BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 5 - Iraq's major political parties agreed this evening to appoint a president and two vice presidents at a meeting of the national assembly on Wednesday, according to a senior assembly leader, breaking a two-month deadlock in negotiations to form a new government.
The main Shiite and Kurdish political blocs have agreed to name Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish leader, as president; Adel Abdul Mahdi, a prominent Shiite Arab politician, as vice president; and Sheik Ghazi al-Yawar, the Sunni Arab president of the interim government, as the other vice president, said Hussein al-Shahristani, a vice speaker of the assembly.
Read the whole thing here.
This is a major step toward creating a functioning interim government, but there is still much to do. These three men will jointly choose a prime minister who will then form a government which will have to be approved by the assembly. Progress is being made.
The investment ceremony will be tomorrow, and it will be staged in full view of Saddam Hussein.
AP reports:
Ousted dictator Saddam Hussein will be able to watch from his Baghdad jail cell as Iraq's newly elected parliament chooses a new president Wednesday....
"This is a very important session because this is the first time in Iraq's history that the president and his deputies are elected in a legitimate and democratic way by the Iraqi people," he said. "That's why the Iraqi government thought it would be beneficial that the former dictator see this unique process."
Read it here.
And the population is increasingly rallying to the emerging interim government.
AP reports:
MARIAM FAM
BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. and Iraqi officials say they have seen an increase in calls tipping off authorities in recent weeks, and officials say it's a sign the country's fledgling security forces are winning the trust of citizens, turning them against the insurgency.
The growing willingness of Iraqis to cooperate with officials is perhaps also a testimony to the insurgency's own mistakes, which have cost it the sympathy of some. Many say they simply are tired of violence that has overshadowed their lives or claimed people they love.
In a sign the phenomenon is gathering momentum, some Iraqis told The Associated Press that when they called in information, they were told others already had reported the same incident.
Read the whole thing here.
Some of the shift in public attitudes is apparently due to a TV series that features taped confessions of captured terrorists.
I blogged these programs here and here.
Itis good to see that they are having an effect.
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