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

Sadrists say Bush's troop cut announcement "tactical change"

Baghdad, Sept 15, (VOI) – U.S. President George W. Bush's approval to withdraw some U.S. forces from Iraq was a "tactical change," said a spokesman for Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, adding the decision "will not enter into force."

"There were several occasions in which the U.S. president spoke about troop cuts but did exactly the opposite thing," Salah al-Ubaidi told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) by telephone.

Bush had announced on Friday that he approved the withdrawal of 5,700 U.S. soldiers by the end of this year and a larger number by the end of 2008. He stressed that the United States would keep strong presence to protect what he called the achievements realized in Iraq.

Meanwhile, Ubaidi denied having negotiations within the Shiite Unified Iraqi Coalition (UIC) pertaining to participation of the Sadrists, or Iraqis loyal to al-Sadr, in the government.

The Sadrists had quit the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in April 2007 as Sadr ordered his six ministers to resign in protest of Maliki's policies.

"The Sadrists are still threatening to quit the UIC as he demands genuine changes considering the conditions of the Iraqi citizens away from the UIC leaders' rosy dreams," said Ubaidi.

The UIC has not taken the Sadrists' threats seriously, he added.

The Sadrists have 30 out of a total 275 seats in parliament. The Sadrists are part of the UIC, the largest parliamentary bloc with 115 seats.

Last Tuesday the Sadrists threatened to leave the coalition due to what he called "the ineffectiveness of the UIC" and the "domination of certain parties on the coalition's decisions."

Aswat Aliraq

Troops in Mosul on maximum alert

Iraqi and U.S. forces in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul are on maximum alert following pledges by al-Qaeda to exact revenge on Iraqi Sunnis cooperating with the Iraqi government.

Al-Qaeda has turned Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, into a major bastion in the country as U.S. military pressure mounts on its presence in central Iraq.

The group has claimed responsibility for the murder of Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, a key U.S. ally and one of the most senior chiefs of Sunni tribes in the country.

Security in Mosul has worsened recently with gunmen in control of most of the city at night.

Brigadier Abdul Kareem al-Jibouri said placing the troops under maximum alert came following reports that the gunmen were planning to drive government police and army from the city.

“Our sources say armed groups will spread in the city, deploying their gunmen on the left and right banks of the River Tigris and then embark on attacks targeting police satiations and patrols,” Jibouri said.

Jibouri coordinates police and army operations in the Province of Nineveh of which Mosul is the capital.

He said Iraqi and U.S. intelligence sources have warned of “massive terror attacks in Mosul”.

Jibouri said Iraqi troops had plans on how to foil such attacks. He did not elaborate.

http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news\2007-09-15\kurd.htm

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Anbar Sunnis vow 'revenge on Al-Qaeda' after slaying of sheikh

Thousands of Sunni Arabs in Iraq's Anbar Province vowed Friday to avenge the death of their leader, Abdel-Sattar Abu Risha, a key US ally who was killed in a suspected Al-Qaeda bomb attack on Thursday. In violence around Iraq Friday, a truck-bomb attack killed four policemen and wounded five others about 250 kilometers north of Baghdad, while US and Iraqi forces killed three suspected insurgents in a helicopter raid in Anbar Province.

Angry and grieving mourners carried Abu Risha's body to a local cemetery in Ramadi, capital of the western desert province, in a procession amid tight security by Iraqi and US forces.


"Revenge on Al-Qaeda," mourners shouted. "There is no God but God, and Al-Qaeda is the enemy of Allah. Abdel-Sattar is the pride of Ramadi."
Abu Risha and three of his bodyguards were killed Thursday when a powerful bomb ripped through their convoy near the tribal leader's home outside Ramadi.

The assassination came on the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and almost a year after Abu Risha formed the Anbar Awakening Conference, a coalition of 42 Sunni tribes who fought alongside US troops against Al-Qaeda in Anbar.

"We blame Al-Qaeda and we are going to continue our fight and avenge his death," said Sheikh Ahmad Abu Risha, who was elected the new leader of the tribal coalition soon after his brother's murder.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was represented at the funeral by national security advisor Muwaffaq al-Rubaie, who condemned the assassination.

"It is a national Iraqi disaster. What Abu Risha did for Iraq, no single man has done in the country's history," Rubaie told the mourners gathered at the sheikh's house. "We will support Anbar much more than before. Abu Risha is a national hero."

