Thread: Archive Latest News - Think Tank - 16/08/07 - 03/11/07

PM's speech before parliament dominates Baghdad press

Baghdad - Voices of Iraq
Tuesday , 11 /09 /2007

Baghdad, Sept 11, (VOI) – Iraqi newspapers on Tuesday devoted most of their pages to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's speech before the parliament and the Petraeus-Crocker report to the U.S. Congress.

The government-funded al-Sabah newspaper said that an air of optimism pervaded Iraqi political circles following the premier's parliamentary speech in which he outlined his government's achievements during the past period. The newspaper quoted al-Maliki as claiming that the Baghdad security plan has achieved 57% of its targets. "One of the most significant achievements of the enforcement of the rule of law plan launched on February 14, is that life has returned to normal in al-Karkh, al-Ghazaliya, al-Adl district, al-Karada, al-Rasafa and Sadr City. A total of 6,228 families have returned to their homes and hot places like al-Adhamiya, a-Mansour and al-Rasheed have turned into relatively safe areas," al-Maliki said addressing the Iraqi parliament.
Al-Mutamar, a daily newspaper issued by the Iraqi National Congress Party, led by Ahmed al-Chalabi, published on its front page excerpts from al-Maliki's speech before the parliament, in which he revealed some of the findings of the investigation into the clashes that erupted between security forces and gunmen during al-Ziyara al-Shaabaniya [The mid-Shaaban visit] in the holy Shiite city of Karbala two weeks ago.
Al-Mada, an independent daily, highlighted al-Maliki's calls to form a majority government instead of a national unity government. Slamming some political parties for their alleged failure to cope with the concept of the national unity government, the prime minister said that a partnership government, not a national unity government, is the best solution under the current circumstances.
The newspaper also covered the testimonies of U.S. Ambassador to Baghdad Ryan Crocker and Top Commander in Iraq Gen. David Petraeus before Congress on the progress of the surge of 30,000 extra troops ordered by U.S. President George W. Bush in January 2007. According to al-Sabah, Petraeus told a Congressional panel that the military objectives of the troop surge "are largely being met," and envisioned a troop pullout by next summer. Appearing alongside Petraeus, Crocker said, "A secure stable, democratic Iraq at peace with its neighbors is attainable," the newspaper added.
Al-Taakhi newspaper, issued by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), published a front-page headline that read, 'KC denies contacts with Baathists.' The newspaper quoted Firyad Rawunduzi, a spokesman for the Kurdistan Coalition, as denying news about recent contacts between the coalition and former Baath Party members.
Al-Adala newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), quoted MP Ali al-Adeeb, who is also a member of the Shiite Unified Iraqi Coalition (UIC), as expressing his optimism about the 2nd Iraq's Neighbors Conference held in Baghdad on Sunday. "A Baghdad-based conference under the current circumstances is an indication that Iraq is moving towards political and security stability," al-Adeeb said.

Aswat Aliraq

IAF planning minister returns to government

Baghdad - Voices of Iraq
Tuesday , 11 /09 /2007

Baghdad, Sept 11, (VOI)- Iraqi Minister of Planning and Development Cooperation Ali Baban decided to return to the government and end his boycott, a source from the Iraqi cabinet said on Tuesday.
"Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki hailed Baban's decision and appreciated his "courageous step" to return to undertake his job for the good of the Iraqi people," the source, whole asked not to be named, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).
The source did not give further details on the minister's surprising decision.
Baban is a member of the Sunni Arab-majority Iraqi Islamic Party, headed by Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi.
The party is one of the main Sunni components of the Iraqi Accordance Front (IAF).
The IAF, the third largest bloc in Iraqi parliament with 44 out of a total 275 seats, had announced last month that its five ministers and deputy premier, Sallam al-Zawbaie, have quit the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki because "the government slammed the door shut to any reforms that would help rescue Iraq."
The IAF is composed of three main Sunni political organizations: the Iraqi Islamic Party, the Congress of the People of Iraq and the National Dialogue Council.
Baban himself had threatened to withdraw from the government before his bloc's decision last month if the oil and gas law approved without making "fundamental amendments".
He asserted that the law has "negative effects" on Iraqi oil wealth, calling for holding a referendum on that law.

Aswat Aliraq

Iraq needs an 'oil for peace' deal

This is quite a long opinion piece and is quite a negative article re Iraq - but it does come to a sensible well thought out solution at the end of the article - which beats many I've read so far anyway.
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The war in Iraq is not, of course, about oil. Coalition troops are there to advance democracy and to protect the innocent. But the consequences for the world's energy markets of an unresolved conflict in a country that holds the world's third largest accumulation of oil reserves cannot be ignored. General David Petraeus's report on the progress of the war could usefully be accompanied by an audit of what regime change has done for the oil sector within Iraq and for global energy security, and by some creative thinking on how the country's economic strength can be used in the cause of stability.

