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

Jolie visits Iraq

Crusading actress Angelina Jolie has visited in war-torn Iraq in her capacity as a United Nations goodwill ambassador.

On Monday, the mother-of-four flew from New York City to Damascus, Syria, where she spent hours chatting to Iraqi refugees and visited a UNHCR (United Nations Refugee Agency) registration centre.

The next day Jolie traveled to a makeshift outpost on the Syria/Iraqi border to meet 1,200 refugees, camped there because they are unable to leave the country.

"I have come to Syria and Iraq to help draw attention to the humanitarian crisis and to urge governments to increase their support for UNHCR and its partners," she said.

"My sole purpose in both countries is to highlight the plight of those uprooted by the war in Iraq.

"It is absolutely essential that the ongoing debate about Iraq's future includes plans for addressing the enormous humanitarian consequences these people face."

Jolie has also made a morale-boosting trip to meet multi-national forces and US troops in the region.

PUKmedia :: English - Jolie visits Iraq

Sadr 'freezes' militia activities

Radical Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr says he is freezing the activities of his Mehdi Army militia for up to six months in order to re-organise it.

He has also called on all its offices to co-operate with the security forces and exercise "self-control".

Analysts see the move as an attempt by Moqtada Sadr to regain control over his increasingly divided militia.

The order was read out at a news conference in Karbala, where fighting on Tuesday killed more than 50 people.

Police blamed the Mehdi Army for the violence, but it denied involvement.

'Rehabilitation'

A curfew is now in force in the city, where the situation is said to be calm.
At the Karbala news conference, one of Moqtada Sadr's aides read out a statement announcing that the Mehdi Army had suspended all its activities.
"We declare the freezing of the Mehdi Army without exception in order to rehabilitate it in a way that will safeguard its ideological image within a maximum period of six months starting from the day this statement is issued," Sheikh Hazim al-Araji said.

In Najaf, another spokesman said the order included "suspending the taking up of arms against occupiers, as well as others".

In April 2007, the US defence department described the Mehdi Army as the greatest threat to Iraq's security, replacing al-Qaeda in Iraq as the country's "most dangerous accelerant of potentially self-sustaining sectarian violence".

The militia has split in recent months into increasingly autonomous factions, some of which the US says are trained and armed by Iran.

However, the BBC's Mike Wooldridge in Baghdad says past experience of attempted purges of rogue elements in the militia will doubtless lead US and UK commanders to be wary and watch for the effect of the order on the ground.

The Mehdi Army was created by Mr Sadr in the summer of 2003 to protect the Shia religious authorities in the holy city of Najaf.

The militia strongly opposed the presence of the US-led coalition and took part in major uprisings against security forces in April and August 2004. It has also been linked to many sectarian attacks on Iraq's Sunni Arabs and has frequently clashed with rival Shia militia.

The Mehdi Army has become one of the major armed forces on the ground in Baghdad and southern Iraq, with a membership of around 60,000, according to a December 2006 report by the Iraq Survey Group.

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Sadr 'freezes' militia activities

Iraq PM clamps curfew on embattled shrine city

KARBALA, Iraq -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki clamped a curfew on the shrine city of Karbala Wednesday, after gunbattles in its crowded streets turned a Shiite pilgrimage into a bloodbath with 52 people dead.

Maliki accused members of executed dictator Saddam Hussein's regime of fomenting the violence, and said Iraq's security forces had now taken control of the city, still smouldering from a night of bitter fighting.

The indefinite curfew took effect from 11 am (0700 GMT) and applies to people and vehicles, Iraqi state television quoted Maliki as saying during a visit to Karbala.

Security force reinforcements had been sent to the city, which lies 110 kilometers (70 miles) south of Baghdad, and were now in control, Maliki said in an earlier statement.

Battles in Karbala between gunmen and police that broke out Tuesday when the streets were flooded with pilgrims, raged through the night, but died away early Wednesday.

Gunmen were seen at dawn encamped in a square near the old city, which houses shrines to two Shiite saints - Imam Hussein and Imam Abbas - one of Shiites' holiest sites, and the focus of Tuesday's pilgrimage.

Several buildings were burned down during the night, while ambulances were smashed, and a police checkpoint destroyed.

Medical officials said at least 52 people had been killed. Around 300 people were wounded, with at least 60 of them sent to ho****als in the nearby city of Najaf for treatment.

An Agence France-Presse correspondent in Najaf said 37 bodies of those killed had been brought to the city for burial.

Maliki, who is under fire at home and abroad for failing to bring stability to Iraq, blamed the bloodletting on "criminal outlaw gangs from the remnants of the Saddam Hussein regime."

"The terror acts implemented by these hired groups led to the martyrdom and the injury of a number of pilgrims, and damage to public property," he said in the statement.

