Thread: Iraq/Dinar News. (before Jan.20,2007)

Originally Posted by arvie

1200 by mid year. i dont find that to exciting.

Not only not exciting.....down right depressing.

kozmar

UK general: UK troops to stay in Iraq through 2007
19 Jan 2007 15:00:07 GMT
Source: Reuters


WASHINGTON, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Britain's senior representative in Iraq said British forces will remain in Iraq through 2007 and perhaps into 2008 if the Baghdad government asks for continued help.

"Do I see ourselves being here throughout 2007? Yes," said Army Lt. Gen. Graeme Lamb, deputy commander of Multi-National Force-Iraq.

"Do I see that commitment being carried on to 2008? That will be for discussion among this sovereign government, my government, our part in the coalition and the like," he told reporters at the Pentagon in a teleconference from Iraq. "But if we're asked to stay here then I don't see any reason, although it's a political one, that we would not continue to remain committed to the Iraqis."

Lamb said Britain has about 6,200 troops in southern Iraq, mostly in Basra. That is slightly below the normal level of nearly 7,300, he said.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Jan. 10 said British operations aimed at preparing for the handover of security in Basra to Iraqi authorities could be completed in the next few weeks. The Daily Telegraph also has reported that Britain planned to cut troop levels in Iraq by almost 3,000 by the end of May.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N19160279.htm

FACTBOX-Security developments in Iraq, Jan 19
19 Jan 2007 16:24:04 GMT
Source: Reuters

Jan 19 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Iraq as of 1600 GMT on Friday:

* indicates new or updated item

* FALLUJA - Two former policemen were shot dead in front of their homes in Falluja, west of Baghdad, police said.

* FALLUJA - An Iraqi soldier was shot dead by a sniper in Falluja, police said.

* RAMADI - A traffic policeman who was kidnapped on Thursday was found dead in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, police said.

KUT - U.S. backed Iraqi soldiers detained two members of the Wasit provincial council on Tuesday on suspicion of smuggling roadside bombs, the U.S. military said on Friday.

BAGHDAD - Iraqi and U.S. forces seized a prominent follower of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad. The U.S. military described the man arrested as a senior death squad leader. An official in Sadr's political office said the man detained was Abdul-Hadi al-Darraji, a media spokesman.

BAGHDAD - One U.S. soldier was killed and three wounded by a roadside bomb in northwest Baghdad on Thursday, the U.S. military said.

HILLA - A bomb blew up a butcher's shop in Hilla, 100 km (62 miles) south of Baghdad, killing the butcher, police said.

HILLA - Gunmen opened fire on a minibus in Hilla, badly wounding two people, police said.

BAGHDAD - An official in the office of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's movement said a Shi'ite mosque in the southern district of Dora was badly damaged in an explosion. It was empty and there were no casualties.

KIRKUK - The preacher of a Sunni mosque in a mainly Shi'ite district of Kirkuk, an ethnically tense oil-rich city 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, was shot dead in his home, police said.

RAMADI - Iraqi police shot and killed a suicide bomber after his explosive vest failed to detonate near a checkpoint in Ramadi on Wednesday, the U.S. military said.

SAMARRA - Iraqi police with U.S. advisers captured the suspected leader of several al Qaeda cells on Thursday in Samarra, 100 km (62 miles) north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

OTHER DEVELOPMENTS

BASRA - U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates visited Basra and said Iraq was at a "pivotal moment".


http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR932858.htm

Yemen denies harbouring wanted Saddam aide
19 Jan 2007 16:17:10 GMT
Source: Reuters

SANAA, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Yemen denied on Friday that it was harbouring one of Saddam Hussein's top aides as alleged by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

Talabani told Reuters in an interview on Thursday that Izzat al-Douri, wanted by Iraq and suspected of directing insurgency there, was in the Red Sea state.

"We deny...that Izzat al-Douri is in Yemen," a senior official told Reuters.

"Such information is baseless and unfounded. Yemen is very transparent when it comes to political asylum."

Several Iraqi officials have said Douri is in Syria, but Talabani said his government had been following his movements and established that he was in Yemen.

Douri was Saddam's deputy in the Revolutionary Command Council, which functioned as both executive and legislature. He is believed to have links with the Sunni insurgency in Iraq.

Yemen has been a refuge for many political rebels including some leaders of Somalia's ousted Islamist movement who fled their country on Jan. 6.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L19404199.htm

Does anyone know what the denominations of the Kurdish Swiss Dinar were?

Cheers!
DayDream

Officials: Billions in US Iraq Reconstruction Money Wasted
By Dan Robinson
Capitol Hill
19 January 2007

Bush administration officials have told U.S. lawmakers that as much as $3 billion of the $22 to $25 billion Congress appropriated to rebuild Iraq has been wasted through fraud and abuse by private contractors. VOA's Dan Robinson reports from Capitol Hill.

Since 2003, the U.S. Government Accounting Office, and inspectors general in the State Department and Department of Defense, have intensified efforts to determine how much reconstruction money has been wasted.

Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein, members of Congress have been outraged by reports of corruption in contracting, and investigations have led to a number of convictions.

However, with the U.S. military effort in Iraq facing difficulty, and Democrats in control on Capitol Hill, the issue is being placed under a magnifying glass by congressional committees.

Coming up with exact figures has been difficult, a problem made worse by the difficult security environment in which government auditors must work.

Stuart Bowen, the Pentagon's special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, was pressed by Congressman Ike Skelton, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee:

SKELTON: "Do you have a figure as of this date?"

BOWEN: "No, I don't have a figure yet, that was just my. . ."

SKELTON: "Do you have a judgment as [of] this date?"

