Hussain al-Shahristani
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Hussain Ibrahim Saleh al-Shahristani is the current Iraqi Minister of Oil. He is a former nuclear scientist who was imprisoned in Abu Ghraib for ten years for objecting to Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons programme.
An independent member of the United Iraqi Alliance, he was previously the deputy speaker of the Iraqi National Assembly under the Iraqi Transitional Government and was considered for the post of Prime Minster in the current government.
He was appointed oil minister in May 2006 after the Islamic Virtue Party, which previously held the oil portfolio had withdrawn from the government coalition. By August, however, he was under pressure as the fuel crisis had worsened under his tenure. [1]