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

This article is over a week old but was just published today...it covers more about the oil law process than anything printed to date.


Baghdad hunts for oil law solutions

03 September 2007

Iraq's parliament must overcome major disagreements over control of the country's oil reserves before it can pass a vital oil law to lure billions in foreign investment, Iraqi officials said today.

Abdul-Hadi al-Hasani, deputy head of Iraq's parliamentary energy committee, said the new rules would pass before the end of the year - but only after significant amendments to the draft Baghdad approved in July after months of wrangling.

Hasani said parliament will want to include controversial annexes that list the oilfields to be controlled by a new national oil company and detail the contract models to be used to develop the dilapidated sector, which accounts for over 90% of government income.

"In the next few weeks it will be put forward for a first reading, then we have to come back and discuss it before voting," Hasani told Reuters.

"It is going to be hotly debated. I believe there will be a lot of amendments put forward."

The government-approved draft, in limbo for a month while parliament broke for summer, will initially be submitted without the annexes.

"If parliament wants the law with annexes, we'll have to send them," Thamir Ghadhban, energy adviser to embattled Shi'ite Muslim Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, told the news agency.

"That could be done within a few days."

Ghadhban said he hoped parliament would leave the disputed annexes to a new Federal Oil & Gas Council which could allow for approval of the new law in weeks.

Hasani told Reuters that members of parliament would want to sit on the council, another possible point of contention.

Washington has pushed Iraq to speed up the passage of the oil law and other key legislation, which it sees as pivotal to reconciling warring Iraqis, rebuilding Iraq's shattered economy and attracting foreign investment.

The Kurds, who govern a semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq, were likely to vote in favour of the existing draft, Iraqi officials said, but opposed some of the proposed amendments.

After waiting months for Baghdad to pass the federal law, the Kurds passed their own oil law in August. Long before that, the Kurds had signed five production sharing agreements to develop fields in the northern region.

The central government has clashed with the Kurdish authority over such contracts. Hasani said PSAs were not ideal for Iraq and that under the constitution federal law overrules regional, meaning any contracts contradicting the federal law would become void.

The Kurds forced the renegotiation of the federal oil law, fearing it gave Baghdad too much control. They say the PSAs signed were in line with the constitution and the law. Hasani said parliament was still looking at various types of contracts as it looked to find terms that were both attractive to the government and international oil players.

Ghadhban said the federal council would decide on which contracts were appropriate for each field and that no model had been ruled out.

The oil law is being drawn up in four parts. The first is a framework law, while the others focus on revenue-sharing, the new state oil company and the oil ministry. Some say it would be best to pass them together since they are interrelated.

Parliament will "not vote on the oil law until we have a revenue-sharing law. We will vote on them as a package," Sami al-Askari, adviser to Maliki, told an Iraqi oil conference in Dubai. Askari said that different factions had already debated the law extensively and that he expected it to pass quickly.

"With or without amendments, this law will pass."

Baghdad hunts for oil law solutions - Middle East News

Residents venture back on to Baghdad streets

Baghdad: Like countless residents of Baghdad, Zeinab Al Saffar feels like she has been imprisoned by the city's perilous security. But the prospect of reprieve for the middle-aged civil servant and millions of others may be moving closer.

Zeinab is representative of a large number of Baghdad residents who agree America's "surge" of troops has improved conditions, neighbourhood by neighbourhood. While she currently lives in the heavily guarded Rashid Hotel, after fleeing her home in the mostly Sunni district of Amiriya following death threats and the murder of her brother by Shiite militants, she said on Monday that the time when she returns home may be approaching.

"In the last month I feel the situation is getting better but I am still in a prison," she said. "I have a special problem that the people who took my brother want to kill me because I have campaigned so hard against them. But my sister says it's better for her.

"She is going out at night for the first time in a year to shop. The streets are opening up. I have hope again that I can return to Amiriya even though the people there are Sunni because the problem is not with my neighbours but with the leaders." General David Petraeus told Congressional leaders on Monday that extra forces had made inroads against violence in the city. Residents and even his own officers in Baghdad acknowledge improvements but stress that severe challenges remain.

Rejoice

Lt Col Steven Miska, a district commander in a divided area of northern Baghdad, said some of the greatest benefits in areas under his command derived from a sea-change in the attitudes of Sunni insurgents who forged alliances with the US coalition to expunge Al Qaida loyalists from their streets. "It's made a great difference that local people are fighting the Al Qaida threat."

