Baghdad: Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki said yesterday he will announce his choice for the new defence and interior ministers to parliament in three days.
Pressure has been mounting on the PM to fill the crucial security posts amid an increasingly random cycle of violence.
He also said he has asked a ministerial committee to hold talks with US military on the alleged killings of Iraqi civilians in the western city of Haditha last year.
Al Maliki said he had ordered the "national security ministerial committee to follow up on this issue with the multinational forces" and "to hold talks with the multinational forces to formulate ground rules for detentions and raids."
When asked about Iraqi complaints that US forces show no regard for their lives during raids and detentions, Al Maliki said he objected to such practices.
"We cannot forgive violations of the dignity of the Iraqi people," he said during a press conference. He also said the Cabinet had agreed to issue a statement denouncing such practices.
A government adviser, Adnan Al Kazimi, said that the Iraqi government also decided to launch its own probe, to be carried out by a special committee, into the deaths.
Leaving a Cabinet meeting, the prime minister said "the names of the interior and defense ministers will be announced at parliament's next session" on Sunday, ending two weeks of protracted negotiations with Sunni Arabs and Kurds.
He did not divulge the names of the candidates, who must be approved by an overwhelming majority in the 275-member parliament. Three posts remained empty when his Cabinet was sworn in on May 20 defence, interior and minister of state for national security.
In violence yesterday, a bomb struck a group of construction workers seeking jobs in central Baghdad, killing at least two of them and wounding 18, police said. The explosives were hidden in a plastic bag on Tayaran Square, less than a mile from the heavily fortified Green Zone, as the men were gathered near a food stall eating breakfast.
