Well, 'arms,' anyway
Iraqi assembly member assassinated
Coalition arrests suspected insurgents in northern Iraq
Wednesday, April 27, 2005 Posted: 9:07 AM EDT (1307 GMT)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A female member of Iraq's transitional National Assembly was assassinated Wednesday in eastern Baghdad, the city's emergency police said.
Lamee'a Abd Khidawi, a member of outgoing interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's legislative bloc, was shot to death when she answered the door to her house, police said.
Khidawi is the first assembly member to be killed since the January 30 elections. No one has yet claimed responsibility.
There is not a clear procedure to fill a vacant National Assembly seat.
The assembly has yet to choose a transitional government, but a representative from the office of Iraq's president said Wednesday that the country's prime minister-designate plans to submit a government in the next two days.
The representative for Iraq President Jalal Talabani said the leaders held brief meetings Tuesday and Wednesday and they discussed names of potential candidates for government posts.
But the spokeswoman said Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the prime minister-designate, did not submit a list of Cabinet members and department ministers.
Al-Jaafari must submit a proposed government to the president and the approved list would be subject to a vote by the 275-member assembly by May 7.
But if al-Jaafari fails to meet the due date, the presidential council -- made up of the president and two vice presidents -- would choose Allawi's replacement.
The assembly is meeting Wednesday, then is scheduled to adjourn until May 8. The assembly could decide to convene before that time, and al-Jaafari could submit his government when the assembly isn't in session.
Al-Jaafari and his representatives were not available for comment.
The delays in forming a government reflect the difficulties in finding political common ground in the diverse country of Kurds, Shiite Arabs, Sunni Arabs, Christians and Turkmens.
Politicians, in jockeying for power, have been trying to satisfy the needs of their supporters and other groups who want to be represented in important government positions. The Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance came out on top in the January elections. The Kurdish bloc and interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's list had strong showings as well.
Talabani is a Kurd and al-Jaafari is a Shiite.
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One thing in that article which gave me a chuckle was the fact that there is "no clear procedure to fill a vacant National Assembly seat." When you consider that many who ran for office were so afraid for their lives that they wouldn't put their names on the ballots, you'd think they would have a contingency plan for this sort of thing.