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Iran president names hardline cabinet team
Sun Aug 14, 2005 11:22 AM ET



By Paul Hughes

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's new president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday
submitted for approval a cabinet list putting hardliners in charge of
foreign affairs, intelligence and several other key ministries.

The former Tehran mayor, who won a stunning election victory in June, is a
religious conservative who has vowed to tackle poverty and corruption in
this Islamic Republic and pursue an independent foreign policy.

But several lawmakers, who must approve the ministerial choices, complained
that some of the nominees lacked experience.

"I thought ... Ahmadinejad would announce a stronger cabinet. Some of the
nominees are very weak," said independent deputy Qodratollah Alikhani.

Most controversial was Ahmadinejad's choice of acting Tehran mayor Ali
Saeedlou to head the Oil Ministry of the world's fourth largest crude oil
producer.

Saeedlou was the president's right-hand-man at the municipality, organizing
the capital's finances. But despite his degree in geology, many oil
executives have expressed concern that he has no known oil industry
experience.

As foreign minister, Ahmadinejad named Manouchehr Mottaki, a former
ambassador to Tokyo and Ankara and member of parliament's foreign affairs
and national security commission.

Like many lawmakers, Mottaki is an outspoken proponent of Iran's nuclear
program and backed the move to restart uranium conversion last week -- a
decision the United Nations atomic watchdog has called on Tehran to reverse.

Iran's Foreign Ministry, responding to comments by President Bush, on Sunday
warned Washington a military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would
backfire.

IRAN HAS OPTIONS

"If America makes such a mistake, our options to defend ourselves are
greater than America's," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told a
weekly news conference.

Officials have said former state broadcasting chief Ali Larijani, a
well-known hard-liner, will head Iran's nuclear negotiations with the West,
replacing pragmatic cleric Hassan Rohani as secretary of the Supreme
National Security Council.

Ahmadinejad's list of 21 cabinet nominees contained two clerics, as did the
cabinet of former President Mohammad Khatami. He named no women cabinet
ministers. There were no women in Khatami's cabinet either.

Former prosecutor Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei was named as intelligence
minister and former deputy intelligence minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi was
named as interior minister.

At the Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry, which oversees the media and
the arts, Mohammad Hossein Saffar-Harandi, an editor of the hardline Kayhan
newspaper, was nominated.

"The key ministers are generally from the hardline camp but they do have
some experience and they are not outright radicals," said political analyst
Mahmoud Alinejad.

He noted that many of the nominations differed from names circulated earlier
by the Ahmadinejad camp.

"Many of them are compromise figures," he said, adding he expected most, if
not all, to be approved.

For the main economic portfolio of economy and finance minister, Davoud
Danesh-Jafari, a member of parliament's economy commission, was put forward.

Mohammad Rahmati, minister of roads and transport, was the only minister to
survive from Khatami's cabinet.

To be approved, each minister must receive a simple majority of votes cast
by members of the 290-seat parliament.







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