Thread: Iraq/Dinar News until 6/17/07 8:30 PM CST

Originally Posted by Dinar Cha Ching

This is the president of the Parliament. His removal is L-O-N-G overdue. He has permitted the parliament to operate for over a year with nothing accomplished. He's allowed walkouts, no quorums and endless procrastination. He's the leader of this body and has shown zero leadership. Hopefully they'll replace him with someone that's inteested in getting something done.

I don't know who almawhoever is.

thanks, is this the same i d i o t who ordered someone beat up?

Sorry, I lifted from another site:

The New Zealand central bank has sold a batch of NZ dollars in a move to steady the country's currency. The New Zealand dollar had soared to a 22-year high against the US dollar after an unexpected interest rate hike last week from 7.75% to 8%.
The sale knocked 2% off the currency to a low of $0.7467, but it has since recovered some of these losses.
The kiwi dollar has benefited from speculative inflows from international investors using borrowed money.
Further rate hikes?
Such investors often borrow money in Japanese yen to invest in currencies where interest rates are higher.
The strategy - commonly known as the yen carry trade because with base rates at 0.5% in Japan the yen is one of the cheapest currencies to borrow - has not been much affected by the New Zealand central bank's (RBNZ) actions, say analysts.
They argue that the bank's hawkish monetary policy would continue to provide good support for the kiwi dollar.
At last week's meeting, rate setters concerned about rising dairy prices unexpectedly raised interest rates to the highest rate among industrialised nations.
The announcement sent the currency to its highest level against the US dollar since it abandoned the peg to a basket of currencies in 1985.
"We still see risks skewed toward further RBNZ tightening in the third quarter and unless the RBNZ is willing to intervene on a sustained basis, the New Zealand dollar will eventually push to fresh cyclical highs," said Sue Trinh, currency strategist at RBC Capital Markets.
The New Zealand central bank was one of the first banks to be granted operational independence to control inflation.


A good example of how a central bank adjusts the base money supply to influence the rates of exchange. In this case, NZ pushes money into the economy and lowers the rate, In Iraqs case they are removing money. With eventual benefits all of us.Thank You. (IMHO).

Iraq makes slow progress on meeting U.S. targets
Tue Jun 12, 2007 7:42 AM EDT


By Aseel Kami and Ross Colvin
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - "Slow as a turtle" was how one Iraqi lawmaker on Tuesday described Iraq's faltering progress in meeting political benchmarks set by Washington to encourage national reconciliation and end sectarian violence.

Washington has dispatched a succession of officials to press Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government to speed up passage of laws aimed at drawing disaffected minority Sunni Arabs more firmly into the political process.

The latest was Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, who met Maliki on Tuesday to discuss the status of an oil revenue-sharing law, constitutional reforms, a law ending a ban on former Baathists holding public office and provincial polls.

Negroponte followed the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, Admiral William Fallon, who held similar talks with Maliki on Sunday and, according to a New York Times reporter who sat in on the meeting, urged the prime minister to make measurable political progress by next month.

De****e opposition in Congress, U.S. President George Bush has sent nearly 30,000 extra troops to Iraq to help curb sectarian violence and give Maliki's government breathing room to achieve a political accommodation between the warring sides.

The strategy has been costly in the lives of U.S. soldiers, 127 were killed in May alone, and there is little to show for it -- the political blocs have made little headway in breaking the logjam holding up agreement on the laws.

Bush is scheduled to deliver an interim report on developments in Iraq in July. The top U.S. general in Iraq, David Petraeus, and U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker are due to give their own assessment of the success of the new military strategy in September.

RELUCTANCE TO COMPROMISE

But analysts say Maliki's fractious coalition government of Kurds, Shi'ites and Sunni Arabs is too weak and divided to make the necessary compromises without external pressure.

International Crisis Group analyst, Joost Hiltermann, who closely watches developments in Iraq, said he expected to see "little bits of progress that will be sold as real progress."

"The Kurds have everything they want and don't want to concede anything, Shi'ites don't want to be cheated out of their control of the state apparatus, and Sunnis obviously want the benchmarks to be met because they favor them but cannot make it happen because they are in the minority," he said.
A draft hydrocarbon law, crucial to regulating how wealth from Iraq's huge oil reserves will be shared by its sectarian and ethnic groups, has been approved by cabinet but faces opposition from Kurds over who will control the oilfields.