In 2002, before the shooting war began, the consensus in the international oil industry was that Iraq - free of sanctions and with only limited judiciously applied investment - could produce more than 3m barrels a day from existing fields within a matter of months after a transfer of power.

The infrastructure was in place and the Iraqi state company was highly competent. Its leadership may have been Ba'athist in name but its skill owed more to the pre-revolutionary Iraq Petroleum Company than to any political ideology. The engineers who ran the company were pragmatists who had kept oil flowing through the 1980s and 1990s in ****e of wars and sanctions. A change of regime, it was assumed, would bring increased oil output funding reconstruction and even, on optimistic assumptions, repaying the costs of the war. Within a matter of years with the help of international capital and technology Iraq could be producing 4m or 5m b/d - or even more.

The reality has been rather different. Production in recent months has fallen to less than 2m b/d, of which a good deal is stolen. With domestic demand boosted by prices at a fraction of world levels, exports have slipped below 1.5m b/d - well down on pre-war levels.

The oilfields appear largely undamaged but the infrastructure, including pipelines, is ageing, investment since the collapse of the old regime has been minimal and, most important, there has been an exodus of skilled professionals. In the short to medium term even sustaining the current level of production looks challenging. If the conflict continues, production and exports could well fall sharply.
The result of all this is that events in Iraq are contributing to the escalation of oil prices. Spare capacity across the world is limited and Iraq is a downside risk in a tight market.

Of course, civil wars are about religion and personal enmities, but economic factors can usually be found somewhere in most such conflicts. In Iraq, where 60 per cent of gross domestic product and 89 per cent of government revenue comes from one sector, that factor is not hard to find. The oilfields in the north around Kirkuk and the fields in the south, outside Basra, will be the prizes in the continuing conflict involving the Madhi army of Moqtada al-Sadr, the peshmerga guerrillas who provide the security for the Kurdish enclave and the residual, if splintered, Sunni forces. If the short-term consequence is increased oil prices, the longer-term impact of what has happened in Iraq is greater insecurity in the world's energy system.

With about 50m new vehicles on the world's roads each year and no obvious substitute for the oil-driven internal combustion engine in sight, demand for oil is set to increase to more than 100m b/d in the next decade. Sources of supply are becoming dangerously concentrated. Output from the North Sea is falling by 10 per cent a year. Alaskan oil production is almost 75 per cent below its 1987 peak. The Caspian and Angola provide some new supplies but the volumes are limited when measured against the growth in consumption, especially in Asia. The winners in terms of market share will be Russia and the states around the Persian Gulf - Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq. By 2020, on the latest forecasts, Saudi will need to export 17m b/d to meet growing global demand - almost double today's level.

The dependence on Saudi supplies will be even higher if all the other producers are not delivering at full capacity, which for Iraq means close to 5m b/d. The reserves to achieve this are available, not least from undeveloped giant fields such as Rumaylah, but the institutional structure is not.

Perhaps the most useful parting gift that the coalition could leave for future Iraqi governments is a practical model for renewal of the oil sector. One way forward would be the creation of an international Iraqi company that recognised Iraqi ownership of resources, the need for global skills and manpower and the value of giving Iraqi citizens a stake in economic renewal. Seventy five per cent of this company would be held by the government in Baghdad; the remainder, after an auction, by a consortium of international companies, perhaps on a fixed-term basis. The company would be managed transparently to the highest international standards with a simple strategy designed to increase production from existing and new fields on a progressive basis.

The foreign companies would receive a fair return on their investment of people and technology, leaving part of the Iraqi company's annual surplus after investment to be distributed to Iraqis - a growth dividend which would spread wealth and capital across the country and provide the seed for the economic renewal which is essential if Iraq is to return to stability.

The creation of a collective interest in peace is of paramount importance. As a slogan "oil for peace" carries some dark ironies. But we have surely learnt over the past five years that a sustainable solution to a complex conflict cannot be won by military means alone.

The writer is director of the Cambridge Centre for Energy Studies at the Judge Business School

