New Iraq®

The new interim government is now in place, replacing the American-appointed Iraqi Governing Council with the American pressure-appointed government, headed, in a "largely ceremonial role" by president Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar and by the real head, prime minister Iyad Allawi. There are two vice-presidents, one a Shi'ite and one a Kurd. Yawar is a Sunni. Allawi is a CIA contact.

After two days of bitter confrontation, the United States and U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi finally accepted Yawar in the largely ceremonial role of head of state after their preferred candidate, elder statesman Adnan Pachachi, turned down the job.

...Iyad Allawi, the Shi'ite former exile with close links to the CIA whom the Council nominated as prime minister on Friday, then announced a government that included only two other Council members among 26 cabinet ministers and five junior ministers.

"The vast majority of the cabinet are fresh faces," said a U.S. official. "Not everybody can be pleased in a democracy."

  Reuters article

George should borrow that phrase for future speeches.

U.S. and U.N. officials had said in the past that the Governing Council did not have the right to make appointments on its own. But it caught Brahimi off guard on Friday by announcing the appointment of one of their number as prime minister.

And he's the one that counts.

It was unclear why Washington was objecting to Yawar. He has criticised the U.S.-drafted U.N. resolution that sets out the handover plan, complaining it gives Iraqis too little control of foreign troops and Iraq's oil revenues.

What's not clear then? Didn't we just go through that?

Of course they are only there until elections can be held.

We were building an ersatz democracy again. A technical democracy, where everyone had the oppportunity to vote in an election where every other process leading to those elections would be controlled by the people with the money. A democracy where we pretend that the power of money has no connection to the political process.
-- Hideous Dream - Stan Goff (Army Ret.), on the 1994 U.S. invasion of Haiti

The interim government was due to be formally sworn in later in the same building in the U.S. Green Zone compound, formerly Saddam's main palace complex, where the ousted dictator is expected to stand trial for crimes against humanity.

And while the congratulations were underway...

A car bomb exploded Tuesday in central Baghdad outside the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan near the green zone headquarters of the U.S.-run coalition. At least three people were killed and 20 were injured.

...The bomb was one of several blasts heard in the capital just after reports circulated that Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer, current head of the Iraqi Governing Council, had been selected as president of the interim government set to take power June 30.

  Fox News article

Not everybody can be pleased in a democracy.