But local officials said the Mehdi Army Shiite militia of anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr, who have estabished a stronghold in Karbala, were behind the fighting.

A security official said a senior Sadrist, Hamid Gannoosh - a member of the Karbala provincial council - had been arrested in Karbala Wednesday for his alleged role in the violence.

Sadr Wednesday denied that his militia was involved.

"What happened in Karbala was not a fight between the Mehdi Army and the Iraqi government. It was rather a fight between civilians and the government, and the Mehdi Army had nothing to do with it," Sadr's spokesman Sheikh Ahmed Al Sheibani quoted the cleric as saying.

Tuesday's clashes sent hundreds of thousands of pilgrims fleeing in panic. They had been streaming into the city from across the country to celebrate the birth anniversary of 8th-century Imam Mohammed Al Mehdi.

Shiites believe Imam Mehdi, the 12th Shiite imam, disappeared centuries ago from the northern Iraqi town of Samarra, but will return, one day, to save the world.

A member of the shrine administration, Walla Al Safar, said Wednesday that the fighting had begun when dozens of gunmen climbed onto the roofs of nearby buildings, and opened fire on security guards protecting the shrine.

The shooting caused pandemonium among pilgrims, some of whom tried to break into nearby shops, apparently to try to loot.

"Iraqi troops quickly arrived on the scene, and climbed onto the roof of the Imam Hussein shrine, from where they fired back at the attackers," Safar said.

However, they quickly ran out of ammunition and were forced to leave, he said.

The fighting continued when security force reinforcements arrived, Safar said, adding that the golden dome and two minarets had been damaged in the fighting.

Iraq PM clamps curfew on embattled shrine city - Culture - Middle East Times

CBS sending Couric to Iraq and Syria

New York: CBS news anchor Katie Couric plans to leave for an ambitious reporting trip to Iraq and Syria in anticipation of a crucial military report on progress of the American effort.

Couric will anchor the CBS Evening News from Baghdad next Tuesday and Wednesday, then from Damascus on Thursday and Friday. The Baghdad newscast will mark her first time in a war zone.

Couric will travel throughout Iraq to talk to military and civilian leaders, soldiers and average Iraqis, spending most of her time outside of Baghdad. CBS News would not reveal many specifics of her plans in advance because of competitive and safety concerns. The trip, in the works for six weeks, anticipates the surge progress report by Gen. David Petraeus that is expected the second week of September.

Living conditions

"You can't help but get a very detached perspective when you're not there and you're not witnessing things firsthand," Couric said on Tuesday.

"I'm curious about very basic questions regarding living conditions, about how much fear there is in the street, about how the soldiers really are doing." Couric and her travelling partner, evening news executive producer Rick Kaplan, were fitted with 14-kilogramme body armour vests in Kaplan's office on Tuesday. Both needed to send theirs back to add extra protection to the sides.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said 112 journalists have been killed in Iraq since March 2003. An additional 41 media workers have been killed, the latest being CBS News Iraqi translator Anwar Abbas Lafta, whose body was found over the weekend in Sadr City.

Couric is the second major network anchor to travel to Iraq since ABC News' Bob Woodruff was nearly killed by a roadside bomb.

Gulfnews: CBS sending Couric to Iraq and Syria

Iraq oil law can pass by comfortable majority

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iraq's draft oil law should pass by a comfortable majority when parliament meets to discuss it after the end of its summer break in September, Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi said.

"The oil law was completed in cabinet... the draft that was approved in cabinet is the one that will be presented to parliament," he told Reuters late on Tuesday, ahead of an Iraqi investment conference in Dubai.
"The parliament remains now in recess and will return at the start of September when we will reaffirm that the law will be presented to the parliament."

The controversial federal oil law has been approved by the Iraqi government after months of talks but has yet to be debated by parliament, which must approve it if it is to pass into law.

The law, which decides who controls the world's third-largest oil reserves, is now in limbo while Iraq's parliament takes its summer break.

No date has been set to debate the law, which aims to provide a legal framework to attract foreign investment and sets up a new state oil firm to oversee the sector.

Washington has pushed Iraq for months to speed up its passage and that of other legislation, which it sees as pivotal to reconciling warring Iraqis, rebuilding Iraq's shattered economy and attracting foreign investment.

The draft oil law aims to ease tension by ensuring Sunni Arabs share in oil profits though most of the reserves are in the Kurdish north and the Shi'ite Muslim south of the country.

But there has been fierce debate over the shares and how much control regional governments will have over the existing and undiscovered oil reserves, as well as the sorts of contracts that will be included.

APPENDICES?

Abdul-Mahdi said that some appendices to the law could be included to ensure the broadest possible political consensus, even though the law was expected to pass comfortably as it is.

