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

Sharp drop in demand for dollar in daily auction

Baghdad, Sept 5, (VOI)- Demand for the dollar was sharply down in the Iraqi Central Bank’s auction on Wednesday, reaching $70.450 million compared with $108 million on Tuesday.

In its daily statement the bank said it had covered all bids, including $14.910 million in cash and $55.540 in foreign transfers, at an exchange rate of 1,237 dinars per dollar, unchanged from yesterday.

None of the 18 banks that participated in Wednesday's session offered to sell dollar.

In statements to the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI), Ali al-Yasseri, a trader, said that the stable exchange rate led to a sharp drop in remittances in Wednesday's session bringing down the overall demand for the dollar.

The Iraqi Central Bank runs a daily auction from Sunday to Thursday.

Aswat Aliraq

Cells from Mahdi army did not honor Sadr's orders-MNF

Baghdad, Sept 5, (VOI)- The spokesman for the Multi-National forces in Iraq Brigadier General Kevin Bergner said on Wednesday that some cells from the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army did not obey the Sadr's order to freeze their activities, accusing them of "practicing armed activities."

"Most elements from Mahdi army adhered at the decision of Sayyed Muqtada al-Sadr to freeze their activities, but we found that some cells did honor the freezing order and kept practicing armed activities," the spokesman told a news conference in Baghdad.

Brigadier General Bergner who welcomed the Sadr's order to freeze the armed activities of his followers said "this will give Iraqi and U.S. forces room to fight Qaeda Organization."

Last Wednesday, the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr surprisingly decided to freeze the armed activities of his followers after clashes that erupted in the Shiite sacred city of Karbala while Shiite Muslim pilgrims were observing a religious occasion.

Meanwhile, Brigadier General Bergner unveiled the arrest of elements from "special units" that "have links to Iran and al-Quds Corps of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards".

"During the last few days, terrorist groups named "Special Units" were arrested. This network has links to Iran which provided these units with arms and explosives," the spokesman added.

The Multi-National forces spokesman also said "the arrested persons admitted their links to Iran and our intelligence indicated that they have connection to the Revolutionary Guards, Iranian Quds Corps and Lebanese Hezbollah."

Aswat Aliraq

Swede to lead UN mission in Iraq

New York - United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced Wednesday his intention to name a veteran UN troubleshooter from Sweden to head the organization's mission in war-torn Iraq.

Staffan de Mistura will become the UN special representative in Iraq, where the UN has been called to assume a larger mandate involving politics and economic development.

He will replacing Ashraf Qasi, a Pakistani diplomat, who has been shifted to Sudan to lead the UN mission monitoring peace agreements between Khartoum and southern Sudan as well as in Darfur.

Ban has informed the UN Security Council of the plan to name de Mistura, who is currently heading the UN Staff College in Turin, Italy.

De Mistura served as Qasi's deputy in Iraq following stints in the service of the UN in southern Lebanon, the Balkans, Nepal, the UN Children's Fund and the World Food Programme.

The United States had urged the UN to assume larger responsibilities in Iraq, from assisting the Baghdad government in national reconciliation, organizing elections and planning for reconstruction.

Swede to lead UN mission in Iraq - Middle East

US lawmakers have parallel realities on Iraq

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Far from unleashing a pivotal political shift, a flurry of reports to the US Congress on President George W. Bush's war strategy in Iraq appear to be simply hardening political divides.

Assessments are due on the war from the White House and a former top general, while an official US auditor's study on Tuesday gave the Iraqi government a failing grade.

The climax of a congressional collision over the war will come next week when Iraq commander General David Petraeus and US ambassador to Baghdad Ryan Crocker feature in the most anticipated hearings for years.

But the answer to the question of whether the war is now a quagmire or showing promise still lies in the eye of the beholder.

For Democrats, US troops are bogged down in an intractable civil war, worsening by a dearth of political progress, and should come home.

Tom Lantos, chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs committee complained Wednesday that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was no more than a "Shiite factional leader."

"As long as this remains the case, no number of US troops will be able to stabilize a civil war-torn Iraq."

But Bush's Republicans insist "victory" is still possible in Iraq -- de****e a Government Accountability Office study published Tuesday that found Maliki's administration had failed to meet 11 of 18 benchmarks for political and security progress.