Lt Col Miska has sought to build confidence in security by manning small platoon outposts and ordering a steady schedule of street-by-street patrolling. "I've saturated my area with foot patrols so that people feel more comfortable in their own street." De****e the lack of progress by Iraq's own troops, many Iraqis simultaneously acknowledge the efforts by US forces but say that they will rejoice when America is gone.

Gulfnews: Residents venture back on to Baghdad streets

Bush and Maliki agree on political progress

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Ahead of the hearing before US Congress regarding US report on Iraq, President Georges W. Bush called Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki to stress the importance of achieving political progress in Iraq.

Both leaders agreed on the importance of political progress and underlined the necessity of pursuing military progress on the ground, according to White House spokesman Tony Snow. Prime Minister Al Maliki expressed optimism regarding the current legislative process in Iraq, affirming that a change of stands is noticeable.

Alsumaria Iraqi Satellite TV Network | Iraq News | Bush and Maliki agree on political progress

Bush to give speech on Iraq on Thursday

WASHINGTON, Sept 11 (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush plans to give a speech on his Iraq strategy at 9 p.m. EDT on Thursday (0100 GMT on Friday), the White House said.

Bush will discuss his strategy in Iraq after the U.S. commander, Gen. David Petraeus told Congress in two days of testimony that he believed U.S. forces there could be drawn down by about 30,000 by next summer.

That would bring the troop levels back to where they were before the "surge" Bush ordered at the start of this year.

The White House said Bush would request live coverage of the speech by major U.S. television networks but aides declined to discuss the substance of Bush's speech.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N11456314.htm

Confident Maliki asserts al Qaeda weakened in Iraq

Al Qaeda militants in Iraq are weakened and no longer have the strongholds they need to plan and execute attacks, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki asserted in an interview with Canadian television on Tuesday.

Maliki, heavily criticized in the United States for not doing enough to restore order to Iraq and for failing to make headway toward political stability, said there had been "huge progress" in improving security.

"What drives me to believe that there will be further progress is that al Qaeda does not command any more strongholds in which it can live, organize, plan and execute terrorist attacks," he told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

"It has lost its basis and the security conditions that helped execute these operations," added Maliki, speaking through an interpreter.

The United States says al Qaeda is one of the militant groups in Iraq plotting attacks against its troops. The U.S. military said American forces targeting an al Qaeda network in northwest Iraq killed eight suspected insurgents on Tuesday.

Maliki said the "chase that followed al Qaeda from place to place" was party of a plan to prevent the group from rebuilding its cells. "This gives us indications and confidence that our continuous chase will dissolve what remains of al Qaeda."

The top U.S. military commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, this week told Congress that enough progress has been made in Iraq for the number of U.S. troops there be reduced by about 30,000 by next July. Baghdad welcomed that assessment.

"The withdrawal will not be sudden or greater than the security needs of Iraq. It will be appropriate and proportional to the need of having these troops present," said Maliki.

Maliki has said Iraqi forces need more time to take over full security responsibility from American troops and other Iraqi officials have warned that a premature U.S. pullout would trigger a civil war.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N11462801.htm

Pelosi: President's Policy is a Path to 10 More Years of War in Iraq

To: POLITICAL EDITORS

Contact: Brendan Daly or Nadeam Elshami both of the Office of the Speaker of the House, +1-202-226-7616

WASHINGTON, Sept. 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today after meeting at the White House with President Bush on Iraq:

"President Bush's policy announced by General Petraeus is a path to 10 more years of war in Iraq. General Petraeus' testimony to Congress drew a bright line: redeployment is not an option; endless war in Iraq is the Administration's only option.

"Under the Bush plan, 130,000 Americans will remain in harm's way in Iraq at a cost of hundreds of billions of additional taxpayer dollars. This status quo policy was rejected by General James Jones, whose recent report stated that significant force reductions are possible and that we must reduce our military footprint in Iraq.

"The Bush-Petraeus plan of 130,000 Americans in Iraq for 10 more years is not a reduction in our footprint; it is an insult to the intelligence of the American people to call that a new direction. It is a status quo plan that tells the Iraqi government that they do not need to change.

"The American people long ago rejected the President's plan to stay in Iraq, which is why they voted for a New Direction in 2006. Yet, with his veto pen and the 60-vote hurdle in the Senate, the President is preventing the redeployment of our troops, the rebuilding of our military, and the refocusing of our nation's efforts on fighting terrorism."

