Lt. Gen.
Abdul Qadir Mohammed Jassim Obeidi al-Mifarji' () was the
Defence Minister of Iraq in the
Council of Ministers of Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki from 2006 to 2010. He was not reappointed in the Iraqi Council of Ministers approved on 21 December 2010; as a result, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is the acting defence minister.
He was born in
Ramadi and is a
Sunni Arab former general in the army of
Saddam Hussein. He told the
Council of Representatives that he had been demoted after opposing the
1990 invasion of Kuwait and was sentenced to seven years jail in 1994. In 2003, he joined the new Iraqi army, serving first as the commander of the operations room and then commander of military operations in western Iraq. Prior to his appointment as Minister on 8 June 2006, he was commander of the infantry commando units.
During his confirmation hearing in the Council of Representatives one Assembly member accused him of being a "war criminal in a military campaign against the city of
Fallujah."
He is not affiliated with any political party but his appointment was strongly backed by the
Sunni Arab-led
Iraqi Accord Front.
In March 2007 he said that "corruption and militias inhabit the halls" of the Defense Ministry, "fictitious employees" were "rampant" and he is pressured to restructure his ministry along the lines of power-sharing deals.
In October 2008 he announced that all soldiers and other employees of the Ministry would be forbidden...
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