Maliki said in a statement that the attack bore "the fingerprints of Al-Qaeda" and was "aimed at destabilizing the province of Anbar." The movement of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr also condemned the Sunni sheikh's murder.

"Abu Risha was a man who proved that terrorism can be fought and security can be restored even in the most volatile area in Iraq," said Sheikh Saleh al-Obeidi, Sadr's spokesman in the Shiite holy city of Najaf.

Anbar security chief Tareq al-Dulaimi said it now appeared the sheikh was killed in a suicide car-bomb attack.

He said the bomber blew up his car alongside Abu Risha's convoy, and that it was not a roadside bomb that killed him as initially reported.

"There is reconstruction work going on between the sheikh's home on one side and a series of orchards on the other, so the road which is usually sealed off had to be opened for traffic," Dulaimi said.
"The terrorists exploited this situation to drive through a Mercedes car and blow it up near the sheikh's vehicle."


The Daily Star - Politics - Anbar Sunnis vow 'revenge on Al-Qaeda' after slaying of sheikh

Iraq far from U.S. goals for oil and electricity
$50 billion needed to meet demand, but full capacity could still be years away

WASHINGTON -- Iraq's crucial oil and electricity sectors still need roughly $50 billion to meet demand, analysts and officials say, even after the United States has poured more than $6 billion into them over more than four years.

Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Bush administration has focused much of its $44.5 billion reconstruction plan on oil and electricity.

Now, with the U.S.-led reconstruction phase nearing its close, Iraq will need to spend $27 billion more for its electrical system and $20 billion to $30 billion for oil infrastructure, according to estimates the Government Accountability Office collected from Iraqi and U.S. officials.

Even with the funding, the GAO notes that it could take until 2015 for Iraq to produce 6 million barrels of oil a day and have enough electricity to meet demand.

A commanding general of the Army Corps of Engineers says it could have enough electricity sooner: 2010 to 2013.

"The U.S. money was intended to get those industries started on recovery," said Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the U.S. special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. "We were working with a dilapidated, run-down system. It still has a long, long way to go."

If the problems aren't fixed, it will be difficult to establish a strong economy and improve the standards of living.

Oil and electricity are two of Iraq's most important industries, each depending heavily on the other.

Iraq imports about $2.6 billion worth of petroleum products a year. Oil exports account for 90 percent of the Iraqi government's revenue, but oil production is crippled without enough electricity for refineries and pipelines. Electricity, in turn, cannot be generated without the fuel that powers most of Iraq's power plants.

U.S. officials say they found the country's infrastructure in worse shape than they expected, hit hard by the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91 and a decade of economic sanctions. One U.S. auditor said he spent a day with 22 Iraqi electrical engineers who proudly showed him how they jury-rigged a generator using the sawed-off bottom of a Pepsi can.

The Americans put $4.6 billion into more than 2,600 projects to repair electricity-generation facilities, transmission lines and distribution networks. They put $1.75 billion into improving the country's oil infrastructure.

Another huge problem: Armed groups regularly attack oil and electricity facilities.

Analysts say Iraq needs to invest money to improve its infrastructure for pumping and processing oil, upgrade and maintain equipment, and train workers at power plants and refineries.

One U.S. adviser said, "They need more of everything."

Iraq far from U.S. goals for oil and electricity | IndyStar.com

Iraq to start deliveries of discounted oil

AMMAN - Iraq is to start this week delivering oil to Jordan at preferential rates under a delayed year-old agreement, the kingdom’s transport minister said in an interview published on Sunday.

‘The Iraqi side has informed the Jordanian authorities that it was ready deliver shipments of crude oil from Kirkuk within three days because the circumstances are currently suitable,’ Saud Nessayrat told Al Dustour daily.

The crude will be transported from Iraq’s ethnically-volatile northern oil hub of Kirkuk and Iraqi authorities will provide protection for the tanker trucks up to the border, Nessayrat said.

Baghdad struck a deal with Amman in August 2006 to provide its neighbour with between 10 and 30 percent of its daily oil needs of around 100,000 barrels starting from September of last year.

But the shipments have been delayed for technical and security reasons.
Nessayrat said that Iraq will at first supply Jordan with 10,000 barrels a day. ‘Iraq and Jordan are expected to increase the supplies in the future,’ the minister said.