Any US withdrawal would be a capitulation to terrorists and invite attacks on US soil comparable to the September 11 strikes in 2001, they argue.

Many members of Congress traveled to Iraq in their summer break to meet top generals, Iraqi politicians and US troops manning the "surge" plan now under the political spotlight.

But far from pushing them towards consensus, the visits appear to have hardened lawmakers' preconceptions.

"Let's be honest, the military surge which reached full strength in mid-June is working," US Republican Representative Jim Saxton said Wednesday.

But Democratic Congressman Joe Courtney drew exactly the opposite conclusion from recent events in Iraq.

"Now, little doubt remains that this plan is not working."

Bush's Republican backers warn against withdrawal and say the defection of Sunni tribes to the US side to battle Al-Qaeda militants in Anbar province shows the surge is working.

"Al-Qaeda, internationally, would say, 'We beat America in the land of two rivers,'" said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.

But Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan replied that Iraq is not "the central front on the war against terrorism."

"It is a civil war, (and there is) sectarian violence. Yes, there are some terrorists there but that is not the central front of what Al-Qaeda has been about."

Congressional divisions are partly driven by public sentiment.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans now feel Bush was too eager to wage war in Iraq, according to a Harris poll released Tuesday.

A UPI/Zobgy poll in August found half of Americans now opposed to the war.

But the split between Republican voters and Democrats is acute.
Sixty percent of Democrats in the poll believe there cannot be victory in Iraq compared to just seven percent of Republicans.

Republican leaders say they are content to wait for a report on the progress of the US war effort which Bush is bound by law to provide by September 15, before making decisions on next steps.

But the White House appears to have averted a fraying of Republican support in Congress earlier this year, partially helped by some upbeat reports by the military and academics over the last month.

Democrats, who have repeatedly failed to get Bush to accept troop withdrawal timelines, are banking on Republican support collapsing in the Senate, to get them over the 60 vote barrier needed to pass binding legislation.

Some party leaders are reportedly considering softening their demands for a binding end-date for troop withdrawals, hoping to attract Republican support.

US lawmakers have parallel realities on Iraq - Yahoo! News UK

Iraqi police force should be scrapped - U.S. report

WASHINGTON, Sept 5 (Reuters) - The Iraqi National Police force should be scrapped and reorganized because of ethnic divisions in its ranks, a new U.S. report said on Wednesday.

"The National Police have proven operationally ineffective," said the independent commission headed by retired Marine Gen. James Jones. The report's conclusions and recommendations were obtained by Reuters.

"Sectarianism in its units undermines its ability to provide security; the (police) force is not viable in its current form," the report said. "The National Police should be disbanded and reorganized."

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N05233019.htm

Howard backs Bush on Iraq as Asia-Pacific talks begin

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian Prime Minister John Howard vowed to keep Australian troops in Iraq de****e mounting pressure at home to withdraw, as annual Asia-Pacific meetings began in Sydney.
"Our commitment to Iraq remains. This is not the time for any proposals of a scaling down of Australian forces," Howard told a joint news conference with U.S. President George W. Bush, pointing to next week's crucial progress report to the U.S. Congress on the American troop surge in Iraq.

"It's historic work, Mr Prime Minister, and it's important work, and I appreciate the contribution that the Australians have made," Bush replied to the veteran Australian leader, whose support for the war in Iraq is clouding his re-election hopes.

The two men then clambered aboard a luxury yacht, and accompanied by a dozen zodiac boats packed with heavily armed, black-clad security personnel, sped across Sydney harbour to join several hundred Australian troops and sailors for lunch at the Garden Island naval base.

"I"m looking forward to you buying me lunch today. I'm a meat guy," Bush joked to Howard, who has been prime minister since 1996.

It was genuine camaraderie between two old friends whose popularity has suffered over the four-year war in Iraq.

Australia has about 1,500 troops in and around Iraq, while the United States has 160,000 soldiers there.

Bush rewarded Howard for his loyalty by signing a treaty with him on Wednesday giving Canberra improved access to top-secret U.S. military technology and intelligence.

Australia had long complained of U.S. restrictions on weapons technology and information because of Washington's concerns about espionage.

BIGGEST SECURITY OPERATION

Bush arrived early for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit this weekend in order to prepare for next week's report to Congress on the Iraq war.

