc, in a move immediately welcomed by the United States.

Washington had warned Maliki against stirring trouble after the two-term premier gave a defiant midnight television address suggesting he was ready to fight for his job to the very end.

Haidar al-Abadi was somewhat of a dark horse in the months-long political wrangling over who should be nominated for prime minister after April elections.

The coalition headed by Maliki, who has been prime minister since 2006, won the vote comfortably but his increasingly sectarian policies were seen as partly responsible for the violence that has gripped Iraq recently.

People in a Sunni neighbourhood of the city of Baquba gathered in the street and fired shots in the air to celebrate Maliki's defeat.

.. View gallery
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki attends a press …
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki attends a press conference in Baghdad, on June 23, 2014 (AFP Pho …

"The United States stands ready to fully support a new and inclusive Iraqi government," Brett McGurk, the US deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern, said.

A Shiite politician considered close to Maliki, Abadi was born in Baghdad in 1952 and returned from British exile in 2003 when US-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein.

US President Barack Obama, who on Thursday sent warplanes back into the skies over Iraq to halt a devastating jihadist advance in the north, had repeatedly stressed that any viable solution to Iraq's woes would have to start with the formation of a new government.

- Maliki's last stand -

It had become clear in recent weeks that Maliki had lost support from Washington. Gradually, all his other erstwhile allies followed: Iran, the Shiite clergy and even his own Dawa party.
Moments before Maliki spoke on television, special forces, soldiers and police deployed across Baghdad, especially around the Green Zone district housing the country's key institutions.

Several of the capital's main thoroughfares and bridges were closed to traffic and on Monday morning unusual numbers of security personnel, uniformed and plain-clothed, remained deployed across the city.

His television address, in which he vowed to sue Masum for failing to choose him as prime minister, had dispelled any hope he would step down gracefully.

On Monday afternoon, even as the president shook hands with Abadi, Maliki sent his supporters to protest on Baghdad's main square.

As the long-running political deadlock was broken, there was no let-up in the violence that wracked Iraq since Sunni extremist militants launched an offensive on June 9.
Islamic State (IS) jihadist fighters wrested control of the town of Jalawlab from Kurdish peshmerga troops, who have been stretched thin along a 1,000-kilometre front.

They have struggled to defend their own autonomous region from jihadist attacks and France asked Monday for a European-wide mobilisation to provide the peshmerga with much-needed weaponry and ammunition.

The Kurds have long complained that Maliki was not sending them their 17 percent share of federal oil resources.

- Arms for Kurds -

Kurdish peshmerga fighters then seized long-coveted areas over which they were in dispute with Baghdad, including the oil-rich Kirkuk region, when routed federal forces retreated in the face of the jihadist onslaught two months ago.
That prompted Maliki to accuse the Kurdistan Regional Government of siding with the Islamic State (IS) group and the "caliphate" it declared in late June over parts of Iraq and Syria.

Cash-strapped Kurdistan's troops initially fared better than Baghdad's but over the past week jihadists made spectacular gains, seizing the country's largest dam and advancing within striking distance of the Kurdish capital.

That was one of the reasons that prompted US President Barack Obama to announce on Thursday he was sending warplanes back over the skies of Iraq for the first time since the last US troops withdrew in 2011.

His other justification was the risk of an impending genocide against the Yazidi minority, many of whose people had been stranded on a mountain following an Islamic State attack.

Three days of strikes by US jets and drones appeared to make an impact on both fronts, raising hopes that US intervention could turn the tide on two months of jihadist expansion.

"The peshmerga have liberated Makhmur and Gwer," peshmerga spokesman Halgord Hekmat told AFP, adding that "US aerial support helped".

Meanwhile, officials said 20,000 mostly Yazidi civilians who had been trapped on Mount Sinjar since jihadists overran their hub of Sinjar a week ago had managed to escape.

They were escorted through Syria and back into Iraqi Kurdistan by Kurdish forces and added to the more than 200,000 displaced persons who have already entered the autonomous region since August 3, according to figures provided by several aid groups.

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by **Bama Diva** Mon 11 Aug 2014, 2:41 pm

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Post n°3

Abadi gets 127 votes for the position of prime minister -

by Bama Diva Mon 11 Aug 2014, 2:41 pm

Abadi gets 127 votes for the position of prime minister -

11-08-2014 02:25 PM

Baghdad (news) .. source revealed, that the National Alliance has formally handed over to the President of the Republic Fuad Masum decision nominated the leader of the Islamic Dawa Party and First Vice current House Speaker Haider Abadi for the post of prime minister in the new government. According to the source (of the Agency news): The head of the National Alliance, Ibrahim al-Jaafari visited President Fuad Masum headquarters and handed the nomination, noting Abadi got in on the nomination by 127 votes from the forces of the National Alliance ./anthy/b.kh/

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