"There are some parliamentary blocs that call for the addition of some appendices to this law. Fine, the committee is studying this and the appendices could be included in this law de****e the fact that if the voting took place in parliament now... the law would be expected to pass with a comfortable majority," he said.

"But in the interests of national consensus, it is seen that their addition would be more beneficial and get a higher level of consensus than the comfortable majority that would be expected if it was presented now."
Abdul-Mahdi was among Iraq's top five Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish political leaders who announced on Sunday that they had reached consensus on measures considered vital to fostering national reconciliation in a country riven by sectarian strife.

The agreement was one of the most significant political developments in Iraq for months and was welcomed by Washington.

Iraqi officials said the leaders agreed on draft legislation to ease curbs on former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party entering the military and civil service and endorsed the draft oil law, though a statement from President Jalal Talabani's office said more discussion was needed on the oil law.

Iraq oil law can pass by comfortable majority - Yahoo! News UK

VP says Iraq govt must work to keep majority

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iraq's parliament has no immediate plan to hold a vote of no confidence in Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government, but his administration must work hard to keep its majority, Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi said.

Maliki's 15-month-old government has been paralysed by infighting, derailing efforts to foster national reconciliation among warring majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs.

Ministers from three political blocs, or nearly half of Maliki's cabinet, have quit, accusing him of sidelining them. Some politicians have raised the idea of a no-confidence vote, but nothing concrete has happened.
Abdul-Mahdi, a fellow Shi'ite, said the government would continue but should keep an eye on shifting alliances in parliament and not take its waning support lightly.

"Parliament does not have any plans to withdraw confidence in the government, at least for now... Today, we back this government and hope it succeeds, but it must work hard," Abdul-Mahdi told Reuters late on Tuesday in Dubai.

"There is a sort of splintering that it must monitor closely and seriously. It must not take lightly these withdrawals and the loss of a lot of the backing that it enjoyed in the beginning... If this decline continues, it will be threatened with not being able to garner majority support in parliament."

Abdul-Mahdi, one of two vice presidents, is a senior leader in the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), one of Iraq's biggest parties and a key member of the ruling Shi'ite Alliance.

The Alliance itself has come under strain, with one of its members, a faction loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, among the blocs to withdraw its ministers from the cabinet.

MOUNTING PRESSURE

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who visited Baghdad this month, said in recent comments published on the Web site of U.S. magazine Newsweek that many people believed Maliki should be replaced, possibly by Abdul-Mahdi.

Kouchner apologised, but some U.S. Democrats, including presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, say Maliki must go.

Abdul-Mahdi declined to say if he wanted the job, saying he had no ambitions beyond the vice-presidency. The issue was one for Iraq's parliament to decide, he added.

The mounting internal pressure on Maliki's government comes at a critical time in the more than four-year-old Iraq war.
In two weeks time, U.S. President George W. Bush's top officials in Iraq will testify to the U.S. Congress on Iraq's security and political situation.

With opposition Democrats and some Republicans calling for U.S. troops to start leaving Iraq, the reports by U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker and U.S. commander General David Petraeus could prompt a shift in Washington's Iraq policy.

Abdul-Mahdi said he did not expect any major change in U.S. policy but anticipated a gradual troop withdrawal as Iraqi forces gained the experience and weapons to take over security.

He said Iraqi security forces were now leading around 70 percent of operations, up from around 30 percent 18 months ago.

"The surge was useful in the end, after all the fuss," he said, referring to Bush's decision early this year to send an additional 30,000 troops to Iraq.

"What will the American government decide? I do not think there will be a decision to change course entirely, 100 percent. There could be a gradual cut in troops ... I don't expect sensational transformations."

VP says Iraq govt must work to keep majority - Yahoo! News UK

U.S. analysts see Sadr move aimed at Mehdi Army rogues

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iraqi Shi'ite leader Moqtada al-Sadr's decision to suspend Mehdi Army activities is a tactic to weed out rogue elements as the young cleric struggles to maintain control over his militia, U.S. security analysts said on Wednesday.

While a cease-fire, if maintained, could allow factions in Baghdad to strike a political accord, many analysts warned against optimism.

"If it sticks, it's certainly timely and very helpful for the administration but I doubt that that's what's going on in Sadr's mind," said Bruce Riedel at the Brookings Institution.

"I think this is much more about trying to hold his militia together, which seems to be splintering even worse than before and which seems to be engaging in more and more violence against other Shia militias."

The Pentagon and State Department also played down the significance of Sadr's move.

"Statements have been made by Moqtada al-Sadr in the past and sometimes we've seen an impact as a result of them, sometimes we haven't," said State Department spokesman Tom Casey. "So I think we'll just have to wait and see what occurs on the ground."

Sadr suspended all armed actions by the Mehdi Army on Wednesday after 52 people were killed in gun battles in the southern city of Kerbala that forced hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to flee the city.

