Imperfect mirror

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Sep 02, 2003

A Washington Times story tells us that in Iraq: "The new Cabinet exactly mirrors the Governing Council's ethnic and religious breakdown with 13 Shi'ites, five Sunni Arabs, five Kurds (also Sunnis), one ethnic Turk and an Assyrian Christian."

That doesn't quite mirror the ethnic and religious breakdown. It's about right to have one Christian member, since Christians represent about 4-5% of the population. But most Iraqi Christians are Chaldean Catholics, not Assyrian Orthodox.

We won't start lobbying yet for inclusion of a Catholic. It's tough to perceive any "trend" when there's only one person in the sample. But it's interesting that the other Iraqi body, the Governing Council, also has one Christian-- again, an Assyrian. Hmmm.