BAGHDAD, 29 April 2005 — After nearly three months of political wrangling, Iraq’s National Assembly approved a Cabinet lineup yesterday laying the groundwork for the first elected government since Saddam Hussein was ousted to take power.

However, two key posts in the 37-member Cabinet — defense and oil — remained disputed and the list failed to incorporate in a meaningful way the Sunni minority due to a dispute over the suitability of Baathists who served in Saddam’s regime.

The naming of a new government had been seen as a key step in ending Iraq’s insurgency, which is believed to be largely driven by Sunnis, and there had been fears that the political bickering had emboldened militants who have staged a series of well-coordinated attacks in recent weeks.

The new Cabinet also marked another surprising political comeback for former Pentagon favorite Ahmad Chalabi, a Shiite who will be one of four deputy prime ministers and acting oil minister. Prime Minister-designate Ibrahim Jaafari told reporters that decisions over two vacant deputy prime ministers’ slots and five acting ministerial positions will be made in three to four days.

The new Cabinet went into its first meeting the same night to discuss the handover between outgoing Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and Jaafari, which is also expected within days, lawmakers said.

Iraqi politicians have been under increasing US pressure to get a transitional government in place so they can focus on taking over efforts to suppress the insurgency.

Jaafari said the challenges the new government faces over security, services and reconstruction are significant, but the Iraqis who “challenged tyranny” by voting for a new Parliament Jan. 30 “will help this government to succeed and will not be intimidated.”

A total of 180 of the 185 lawmakers present approved the list by a show of hands, Speaker Hajim Al-Hassani announced to applause. Ninety lawmakers were absent for the vote.

“This is the first step in building the new Iraq,” Jaafari told lawmakers. “The main thing to keep in mind is that no one will be excluded. Whether in the Cabinet or not, all sides will have the right to participate in the political process.”

Ghazi Al-Yawar, Iraq’s deputy president, himself a Sunni, said he was disappointed by the new Cabinet. “The number of ministries given to the Sunnis is not enough,” he told reporters.

But he also said the issue could be resolved in the near future as Iraq’s democratic transition continues. It will involve the writing of a constitution, its passage in a public referendum and an election for a new government by year’s end.

Jaafari submitted a broad-based Cabinet, including members of Iraq’s main Shiite, Sunni, Kurdish and Christian factions. But disputes remained over two deputy prime ministers’ slots and the defense, oil, electricity, industry and human rights ministries.

Allawi’s Iraqi List party was not included in the new Cabinet. Many Shiites have long resented the secular Allawi, accusing his outgoing administration of including former Baathists in the government and security forces. Jaafari himself will be acting defense minister, a position that was supposed to go to a Sunni. Kurdish official and former Vice President Rowsch Nouri Shaways will be another deputy and acting electricity minister.

Jaafari has struggled to reconcile the competing demands of Iraq’s myriad factions since the landmark January elections.

In new attacks yesterday, insurgents fired at least six mortar rounds toward a US military base Musayyib, 60 kilometers south of Baghdad, but hit a nearby bus station instead, killing four Iraqis and wounding 21, US and Iraqi officials said. The attack took place during the city’s busy morning commute.

US forces sent a five-man medical team to the bus station, including a doctor, to help the wounded, and Iraqi forces brought medical supplies, the US military said in a statement.

In northern Iraq, near Tikrit, a suicide car bomb exploded near an Iraqi Army checkpoint, wounding four Iraqi soldiers, three US soldiers and seven Iraqi civilians, the US military said. In the capital, Lt. Col. Alaa Khalil Ibrahim, who worked in the visa section of the Interior Ministry, was shot dead on the way to work by gunmen in a Baghdad neighborhood.

— With input from agencies