BOWEN: "The potential loss could be 10 to 15 percent, but we are waiting until we finish the actual hard analysis of how those large contractors did before I can give you a firm number."

SKELTON: "When will that be Mr. Bowen?

BOWEN: "That will be executed in the course of this year."

David Walker, U.S. Comptroller General, hesitated to give an estimate pending the outcome of ongoing probes, but said the final figure could be higher than many may expect:

"I can tell you that it is billions," said David Walker. "How many billions, I couldn't tell you right now."

In estimating waste, auditors are focusing on exactly what major companies originally committed to complete, what they constructed, and how much money they eventually spent on projects.

Against the background of President Bush's decision to send 21,000 more troops to join with Iraqi forces against insurgents, Walker also complained that the Defense Department has so far failed to provide information on the readiness of U.S.-trained Iraqi troops:

"This is invaluable information for the Congress of the United States, and is particularly important at this particular juncture, given the status in Iraq," he said.

On the major obstacles to reconstruction, there were no surprises.

Walker said Bush administration planning assumed there would be what he called a relatively stable, secure and permissive environment, an assumption that proved false.

Instead, violence has had a pervasive effect on reconstruction activities, ranging from oil infrastructure to water and electricity and employment, and to maintain and protect whatever rebuilding has taken place.

Officials: Billions in US Iraq Reconstruction Money Wasted

Sadr fears for life in security crackdown

Mark Oliver and agencies
Friday January 19, 2007
Guardian Unlimited


Moqtada al-Sadr has moved his family to a secure location because of fears he will become the target of a security sweep of Baghdad, it was reported today.
News of the radical cleric's decision came as the US military said it had detained a suspected death squad leader.

Aides to Mr Sadr described the arrest of the man, named as Abdul-Hadi al-Darraji, as a "provocation", saying he was a spokesman for their movement.

"We are angry," Abdul-Mehdi al-Matiri told Reuters. "This is a kind of revenge. Sheikh Darraji deals with the media. He is not a military man."

A US military statement said the man had been arrested by Iraqi special forces, backed by US advisers, on suspicion of kidnap, torture and murder.

One of Washington's prime concerns is how to cope with the Mahdi Army - loyal to Mr Sadr - and other Shia militia carrying out murders in Sunni communities in the Iraqi capital and elsewhere.

The Bush administration is putting pressure on the Shia-dominated government of the prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, to stop Shia death squads. US officials allege that the squads sometimes have the tacit backing of Shia-dominated security forces.

The majority of an extra 21,500 US troops announced by George Bush are to be deployed in a planned security sweep of Baghdad aimed at curbing the sectarian violence.

In an interview with Mr Sadr, published in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica today, the cleric said 400 of his men had already been arrested.

"For this reason, I have moved my family to a secure location. I even have had a will drawn up, and I move continuously in a way that only few can know where I am," he was quoted as saying.

"But even if I were to die, Mahdi would continue to exist. Men can be killed. Faith and ideas cannot," he said.

Mr Sadr said his men would not fight during the Islamic month of Muharram, which marks the death of Muhammad's grandson Hussein, but that afterwards "we'll see".

A senior figure close to Mr Sadr was shot dead by a US soldier during a raid in the Shia holy city of Najaf last month.

The cleric has publicly distanced himself from violence blamed on his Mahdi Army supporters, who are described by the US as the biggest threat to the security of Iraq.

There was no immediate comment from the Iraqi government about the latest arrest.

Mr Maliki has in the past criticised raids on Shia groups conducted by Iraqi army special forces under the direct command of US officers, saying he has not been adequately consulted.

However, the prime minister has also been criticised by Sunni politicians and the Bush administration over his links to Mr Sadr and a failure to disarm the Mahdi Army.

Fellow Shia leaders say they are negotiating to keep Mr Sadr and his political movement inside the main Shia bloc in the Iraqi parliament while at the same time hoping to disarm his militia followers.

· The US defence secretary, Robert Gates, today arrived in Iraq for a visit to the southern city of Basra.

Mr Gates was meeting the top US commander in Iraq, General George Casey, and the newly-arrived commander of British forces in Iraq, Major General Jonathan Shaw.

There are around 7,000 British troops in the area, though the UK plans to pull out a large proportion of these this year.

Mr Gates will be talking to British, US and other commanders about how the security scenario in the Basra area would develop.


Sadr fears for life in security crackdown | Iraq | Guardian Unlimited

JORDAN CONTINUES TO CHURN OUT IRAQI POLICE
AMMAN [MENL] -- Jordan continues to be the main trainer of Iraqi police.

The Jordan International Police Training Center has been processing about 40 percent of recruits for the Iraqi police. The Amman-based center, with a capacity to train more than 4,000 cadets simultaneously, has been operated by U.S. personnel in cooperation with Australia and Britain.

In December 2006, the Jordanian facility graduated 3,537 cadets. In all, the Iraqi police graduated 8,708 police recruits last month.

Officials said the Jordanian facility, which costs about $500 million and financed by the U.S. government, has not been directly affected by the insurgency war in Iraq. They said this has allowed the steady training of Iraqi police cadets.

Middle East Newsline -

has anyone seen this rate of 1242.5000 as of the 19 of January.

looks better and better every day

HI; NEED SOME HELP; IF YOU WELL. I HAVE SOME DINAR. BUT I DON'T MUCH EXCHANGE. CAN HELP ME?????? ALSO NOT SURE HOW THE EXCHANGE NUMBER WORKS. WHERE DO YOU EXCHANGE. BANK OF AMERICAN ARE GOING TO EXCHANGE FOR WHOLESALER. CAN YOU HELP? [email protected] THANKS