Mahmoud Othman, a member of the Kurdish Alliance in parliament, said the political blocs were trying to reach a compromise on the law, but progress was achingly slow.

"They are discussing it, but the process is slow as a turtle," he told Reuters.

A draft de-Baathification law has been agreed by Maliki and President Jalal Talabani and sent to cabinet for debate. But it faces stiff opposition and other drafts are now circulating.

After six months of talks, parliament's constitutional reform committee has failed to reach agreement on amending key provisions of the constitution. A law setting a date for provincial elections has also yet to be agreed by cabinet.

Troops seize Iraq bomb factory
AFP Published:Jun 12, 2007

BAGHDAD - The US military said its troops have seized a bomb-making factory in eastern Baghdad capable of manufacturing more than 300 roadside bombs.


The factory, a cluster of small buildings, was discovered in the thick palm groves of Baghdad’s eastern Rashid neighbourhood yesterday, the military said.


The soldiers have taken more than "300 improvised explosive devices off the streets," a statement quoted US commander Colonel Ricky D. Gibbs as saying.


The find consisted of one vehicle wired and packed with explosives, dozens of mortars, one 230 kilogram bomb, hundreds of grenades and projectiles, and hundreds of cans of nitric acid used to make crude bombs.


In a separate cache near the complex, more cans of nitric acid were found, the statement said, along with another three vehicles wired as car bombs but without explosives.


The US military has stepped up efforts to locate and destroy bomb factories in and around Baghdad in a bid to thwart insurgent attempts to launch high profile car bomb attacks in the Iraqi capital.


In another statement, the military said a senior wanted Al-Qaeda militant was also arrested on Sunday in western Baghdad, but did not identify him.

Negroponte arrives in Iraq for surprise visit



U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte arrived in Iraq on an unannounced visit on Tuesday to meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, the state-run television reported.

"Negroponte was greeted by al-Maliki in his office in Baghdad," the television Iraqiya said.

His visit came one day after the British Chancellor Gordon Brown, who met al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani to vow unchanged support for the Iraqi government.

Source: Xinhua

UN mulls bigger role in Iraq

IANS Tuesday 12th June, 2007

United Nations, June 12 (Xinhua) UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon would consider an expanded UN role and presence in Iraq if possible, according to a UN report.

The quarterly report, submitted by the UN chief to the Security Council on the mission in Iraq, said the situation in that country remains precarious, with insurgent attacks persisting and civilian casualties mounting.

The political process in Iraq is entering an exceptionally sensitive phase, the report says, adding contentious issues, such as the referendum on Kirkuk and other disputed areas, must be approached carefully, with solutions found through sustained national dialogue.

'There have been growing calls for a larger United Nations role in Iraq,' Ban said in the report. 'Circumstance permitting, I would consider an expanded role and presence in Iraq where possible.'

'For this, clear direction from the Security Council and the Government of Iraq would be essential,' he added. 'And better coordination with our major international partners would also be welcomed.'

For the UN to play its role, he said several conditions are necessary, including adequate protection and security arrangements, air support and the construction of secure facilities.

He voiced hope that the Security Council and UN member states 'will continue to provide strong political and logistical support for the organization's presence in Iraq.'

Following the deadly bombing on the world body's headquarters in Baghdad on Aug 19, 2003, which killed 22 people including the top UN envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN cut back many of its activities in Iraq.

Iraq Sunni, Shias Meet at U.N.

By SARAH DiLORENZO
Associated Press Writer



UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Iraqi religious and political leaders met to reaffirm their commitment to building a tolerant, multiethnic nation, declaring that the ties that bind all Iraqis "will not be broken" in ****e of the sectarian violence ravaging the country.

Sunni and Shiite leaders gathered at U.N. headquarters for a two-day conference that ends Tuesday to discuss ways to ease the sectarian tensions sparking violence in Iraq. Iraq's U.N. mission sponsored the event, entitled "Iraq for all Iraqis."

"We have gathered here in New York, religious leaders and scholars, to discuss the vital issues of reconciliation and re-establishing the fraternal ties that have historically bound the people of Iraq together, which, however strained they may become, are not broken and will not be broken," said Iraq's deputy U.N. ambassador, Feisal al-Istrabadi.

Many of the leaders, who are theologians and imams in Iraq, have participated in a series of similar dialogues since May 2003, when they began working with Religions for Peace, an international religious coalition, to create an inter-religious council. They have met in Iraq, England, Jordan, South Korea, Japan and Norway during the past four years.

