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

Iraqi Sunnis slam new Shiite, Kurdish alliance
BAGHDAD -- Leaders of Iraq's disenchanted Sunni Arab community Friday slammed the new Shiite and Kurdish alliance formed to salvage Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki's national unity government.

The National Concord Front, the main Sunni Arab political bloc in the country's 275-member parliament, said the new tie-up between the two Shiite and two Kurdish parties was a "futile" exercise.

On Thursday, President Jalal Talabani and Maliki announced the forming of the alliance, which brought together Shiite Dawa party and Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, and the Kurdish factions of Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Kurdish Democratic Party (PDK).

The National Concord Front had boycotted talks that led to the new bloc's creation.

"The leaders should not have announced the alliance before convincing all the effective political leaderships ... whose participation could have broken the stagnation [in the political process], and convinced the boycotting parties," the Front said in a statement Friday.

The Front has 44 members in the parliament, and has also withdrawn its ministers from Maliki's Shiite-led government since August 1, effectively paralyzing the political process in Iraq.

"The Front urges all parties to put pressure on the government to reactivate a real participation in the political process, rather than have an arrangement where there is no authority to other parties [who are outside the alliance]," the Front said.

On Thursday, Talabani said the new alliance would "solve many problems in the present crisis, and encourage others to join us."

Maliki also expressed his readiness to win Sunni support, a key demand from Washington that wants the ousted elite re-engaged in the political process, in a bid to sever its alleged support for insurgents.

Leaders of Iraq's divided Shiite, Kurdish, and Sunni communities have often clashed on security, political, and social issues, leading to delays in the passage of crucial laws aimed at rebuilding the country.

Washington has warned Iraq's leaders to work harder on unity, concerned that the political stalemate could torpedo efforts to reconcile the warring factions, and undermine the work of 155,000 American troops to end the conflict.

Since the US-led invasion of March 2003, Iraq has plunged into an abyss of overlapping civil conflicts that have divided its rival religious and ethnic communities, leaving tens of thousands of civilians dead.

Shiite parties suspect Sunni leaders, whose minority sect dominated political power under executed former dictator Saddam Hussein, of supporting insurgents.

For their part, Sunni leaders accuse the Shiite parties of ties with powerful neighbor Iran, and condemn their alleged complicity with Shiite militias.

Iraqi Sunnis slam new Shiite, Kurdish alliance - Region - Middle East Times

Families urge government to reveal fate of loved ones

Thousands of Iraqi families know nothing about their loved ones languishing in U.S. or Iraqi jails.

The number of Iraqi detainees is estimated at 40,000 and most of them have been incarcerated for long periods of time without trial.

U.S. troops have their own jails spread across the country. Many Iraqis say the invaders’ main success story since landing in Baghdad has been the construction of jails.

Hundreds of people gather every day at the Detainee Department, an office directly linked to the office of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. They submit to the officials there names of their beloved ones arrested by U.S. or Iraqi forces.

But the answers they get are discouraging. “The name is not in the lists of detainees we have,” one official would say following a quick computer search.

‘Reported missing’ is common in Iraq as the right to take people from homes and streets is not only a privilege U.S. and Iraqi troops enjoy.

The so-called ‘private guards’ or foreign mercenaries, a force estimated at 40,000 strong, also have the right to capture and detain Iraqis without trial.

This is in addition to scores of gangs active in major Iraqi cities that use kidnapping and ransom as a means to amass riches. Insurgent groups resort to abduction regularly and usually they ask for massive money – a means they use to finance their operations.

Azzaman in English

More tribes agree to fight al-Qaeda

Members of al-Ghazalat tribe inhabiting areas south of Baghdad and close to the religious city of Najaf have vowed to battle al-Qaeda fighters in their areas.

The promise came after the kidnapping of four shepherds from the same tribe of whom no trace has been found for weeks.

Qaeda is active south of Baghdad and routinely attacks highways and convoys and abduction is one of its strategic tactics to punish opponents and collect money through ransom to finance its operations.

A Ghazalat have raised a force of 300 armed men but other tribes are said to have promised more men and have asked the government for supplies and weapons.

Sheikh Jawad al-Ghazali, the tribe’s chief, joined by other tribal elders, attended rally in Najaf announcing the formation of “a new tribal front to fight Qaeda in southern Iraq.”

Reports say more tribes have come together in central Iraq to drive Qaeda from their areas. U.S. troops furnish these tribes with weapons.

But Qaeda’s influence and popularity, particularly among Sunni Iraqis, is reported to be growing and the group has recently intensified its attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces, mounting more deadly car bombings than ever before.

The apparently intrepid Qaeda in Iraq has even dared to assassinate powerful Sunni tribal leaders for coordinating with the U.S. against it – the thing which even former leader Saddam Hussein would have thought twice before doing.

