"After delay, Iraq appoints two to posts for security" by Kirk Semple | New York Times October 19, 2014
BAGHDAD — After weeks of negotiations, Iraq’s Parliament approved on Saturday two nominees to lead ministries responsible for the nation’s security forces, filling voids that highlighted sectarian tensions in the government as the country tries to mount an effective military response to the Islamic State.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had struggled to fill the powerful Cabinet posts as he sought candidates with enough support to win approval but not so contentious as to undermine the tenuous unity government of Shi’ites, Sunnis, and Kurds.
The ministries — interior and defense — are particularly important because each controls an array of security forces fighting the Islamic State. Many lawmakers, regardless of their misgivings about one candidate or the other, welcomed the vote as a matter of survival for the country.
“We have two names for two ministries and it’s not about their personalities,” Mithal al-Alusi, a Sunni lawmaker, said. “It’s about Iraq and about the situation we are in right now.”
Abadi, a Shi’ite, has been under pressure to form a more representative government that can bridge the country’s divides and win the trust of Sunnis alienated by the highly sectarian policies of his predecessor, Nouri al-Maliki. The advance of Islamic State was enabled in part by disenchantment among Sunnis.
For interior minister, a coveted post overseeing the nation’s police forces, the lawmakers approved Mohammed Salem al-Ghabban, a member of the Badr Organization, a Shi’ite political group that controls a militia fighting alongside government forces against the Islamic State.
The Badr Organization had been pressing Abadi to name one of its members to reflect the party’s strong showing in the recent parliamentary elections.
Abadi had been reluctant to pick a Badr candidate because he feared that appointing someone closely associated with a militia would jeopardize his plan for a more inclusive administration.
The Badr Organization’s armed wing has been accused of torturing and killing Sunnis, especially during the sectarian violence of the mid-2000s.
Abadi had won praise from Sunnis for resisting the candidacy of the Badr Organization’s chief, Hadi al-Ameri. Badr officials, however, reportedly threatened to withdraw from the government if one of their members was not nominated for the post.
Ghabban, a longtime activist against Saddam Hussein, was detained in 1979 and later lived in exile in Iran.
That's where Abadi's first trip was?
His candidacy was opposed by some Sunni lawmakers who said Ghabban was simply a proxy for Ameri.
In choosing nominees for his Cabinet, Abadi has been somewhat constrained by Iraq’s sectarian power-sharing arrangements, which reserve the Interior Ministry for a Shi’ite and the Defense Ministry for a Sunni.
In the vote for defense minister, lawmakers approved Khalid al-Obeidi, a Sunni member of Parliament and an engineer in the Iraqi air force for 18 years.
He represents Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, which has been under the control of the Islamic State since June.
The voting went quickly without debate, and the candidates passed by wide margins.
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What are they up to lately?
"Citing need to fight graft, Iraqi leader orders shake-up of military" by Hamza Hendawi and Ryan Lucas | Associated Press November 13, 2014
BAGHDAD — Iraq’s prime minister on Wednesday ordered his first major shake-up of his military since taking office three months ago, relieving 26 army officers of their commands and retiring 10 others as a monitoring group said airstrikes by a US-led coalition against the Islamic State group and other extremists in neighboring Syria have killed more than 860 people, including civilians, since they began in September.
The Iraqi military shake-up, which included the appointment of 18 new commanders, was ordered ‘‘as part of efforts to reinforce the work of the military on the basis of professionalism and fighting graft in all its forms,’’ according to a statement posted on Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s official website.
‘‘The aim is not to punish anyone, but rather to improve our military performance,’’ Abadi later said in comments to senior army officers.
A government official said the shake-up followed the findings of a probe ordered last month by Abadi on corruption in the military. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Under Iraq’s constitution, Abadi, like Nouri al-Maliki before him, holds the post of General Commander of the Armed Forces. But it was Maliki, now a vice president, who had tightly controlled the military during his eight-year rule, with several elite units taking their orders directly from him.
Maliki, in the final months of his administration, had spoken at length about corruption in the military — particularly in the wake of an embarrassing rout of Iraqi forces which saw the Islamic State militants capture about a third of the country in a few months. He cited cases where soldiers paid half their salaries to their commanders so they could stay away from their units and work a second job. He also relieved several top commanders from their command and ordered others investigated for dereliction of duty.
Maliki was tossed because he told US forces to leave, then won the vote the U.S. hoped he'd lose, and thus phantom ISIS was siced upon him until he was removed -- and here we are.
Abadi’s move comes as government security forces and Shi’ite militias have largely halted the Islamic State militants’ advance, even rolling them back from some areas with the help of coalition airstrikes. But heavy fighting still rages on multiple fronts, and attacks on government troops and civilians remain common, particularly in Baghdad.
See: Bombs kill 17 in and near Baghdad
You got that narrative, though?
We ARE winning!
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