Australia has launched the country's biggest ever security operation, including erecting a 2.8 metre (9 feet) security fence that has virtually cut Sydney centre in two, and which has put residents in a grumpy mood.

Australia has never experienced a terrorist attack within its borders.
Anti-war activists plan mass weekend protests, expected to draw up to 20,000 people onto the streets against Bush's visit and the Iraq war.

"I have absolutely no doubt that minority groups will engage in a level of violence not previously experienced in Sydney," police chief superintendent Steve Cullen said.

But at an anti-Bush rally at Sydney Railway Station on Tuesday ahead of the President's arrival, media outnumbered the noisy but peaceful protesters.

Trade liberalisation and climate change top the agenda at the APEC meetings, and Bush wants the group's 21 economies to agree to a strongly worded pledge to reinvigorate the Doha round of world trade talks.

Bush and Howard also talked about the rise of China, whose President Hu Jintao is also in Australia and was expected in Sydney for APEC later on Wednesday.

Hu visited a farm near the Australian capital, Canberra, to watch sheep being shorn. China is Australia's biggest wool export destination and resource market, and -- in contrast to Bush -- Hu has received a warm public reception in Australia.

Ice sculptures of Bush's and Howard's face were placed by protesters near Sydney's famous Harbour Bridge to slowly melt in the sun, symbolising the refusal of the United States and Australia to sign the Kyoto climate pact.

About 40 trade and foreign ministers, including U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, gathered at Sydney's main convention centre on Darling Harbour to hammer out a declaration for their leaders to consider at a weekend summit.

A draft of that declaration, obtained by Reuters, says the 21 APEC members will try to develop a more robust approach to strengthening food and product safety standards in the region.

APEC has begun work on a recovery programme to revive trade in the event of a terrorist attack and a set of principles "to help protect the food supply against deliberate contamination", the draft declaration said.

On trade, APEC will focus this year on "behind the border issues", competition policy, strengthening capital markets, combating corruption, promoting good governance, and a more certain legal and regulatory climate.
The draft declaration, however, gives short shrift to a U.S.-backed Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific.

Howard backs Bush on Iraq as Asia-Pacific talks begin

Iraqi Crude Oil Flowing through Turkey

Iraq's oil minister said Tuesday that crude oil began to flow from his country's northern oil-rich Kirkuk to a Turkish export terminal last week — for the first time since Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003.

"We're pumping between 300,000 to 400,000 barrels a day of Kirkuk crude to the Turkish export terminal of Ceyhan," Hussain al-Shahristani told Dow Jones Newswires in a telephone interview from Baghdad.

The pipeline — Iraq's main export route from Kirkuk to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan — has been mostly closed because of constant sabotage since the U.S.-led war.

Two weeks ago, Iraq agreed with Syria to repair and subsequently reopen another key pipeline, a 550-mile-long link connecting Kirkuk and the Syrian port of Baniyas.

Once the Baniyas line — built in the 1950s but bombed by U.S. forces during the invasion that ousted Saddam — is reopened, Iraq would be using two terminals on the Mediterranean Sea.

Currently, Iraq exports nearly all its oil through the Persian Gulf.

Al-Shahristani told Dow Jones that Iraq's current production capacity from its northern oil fields stands at 700,000 barrels a day, of which about 300,000 barrels a day are destined for a refinery in the nearby northern industrial city of Beiji for domestic use. The remainder is for export.

Last week, Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization announced a tender to sell 5 million barrels of Kirkuk crude through Turkey's Ceyhan port — the third tender of its kind this year. "As far as I know, we have over 5 million (barrels) of crude stocks in Ceyhan," al-Shahristani said.

He said he expected Iraq to maintain the same level of exports from its northern fields, citing new measures to prevent sabotage of pipelines. He said the measures include dispatching a security force, made up of tribesmen from the area and affiliated with his ministry, to guard the pipelines.

PUKmedia :: English - Iraqi Crude Oil Flowing through Turkey

Change of Her Majesty’s Ambassador to the Republic of Iraq

British Embassy Baghdad
Mr. Christopher Prentice has been appointed Her Majesty's Ambassador to the Republic of Iraq in succession to the Honorable Dominic Asquith CMG who will be transferring to another Diplomatic Service appointment. Mr. Prentice will take up his appointment during September 2007.