Mustapha Tlili, director of New York University's Center for Dialogues, which co-sponsored the event, urged the leaders to reach a "new political consensus."

"The old consensus was conceived in and enforced by violence," he told the group.

The new consensus, he said, must be based on "shared values, shared objectives, shared interests, shared identities, and framed by mutual respect, a spirit of reconciliation and a strong commitment to peace - a strong commitment to an 'Iraq for all Iraqis.'"

"In Iraq, we have a great heritage of cooperation, of coexistence," said Sheikh Khaild al-Mullah, head of the Sunni Islamic Scholars movement in the southern city of Basra.

Though Shiites and Kurds suffered injustices under Saddam, al-Mullah said most Iraqis were committed to a united, peaceful future.

"De****e all these deadly blows, the Iraqi structure was still united after the fall of the regime and the rebirth of a new Iraq," he said.

At a luncheon on religious tolerance on Monday, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Zalmay Khalilzad, also touched on the issue of combatting religious extremism, calling it the "central issue affecting the future of the world."

Khalilzad, who served as ambassador to Iraq for two years before taking up the U.N. post in April, said he thought the violence there "is less about clashes between communities than about extremists in each camp seeking to foster sectarian conflict as a tactic to achieve their own dominance."

"The failure of governments to deliver, either in terms of transparency or in terms of security, social and economic progress, lead to a kind of despair that fuels extremism," he added.

The leaders at the conference proposed plans for national reconciliation that called for regional autonomy within a united Iraq and spelled out the need for aid, especially to the least developed areas of the country.

Experts Analyze American Progress with Iraqi Insurgents
Four months into a troop increase in Iraq, the United States is arming Sunni tribes to quell insurgencies in the region. John Burns of The New York Times describes the tactic, then international policy adviser Stephen Biddle and former military official Phillip Carter talk about the "surge" strategy.



GWEN IFILL: Now a two-part look at efforts to quell the Iraqi insurgency. We begin with a report on U.S. efforts to engage Sunni tribal leaders in the fight against al-Qaida in Iraq. We get that from New York Times Baghdad Bureau Chief John burns. I spoke with him earlier this evening.

John, welcome back. So what we understand here is now that the United States forces are trying to work out a plan where they engage or they pay Sunni groups in order to go after al-Qaida. How is that going to work?

JOHN BURNS, Baghdad Bureau Chief, New York Times: Well, it's an expedient, of course, that has been tried before, in fact, quite frequently before in counterinsurgency wars of this kind. If you can split the insurgency, if you can, if you will, suborn some elements of it by giving them arms, ammunition, cash, fuel and other supplies, obviously you change the balance of the equation.

The problem here in Iraq is that the people that they are trying to recruit, if you will, to the American side of this war -- or, if you will, the Iraqi side of this war -- are Baathist insurgents who have been fighting the United States forces here now for four years and who have played a considerable role in killing more than 3,500 American troops.

It's an enterprise fraught with risk, obviously, because, how long do these people, in effect, stay bought and stay loyal? The intent is to split the insurgency and have the Baathist insurgents, if you will, go after al-Qaida and to drive al-Qaida from the battlefield. It's a long shot. It's not hard to understand why American generals want to give it a try, but it is certainly fraught with risk.

GWEN IFILL: What precautions have been put in place, John, so that they know who is friend and who is foe?

JOHN BURNS: Well, at the front end of this, to answer your question a little obliquely, the problem is that it's very hard to know who you are talking to, who you are negotiating with, to whom you are supplying arms, because there's very little forensic evidence.

There is a supposition, and more than a supposition in some areas, that these people belong to Sunni Baathists or elements of the insurgency that have, in fact, fought and killed Americans. It's altogether likely that, in most cases, that will not be provable and that these -- if you will, these deals will go through.

They're going to attempt to, if you will, fix the loyalty of these groups to whom, you know, support is given by various forensic means. They're going to subject all of the members of these groups to biometric tests. That's to say retina scans, fingerprints, and they're going to record the serial numbers of all weapons that are transferred.

The hope is, of course, that, should these groups in effect betray their new American patrons by attacking American troops or attacking, for that matter, Iraqi troops, that it will be possible, ex post facto, to caught onto that fact.

GWEN IFILL: Internally, is this something that the Shiite-led government, the Army and the Iraqi police, are in league with, or is this something they have some problem with, seeing as how these are their enemies?

