3 of 5 top Iraqi Gov positions are council members

[mburbank]

" Iraqis have a strong sense of irony — every discussion about politics or economics in this country seems to begin with a sardonic or mordant observation: Isn't it odd that a nation with the world's second-largest oil reserves should also have mile-long queues at gas stations? Isn't it strange that the Americans, who made such a big deal of Saddam Hussein's treatment of prisoners, brutalized their own Iraqi captives in Abu Ghraib? And so on.

So, it was entirely appropriate that discussion over the appointment of Iraq's new interim government was laced with its own special irony: The two men at the top of the list announced Tuesday were just last month ranked bottom of a list of potential leaders — by their own countrymen.

A poll conducted in May by the Iraq Center for Research and Strategic Studies (ICRSS) asked Iraqis to rank 17 prominent religious and political leaders. Iyad Allawi, Prime Minister of the interim government that will take over administrative power from the Coalition Provisional Authority on June 30, finished in sixteenth place. Behind him, dead last, came Ghazi al-Yawer, who on Tuesday was named president of the interim government. "

-Time Magazine