Since the Sunni are being a major pain in Maliki’s ass, he now wants to cut the size of his cabinet. Would anyone like to bet which ministers were on the chopping block?

Maliki has said for months he wanted a reshuffle to cull inefficient ministers and bring in more technocrats. On Tuesday, he acknowledged the government’s performance had been poor.

“It has been agreed to have a total Cabinet reshuffle by reducing the number of ministries from 36, to 20 or 22 ministries,” Sami al-Askari, a Shiite member of Parliament and senior Maliki adviser, said on state Iraqiyya television.

“The prime minister must have the complete right to select his ministries. At that point, the prime minister can be held accountable for his choices,” Maliki said.

Cabinet posts reflect a quota system largely based on seats held in Parliament by the Shiite majority, minority Sunni Arabs and Kurds. This has made many ministers more loyal to their political and sectarian blocs than Maliki.

Maliki is desparate to find a way to make his US handlers happy. This move will be to try and find a way to give the US at least oine of the “benchmarks” that they wat. The passage of the oil law.

CHUQ

Well thanx to the world, news media has stories from yesterday on a loop so they can take a nap. I got nothing today, but I did find this story about a Bush speech on the 4th.

“More than two decades [sic] later,” the president said, “it is hard to imagine the Revolutionary War coming out any other way. But at the time, America’s victory was far from certain. In other words, when we celebrated the first 4th of July celebration, our struggle for independence was far from certain.”

The allusion clearly was to the uncertainty that shrouds the war in Iraq. But also to the prospect of eventual victory there, as well. Recently, President Bush had stopped using the words “win” or “victory” when talking about Iraq. But he once again called for triumph in his West Virginia speech.

However difficult the fight is in Iraq, we must win it,” Mr. Bush said. “We must succeed for our own sake. For the security of our citizens, we must support our troops, we must support the Iraqi government, and we must defeat al-Qaida in Iraq,” the president said to a round of applause.

I love the fact that a draft dodger, legal dodger, went into the National Guard to avoid Vietnam and now he wants to tell me all about what needs to be done in Iraq. Since it is his idea I say let us take up a collection and send him to Iraq and put his wonderful plan into operation.

CHUQ