JOHN BURNS: They have a problem with it. This began in al-Anbar province to the west of Baghdad, counting for something like 30 percent of the territory of Iraq, crucially important stretch of territory bordering Jordan to the west, Syria and Saudi Arabia, which, as I think many of your viewers will know, was for a very long time the most dangerous place in Iraq. It's overwhelmingly Sunni.

Now, a deal with tribal sheikhs there who have recruited what in British imperial times would have been called tribal levies, and among them former Baathist insurgents, has worked very well in Anbar. The levels of violence in the last four or five months have really plunged.

Where it involves an overwhelmingly Sunni population, the Shiite-led government in Baghdad doesn't have much of a problem with it. They do have a problem when you try and introduce this in mixed Sunni-Shia areas, and that, unfortunately for the Americans, includes many of the areas they are now attempting to replicate this procedure in, in central and north-central Iraq, which is to say Sunni-dominated areas on the approaches to Baghdad, where there are significant Shiite populations.

And not surprisingly, the Shiite leaders of the present government don't much like it, because they are looking beyond the American troop presence here, a year or more down the road, to the point where I think it's now rather widely assumed here the struggle for power will become, in fact, an all-out civil war between Shiite and Sunni groups. And weapons and ammunition passed now by the Americans to Sunni groups, of course, are going to empower the Sunnis in that, let's hope avoidable, but widely expected, if you will, cataclysm.


John Burns
The New York Times

They are saying that they will not knowingly arm anybody who has American blood on his hands.


Knowing your enemies
GWEN IFILL: So does this mean that the United States forces have essentially given up on any pursuit of Shia militias, who have theoretically been linked in some ways to these al-Qaida groups?

JOHN BURNS: That's a very astute question, Gwen. We've not heard nearly so much from across the river from where I'm standing now, in the Green Zone, the American command complex, about militias in recent months. And I think that's because it came to be understood that the Shiite leaders of the present government, with their militias, would simply resist it. They were not going to stand down, the armed wings of the Shiite religious parties.

So American pressure, if you will, has shifted to such other things as oil or as constitutional revisions and so forth. The Shiite leaders having resisted standing down their own militias, most obviously the Mahdi Army militia of Muqtada al-Sadr, are in a weaker position to resist the American forces here, in effect, giving weapons to Sunni militias.

But you're quite right. There is a contradiction here. But you'd have to say, how many options are left to American generals? Their surge has not gone as well as they hoped. It's only four months into the surge. We know the surge is not going to last beyond April '08, but the returns on that surge to date have been discouraging.

Sectarian violence went down; it's back up again. The other main killer in this war, suicide bombings, have gone down in Baghdad, but up elsewhere, as al-Qaida has moved elsewhere. So the generals are looking for ways to turn the tide in this war.

And what they're doing with this venture in attempting to arm Sunni Baathist militias, if you will -- see, you could say it's an act of desperation. You could say it's an act of realism. It was tried in French colonial Algeria. It was tried in British Balaia. It was tried in Vietnam, with varying results, most of them negative. So we'll have to see where this goes.

But I have to say, it's understandable why American generals who are under pressure to prevail in the war and to prepare to get American troops home are not closing off any avenues. And they are, by the way, saying -- and it's crucial to be fair in this -- they are saying that they will not knowingly arm anybody who has American blood on his hands.

General Rick Lynch, the commander of the Third Infantry Division, whose forces guard the southern approaches to Baghdad, the worst of the worst badlands in this war for very long periods of time, said yesterday in a briefing that -- he said, any negotiation with any group that has people in it who've killed American soldiers -- and his soldiers included, those four who were killed in an overwatch position a month ago in a Humvee, and three who were abducted, one of whom was found floating in the Tigris, subsequently, two of whom are missing, and sadly I think you'd have to say now are unofficially presumed dead -- General Lynch said here's how the negotiation is going to go if we run into people like that. It's going to be, "You're under arrest, and you're coming with me."

So they're going to try, if you will, apply due diligence here. But that's very difficult to do in a war where the American military has never known exactly who their enemy is.

GWEN IFILL: John Burns in Baghdad for us once again tonight, thank you very much.

JOHN BURNS: Thank you, Gwen.


Stephen Biddle
Council on Foreign Relations

The real challenge for Iraq is not, will the surge work where it is? It's, what do you do about the rest of the country?


