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

Blackwater besieged by more Iraq allegations
Congressional report says Blackwater sent personnel to Fallujah in 2004 before its contract officially started.

US diplomats and military chiefs in Baghdad were preparing Friday for a formal meeting with angry Iraqi officials over the operations of private security companies, including Blackwater USA.

The meeting comes amid mounting pressure on Blackwater over its Iraq operations with a damning US Congress report and further allegations of its supposedly gung-ho attitude splashed across newspapers.

Almost a fortnight after the American firm was accused of killing 10 Iraqis in a Baghdad shootout, a joint inquiry with the Iraqi government into the US government's use of protective security details is about to hold its first session, the embassy said in a statement.

It did not say when the two sides would meet but announced the US team would comprise eight members, three of them military officials.

The US failure to clamp down on the activities of Blackwater and a skein of other operators making huge profits out of the terrible security situation in Iraq is fuelling frustration.

"The Americans are embarrassed," said Jalal Al-Din Al-Saghir, a member of parliament from the ruling Shiite majority. "What happened ... is a crime."

"To deter the company it is not enough to accuse it, it should first be condemned then closed down," he added.

The furore over the shooting refuses to die down and further question marks now hang over its hired guns.

Blackwater maintains its men were legitimately responding to an ambush while protecting a US State Department convoy during the September 16 incident, but a new US Congress report portrayed the company in a worse light.

The Congressional committee in Washington said that Blackwater had sent personnel to Fallujah in 2004 without proper support on a mission that ended in their deaths and sparked a brutal US military assault on the Iraqi city.

The New York Times, meanwhile, reported that Blackwater guards were ordered to "stop shooting" by a colleague during the latest Baghdad clash, which provoked a call from Iraq's prime minister for them to leave the country.

A US official close to the investigation into the incident in Baghdad's busy Nisoor Square told the newspaper that at least one Blackwater employee had continued to shoot at civilians even after calls for a ceasefire.

"Stop shooting -- those are the words that we're hearing were used," said the official, who was not named.

Washington has launched two separate probes into the Blackwater actions, one ordered by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a second by the US defence department.

The Baghdad government has threatened to try the Blackwater guards under Iraqi law and is preparing legislation to bring the supervision of private contractors under its control.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki initially said Washington should immediately replace Blackwater but later backed down and agreed to await the outcome of investigations.

Iraqi investigators said that Blackwater personnel opened fire without provocation.

In the Fallujah incident, four Blackwater employees were killed by an angry mob which mutilated their bodies and hung them from a bridge on March 31, 2004.

The shocking images were broadcast ********* and helped trigger a month-long US assault on Fallujah, a Sunni insurgent stronghold, that left 36 US soldiers, 200 insurgents and 600 Iraqi civilians dead.

The House panel said Blackwater took on the Fallujah mission before its contract had officially started and ignored warnings about the risks of entering a known insurgent stronghold.

Middle East Online

Kurdistan gov''t rejects proposal by US Congress to divide Iraq

The Kurdistan government on Friday rejected a call by the US Congress for dividing Iraq into three segments.

The Kurish government is against the division of the country, land or people, but it backs sharing of power and wealth, Spokesman of the Kurdistan government Jamal Abdullah told reporters today.

Abdullah's statements follow a non-binding US Congressional resolution calling for dividing Iraq into three parts.

The Senate resolution urged U.S. President George W. Bush to seek international support for such a political settlement and convene a conference with Iraqis to help them reach it.

http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesP...86&Language=en

GOP Senators Offer New Timeline for Iraq

A small group of Republicans facing election fights next year have rallied around war legislation they think could unite the GOP: call for an end to U.S. combat in Iraq, but wait until President Bush is out of office.

The legislation was deemed essentially a nonstarter by Democrats Friday and underscored the difficulty Congress has in striking a bipartisan compromise on the war. What attracts Democrats has repelled Republicans and vice versa, making it impossible so far to find a middle ground.

"To try to put this off until after the election, rather than a reasonable period of completion, I believe would be to unnecessarily introduce a political element to what is a bipartisan effort," said Sen. Carl Levin, the Democratic chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

The proposal, by Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, would require that Bush change the mission of U.S. troops from combat to primarily support roles, such as training Iraqi security forces and protecting U.S. infrastructure in Iraq. His legislation would set a goal of completing such a mission transition within 15 months.

If enacted immediately, that timeline would not kick in until Bush's last couple weeks in office.

Co-sponsors of the bill include Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina and Norm Coleman of Minnesota. Of the sponsors, only Voinovich is not up for re-election in 2008.

Voinovich, Alexander and Coleman in particular have been critics of Bush's war strategy, citing voter frustration with what seems to be an open-ended military commitment in Iraq. Coleman has become a popular political target by anti-war groups hoping to replace him with a Democratic candidate willing to demand troop withdrawals.