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5c61e37a-6...0779fd2ac.html

Arab list decides to return to Kirkuk provincial council

Kirkuk - Voices of Iraq
Tuesday , 11 /09 /2007

Kirkuk, Sept 11, (VOI)- The Arab list in the Kirkuk provincial council decided to end its boycott of the council and to return to attend the meetings after accepting its demands, an official source from the Iraqi Republican Grouping (IRG) said on Tuesday.
"The Arab list in the Kirkuk provincial council decided to end its boycott and return to attend the council's meetings after accepting its demands within an initiative presented by the (IRG), the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) on condition of anonymity.
The decision came after the decision taken by the parliament on Saturday to extended the work of the Constitutional Amendments Committee up to the end of the House's second legislative term by January next year, which will lead to a further delay in holding the referendum on Kirkuk, according to the Iraqi constitution's article number 140.
The Arab list, in coordination with the Turkomans list in Kirkuk, boycotted the meetings of the Kirkuk provincial council several times, calling the Kurdish list, which has the majority in the council, to share posts with minorities in the city.
It was scheduled for the Constitutional Amendments Committee to end its work on 15 May, 2007, but the differences over basic issues concerning expanding the powers of the President of Iraq and implementing article 140 on oil-rich-Kirkuk led to extend its mandate twice so far.
Article 140 is related to the normalization of the situation in Kirkuk, an important and mixed city of Kurds, Turkmen, Christians and Arabs. Kurds seek to include the city in the autonomous Iraq's Kurdistan region, while Sunni Arabs, Turkmen and Shiite Arabs oppose the incorporation. The article currently stipulates that all Arabs in Kirkuk be returned to their original locations in southern and central Iraqi areas, and formerly displaced residents returned to Kirkuk, 250 km northeast of Baghdad.
A referendum, provided for in the Iraqi constitution, is scheduled to be held by the end of the current year on a possible joining of Kirkuk to Kurdistan region.

Aswat Aliraq

Petraeus Cites Encouraging Examples of Iraqi Political Reconciliation

There is encouraging evidence of political reconciliation in Iraq de****e legislative stalls on key issues, including oil revenue sharing, the top U.S. military commander there said here today.

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of Multinational Force Iraq, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today that an oil revenue-sharing law has been proposed in Iraq's Council of Representatives, but no legislation that governs the disbursement of the country's lucrative resource has been passed. "But Iraq is actually sharing oil revenue. ... In fact, (it is) very similar to what is likely to happen if the bill as currently envisioned is passed," he said.

Petraeus joined U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan C. Crocker during the second of two days of hearings on the status of the war and political developments in Iraq.

"What I draw some encouragement from ... is again the activity that is ongoing actually in the absence of legislation," Petraeus said. "It has not worked out the way we had hoped with respect to the national legislation, but there have been these other activities that have given us some cause for hope."

Delaware Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., the committee chairman, began today's hearing with a moment of silence for the nearly 3,000 people killed during terrorist attacks this day six years ago. In stark contrast, several times during the hearing, vociferous war protesters shouting anti-war tirades were forced from the Hart Senate Office Building.

Petraeus said there are many examples of the Iraqi government making incremental progress, "where the big law, the national reconciliation, has not taken place, but there are steps just happening, there are actions being taken that give you hope that they can indeed reconcile with one another," he said.

There is no general amnesty law for former insurgents, Petraeus said, but "conditional immunity" is occurring in areas like Abu Ghraib, a Shiia-Sunni fault line. Some 1,700 former Sunni Arab insurgents now are being accepted into an Iraqi police academy there. "That's a very significant step, and candidly, that is what gives some encouragement," the general said.

Petraeus noted that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has formed a national reconciliation committee that works to move local volunteers into Interior Ministry or Iraqi security force roles, in addition to other conciliatory initiatives. Such measures were successful in Anbar province, where a roughly 20,000-strong police force now adheres to the Interior Ministry's chain of command.

Crocker echoed Petraeus' remarks, saying that de****e challenges, "the seeds of reconciliation are being planted."

Reiterating comments he made during a hearing yesterday before the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees, Crocker said he was encouraged in late August when Iraq's five most prominent national leaders issued a communiqué expressing their commitment to working through key issues including de-Baathification and balancing provincial power. Additionally, the leaders publicly stated their desire to develop a long-term relationship with the United States.

Crocker and Petraeus agreed that premature withdrawal of U.S. forces would have devastating consequences in Iraq.

The general said rapid drawdown would produce a number of dangerous results, including the possible disintegration of Iraqi security forces, an erosion of local security initiatives, a handover of control to al Qaeda and an invitation to increased sectarian violence.

"I ... believe that the best way to secure our national interests and avoid an unfavorable outcome in Iraq is to continue to focus our operations on securing the Iraqi people while targeting terrorist groups and militia extremists," Petraeus said, "and as quickly as conditions are met, transitioning security tasks to Iraqi elements."

John J. Kruzel , American Forces Press Service: Petraeus Cites Encouraging Examples of Iraqi Political Reconciliation

Cabinet decides to stop bearing bodyguards' costs

Baghdad - Voices of Iraq
Tuesday , 11 /09 /2007

Baghdad, Sept 11, (VOI)- The Iraqi cabinet decided to stop bearing the cost of bodyguards assigned to protect members of the parliament, the official spokesman for the Iraqi government said on Tuesday.

"The cabinet decided during session held last Thursday to call off the deputies' bodyguards and to assign 20 bodyguards for each MP in return for 10 million dinars," Ali al-Dabagh told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).

