Juan Cole/Informed Comment - April 8, 2005 Part 1

Friday, April 08, 2005

Jaafari Appointed Prime Minister

Jalal Talabani appears to have had a senior moment of some magnitude. In the course of announcing that Ibrahim Jaafari will be Iraq's new prime minister, he says he suffered a memory lapse and had to leave the podium so an aide could remind him of Jaafari's name. The superstitious took it as an ill omen.

Ash-Sharq al-Awsat reports that Jaafari pledged to make headway on Iraq's poor security, and that he sharply criticized the outgoing government of Iyad Allawi for letting Baathists serve in the security and intelligence forces. Jaafari appears set to purge them.