For months, these senators and other GOP members were seen as potential supporters of Democratic proposals to challenge Bush on the war. But the group has refused any legislation that includes a timetable for troop withdrawals, contending they do not want to tie the hands of military generals and a wartime president.

However, Democrats say they aren't in a position to forego deadlines. Under substantial pressure from voters to consider nothing less, party leaders have repeatedly called for votes on legislation ordering troops home. Each time, the bill sinks in the Senate where Democrats lack the 60 votes needed to overcome parliamentary hurdles.

Levin, D-Mich., said he worked closely with Voinovich in recent days in the hopes of striking a compromise proposal that could muster the necessary 60 votes.

But neither side was able to get past one big sticking point: when Bush should be pressured to end combat and hand the mission off to the Iraqis. Voinovich thought by extending the date to 15 months from now, it would take the 2008 elections off the table and entice Republicans to support it.

But that 15-month timetable "made it just unacceptable to most Democrats," Levin said.

The Senate is on track to pass on Monday a defense policy bill that authorizes about $649 billion including some $130 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While the measure approves the money, it does not guarantee it; Bush will have to wait for Congress to pass a separate appropriations bill that actually transfers money to the military's coffers.

Democratic leaders say the recent passage of a stopgap spending bill that funds the Pentagon at 2007 levels gives the military enough money to keep the war going for a few more months. A spending bill to pay for combat through next September might not be passed until early next year, officials said.

GOP Senators Offer New Timeline for Iraq - Forbes.com

Sunni, Shiite leaders denounce Congress's resolution to divide Iraq

Iraqi Shiite and Sunni leaders denounced a US Senate resolution calling for a division of Iraq along ethnic lines, sources said Friday. A representative of Shiite leader and cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani Friday called on politicians and political and religious entities not to respond to "any project encompassing a division of Iraq a sectarian or religious basis."

Sheikh Abdul-Hadi al-Karbalaa told hundreds of Shiite worshippers at Imam Hussein mosque in Karbala: "It is a mistake to think that this American project will reduce chaos in Iraq."

"On the contrary, this will lead to more struggles and the spread of disarray even in some neighbouring countries," he said.

"It is for the benefit of the Iraqi people from all sects and social classes to live within a unified Iraq ... where everybody joins forces to get over the circle of violence and instability that we are going through," he added.

Meanwhile, the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS) condemned Thursday the proposed resolution, saying that anyone who backed it would be "a traitor of the nation and faith."

"The Congress' suggestion of the establishment of federal entities under the pretext of halting sectarian violence is not shocking because it was one of the objectives behind the (US) invasion of Iraq," an AMS statement said.

According to the Sunni clerics, the resolution, "meets the needs of a wing that is well known inside the incumbent US administration and the Zionist lobby it supports."

They further accused US Senator Joseph Biden and his group who forwarded the draft of being "loyal to this (Zionist) lobby."

The US Senate, late Wednesday, approved, with 75 votes for and 23 against, a "non-binding" draft resolution envisaging the division of Iraq into three Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni entities, with a federal government in Baghdad undertaking border security and the management of oil profits.

It supporters said it was "the only solution" to stop violence sweeping the country.

Analysts in Iraq believe, meanwhile, that the Kurdish Autonomous Region would welcome the resolution since it has always sought to be independent of the Iraqi state.

Sunni, Shiite leaders denounce Congress's resolution to divide Iraq : Middle East World

Legislators demand secret vote in Parliament

More than 100 Iraqi legislators have made confidential casting of votes contingent to their taking part in parliamentary debates.

As the 275-member parliament gears towards voting on crucial and sensitive legislation, members say opponents should not be given the chance to see whether they are against or pro controversial issues.

Many politicians in the parliament belong to factions which employ heavily armed militia groups some of them already implicated in the upsurge in sectarian violence in the country.

The draft laws before the parliament have sparked a lot of division and controversy.

Most contentious is the oil law, backed by the ruling Shiite and Kurdish coalition, and strongly criticized by opposition groups mainly Sunni Muslim Iraqi Arabs.

Another divisive draft law concerns major revisions of debaathfication, the legislation under which members of the former ruling Baath party have been banned from holding government posts.

And finally the legislatures are to vote on a draft law that will officially turn the country into a federal state where provinces can declare themselves semi-independent of the central government in Baghdad.

Iraqi resistance groups, which are predominantly Sunni, have also warned legislators of grave consequences if they vote in support of these draft laws.

http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news\2007-09-28\kurd.htm

Iraqi Currency

I was just reading the article below regarding the history of the Iraqi Currency and I noticed that here they state that the final rate has not been set and acknowledge 'the programme exchange rate'. I haven't seen this written down before and thought it interesting.

