BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A Kurdish militia leader who fought Saddam Hussein for decades was named president on Wednesday by Iraq's National Assembly as Hussein watched the proceedings on a television inside his prison.

Lawmakers anointed Jalal Talabani, a leader of the Kurdish minority long oppressed by Hussein, as the largely ceremonial head of state after two months of bickering over the ethnic makeup of the government and other issues. After he takes the oath of office today, he will be the first Kurd to serve as president of an Arab-dominated country.

The interim president and his deputies -- current Finance Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi, a Shi'ite Muslim, and current President Ghazi al Yawer, a Sunni -- were voted in as an unopposed slate.

Despite his lifetime of working for Kurdish rights, Talabani promised to govern for all Iraqis "freed from the most horrific dictatorship."

Talabani, the head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan political party, also pledged to do "what is necessary to dispense the coalition forces -- who, thanks to them, contributed in liberating Iraq -- to go back to their countries."

The Kurds are a Sunni Muslim, non-Arab group based mostly in the country's mountainous north who have fought for decades for a separate homeland. Hussein massacred more than 100,000 Kurds, using poison gas and mass executions.

Kurds make up about 20 percent of Iraq's population and, with 75 seats in the 275-member assembly, were courted by the dominant Shi'ite parties to arrive at the two-thirds majority needed to form a government.

The Kurds have tried to use that leverage to maintain local control of their Peshmerga militia, gain key ministries and reclaim Kirkuk, the oil-rich city where Hussein moved out Kurds and settled thousands of Arabs.

In a gesture meant to send a message to the old regime, Hussein and 11 of his top aides were permitted to watch the National Assembly session from the undisclosed detention center where they are being held, Human Rights Minister Bakhtiar Amin said.

The appointment of Talabani and his two deputies was the first significant move by the members to install a government. President George W. Bush called the session a "momentous step forward in Iraq's transition to democracy."

The appointment of Talabani brought Kurds out into the streets across Iraqi Kurdistan. People celebrated by waving Kurdish flags, dancing and honking their horns.

"This is what we need, a president from us," said Kurdo Azez Hama, 24, a university student at in Sulaimaniyah, a major area in Kurdistan. "He will be the one who leads" us "to a federal Iraq in which it will be easy for everyone to be safe."

Iraqis outside Kurdistan also hailed the choice for president.

"This will make the Kurds more attached to Iraq," said Baghdad supermarket owner Khaled Abdul Mawla, 47. "By having a Kurdish president, they are part of Iraq and they will never think of separation."

Today, Talabani is expected to name as prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari of the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shi'ite ticket that won the most seats in the vote.

The government will oversee the drafting of a constitution, the assembly's main task, by an Aug. 15 deadline.

Elections for a permanent government are scheduled to be held in December.

Source: FreePress