In June, Iraq’s Finance Minister Bayan Jabr Solagh said his country would be selling the oil to Jordan at a preferential rate of 18 dollars below market prices.

Jordan was reliant on Iraq for all its oil needs before the US-led invasion of its eastern neighbour in March 2003, importing 5.5 million tonnes annually by road, half of it free and the rest at a preferential price.

Khaleej Times Online - Iraq to start deliveries of discounted oil=

Iraqis Fail To Get Oil Deal Over Finish Line

Talks Weakened By Cracks in Draft-Law Compromise

Baghdad — A carefully constructed compromise on a draft law governing Iraq's rich oil fields, agreed to in February after months of arduous talks among Iraqi political groups, appears to have collapsed. The apparent breakdown comes just as Congress and the White House are struggling to find evidence that there is progress toward reconciliation and a functioning government here.

Senior Iraqi negotiators met in Baghdad on Wednesday in an attempt to salvage the original compromise, two participants said. But the meeting came against the backdrop of a public series of increasingly strident disagreements over the draft law that has broken out in recent days between Hussain al-Shahristani, the Iraqi minister of oil, and officials of the provincial government in the Kurdish north, where some of the nation's largest fields are located.

Al-Shahristani, a senior member of the Arab Shiite coalition that controls the federal government, negotiated the compromise with leaders of the Kurdish and Arab Sunni parties. But since then the Kurds have pressed forward with a regional version of the law that al-Shahristani insists, much to the irritation of the Kurds, is illegal.

Many of the Sunnis who supported the original deal have also pulled out in recent months.

The oil law is one of several crucial pieces of legislation and wider political agreement that the Bush administration has been pressing for to show progress toward creating a functioning government and healing the country's sectarian divide.

One of the participants in the meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, who has worked for much of the past year to push for the original compromise said some progress had been made at the meeting, but that he could not guarantee success.

“This has been like a roller coaster. There were occasions where we seemed to be there, where we seemed to have closure, only to fail at that,” said Salih, who is Kurdish. “I don't want to create false expectations, but I can say there is serious effort to bring this to closure.”

The legislation has already been presented to the Iraqi parliament, which has been unable to take virtually any action on it for months.

Contributing to the dispute over the draft law is the decision by the Kurds to begin signing development and service contracts with international oil companies before the federal law is passed. The most recent instance, announced last week on a Kurdish government Web site and first reported by The Wall Street Journal, was an oil exploration contract with the Hunt Oil Co. of Dallas.

The Sunni Arabs who removed their support for the deal did so, in part, because of a contract the Kurdish government signed earlier with a company based in the United Arab Emirates, Dana Gas, to develop gas reserves.

The Kurds maintain that their regional law is in fact consistent with the Iraqi Constitution, which grants substantial powers to the provinces to govern their own affairs. But al-Shahristani believes that a sort of Kurdish declaration of independence can be read into the move. “This to us indicates very serious lack of cooperation that makes many people wonder if they are really going to be working within the framework of the federal law,” al-Shahristani said in a recent interview, before the Hunt deal was announced.

Kurdish officials dispute that contention, saying that they are doing their best to work within the constitution while waiting for the Iraqi parliament, which always seems to move at a glacial pace, continues to consider the legislation.

“We reject what some parties say — that it is a step towards separation — because we have drafted the Kurdistan oil law depending on article 111 of the Iraqi constitution which says oil and natural resources are properties of Iraqi people,” said Jamal Abdullah, spokesman for the Kurdistan Regional Government. “Both Iraqi and Kurdish oil laws depend on that article,” Abdullah said.

The other crucial players are the Sunnis and Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki. The main Sunni party, Tawafuq, which insists on federal control of contracts and exclusive state ownership of the fields, bolted when it became convinced that the Kurds had no intention of following those guidelines.

But the prime minister's office believes there is a simpler reason the Sunnis abandoned or at least held off the deal: Signing it would have given al-Maliki a political success that they did not want him to have.

“I think there is a political reason behind that delay in order not to see the Iraqi government achieve the real agreement,” said Sadiq al-Rikabi, the senior political adviser to al-Maliki. Al-Rikabi was at Wednesday's meeting.

Ali Baban, who as a senior member of Tawafuq negotiated the compromise, said that allegation was untrue. “I have a good relationship” with al-Maliki, Baban said.