'The official currency of Iraq is the dinar. Issued by the Central Bank of Iraq, this Iraqi currency is subdivided into 1000 fils although these fils have gone out circulation due to inflation. Circulation of dinar began in 1931 and it replaced the Indian rupee, which was previously the currency of Iraq.

The Iraqi dinar was pegged at par with the British pound upto 1959 and after that the peg has been shifted to the US dollar.The exchange rate has not been set finally yet after the recent turmoil in the country and hence, international banks do not exchange the dinar as of now. However, the program exchange rate of Iraqi currency is 1263 dinars per US dollar.

In 1931, when the Iraqi Currency Board began issuing banknotes on behalf of the government of the country, the notes were printed in the United Kingdom. These banknotes could be converted into pound sterling. The National Bank of Iraq began to issue the currency of Iraq from 1947 while the Central Bank of Iraq took over the duty from 1954. After the Gulf War, Iraq currency was printed both in Iraq and China using cheap wood pulp paper. Banknotes issued between 1990 and 2003 have the picture of former President Saddam Hussein engraved on them. After the introduction of 10,000 dinar banknotes, the notes of lower denominations fell out of circulation. The 250 dinar notes are the most widely used notes in Iraq.

Before the Gulf War, the currency in Iraq was known as Swiss dinar, named after the Swiss printing technology used in production of the notes. The new Iraqi currency issued in 2003 has six denominations: 50, 250, 1000, 5000 and 10,000. Coins were issued in the country from 1931 and 1932 in denominations of 1, 2, 4, 10, 20, 50 and 200 fils. Some other new denominations were issued after the establishment of the Iraqi republic. In 2004, new 100 and 25 dinar coins were introduced.'

http://www.economywatch.com/currency/world/iraqi.html

US State Dept: Iraq National Oil Law To Supersede Hunt Deal

Iraq's national oil law will superseded Hunt Oil's deal with the Kurdistan Regional Government, a U.S. State Department official said Friday.

Hunt Oil signed a production-sharing agreement with the KRG earlier this month, one of the first American companies to sign an exploration and production deals in the war-torn country since the U.S.-led invasion.

"While the Kurdistan regional government has passed its own oil law and is proceeding to operate under the terms of that, it's important to note that that regional law will be superseded by what we hope to see soon, which is a national Iraqi oil law," Deputy Spokesman Tom Casey said in a briefing to reporters.

"I'm not sure exactly how helpful it is for either any individual corporate entity or the Kurdistan regional government to be proceeding to make deals and contracts under an arrangement that in fact may be changed, and I expect will likely - probably - be changed as a result of overarching national legislation," Casey said.

Political analysts and the U.S. government's own auditor have warned that major political challenges still must be overcome within Iraq's divided central government before a hydrocarbon law is passed.

"These kinds of contracts don't contribute to a resolution that is in the best interest of the Iraqi people and they do elevate tensions between the Kurdish regional government and the government of Iraq. And to the extent that they detract from an ability to get a national oil law completed...aren't particularly helpful," Casey said.

http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/Ne...ternational.na

Here we go again, bicker, bicker, bicker

Oil and gas agreements legal say Iraqi Kurds

Iraq's Kurdish regional government (KRG) said yesterday that oil and gas deals it has signed since February are legal, rejecting Baghdad's claim that the deals breach the country's law.

Iraq's cabinet agreed a draft law for dividing the world's third-largest oil reserves in February, but rows with the KRG, as well as objections from some politicians have slowed its progress.

Frustrated by Baghdad's delays, the semi-autonomous KRG approved its own oil law in August and announced this month it had signed a production-sharing contract with a unit of US-based Hunt Oil and with Impulse Energy Corporation. In April the KRG signed a service contract with the UAE's Dana Gas.

"The Hunt contract was signed...according to the enacted regional law based on the federal constitution. There is no question about the legality of that or any other deal," KRG government spokesman Khaled Salih said.

It would be unconstitutional for Baghdad to punish the companies that had signed deals with the semi-autonomous region in the north of Iraq, Salih said.

"How can any serious government official think they are in a position to punish any company working in Iraq legally to contribute to the country's revenue for the benefit of the whole country?," Salih said.

Iraq's Oil Minister Hussain Al Shahristani earlier said that deals signed since February were illegal, and warned that the firms involved "will bear the consequences."

Al Shahristani also said that crude from the deals could not be legally exported, as under the draft oil law only Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organisation (Somo) held the right to export.

But Salih said the draft oil law gave no such exclusive right to Somo. He said that companies with an interest in the Kurdish oil and gas industry were no longer discouraged by Shahristani's statements.

