Baghdad, Iraq ? The first democratically elected government in the history of Iraq was sworn in Tuesday against a backdrop of surging violence, and the new Shiite prime minister pledged before a half-empty parliament that he would unite the country’s rival ethnic factions and fight terrorism.

Despite months of tortuous negotiations, there was no final decision on seven positions in the 37-member Cabinet — including the key oil and defense ministries. More critical still, the partial Cabinet fails to give the country’s disaffected Sunni Arab minority, believed to be driving the insurgency, a meaningful governing stake.

Many lawmakers skipped the ceremony, which took place in a conference hall deep within Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone. Among those absent was the government’s most senior Sunni member, Vice President Ghazi al-Yawer.

The Cabinet that took office Tuesday includes 16 Shiite Arabs, nine Kurds, four Sunnis and one Christian. Two deputy prime minister’s slots — including one Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari hopes to offer to a woman — were left vacant, and five ministerial portfolios are in temporary hands.

Al-Jaafari played down the disputes still roiling his government more than three months after millions of Iraqis risked their lives to vote in landmark parliamentary elections on Jan. 30.

He blamed the delay in filling the Cabinet on Sunni infighting and said the matter would be resolved in two to three days.

“But we are not in a hurry,” he told reporters after Tuesday’s ceremony. “We want the choice to be accepted by all the Iraqi people.”

Al-Jaafari’s government has less than eight months left to complete its main tasks: draft a new constitution by mid-August and submit it to a referendum no later than Oct. 15. If approved, new elections must take place by Dec. 15, under Iraq’s transitional law.

But even with some Sunnis in government, insurgents have made it clear there will be no letup in the violence tearing at the country, unleashing a torrent of bombings, ambushes and other attacks that have killed nearly 150 people since the National Assembly approved the partial Cabinet lineup on Thursday.

Shiite Arab leader Ibrahim al-Jaafari gestures after being sworn in as prime minister as Iraq's first democratically elected government takes office in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday. Iraqi lawmakers begin the transfer of power with seven Cabinet seats undecided.

Violence continued Tuesday, including scattered bombings as well as a gun battle in Ramadi that the U.S. military said killed 12 suspected militants.

Investigators concluded that two missing U.S. Marine fighter jets likely collided over southern Iraq late Monday, a senior U.S. defense official said at the Pentagon. The body of one of the two pilots was located early Tuesday, the U.S. military said in Baghdad.

Separately, the U.S. military announced it had recovered a letter that appeared to be addressed to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi complaining about the incompetence of leaders in his al-Qaida in Iraq terror network and low morale among his followers.

The authenticity of the letter could not be independently confirmed, but it was the latest in a series of claims by U.S.-led forces of progress in the fight against the insurgency, including defeating militants in skirmishes, raiding their hidden arms caches and getting tips about them from Iraqi informants.