The decisions taken by the cabinet are usually announced by the spokesman after a few days of the cabinet meeting.

Each MP used to receive 10 million dinars monthly to appoint 20 bodyguards for himself.
"The premiership has the right to appoint additional bodyguards in exceptional cases," the spokesman also said.

Aswat Aliraq

Sadrist bloc may withdraw from UIC – al-Sadr office

Baghdad - Voices of Iraq
Tuesday , 11 /09 /2007

Baghdad, Sept 11, (VOI)- The Sadrist bloc, or Iraqis loyal to Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, may withdraw from the Shiite Unified Iraqi Coalition (UIC), the official spokesman for al-Sadr said on Tuesday.

Salah al-Ubeidi told reporters in the city of Najaf "members of the Sadrist bloc held a meeting on Tuesday to determine their position whether they will continue working within the UIC and to evaluate the government's performance in the past days."

"The Sadrist bloc may announce a decision to withdraw from the UIC unless the later tried to fulfill its promises he made. We decided to think carefully in this issue within the upcoming days," the spokesman also said.

The spokesman blamed the inefficiency of the Shiite bloc for that possible decision.
He criticized also the UIC's policy, underlining that certain parties are dominating it and its policies.

The Sadrist bloc, part of the Shiite UIC list, occupies 30 out of a total 275 seats in the Iraqi parliament.

SH
Aswat Aliraq

Emir of Kuwait stresses support for Iraq's security, stability

Baghdad - Voices of Iraq
Tuesday , 11 /09 /2007

Baghdad, Sept 11, (VOI) – Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Jaber al-Sabah emphasized his country's support for Iraq's security and stability during a meeting with Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi, according to a presidential statement on Tuesday.
"Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah received Abdul-Mahdi on Monday at the al-Sayf Palace in Kuwait and discussed ways to bolster bilateral relations and recent regional and international developments," read the statement received by the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).
Abdul-Mahdi arrived at Kuwait Airport on Monday on a one-day visit. He was received at the airport by Kuwaiti Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmed al-Jaber al-Sabah.
In 1991, Iraqi forces, under the former regime of President Saddam Hussein, invaded neighboring Kuwait
Allied forces – chiefly from the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Egypt, Syria, and France – were arrayed against the Iraqi army.
Under the command of U.S. General Norman Schwarzkopf, the coalition began bombing military targets in Iraq and Kuwait, 24 hours after the United Nations (UN) deadline expired. In mid-February, Iraq signaled its willingness to withdraw.
However, a series of conditional Iraqi offers were rejected by the Coalition, and allied forces continued an air-land offensive. Within 100 hours, the city of Kuwait was liberated. Iraqi representatives accepted a permanent cease-fire on April 6, 1991. Iraq agreed to pay reparations to Kuwait, to reveal the location of its stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and to eliminate its weapons of mass destruction.
Diplomatic relations between Iraq and Kuwait were re-established after the fall of the former regime in April 2003.

Aswat Aliraq

Ramadan begins tomorrow

Abu Dhabi: Tomorrow [Thursday] will be the first day of Ramadan, the UAE moonsighting committee, chaired by Mohammad Nakhira Al Daheri, Minister of Justice, announced yesterday.

According to the committee, Wednesday, September 12, will be the 30th day of Sha’aban, and Thursday, September 13, is the first day of the fasting month.

The committee said the Ramadan moon was not sighted yesterday after using astronomical and Sharia methods.

The moon was not sighted in the neighbouring countries also.

Gulfnews: Ramadan begins tomorrow

Petraeus report finds favour with Sunni party

Baghdad: Iraqi politicians reacted to the testimonies of General David Petraeus and the American Ambassador Ryan Crocker to the US Congress on Iraq's situation with a mixture of optimism and indifference.

"The General [Petraeus] managed to express the facts very accurately unlike Ambassador Crocker who failed to diagnose the political problems," Omar Abdul Sattar, a prominent leader in the Sunni Islamic Party of the Accordance Front, told Gulf News.

Other politicians from different backgrounds expressed similar sentiments.

Sami Shourush, former Minister of Culture in Kurdistan, and close confidante of Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani, told Gulf News: "Iraqi leaders, especially the Kurds, are very optimistic about the Petraeus-Crocker report unlike the Becker-Hamilton report."

Abu Akbar Al Sa'adi, a prominent leader in the Supreme Islamic Council led by Abdul Aziz Al Hakim, felt the report was balanced.
However, Talal Al Sa'adi, a leader in the Shiite Al Sadr alliance, told Gulf News: "The Petraeus- Crocker report does not mean anything to us. The important thing for us is to schedule the US troops withdrawal from Iraq.".

Meanwhile, Arab analysts said the report suggests that Washington has lost the war.

Gulfnews: Petraeus report finds favour with Sunni party