Gulf Daily News

Turkey, Iraq sign counter-terrorism agreement

Turkey and Iraq signed an agreement to fight against terrorism in the Turkish capital of Ankara on Friday.

Turkish Interior Minister Besir Atalay and his Iraqi counterpart Jawad al-Bulani signed the agreement aimed at cracking down on separatist rebels of the banned Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) who have been attacking Turkey from bases in northern Iraq.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Atalay said the two countries will maintain negotiations as now "it was not possible to reach a deal on an article about strengthening of security and cooperation in border regions and advancement of measures against terrorist organizations in border regions."

"We believe that the Iraqi government's positive perspective and will on cooperation in fight against terrorism will contribute to measures that hinder activities of the terrorist organization PKK which is particularly carrying out its activities in north of Iraq," said Atalay, adding that national efforts are not sufficient enough to combat terrorism.

According to Atalay, he discussed with al-Bulani the ways to hinder activities of the terrorist organizations, particularly the PKK, join force in fight against terrorism, train Iraqi security forces and extend technical assistance between the two interior ministries.

Atalay said "in order to hinder activities of the terrorist organizations, particularly the PKK, the two countries pledged to prevent the use of their territories by terrorist groups for accommodation, training, planning and propaganda and for staging terrorist attacks on the other country."

For his part, al-Bulani said that the Iraqi government has been trying to enhance cooperation with its neighbors, adding that a multilateral fight is required against terrorism which is a problem upsetting all countries and societies in the world.

There are several terrorist groups in Iraq, many of which are not of Iraqi origin, including the PKK, al-Bulani said, noting that the governments should work together to put an end to heinous attacks on security forces and civilians.

The pact, however, falls short of meeting Ankara's demand to send troops in pursuit of PKK rebels fleeing across the border into northern Iraq, private NTV television said.

Ankara has threatened military incursion into northern Iraq to strike the PKK base if Baghdad and Washington fail to curb the terrorists, who notably stepped up their attacks inside Turkey this year.

The PKK has increased attacks on Turkish troops in southeastern Turkey, which led to rising Turkish demands for an incursion into northern Iraq to crush the rebels based there.

The group, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, launched an armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in the mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking decades of strife that has claimed more than 30,000 lives.

Turkey, Iraq sign counter-terrorism agreement

Raising the value of the Iraqi dinar achieved more than what was expected

Akbar explained that the "procedures and treatments approved by the Central Bank Governor and the members of the Governing Council, were aiming at stabilizing the exchange rate of the Iraqi dinar against the American dollar at (1,250), but the precise procedures of the monetary policy of the Bank to restore confidence in its independence, gave results of bringing the value of the dinar exchange rate to about (1,234) versus the American dollar, which places the Iraqi dinar in a good market state, due to the optimism created by monetary policy on Iraqi future economy."

He continued that "according to the monetary policy adopted by the Central Bank, it was decided to raise the price of the Bank (Policy rate) from 16 to 20% annually, in addition to raising the interest rates of credit: the primary credit would be for 22% annually and the secondary credit 23% annually." Pointing out that it was decided to raise the interest rate of the Last Resort Loan to 5,23% annually, as well as raising rates on banks' deposits in the Iraqi Central Bank to be 18% annually for the night investment, and 19% annually for the investment for 14 days, while the interest of investment for 30 days became 20% annually.

On the other hand, the banking expert and general manager of the National Company for Financial Services, Abbas Khudayr Al-Kaabi, praised the monetary policy adopted by the Iraqi Central Bank to deal with inflation, and described it as deliberate and successful policy.

Al-Kaabi said, "however, raising the interest deposits at the Central Bank, to hit 20% annually, would certainly reduce the investment opportunities for Iraqi private and governmental banks; instead of moving towards investment, Iraqi banks will turn towards deposit in the Iraqi Central Bank of, because the interest mentioned earlier represents secure profitability, particularly since Iraqi banks are currently operating in circumstances do not allow them to deal with investment cover from outside the country, which adversely affect the ability of banks to continue their investment directions again. "

Hassan Ghalib Kubbah, Director of Basrah International Bank for Investment stressed the importance of improving the performance of the banking sector to conform to global standards of banking activity. He explained that "treating the imbalances is impossible, without passing through new funding sources which foreign investment is considered one of their direct channels." He pointed out that productive and service companies are currently operating with support from the Bank of Basrah, in the sectors of shipping, tourism, food production and packaging, and achieved good results de****e the difficult circumstances.

Kubbah concluded that "the Iraqi banking sector can create the appropriate investment environment, which would activate the investment law, in collaboration with other sectors involved in the Iraqi arena." (Source)AlSabah

Iraqi Dinars | Iraqi News and Iraqi Money