Karzai opts for status quo in cabinet

President Hamid Karzai opted for continuity over change in the list of Cabinet nominees he presented to Afghanistan's parliament on Saturday, retaining some leaders supported by the West but also several viewed as incompetent and two accused of fraud that tainted the recent presidential election.

The Cabinet reshuffle was the first major test of whether Karzai could shed corrupt or ineffective officials and win over members of the opposition -- the type of bold changes President Obama was hoping for when he decided to commit an additional 30,000 troops to fight a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan.

By those standards, the Cabinet list was not encouraging.

Of the 24 nominees, half are ministers who would stay in their current positions or who have served previously in Karzai's government. The list did not include even a token member of the main opposition party. And at least one known warlord, Ismail Khan, was nominated to serve again as the minister of electricity and water.

In an effort to show they were not meddling in Afghan decisions, the Americans and the United Nations put out anodyne statements, calling it a government they could work with.

Mahmoud Sakhel, an expert on international relations and a former deputy foreign minister for Karzai, said the problem with the American approach is that it focused on individual ministers when he said the entire system is troubled.

"The United States is chasing personalities instead of institution; they are thinking very short-term," he said. "This country needs a functioning legislative body, a functioning executive branch and a functioning judiciary. If we don't have these institutions, personalities don't matter; we will lose the war on terror in the long term."

Pakistan's ruling party leaders insisted Saturday that they supported President Asif Ali Zardari and would not oust other top government officials after the Supreme Court struck down an amnesty shielding them from corruption charges. But defiant moves by party leaders since Wednesday's sweeping -- and popularly hailed -- court ruling has so deepened the political turmoil in this nuclear-armed U.S. ally that some analysts gave the government only months to survive.

The United States provided firepower, intelligence and other support to the government of Yemen as it carried out raids last week to strike at suspected hide-outs of Al-Qaida within its borders, according to officials familiar with the operations. The raids killed at least 34 militants in the broadest attack on the terrorist group in years.

NEWS SERVICES