“This is an issue of Iraqi unity,” Baban said. “This could cause a split in this country.”

Al-Maliki has suggested returning to the original language agreed to in February and attempting once again to push the law through the parliament. Salih says that there is basic agreement on returning to that language, but conceded that Sunni participants in Wednesday's meeting might insist on a deal that includes changes to the Iraqi Constitution to safeguard their interests in the distribution of revenues.

A law on how the revenue should be shared is being developed as a critical companion piece of legislation to the draft law.

“There remains debate on the revenue sharing law,” Salih said.

The central element of the compromise, known as the hydrocarbons law or more simply as the oil law, was agreed to in February after months of difficult negotiations among Iraq's political groups and was hailed as a rare sign of reconciliation in a country riven along ethnic, sectarian and regional lines.

The main parties in those negotiations were Iraqi Kurds, who were eager to begin signing contracts with international oil companies to develop their extensive northern fields; Arab Shiites, whose population is concentrated around the country's vast southern fields; and Arab Sunnis, with fewer oil resources where they predominate.

Those geographic facts meant that the compromise law had to satisfy both the Sunni insistence that the central government maintain strong control over the fields as well as the push by the Kurds and Shiites to give provincial governments substantial authority to write contracts and carry out their own development plans.

Somehow negotiators managed to strike that balance, but soon after, the agreement began to unravel.

Many of the negotiations centered on a federal committee that would be set up to review the contracts signed with oil companies to carry out the development and exploitation of the fields. The Kurds objected to any requirement that the committee would have to approve contracts. So in a nuanced bit of language, the negotiators gave the committee only the power to reject contracts that did not meet precisely specified criteria.

But problems immediately cropped up after the Cabinet approved the draft law and, in what seemed to be a perfunctory step, the draft went to a council that was supposed to hone the language to be sure it complied with Iraqi legal conventions.

When the draft emerged from that council, the members of some parties, particularly the Kurdish ones, thought that the careful balance struck in the draft had been upset, and they accused al-Shahristani of meddling. Then the law languished in parliament and, said Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi foreign minister, the Kurds decided to send a signal that they would not wait indefinitely and they signed the contract with Dana Gas.

TheDay.com - Iraqis Fail To Get Oil Deal Over Finish Line

Bush Speech Does Little To Ease Differences Over Iraq

But most Americans agree no end in sight

Published on 9/16/2007

TheDay.com - Bush Speech Does Little To Ease Differences Over Iraq

Shiite Sheiks Start To Ally With U.S. Military

Anbar model slowly spreading to southern Iraq

Published on 9/16/2007

Kut, Iraq — American commanders in southern Iraq say Shiite sheiks are showing interest in joining forces with the U.S. military against extremists, in much the same way that Sunni clansmen in the western part of the country have worked with American forces against al-Qaida.

Sheik Majid Tahir al-Magsousi, the leader of the Migasees tribe here in Wasit province, acknowledged tribal leaders have discussed creating a brigade of young men trained by the Americans to bolster local security as well as help patrol the border with Iran.

He also said last week's assassination of Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, who spearheaded the Sunni uprising against al-Qaida in Anbar province, only made the Shiite tribal leaders more resolute.

“The death of Sheik Abu Risha will not thwart us,” he said. “What matters to us is Iraq and its safety.”

The movement by Shiite clan leaders offers the potential to give U.S. and Iraqi forces another tactical advantage in curbing lawlessness in Shiite areas. It also would give the Americans another resource as they beef up their presence on the border with Iran, which the military accuses of arming and training Shiite extremists.

Similar alliances with Sunni tribes in the western Anbar province helped break the grip of groups such as al-Qaida in Iraq and were widely cited in the Washington hearings as a major military success this year.

Such pacts to fill the vacuum left by Iraqi police and soldiers unable or unwilling to act against Shiite militias carry even greater potential spinoffs for Iraq's U.S.-backed leadership — but also higher risks.

Shiites represent about 60 percent of Iraq's population and the bulk of the security forces and parliament. Worsening the current Shiite-on-Shiite battles could ripple to the highest levels.

But U.S. officials at the heart of the effort hope to tap a wellspring of public frustration with militias and criminal gangs to recruit the tribal volunteers, although they stress it is still in the early stages.

