Jalal Talabani told al-Hayat that he feared that the concerns among the Shiite religious parties about Sunni Arab cabinet ministers being completely free of any Baath association would cause the baby to be thrown out with the bath water. It is this issue of vetting the Sunni Arab ministers that appears to have delayed the finalization of the cabinet, along with continued Sunni Arab demands for some important ministries. Talabani warned against any purge of ex-Baathists, pointing out that there there are a million and a half Baathists in Iraq. He said it was important to distinguish between ordinary party members and the Baath military. The latter had to be kept away from the levers of power, he said, lest it make another coup similar to the one in 1968.

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