Pressure mounted on Iraq's leaders today to form a new government and start tackling violence after months of political bickering as the top US general said the insurgency was as strong as ever.
Prime minister-designate Ibrahim al-Jaafari was expected to hand his proposed list of cabinet ministers to the three-man presidential council for approval. If passed, the candidates still need a majority vote from the National Assembly.
Hopes of announcing a government have repeatedly been dashed during three months of squabbling over the distribution of ministries to rival sects. Politicians had hoped the election in January would lead Iraq to stability and economic recovery.
Air Force General Richard Myers
Mr Jaafari drew up a cabinet list yesterday but a deal remained elusive as the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff said speeding up the political process would be the best way to weaken the insurgents.
"The political process must go forward," Air Force General Richard Myers told a Pentagon briefing. "We must have a cabinet appointed here very quickly. The ministries must continue to work. People must focus on two things: developing a constitution and developing their ministries into functioning ministries that continue to help."
Despite nearly 140,000 US troops and about the same number of Iraqi security forces, guerrillas have the same capability to attack as they did a year ago, staging 50 or 60 attacks a day, he said.
Gen Myers and US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld noted a recent rise in violence that has coincided with the political impasse over naming a new government.
Iraq's newly powerful Shi'ites and Kurds have been promising to form a government that will also give Sunnis, who lost their grip on power with the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein, an important role in running the country. But Sunni leaders said yesterday they were unhappy with their allotment of ministries.
Iraqi officials fear insurgents have benefited from the wrangling because politicians appear weak and indecisive in a country that has lost thousands of lives to violence since a US-led invasion toppled Saddam in 2003.
A US defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said post-invasion attacks in Iraq were at lower levels 150 to 200 per week until April 2004, when uprisings occurred in Najaf and Anbar province. The first pictures of tortured prisoners from the Abu Ghraib prison were also made public that month.
Afterward, the rate of attacks doubled, to around 400 or more per week, the official said. The number spiked during US offensives in Najaf in August and Fallujah in November.
In January, as Iraq prepared to hold its elections, the numbers increased to as high as 825 attacks in one week. Afterward, the number dropped again to 400 per week in February and 350 in March, leading to some hopes that the insurgency a mix of Saddam loyalists and foreign terrorists was finally ebbing because of the elections.