Iraq prime minister trims Cabinet

BAGHDAD – Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Sunday ordered his Cabinet reduced from 33 members to just 22, consolidating the body as part of a major reform push in response to mass protests against corruption and poor governance.

The decision, announced by his office, would eliminate four ministries, including those of human rights and women’s affairs, and consolidate others. The announcement did not mention whether there would be any changes to the remaining ministries.

The move follows a far-reaching reform plan approved by parliament last week that eliminated the country’s three vice presidencies and three deputy prime ministers. The plan also reduced the budget for the personal bodyguards of senior officials and transferred it to the interior and defense ministries.

The reform plan cut positions held by a number of prominent Iraqi politicians, including Nouri al-Maliki, who was prime minister of Iraq for eight years before he was pushed out last August in response to growing outrage over the fall of Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, to the Islamic State group.

Earlier Sunday, Parliament Speaker Salim al-Jabouri said lawmakers would release a report later this week implicating senior officials in the fall of Mosul. He said the report “will document an important and dangerous phase of the history of modern Iraq.”

“No one is above the law and the accountability of the people,” al-Jabouri said in a statement. “The judiciary will punish perpetrators and delinquents.”

Al-Maliki will be implicated in the report, along with more than two dozen other officials, including army chief Babikar Zebari and Atheel al-Nujaifi, the governor of Nineveh province, where Mosul is located, according to a lawmaker who declined to be identified as he is not authorized to brief the media.

The country’s supreme judicial council said Sunday that it would hold a special session today to review proposed reforms by all its branches across Iraq.