New Afghan Cabinet Picks Still Generate Resistance

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By ALISSA J. RUBIN and SANGAR RAHIMI

KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai made a second effort to fill his cabinet on Saturday, nominating 16 new ministers a week after Parliament had rejected most of his first choices.

But several Parliament members said they were as unimpressed by the new slate, which included many political unknowns, as they were with the first one. Their displeasure could prolong the stalemate that has left Afghanistan without a fully functional government since the widely criticized presidential election last summer.

Also on Saturday, Afghan officials signed an agreement that will allow the American military to begin the process of transferring responsibility for the notorious prison at Bagram Air Base to Afghan control.

When Parliament rejected 17 of Mr. Karzai’s first batch of 24 nominees, the move was hailed by some analysts as a sign of the legislature’s newfound independence.

The legislators asked that Mr. Karzai choose more technocrats who had expertise in the work of the ministries they were nominated to lead.

The new slate includes a number of highly educated nominees and three women, an increase over the first list and a point praised by several Parliament members. But they said the new list still depended too heavily on political ties to Mr. Karzai and not enough on competence.

“This is the same as the previous list,” said Mir Ahmed Joyenda, an independent Parliament member from Kabul, whose views echoed those of several Parliament members interviewed. “It is like a limited company and those people who have supported Mr. Karzai, they each have a share.

“They introduced new names, maybe they have higher education, but are not known to the people and do not have expertise in their ministries,” he said.

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Another Parliament member, Daoud Sultanzoi from Ghazni, a predominantly Pashtun area, also cited a lack of substantive expertise. “In Afghanistan we need more than political confidants in these jobs, we need people who can build those ministries.”

He cited Mr. Karzai’s nominee for transportation minister, who he said was a hydroelectric engineer. “This is a ministry where we cannot afford to lose time,” he said. “We’re losing a lot of revenue in that ministry, aviation is a shambles, road transport is a shambles, so we need someone who can do that job, who knows about those specific areas.”

In contrast, the main Uzbek party, Junbish-e-Milli, which is allied with the former commander Abdul Rashid Dostum, said it was satisfied with the new list and hoped that it would be approved.

“All the tribes living in Afghanistan can see their presence in this list,” said Sayed Noorullah Sadat, a leader of Mr. Dostum’s party.

“We are happy with the ethnic distribution of posts; however, we were happy with the previous cabinet as well, but unfortunately they couldn’t get the vote of confidence,” he said.

Two Hazara members of Parliament agreed that the ethnic mix was representative, but that many of the nominees were unknown. “Still they are better than the old portraits who now hold the posts,” said Abbas Nooyan from Kabul.

The agreement on Bagram, signed by the Afghan ministries of Defense and Justice, clears the way for the American military to begin a program of training and preparation for the Afghans to take charge of the prison, which houses more than 700 detainees captured by the American military.

Initially, the Defense Ministry will run the center, but it will eventually be handed over to the Justice Ministry, which oversees jails and prisons, said Col. Stephen Clutter, the spokesman for American detainee operations in Afghanistan.

The prison was notorious for its conditions in the early years of the war, with hundreds of detainees held in cages and subjected to abuse and harsh conditions. A new prison was opened two months ago, improving conditions, although detainees there still have no right to a lawyer and can be held indefinitely without charge.

Three NATO service members were killed in the last two days, according to a NATO spokesman. One, who had been wounded by a bomb in southern Afghanistan, died Saturday. The other two died Friday, one when he was struck by a bomb in southern Afghanistan and the other from injuries from a vehicle accident.

In Herat, insurgents attacked a building on Saturday that was recently acquired by the United States government as a consular office. They fired at least one rocket that damaged the third floor.

A major raid by NATO troops in a rural district of Kandahar Province captured more than three tons of illegal drugs in a truck, including more than 5,300 pounds of processed opium, more than 1,000 pounds of wet opium paste and about 50 pounds of heroin, according to a NATO spokesman in Kabul.