SOURCE Office of the Speaker of the House

Pelosi: President's Policy is a Path to 10 More Years of War in Iraq - Yahoo! News

Deep mistrust towards US security report

11 September 2007

Baghdad: America, Iraq and all countries interested in the Iraq issue and its ramifications are eagerly awaiting the next report from the American ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan Crocker and the military commander General David Petraeus.

However, Iraqis themselves have decided to attack the report before its publication.

Sami Abdul Hamid, an Iraqi told Gulf News: "The Petraeus-Crocker report probably means a lot more for Americans than Iraqis themselves, although it speaks about the political and security situation in Iraq.

"The Americans are following the report with great interest to determine their position - whether to stay or withdraw and how to stop the continuing casualties in the American army."

The government-run Sabah newspaper said the "Petraeus-Crocker report should not blame the government in Baghdad; instead it should respect the Iraqi government and its strategy."

Elham Hussain, a university student, told Gulf News: "I just hate talking about the Petraeus-Crocker report because it simply enhances the American tutelage over Iraq.

"The Iraqi government must issue all reports and find solutions to the deteriorating security situation and Americans have to accept the role of cooperating and supporting, not of controlling and guarding".

Sovereignty

The Iraqi political milieux, especially among the Shiite ruling coalition, did not like the recent visit by American president George W Bush visit to the Anbar province and the way Iraqi leaders headed to meet him because it carried certain meanings that detracted from Iraq's sovereignty.

Some political milieux in the Dawa party led by Nouri Al Maliki, told Gulf News that Al Maliki is keen to act as a leader of a sovereign, independent and elected government and that can be inferred from the neighbouring countries conference held in Baghdad a few days ago.

The Iraqi government seemed comfortable because the conference sent a message of independency and sovereignty.

Jalil, an officer at the Interior Ministry, told Gulf News: "Americans think they are the only ones who can bring a solution though they are the main reason for the catastrophic security situation when they left the borders wide open for Al Qaida and other external terrorist elements."

However, Bashar Al Samarae, a teacher at a secondary school, told Gulf News the report was important: "Iraqis are the only ones responsible for their issue. Yet the mistakes committed by the Al Maliki government makes the report important because Americans are the only power that can put pressure on the government to correct the mistakes and this is a bitter but true fact."

Deep mistrust towards US security report - Middle East News

The United Nations held a meeting on Iraq in "21" September 14th

Urgent News-11/09/2007
New York / agencies

The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Maliki chairmen of a high-level meeting on Iraq in New York in the first century of September.

Mon Kee said in a statement that the meeting will discuss ways of implementing the Security Council resolution "1770", which provides for the expansion of the role of the United Nations in Iraq to deal with the deteriorating situation there and following up the implementation of the "International Decade initiative" with Iraq and other related issues.

Skinner: We support a gradual American withdrawal

Urgent News-11/09/2007

Baghdad-file Press

A spokesman for the Iraqi government that Iraq would feel comfortable for a phased withdrawal of American forces as long as these plans are discussed first with the government in Baghdad.

In comment on the statement of General David Petrius Commander of the American forces in Iraq before Congress in which it was stated that American forces can be reduced to 130 thousand troops by the middle of next year, said the spokesman, Skinner Iraqi government did not believe there would be a problem in a phased withdrawal to be agreed with the Iraqis. But Skinner said that any withdrawal of the sudden not in the interest of any party and not in the interest of Iraq and the region.

The American military official said that a large inform Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Maliki Petrius testimony before Congress in Washington.

If approved, it will bring recommendations Petrius American troop levels to what they were in January almost January before starting the process of increasing the number of troops, which he Petrius they make most of their military.

Skinner described the report as a positive Petrius But he said it also reflects some of the difficulties on the ground and it is important to allow time to prepare Iraqi security forces fully prepared.

Iran: attack Iraq unless adjust borders

Urgent News-11/09/2007
Tehran / agencies

Iran threatened to attack Iraq if Baghdad did not put an end to the attacks launched by the party life free of Kurdistan (Bijak) inside Iranian territory.

The newspaper quoted the New York Times on President Mohammad Reza Bagheri, Iranian official delegation participating in the meeting of the neighboring countries in Baghdad as saying: that the Iranian authorities in the event of weak Iraqi government will be 'a military' to prevent the entry of Kurdish militiamen into Iran to carry out terrorist attacks.

According to press sources in Tehran that Bagheri did not specify whether the Iranian military forces enter Iraq or not.?