PUKmedia :: English - Change of Her Majesty’s Ambassador to the Republic of Iraq

Bush offers a new gauge to assess Iraq

With the Democratic-led Congress poised to measure progress in Iraq by focusing on the central government's failure to perform, President George W. Bush is proposing a new gauge, by focusing on new U.S. alliances with the tribes and local groups that Washington once feared would tear the country apart.

That shift in emphasis was implicit in Bush's decision to bypass Baghdad on his eight-hour trip to Iraq this week, stopping instead in Anbar Province, once the heart of an anti-American Sunni insurgency. By meeting with tribal leaders who just a year ago were considered the enemy, and who now are fighting Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a president who has unveiled four or five strategies for winning over Iraqis - depending on how one counts - may now be on the cusp of yet another.

It is not clear whether the Democrats who control Congress will be in any mood to accept the changing measures. On Tuesday, there were contentious hearings over a Government Accountability Office report that, like last month's National Intelligence Estimate, painted a bleak picture of Iraq's future.

It was the White House and the Iraqi government, not Congress, that first proposed the benchmarks for Iraq that are now producing failing grades, a provenance that raises questions about why the administration is declaring now that the government's performance is not the best measure of change.

The White House insists that Bush's fresh embrace of Sunni leaders simply augments his consistent support of Iraq's prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

But some of Bush's critics regard the change as something far more significant, saying they believe it amounts to a grudging acknowledgment by the White House of something these critics themselves have long asserted: that Iraq will never become the kind of cohesive, unified state that could be a democratic beacon for the Middle East.

"They have come around to the inevitable," said Peter Galbraith, a former American diplomat whose 2006 book, "The End of Iraq," argued that Bush was trying to rebuild a nation that never really existed, because Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds had never adopted a common Iraqi identity. "He has finally recognized that fact, and is now trying to work with it," Galbraith said Tuesday.

Still, like the other strategies Bush has embraced, this one is fraught with risks.

There is no assurance that the willingness of Sunnis in Anbar to join in common cause with the United States against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia can be replicated elsewhere in Iraq. And as reporters embedded with units working to enlist the support of the Sunni sheiks have written in vivid accounts from the scene, there are many reasons to question how sustained the Sunnis' loyalty will be.

The sheiks and their followers have been barred from the Iraqi military, and it is unclear whether Maliki's government will let large numbers of Sunnis sign up in the future. That creates the risk that the Sunni groups, once better trained and better armed, will ultimately turn on the central government or its patron, the U.S. military.

Then there is the worry that, even if Bush is successful in promoting "moderate" Sunnis in Anbar and "moderate" Shiites in the south, the result will be exactly the kind of partitioned state - with all its potential for full-scale civil war - that the White House has long insisted must be avoided.

"Those are real risks, and they explain in part why the strategy was not pursued before late in 2006," said Peter Feaver, a Duke University professor who, as member of the National Security Council staff at the White House until he left this summer, was one of the architects of the "New Way Forward," the plan Bush unveiled in January.

"But the first principle we embraced in the new strategy is that Iraq is a mosaic," Feaver said, "and that the risks of approaching it that way were deemed worth taking, given the alternative."

The White House insists that by flying into the tribal areas, Bush is not undercutting Maliki or cutting him loose. White House officials say that ever since his January speech, Bush has been pursuing a dual strategy, pressing for "top down" change from Baghdad as well as "bottom up" change from the provinces.

The current focus on the provinces, they say, reflects the fact that the White House overestimated what could be achieved by Maliki and his government, and underestimated the degree to which the local tribes had developed a deep hatred for Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown Sunni Arab extremist group that U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded is led by foreigners. The extent of its links to Osama bin Laden's network is not clear.

"It's not that they love us Americans," said one senior administration official. "It's that Al Qaeda was so heavy-handed, taking out Sunnis just because they were smoking a cigarette. In the end, that may be the best break we've gotten in a while."

As he flew from Iraq to Australia on Monday, Bush cast the Sunni leaders he had met in the deserts of Anbar in the most positive light possible.

"They were profuse in their praise for America," he told reporters on Air Force One, according to a pool report. He said they "had made the decision that they don't want to live under Al Qaeda," adding that "they got sick of them."

