Mortars hit Green Zone compound: Iraqi rival blocs fail to agree on government

Iraq's new parliament met for the first time on Wednesday more than six weeks after elections, but rival blocs failed to agree on a government and al Qaeda insurgents targeted the meeting with a mortar barrage. During the two-hour inaugural ceremony, politicians pledged stability in Iraq, after windows rattled and lights flickered when mortars struck the fortified Green Zone compound.
No damage or casualties were reported in the attack claimed by al Qaeda's wing in Iraq.
US President George W. Bush, who led a war to oust Saddam Hussein in 2003, called the session a "hopeful moment". Iraqi politicians described it was a step forwards for the country despite a failure to appoint a government.
"We are part of history," said Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum, a candidate for oil minister. "This assembly has to succeed in charting the principles of a democratic, united Iraq."
But without a government in place, the parliament cannot yet draft legislation to try to bring normality to a country plagued by relentless violence.
The Shia Islamist alliance that won 140 seats - just over half of the 275-member National Assembly - and the Kurdish coalition that came second with 75 seats are deadlocked in negotiations over a government that have dragged on for weeks.
There is tentative agreement that Ibrahim Jaafari of the Shia Dawa party will be prime minister and Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani will be president, with a Sunni Arab candidate probably being offered the job of parliament speaker.
But talks have stalled over Kurdish demands to expand their northern autonomous zone to include the strategic oil city of Kirkuk and over the fate of the Kurdish peshmerga militias, which Shias want absorbed in Iraq's official security forces. The Kurds also want guarantees Iraq will remain secular. Jaafari said a deal would be reached soon.
Politicians had hoped for a deal before parliament sat, but one Shia official described recent political bargaining as "arguments of the deaf".
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, one of the staunchest allies of US President George W. Bush, said Rome would start to pull troops out of Iraq in September.
Berlusconi said he was also in talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair about a total exit strategy from Iraq, adding that people in both countries - where the 2003 US-led invasion was unpopular - wanted their troops to return home.
Blair said in London he would not set a timetable for a troop withdrawal, saying it should happen when "the job is done, not before".