“It's an anti-militia movement ... Shiite extremists of all stripes,” said Wade Weems, head of a Provincial Reconstruction Team leading the dialogue in the Wasit province southeast of Baghdad.

“We see consistently expressed deep frustration or anger with the activities of militia that appear to be untethered to any sort of guiding authority, appear to be really criminal in nature,” he added.

But while the military has made inroads with Sunni leaders in some Baghdad neighborhoods and areas surrounding the capital, including Diyala province, officials stressed it's too early to know if efforts to extend the strategy to Shiite leaders will take root.

“This is a very different province and a very different dynamic and we're not going to just adopt lock, stock and barrel another province's model and impose it here,” Weems said. “This will take some time for us to understand exactly what it is these tribes want to do.”

In Anbar, the goal of the Sunnis was to drive al-Qaida in Iraq away from towns and villages because of the terror movement's attempt to impose a rigorous Islamic lifestyle.

In Wasit, which borders Iran, the goal is to rein in armed Shiite groups, some of them probably armed by Iran, which are locked in a power struggle that is making life intolerable for ordinary people.

U.S. officers believe last month's fighting among rival Shiite militias during a religious festival in Karbala may have been the last straw. Up to 52 people died in the clashes, which marred what was supposed to be a joyous celebration.

Anger also rose after the assassinations of two southern provincial governors that were seen as part of a brutal contest among rival Shiite militias to control parts of Iraq's main oil regions.

Fearing a backlash, Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of Iraq's biggest militia, ordered a six-month freeze on his Mahdi Army's activities and began reorganizing the force to purge unruly elements.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the militias appeared to be alienating the Shiite community with internal violence in the same way al-Qaida in Iraq caused Sunni leaders to turn against it.

“There are some signs that the Shia are perhaps beginning to have the same — get the same kind of wake-up call with respect to their extremists that the Sunnis in Anbar did,” he said.

Since Karbala, Weems said he has attended a “flurry of meetings” with sheiks interested in ways they can use their formidable influence to help restore order.

“They are well aware of what's happened in Anbar province, the role that the tribes played in securing some of the less secure areas in that province,” he said. “There has been a good deal of success with those, not just in Anbar but in other areas.”

Army Capt. Majid al-Imara, who said he has been charged with establishing the new force, said each battalion will be made up of 350 men chosen by tribal leaders, and they will be armed and equipped by the Iraqi government and paid $300 monthly, he said.

Col. Peter Baker, the commander of the 214th Fires Brigade that took over Forward Operating Base Delta near Kut in June, also said the idea was for the tribal volunteers to act as an “auxiliary police force” that could provide security in an organized fashion but let the sheiks maintain control of tribal members.

One of the obstacles is the lack of a single enemy, such as al-Qaida in Iraq, which alienated Sunni tribal leaders and even other insurgents by killing sheiks and trying to impose a strict interpretation of Islam.

Shiites are getting increasingly fed up, however, with the fighting among rival militia groups, as well as the criminal nature of gangs engaging in extortion and setting up illegal checkpoints.

Weems acknowledged fears that the tribal leaders could abuse their authority and said he expected the movement to start with small groups that would receive mandatory training in when and how to use force, with careful monitoring.

“As with any group that is taking on a security function where the police seem to be failing, there are concerns,” he said. “We'll probably adopt a model of growing these from smaller groups and measuring their success before we broaden it.”

But, he said, the ultimate goal was to quickly “integrate those tribal volunteers into one branch of the Iraqi security forces, be it the army, the police or — here in Wasit — the border patrol.”

TheDay.com - Shiite Sheiks Start To Ally With U.S. Military

Officials: Number Of Fighters Entering Iraq From Syria Falling

Published on 9/16/2007

The number of foreign fighters entering Iraq from Syria has decreased noticeably in recent months, corresponding to a similar decrease in suicide bombings and other attacks by the group al-Qaida in Iraq, according to U.S. military and intelligence officials. “There is an early indication of a trend,” said Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, in an interview. Border crossings from Syria that averaged 80 to 90 a month have fallen to “half or two-thirds of that over the last two or three months,” Petraeus said. An intelligence official said that “the Syrians do appear to be mounting a crackdown on some of the most hardened terrorists transiting through the country, particularly al-Qaida-affiliated foreign fighters.”

TheDay.com - Officials: Number Of Fighters Entering Iraq From Syria Falling