Two views on the "surge"
GWEN IFILL: Now, part two of the Iraq counterinsurgency story, a look at how the Baghdad surge strategy is working. Margaret Warner has that.

MARGARET WARNER: More than four months into the U.S. troop buildup in Baghdad, generals in the field have started tamping down expectations of how quickly progress can be expected. We get two assessments now of how much progress the surge has made so far on the all-important Baghdad security front. And they come from Stephen Biddle, senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was in Iraq in March and April, advising top U.S. commander General David Petraeus.

And former Army Captain Phillip Carter, he served in Iraq until last September and was a skeptic of the administration's surge strategy when it was announced.

Welcome to you both. Stephen Biddle, we just heard John Burns say that the results of the surge so far have been disappointing, discouraging, and he suggested that even commanders in the field feel it's not going as well as hoped. How does it look to you?

STEPHEN BIDDLE, Council on Foreign Relations: Well, I think where we put the surge, it's reasonably likely, given enough time, to have the effects we hope it to have. I think if you put enough troop density into a community, you can pacify it, if you're willing to be patient enough to allow people's expectations to change.

The problem is not so much where we put the surge; the problem is the rest of the country. And that's what we're seeing in Baghdad, as well. Parts of Baghdad where we don't actually have U.S. troops on the ground in high density, we can't control, and the violence has returned to, as militias that stood down voluntarily have now changed their mind and decided to contest control of these areas.

But the real challenge for Iraq is not, will the surge work where it is? It's, what do you do about the rest of the country?

MARGARET WARNER: And, in fact, Phillip Carter there have been reports that the U.S. forces or U.S.-led forces only have control of really less than a third of the neighborhoods in Baghdad itself. What does that tell you? And how does that fit into your overall assessment of how much progress you can measure so far?

PHILLIP CARTER, Former Police Adviser in Iraq: The one-third number is significant, because it reflects the projections a number of us made at the surge's beginning, that we had too few troops by about two-thirds and that they would only be able to secure a part of Baghdad. And as Professor Biddle says, what's happening in those other areas, the other two-thirds of Baghdad, is that you have sectarian militias and Sunni insurgents flowing in where Iraqi security forces are simply not sufficient and not up to the task of policing those areas and controlling them.

MARGARET WARNER: And on the violence, as we heard John Burns say, Stephen Biddle, sectarian killings were down, and then they're up. In the first six months -- for instance, let's take Baghdad -- in the first six days, excuse me, of June, there was something like 167 bodies found on the street. Now, that's less than before the surge, but more than in March and April. So what does that tell you?

STEPHEN BIDDLE: Well, I think what it tells us is that the initial drop in sectarian murders wasn't because we were preventing them. We didn't have troops in Sadr City to prevent these people from carrying out murders. Muqtada al-Sadr decided that it was in his self-interest to tell his people to stand down and wait and see. Well, they've waited and they've seen, and they've decided to come back.

So to the extent that we're going to have to deal with the Mahdi Army, with the Jaish al-Mahdi, by direct force of arms, that battle hasn't taken place yet.

MARGARET WARNER: And do you agree with Phillip Carter that it's -- well, let me just ask you. Do you think this is because it was a flawed strategy or do you think it lacks resources?

STEPHEN BIDDLE: If you were going to pursue it as, "We're going to win this war. We're going to solve this problem by pacifying the country through U.S. force of arms," then it's a flawed strategy, because it has too few resources. If we're going to get out of this with something that looks like peace and stability in Iraq, we are not going to get there by pacifying the whole country, by putting a U.S. soldier on every street corner. There has to be another way of doing it.

One of the reasons why what's going on in Anbar is so interesting is because that's a window, a glimpse into another way of doing it. Bringing about a solution to the problem of Iraq, not by putting a U.S. soldier on every street corner, but by negotiating a series of bilateral cease-fires between particular combatant factions and ourselves and the government of Iraq, for people who retain the military capacity to resist if they decide to, instead decide not to -- to stand down, as Muqtada al-Sadr did for a while in Sadr City and has now reversed -- stand down, engage in a cease-fire, shift their military activity against our common opponent.

The only way we're going to get out of this with something that looks like peace and stability is if we can replicate that model piecemeal through most of the rest of the country.


Former Capt. Phillip Carter
U.S. Army

And now, as we consider a U.S. drawdown or pullout, to consider arming them now is really, I think, to add fuel to the Iraqi civil war, which may be looming on the horizon.