The fighting appeared to pit Iraq's two largest Shi'ite groups against one another -- Sadr's militia and the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council.

U.S. military officials have said they do not believe Sadr has full authority over the Mehdi Army, leading some defense analysts to speculate that Sadr was using the cease-fire to identify disloyal factions within the militia.

Stephen Biddle, analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, said Sadr had previously ordered his fighters to cease attacks. Then as perhaps now, that could be a tactic to leave those disloyal factions to fight U.S. forces alone.

"Maybe what this is is an attempt to get the U.S. to do his dirty work for him and cleanse the JAM of rogue elements he can't control," Biddle said, using the acronym for Jaish al-Mahdi, or Mehdi Army.

"It is certainly a logic by which a militia leader, facing an increasingly splintered militia, can try to regain control," he said.

washingtonpost.com

Approval of Iraq's oil law in sight

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 09:43:34
Source: Reuters

Iraq's Vice President says his country's draft oil law should pass by a comfortable majority in parliament after the end of its summer break.

"The oil law was completed in cabinet... the draft that was approved in cabinet is the one that will be presented to parliament," Adel Abdul-Mahdi told reporters on Tuesday, ahead of an Iraqi investment conference in Dubai.

"The parliament remains now in recess and will return at the start of September when we will reaffirm that the law will be presented to the parliament," he added.

The federal oil law, which decides who controls the world's third-largest oil reserves, has been approved by the Iraqi government after months of talks but has yet to be debated by parliament, which must approve it if it is to pass into law.

No date has been set to debate the law, which aims to provide a legal framework to attract foreign investment and set up a new state oil firm to oversee the sector.

The draft oil law aims to ease tension by ensuring Sunni Arabs share in oil profits though most of the reserves are in the Kurdish north and the Shia Muslim south of the country.

But there has been fierce debate over the shares and how much control regional governments will have over the existing and undiscovered oil reserves, as well as the sorts of contracts that will be included.

Abdul-Mahdi said that some appendices to the law could be included to ensure the broadest possible political consensus, even though the law was expected to pass comfortably as it is.

Press TV

Shell And Dow Prepare $2.1 Billion Iraqi Petro Plan

08.29.07

LONDON - Anglo-Dutch oil company Royal Dutch Shell is reportedly in talks with Dow Chemical to develop an Iraqi petrochemical plant for $2.1 billion, in a likely attempt to gain a strong foothold prior to the hoped-for opening up of the country's broken oil industry. But analysts believe the project itself has little hope of being profitable.

The plant is to be based in the southern city of Basra, and would therefore rely on the city's 120,000 barrels-a-day refinery for its feedstock. The problem, according to Global Insight energy analyst Samuel Ciszuk, is that Iraq is experiencing a refining shortage that would have a severe supply impact for any major petrochemical project.

"Unless the facility operates small-scale, it is hard to see it run on Iraqi refined products," said Ciszuk. "Of course, in the Gulf you don't need to look that far for feedstock, but it is still more expensive than sourcing it locally."

The real value of the reported project may therefore be political rather than financial. After all, the revelation that Shell (nyse: RDS.A - news - people ) and Dow Chemical (nyse: DOW - news - people ) were in talks over the joint venture came from Iraqi Industry Minister Fawzi Hariri, who told Reuters on Wednesday that the upgrade would help "the local market and beyond."

"The Iraqi government has repeatedly been saying that they want investments in petrochemicals," said Global Insight's Ciszuk. He added that this particular project would be a gesture of goodwill to build on, especially if it led to favorable status when Iraq's oil industry is liberalized.

A spokesperson for Shell, Alexandra Wright, confirmed the company was in talks with the Iraqi government "on a range of issues," but would not elaborate on the specific petrochemical plan. Dow Chemical declined to comment.

Shell's A shares rose 15 pence (30 cents), or 0.8%, to £18.55 ($37.41) in London on Wednesday afternoon. The company's B shares rose 19 pence (38 cents), or 1.0%, to £18.59 ($37.48).

Shares in Dow Chemical rose 37 cents, or 0.9%, to $42.07 in New York during morning trading.

Although any real long-term profitability for the petrochemical project will depend on the reconstruction of Iraq's security and industrial infrastructure, the real advantage for Shell and Dow lies in getting a favorable position ahead of the passing of the country's notorious oil law. The law will be the foremost issue to address when the Iraqi parliament reconvenes in September, and companies are hoping that the plan to unlock over two-thirds of the country's reserves of 112 billion barrels will finally get approval.

Shell And Dow Prepare $2.1 Billion Iraqi Petro Plan - Forbes.com

The war against Iraq's prime minister


Sens. Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin are calling for Nouri al-Maliki's ouster as a way of attacking Bush's Iraq policy. But do they understand the consequences?

August 29 2007

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/08/29/maliki/