Iraq Shi'ites Debate PM Choice, Allies After Poll
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Iraq's main Shi'ite alliance, fresh  from winning landmark elections, gathered on Monday to choose a  candidate for prime minister and the allies it needs after  failing to win an absolute majority.
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Arab officials and commentators said Tuesday they feared the budding dialogue between Washington and Iran could cut them out of the debate over the future of Iraq, one of the region's most important countries.
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The Shia Muslim bloc that won Iraq's election nominates Ibrahim Jaafari as prime minister, sources say.
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BAGHDAD, Nov. 27 -- Iraq's Shiite Muslim parties and the religious leadership headed by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani on Saturday rejected a demand by other communities for a delay in nationwide elections scheduled for Jan. 30, in an escalating dispute that magnifies the country's ethnic and sectarian fault lines.
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Rivals debate Iraq, experience and healthcare - but strive for party unity
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BAGHDAD -- After more than a week of fighting between the Mahdi Army and the combined US and Iraqi forces in Najaf, Baghdad's Sadr City, and a half-dozen other cities, analysts say neither interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi nor radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr had any good options left other than to talk.
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NAJAF, Iraq  - Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki met on Wednesday with the reclusive leader of Iraq's Shi'ite majority, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, to discuss a government crisis in which nearly half his cabinet has quit.
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Iraq's politicians are trying to stitch together a new majority alliance in parliament that would leave Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in power and freeze out backers of a powerful Shiite cleric who is leading a political standoff, officials said Thursday.
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Talks on who would get what in Iraq's newly elected National Assembly were under way even before the final results came in, but the clergy-backed Shiites, whose winning margin was less than what they expected, may now have to compromise more than anticipated.
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Group favored to win Iraq election tried to play down fears that it would bring an Iranian-style government to country.
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Top Shiite politicians failed to reach a consensus Wednesday on their nominee for prime minister, shifting the two-man race to a secret ballot and exposing divisions in the winning alliance. In a chilling reminder of challenges facing the winner, a videotape showed a sobbing Italian hostage pleading for her life.
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The contest for Iraq's next prime minister narrowed Monday after the French-educated finance minister removed himself from consideration within the ranks of the Shiite alliance that won the most votes in the national elections, a spokesman said.
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BAGHDAD, Dec 9  - Iraq&#39;s majority Shiite Muslims on Thursday unveiled a broad alliance ahead of next month&#39;s key elections that is backed by their highest religious leader but which excludes radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
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Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Sunday responded to critics in the U.S. Congress, saying his government had kept Iraq from sliding into sectarian civil war.
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An Islamist Shi'ite politician and  former exile emerged as the front-runner to become Iraq's new  prime minister Tuesday as horse-trading to decide the line-up  of the next government entered the final stages.
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Iraqi and U.S. officials are nervous about whether the recent handover of power in Iraq is too late. They also are worried about whether Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi has sufficient legitimacy among Iraqis.
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BAGHDAD -- Shi'ite politicians demanded changes in Iraq's government yesterday, accusing a Sunni Arab party in the coalition of ties to terrorism after a bodyguard for its leader was arrested on suspicion of planning bomb attacks.