And as pressure on the group mounts in Baghdad and adjacent areas, Qaeda has begun regrouping in northern Iraq, using Mosul as one of its main garrisons.

Qaeda’s attacks and operations have now moved into the heart of what traditionally has been part of the Kurdish enclave. The recent devastating attacks on Yazidi Kurds in Sinjar, an area under the control of Kurdish militias, are a case in point. More than 400 Yazidi Kurds were killed.

Iraqi Kurds are predominantly Sunni Muslims and Qaeda tenets appeal to fundamentalist Kurds in the enclave. In fact the first Qaeda cells were established by Sunni Kurds in the northern Kurdish Province of Sulaimaniya.

Initially known as Ansar al-Islam, the group was contained in the region’s inaccessible mountainous areas. But the U.S. invasion made it easy for the group to move to the so-called Sunni triangle which it used as a base to reorganize and fight the Americans.

Azzaman in English

Maliki seeks a lifeline in Syria

which has the capacity of producing 200,000 barrels a day at a revenue of US$1.2 billion for Syria.

Instead of courting the Sunnis, Maliki alienated them even more. He turned a blind eye to the death squads that roam the streets of Baghdad. He was unable to prevent a backlash against the Sunni community after the double Samara bombings in 2006 and 2007 that resulted in targeting Sunni mosques, bombing Sunni neighborhoods and target killings of Sunni notables.

He then sent emotions souring last December by ordering the execution of Saddam in the early hours of the Muslim holidays. Instead of giving them more power within the government, he actually provoked them into walking out of his coalition, and this led to the recently walkout of the Iraqi Accordance Front, with its six ministers, including the deputy prime minister.

This week, nearly 100 armed gunmen, dressed in police uniforms and driving 17 four-wheel jeeps that resemble those used by the police, kidnapped the deputy minister of oil, who is a Sunni from Mosul, along with five of his team. For months, Maliki's opponents have claimed that the prime minister tolerates militia infiltration of the Ministry of Interior. Shi'ite militias, they claim, use the police apparatus to hunt down prominent Sunnis, arrest them, torture them and sometimes liquidate them at the dungeons of the ministry.

Maliki realizes that he needs to act - fast - before his government falls apart and before he loses what remains of US support for his coalition. Already, 18 of his 37 ministers have walked out on him. This includes the Sunnis of the Accordance Front, the seculars of the Iraqi Nationalist List of former prime minister Iyad Allawi, and the Sadrists of his former ally Muqtada al-Sadr.

The Sunni bloc has 44 seats in Parliament, out of a total of 275. Allawi's group has 25. Combined, the can create trouble for the 128 members of the United Iraqi Alliance that controls the parliamentary majority - but they cannot bring it down. Although he has worked hard to court the Kurds, as substitutes for the Sadrists and Sunnis, even some Kurdish leaders have voiced their displeasure at his policies.

This week, Kurdish MP Mahmud Othman said, "This government is suffering a great deal of problems with everyone, including the Kurds." Maliki realizes that there is a mid-September deadline approaching for the Bush administration to deliver its Iraq progress report to Congress. So far, his security plan has failed to bring security to the country.

This was made all the more clear this week when five truck bombs hit two villages in northwest Iraq, near the Syrian border, killing up to 500 people in an area of Kurdish-speaking ethnic Yazidis. This was the worst terrorist attack since the US invasion in 2003. In March, a twin truck bombing killing 152 people in Tal Afar, and in July 155 Iraqis were killed in a huge explosion in the town of Amerli.

One thing that Maliki can learn from Syria during his two-day visit is how to resist occupation. The Syrians were among the first in the Arab world to end foreign occupation from the French in 1946. They did that by rising above sectarianism - by working as one united resistance bloc, divided into warriors and diplomats - to end the hated Mandate.

The National Bloc, as it was called in Syria, was not a sectarian movement, but a coalition of the educated, the wealthy, and the notable, who worked together to end the Mandate through diplomatic means - after failure of armed resistance in 1925-1927. Independence would never be achieved through diplomacy alone, they reasoned, nor solely through armed resistance.

Diplomacy complimented resistance, they said. The bloc had Sunnis, Shi'ites, Druze, Alawites and Christians. Syria under the bloc produced a Christian prime minister in 1944. He helped defend Syria's case before the United Nations, at its founding conference in 1945. The Syrians can teach Maliki a lot about what it means to be prime minister of a proud nation like Iraq - where he is supposed to represent and honor all sects of society, not only those within his Shi'ite community that are loyal to him, his branch of the Da'wa Party, and the United Iraqi Alliance.

