Iraq’s Prime Minister-designate Mustafa al-Kadhimi has been trying to set up a new cabinet amid public calls for social welfare and the withdrawal of US occupation forces from the Arab country.
Kadhimi, director of Iraq’s National Intelligence Service, met with top members of the outgoing government on Saturday in a bid to put together his cabinet and bring an end to a long-lasting power vacuum.
On Thursday, President Barham Salih named Kadhimi, who enjoys support from the country’s political establishment, as prime minister-designate and tasked him with forming a new government in a month.
He was the third person tapped for the job in just 10 weeks after the former nominee Adnan al-Zurfi withdrew his bid.
Iran welcomed Kadhimi’s nomination for the Iraqi premiership, calling the move a step in the right direction.
The new Iraqi prime minister-designate is facing several challenges, among them calls for economic reforms along with a meaningful fight against corruption in state institutions and the nation’s frustration with the US military presence in Iraq.
Earlier this week, US officials told the Associated Press that Patriot missile launchers and two other short-range systems were in place at Ain al-Asad air base in Iraq’s Anbar Province and at the military facility in Kurdistan’s regional capital, Erbil, without elaborating on where those systems had been taken from.
They further noted that a short-range rocket system had been installed at Camp Taji, north of Baghdad.
The US military build-up not only violates Iraq’s sovereignty, but also poses a threat to the country’s armed forces and defies an Iraqi parliament vote on January 5 that called for an end to the presence of all foreign troops.
The vote came two days after the US assassination of General Soleimani in Iraq, along with Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) or Hashd al-Sha’abi, and eight other Iranian and Iraqi people.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently proposed that Washington and Baghdad “hold a strategic dialogue in June” to discuss the presence of American forces in Iraq.
Speaking on Friday, Kadhimi stressed that Iraq’s sovereignty was a “red line” and that he would not be flexible about it.
On Saturday, some Iraqi sources said Pentagon chief Mark Esper and Vice President Mike Pence had visited Ain al-Asad air base, where they held talks with the Iraqi president.
Source: Press TV
