A Power Vacuum in Iraq

NYT Editorial

Almost six months after Iraqis voted for their first full-term government, two of the most essential jobs in that government remain unfilled: the interior minister, who oversees the police, and the defense minister, who oversees the army. That would be a serious political crisis in any country. It is little short of calamitous for Iraq.

Without a thoroughgoing reform of the police, which have been deeply infiltrated by sectarian and lawless Shiite militia gunmen, the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki will be powerless to halt Iraq's alarming drift toward civil war.

The main Iraqi parties agreed that the Interior Ministry would go to a Shiite and the Defense Ministry to a Sunni Arab. Mr. Maliki's choice for the Defense Ministry, Gen. Abdel Qader Mohammed Jassim, is relatively uncontroversial. But infighting among the Shiite parties, especially obstruction by the Iranian-backed Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, has blocked agreement on a new interior minister. And since Interior and Defense are being treated as a package, both posts remain unfilled.

Iraq's Parliament has the responsibility to resolve this damaging situation, and to do it quickly. Parliament is scheduled to meet today to consider General Jassim and Mr. Maliki's latest nominee for the Interior job, Farouk al-Araji. It should confirm both. Filling these two jobs will not, in itself, prevent civil war. But leaving them unfilled invites it.

Apart from the deadlock over the two ministries, Mr. Maliki has taken some mildly encouraging steps since taking over from the feckless Ibrahim al-Jaafari last month. His recent visit to Basra was designed to highlight a drive to crack down on the out-of-control Shiite militias and local police forces that have been terrorizing that southeastern region. This week, he began releasing thousands of detainees, many of them Sunnis held on relatively minor charges at some of Iraq's most notorious prisons.

But it will take more than gestures for his government to have a real chance of coming to grips with Iraq's overwhelming problems and sectarian divisions. It will require Mr. Maliki's showing he can assert his authority over the feuding militia and party leaders who have paralyzed effective government in Iraq for the past year and a half. Completing his cabinet is a minimum first step.