The bloc taught the Syrians good citizenship. If Maliki finds the time to walk down to the Qanawat neighborhood in Old Damascus, he will come across the headquarters of the National Bloc. From there, bloc leaders staged a 60-day strike in 1936 objecting to French measures in Syria. To break the strike, which was answered to promptly by Syrian merchants everywhere, the French forces went to the old bazaars and forcefully opened the shops by shooting their locks. Afraid that if left open, their shops would be looted, the Syrian businessmen hurried to obediently break the strike.

A man in his mid-40s came to the National Bloc office in Qanawat. He met with Faris al-Khury, the future Christian prime minister. "Let the shops remain open and we will guard them for you Faris Bey," said the man. He turned out to be the head burglar in Damascus. "If so much as one item is stolen from the shops, hold me directly responsible! To trust, keep my ID at your office until the strike is finished. Don't let the French defeat you!"

And in fact, for three nights, the thieves of Damascus guarded the streets of Damascus. This is not a fairytale, but a true story told to the author by Munir al-Ajlani, one of the politicians present at the National Bloc office in Damascus in 1936.

Too bad Nuri al-Maliki did not get a chance to meet him.

Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs

Originally Posted by Hardwood

Thanks Lunar- This is one of the most encouraging reports in a while.

It looks as if the IMF has extended the stand-by agreement to December 28th.

It states the CBI is doing a good job and hopes that they will continue to de-dollarize the economy (good for us!).

It also makes very clear that the economic turnaround hinges on the security issues currently strapping the country down.

Bottom line is- Fix the security problems and the economy will rebound. Until then look for a steady pace to continue indefinitely.

This is my opinion based on the above article.

Thank you.

I agree with you Hardwood....I've read the odd article stating security isn't an issue concerning the economy but there are far more articles contradicting those statements. Personally I believe security is the main issue delaying it's progress.

The rise in the stock market index .. The implementation of three decades of non-Iraqis investors

Source : Voices of Iraq - 17/08/2007

The market index rose Iraq securities, in its meeting Thursday, by (2.58%) from the previous meeting. The market has been published in today's trading of more than (489) million shares valued exceeded (918) million dinars ... The implementation of the (246), the market index closed at a point (41.829) ... High rate (2.58%) from the previous meeting.

The bulletin pointed out that it was during the meeting today (Thursday), a sixth during the month of August this, the implementation of three decades of investors, the shares of non-Iraqis Alorka Bank and the real estate company globe, as implemented on a single contract (Bank Alorka) number (200) thousand shares, and the implementation two decades on the (real world) exceeded the number of shares (900) thousand shares.

Shares were trading (31) joint-stock company, of which (13) banking company, and one insurance company, and other investment, and three service companies, nine industrial, and two Venedkitin, one farm.

Among the (13) banking company shares deliberated today, rates increased prices of shares (7) companies are : Bank of Kurdistan rate (23.8%) after rising share price half dinars ... The highest rise today, and by the Bank of the North (6%), the Bank Alorka rate (5.8%), Sumar commercial rate (4.1%), and the economy by the Bank (4%), the Bank of Babel by (3.7% ), and Dar es Salaam by the Bank (1.4%).

No reduced rate of any banking company during the Iraq market for securities today, with the rest of firms maintained the same rates banks share prices. The banking index closed b (568.38) points, a high rate (188.1%) from the previous meeting.

Also today circulation contributed nine industrial companies, increased rates contributed five ... Namely : a modern dyes (1.8), and chemical industries rate (4.5%), industrial company by Crescent (4%), light industry rate (7.3%), the company metallurgical industries, and motorcycles by (5.3% ). With decreased rates contributed two companies, namely, beer East, and Baghdad for carbonated beverages. The industrial index closed b (905.11) points, a high rate (117.0%) than in the previous meeting. Among the three companies handled in the hotel and tourism sector, increased share price by Sadeer Hotel Company (2.3%), decreased rates contributed two tourist investments and the Baghdad hotel. And the hotel sector index closed b (759.15) points, a high rate (993.1%) from the previous meeting.

And an outcome of the final circulation session today (Thursday), the shares were trading (31) Company ... Out of (93) on the market, rates increased prices of shares (15) companies including, rates dropped prices of shares (7) companies, nine companies maintained the same rates of the previous prices.

Iraqi Sunnis slam new Shiite, Kurdish alliance

Fri Aug 17

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Leaders of Iraq's disenchanted Sunni Arab community on Friday slammed the new Shiite and Kurdish alliance formed to salvage Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's national unity government.

Maliki, however, made a fresh attempt to win the support from members of the former elite during a visit Friday to the northern Iraqi Sunni city of Tikrit, the hometown of executed dictator Saddam Hussein.

The National Concord Front, the main Sunni Arab political bloc in the country's 275-member parliament, said the new tie-up between the two Shiite and two Kurdish parties was a "futile" exercise.