Arming Sunnis
MARGARET WARNER: Phillip Carter, what do you think of arming the Sunnis, some Sunnis against the other Sunnis, the strategy that's been followed in Anbar and, as John Burns reported and the Times reported today, U.S. commanders now want to extend to other areas, including, in fact, one of the neighborhoods on the road to the Baghdad airport, so really pretty close and in Baghdad? Is it something that would work in Baghdad?

PHILLIP CARTER: I'm also skeptical of this, both for the reasons that John Burns espoused, and also because of something that Stephen Biddle wrote about two years ago. This is merely training and equipping the partisans who will fight Iraq's civil war.

Whether that happens now or whether that happens in a year or two when the U.S. pulls out, I don't think that we can afford to pursue this kind of a strategy. The key is really to broker these local political deals with the local insurgent factions and the local religious leaders, who have controlled the groups of young men on the ground, and to get them to voluntarily stop the killing. Arming the factions so that they can better protect their neighborhoods merely ensures the level of violence will spiral increasingly out of control.

MARGARET WARNER: But to pick up on Stephen Biddle's point, does it, in fact, at least create an incentive for certain factions to stand down voluntarily? In other words, if they are meeting violence at the hands of another side -- I think that's what you were suggesting -- then it becomes in their self-interest to voluntarily negotiate their own cease-fires.

PHILLIP CARTER: I think that's the theory, but unless it's followed up with something to the effect of embedded advisers with these Sunni insurgent groups or some other sort of oversight mechanism, this really has the potential to blow up in our faces. One can only imagine the implications of arming these Sunni militias four years ago. We would have been fighting that all along.

And now, as we consider a U.S. drawdown or pullout, to consider arming them now is really, I think, to add fuel to the Iraqi civil war, which may be looming on the horizon.

MARGARET WARNER: Let's go to the Iraqi piece of this, Stephen Biddle, because the other part of the strategy to start with was that the Iraqis were going to help pick up the burden, both in terms of security, and also that this was going to create the political space for them to reach reconciliation on the political front. Fair to say, not sufficient progress on either one of those?

STEPHEN BIDDLE: Oh, I think that's more than fair to say. I think, with respect to space, political space for bargaining, if the parties wanted to do a deal, and the only thing in the way was a high level of background violence, then if you could depress that background level of violence in the national capital, you would create a space in which they would all naturally come together and we'd get a deal.

The problem is: They don't want a deal. They each see compromises being too risky and too dangerous for themselves. Given that, simply passively creating room in which people can talk to each other isn't enough. If we're going to get the kind of negotiated cease-fires that I think are the only way out, we're going to have to much more forcefully push them towards each other by conditionally offering sticks and carrots, making our behavior conditional on their behavior in ways that give them incentives to reach deals that they otherwise don't want to reach. Simply depressing the violence level so they can talk isn't going to be enough to get that done.



Stephen Biddle
Council on Foreign Relations

Our military behavior has to be a combination of sticks, if you won't cooperate, with promises, if you will, to change their behavior.

"A threat to leave"
MARGARET WARNER: But by that do you mean a threat to leave? What are you talking about? What's a stick?

STEPHEN BIDDLE: Well, a threat to leave is too blunt an instrument. The problem is, it looks like a threat to some and a promise to others. Muqtada al-Sadr wants to us leave.

MARGARET WARNER: So give an example.

STEPHEN BIDDLE: Well, an example would be, for example, what we've been doing in Anbar. We go to Sunni tribal sheikhs who are considering changing sides and we say to them, "If you change sides, and if you do a cease-fire negotiation, we will help you. We will arm you; we will equip you; we will train you. If you want them, we'll give you U.S. troops to defend your home neighborhoods. On the other hand, if you will not cooperate and you will not cease firing against us, you can expect an offensive American military action against your home neighborhoods."

So our military behavior has to be a combination of sticks, if you won't cooperate, with promises, if you will, to change their behavior. We can't just behave uniformly, irregardless of how they behave.

MARGARET WARNER: Phillip Carter, what is your assessment of why the Iraqi piece of this is not working, even as well as was expected?

PHILLIP CARTER: My assessment's even more blunt and undiplomatic. I think the Maliki government is rotten to its core. I think all of its ministries, but particularly the defense ministry and the interior ministry, cannot provide for the Iraqi people. And the Iraqi people know this, and in particular the Sunnis know this.