Bush, of course, has had similar public praise for just about every Iraqi leader he has met, even a few leaders now disparaged by White House officials as unreliable, powerless or two-faced.

Bush himself has told associates that in the end, the Iraq experiment depends on whether Maliki's government is truly willing to share power or whether it is determined to keep the Sunnis down.

For now, however, the White House is arguing that the ground-up relationships they are building in places like Anbar are more important than keeping a scorecard of legislation in Baghdad.

Whether that argument is enough to keep a few wavering Republicans on board may determine whether Bush gets a bit more time to try his latest strategy.

Bush offers a new gauge to assess Iraq - International Herald Tribune

Bremer told Bush of plan to dissolve Iraqi 'military and intelligence structures'

A previously undisclosed exchange of letters shows that President George W. Bush was told in advance by his top Iraq envoy in May 2003 of a plan to "dissolve Saddam's military and intelligence structures," a plan that the envoy, L. Paul Bremer, said referred to dismantling the Iraqi Army.

Bremer provided the letters to The New York Times on Monday after reading that Bush was quoted in a new book as saying that U.S. policy had been "to keep the army intact" but that it "didn't happen."

The dismantling of the army in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion is widely regarded as a mistake that stoked rebellion among hundreds of thousands of former Iraqi soldiers and made it more difficult to reduce sectarian bloodshed and attacks by insurgents.

In releasing the letters, Bremer said he wanted to refute the suggestion in Bush's comment that Bremer had acted to disband the army without the knowledge and concurrence of the White House.

"We must make it clear to everyone that we mean business: that Saddam and the Baathists are finished," Bremer wrote in a letter to the president on May 22, 2003.

After recounting U.S. efforts to remove members of Saddam's Baath Party from civilian agencies, Bremer told Bush that he would "parallel this step with an even more robust measure" to dismantle the Iraq military.

One day later, Bush wrote back a short thank-you letter. "Your leadership is apparent," the president wrote. "You have quickly made a positive and significant impact. You have my full support and confidence." On the same day, Bremer, in Baghdad, had issued the order disbanding the Iraqi military.

Bush did not mention the order to abolish the military, and the letters do not show that he approved the order or even knew much about it. Bremer referred only fleetingly to his plan midway through his three-page letter and offered no details.

In an interview with Robert Draper, author of the book "Dead Certain," Bush sounded as if he had been taken aback by the decision, or at least by the need to abandon the original plan to keep the army together.

"The policy had been to keep the army intact; didn't happen," Bush told the interviewer. When Draper asked the president how he had reacted when he learned that the policy was being reversed, Bush replied, "Yeah, I can't remember; I'm sure I said, 'This is the policy, what happened?' "
Bremer indicated he had been smoldering for months as other administration officials had steadily distanced themselves from his order. "This didn't just pop out of my head," he said by telephone Monday, adding that he had sent a draft of the order to top Pentagon officials and discussed it "several times" with Donald Rumsfeld, then secretary of defense.

A White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the White House is not openly commenting on Draper's book, said Bush indeed understood the order and was acknowledging in the interview with Draper that the original plan had proved unworkable.

"The plan was to keep the Iraqi army intact, and that's accurate," the official said. "But by the time Jerry Bremer announced the order, it was fairly clear that the Iraqi Army could not be reconstituted, and the president understood that. He was acknowledging that that was something that did not go as planned."

But the letters, combined with Bush's comments, suggest confusion within the administration about what quickly proved to be a decision with explosive repercussions.

Indeed, Bremer's letter to Bush is striking in its almost nonchalant reference to a major decision that a number of U.S. military officials in Iraq strongly opposed. Some senior administration officials, including the secretary of state at the time, Colin Powell, have since reportedly said that they did not know about the decision ahead of time.

The reference from Bremer's note to Bush is limited to one sentence. The letter devoted much more space to recounting what Bremer described as "an almost universal expression of thanks" from the Iraqi people "to the U.S. and to you in particular for freeing Iraq from Saddam's tyranny." In his 2006 memoir, Bremer said he had briefed senior officials in Washington on the plan, but he did not mention the exchange of letters with Bush.

Bremer told Bush of plan to dissolve Iraqi 'military and intelligence structures' - International Herald Tribune