A war cabinet with no leaders...

"Anyone casting doubts on Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki’s efforts to run Iraq will be labeled as “embittered”, “unfair” or “hasty”; for the man rightly deserves a grace period. But I am increasingly troubled by what I hear and see.

Maliki drafted his first cabinet through a process of choosing ministers on the basis of—as one observer put it—“the lowest, lowest, lowest, and then lowest common denominator.”"
Talisman Gate