And as long as the Maliki government continues to pander to its base and resist any sort of meaningful reconciliation, we will see no long-term political progress in Iraq.

MARGARET WARNER: And, Phillip Carter, very briefly from both of you, but, as you know, Republicans on Capitol Hill are saying, if when General Petraeus comes to give his report in September, he can't say real progress has been made with this surge, that it may be time to reassess the entire U.S. commitment there. If current developments continue on the current trajectory, do you think there's any reasonable expectation that he's going to be able to say that, in fact, the surge is working?

PHILLIP CARTER: Well, I think he'll come back and say the evidence is mixed. And here's where I think that the article on Sunday's Washington Post front page is so significant. It talked about the adviser model and the "go long" option, and I think that that option will become increasingly attractive as we realize that the current trajectory is not leading us towards success.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you think there's a chance he's going to be able to say it's successful?

STEPHEN BIDDLE: I think it's certainly going to be a mixed bag. What I would like him to say is to talk about the progress or lack of it in negotiating cease-fires. The kinds of metrics people usually talk about -- casualties, violence, incidents -- they're not very helpful. If the way out is negotiation, we need to hear about the negotiation.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, we have to leave it there. Thank you both, Stephen Biddle, Phillip Carter.

STEPHEN BIDDLE: Thank you.

PHILLIP CARTER: Thank you.

Interesting,

So we now see a parade of U.S. officials turning up the heat on Maliki's malfunctioning leadership position. I wonder when Rice will make her next appearance? Surely she can kick his butt into gear once and for all and get these laws passed. lol

Good luck and health to all, Mike

The distribution of land plots to the families of martyrs and political prisoners
(Voice of Iraq) - 12-06-2007
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The distribution of land plots to the families of martyrs and political prisoners and displaced persons in Babylon

Babylon / Haidar Hassan : Directorate preparing for the distribution of Babylon municipalities second meal plots allocated to the families of martyrs and political prisoners, immigrants and migrants during the current 10. That told (Russian) Engineer Hamid Ajursch director municipalities Babylon, said : "The work is under way at the Directorate for the completion of transactions asylum privatization of the families of the martyrs and the rest covered by other segments allotment for the purpose of collecting and consolidating in preparation for distribution during the month of June. Pointing out that the Directorate is seeking to obtain the approval of the Chairman of the allocation of land for non-beneficiaries coverage of staff previously allocation for the purpose of the inclusion of transactions and bringing distribution within the second meal.

And on the cash allowance amounts for the land which has been distributed to covered by the families of the martyrs in the diet first, which began Directorate Bastassalha them Ajursch explained that the estimate was for municipalities cash allowance only amounts to implement the instructions issued by the Council of Ministers, which set prices plots depending on the location.
Noting that prices ranged from the amount of four thousand dinars per square meter for lands located in the city center and dinars (2000) of land located in areas denominator Midhatih, Alexandria, project and the Indian man with other price ranged between dinars (300-1000) of land located in the remaining areas and districts of the province. He added that there is contemplated continuing with the ministry to reconsider the prices that had been identified and which were resented by the citizens as well as the demand for clarifications on the possible inclusion of the sons and sisters and brothers of the martyr specialty spans father and his father's wife and Shahid especially since there are a large number of martyrs is unmarried deprived children to benefit from privatization.
A large number of families of the martyrs obtaining land plots within the first meal had expressed displeasure at the fact that those amounts are mostly from poor families.
They expressed their hopes to reconsider this decision and cancel cash allowance, which would prevent access to land.
On the other hand, construction of a manufacturing plant Molasses cost 300 thousand dollars funded by the American forces.
The Kazem Alwan Chairman of the projects in hand Midhatih that one dunum area of land allocated for the establishment of this factory, which includes the production line and one of the industry Molasses. The first production project funded American side in the district and stressed that this factory will be overseen by the Department in terms Midhatih.
He added that part of the land area has been left for the purpose of opening a second production line in the case of material support.
Meanwhile transmitted Babylon province project for the creation of a residential complex in the district of Hilla, includes 512 housing units in a building structural traditional.
The Hassun Alvclaoui the deputy governor of Babylon that the project costing Forty-two billion, five hundred and eighty-eight million dinars will be established on a piece of land had been allocated earlier for this purpose near the University of West Babylon town of Hilla.
Mudhaan project comes within the projects of the Ministry of Construction and Housing and funding from donor countries.
The Iraqi