On Thursday, President Jalal Talabani and Maliki announced the forming of the alliance which brought together Shiite Dawa party and Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council and the Kurdish factions of Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Kurdish Democratic Party (PDK).

The National Concord Front had boycotted talks which led to the new bloc's creation.

"The leaders should not have announced the alliance before convincing all the effective political leaderships ... whose participation could have broken the stagnation (in the political process) and convinced the boycotting parties," the Front said in a statement Friday.

The Sunni bloc has 44 members in the assembly and has also withdrawn its ministers from Maliki's Shiite-led government since August 1, effectively paralysing the political process in Iraq.

"The Front urges all parties to put pressure on the government to reactivate a real participation in the political process rather than have an arrangement where there is no authority to other parties (who are outside the alliance)," the Front said.

On Thursday, Talabani said the new alliance aimed to solve the country's political crisis.

Leaders of Iraq's divided Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni communities have often clashed on security, political and social issues, leading to delays in the passage of crucial laws aimed at rebuilding the country.

Washington has warned Iraq's leaders to work harder on unity, concerned that the political stalemate could torpedo efforts to reconcile the warring factions and undermine the work of 155,000 American troops to end the conflict.

Since the US-led invasion of March 2003, Iraq has plunged into an abyss of overlapping civil conflicts that have divided its rival religious and ethnic communities, leaving tens of thousands of civilians dead.

Shiite parties suspect Sunni leaders, whose minority sect dominated political power under executed former dictator Saddam Hussein, of supporting insurgents.

Sunni leaders accuse the Shiite parties of ties with powerful neighbour Iran and condemn their alleged complicity with Shiite militias who according to the US military are involved in killing Sunni Arabs in the sectarian conflict.

On Friday, during a visit to an Iraqi army base in Tikrit, Maliki made an attempt to win over the local Sunni tribesmen.

Maliki said the tribal leaders of Salaheddin of which Tikrit is the capital deserved praise in their "fight against terrorists," according to a statement issued by his office in Baghdad.

"We are the sons of one country. Whatever our races and sectarian affiliations be, our one country will unite us," Maliki said in the meeting with tribesmen and Iraqi army officers.

He added the process of national reconciliation involved "respecting the point of view of each other."

Washington wants the Iraqi government to re-engage the ousted elite in the political process in a bid to sever its alleged support for insurgents.

Iraqi Sunnis slam new Shiite, Kurdish alliance - Yahoo! News

Iraq leader seeks help in Saddam's home

17.08.07

BAGHDAD - Iraq's Shiite prime minister carried an appeal for unity to Saddam Hussein's hometown Friday and told Sunni tribal chieftains that all Iraqis must join to crush al-Qaida in Iraq and extremist Shiite militias "to save our coming generations."

Nouri al-Maliki's bold sojourn into Tikrit — a city once pampered by Saddam, its favorite son — underlined the prime minister's determination to save his paralyzed government from collapse and prevent further disillusionment in Washington as voices grow for a troop withdrawal plan.

The sharp alteration in the government's political course — a willingness to travel to the belly of the Sunni insurgency and talk with former enemies — suggested a new flexibility from the hard-line religious Shiites who hold considerable influence over al-Maliki's views.

It also pointed to an apparent shift in military and political attention to northern Iraq as extremists seek new bases after being driven from Baghdad and strongholds in central Iraq by U.S.-led offensives.

"There is more uniting us than dividing us," al-Maliki told sheiks in Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad. "We do not want to allow al-Qaida and the militias to exist for our coming generations. Fighting terrorism gives us a way to unite."

Al-Maliki's turnaround has been startling, given accusations of a bias in favor of his Shiite sect.

He owed his premiership to the backing of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, nominal head of the Mahdi Army militia that has cleared entire mixed Baghdad neighborhoods of Sunni residents.

Throughout his first year in office, al-Maliki sought to protect the fighters from U.S. raids on their Sadr City stronghold in eastern Baghdad. He ended these safeguards this spring after al-Sadr loyalists quit the Cabinet because al-Maliki refused to set a timetable for an American withdrawal.

The prime minister reportedly engaged in heated arguments with the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, when the U.S. military began signing on former Sunni insurgents in the fight against al-Qaida in Anbar Province in Iraq's west and Diyala province, north of the capital.

Now, al-Maliki is courting Sunni tribes in the north to join him.

And on Thursday, the prime minister signed a political manifesto, creating a new alliance with the Shiite Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and the country's two main Kurdish political parties.

The Supreme Council has its own militia, the Badr Brigade, which is fighting al-Maliki's erstwhile Mahdi Army clients across Baghdad and in the Shiite heartland to the south.

The dramatic new overtures illuminate al-Maliki's fear of a quick U.S. troop withdrawal and his desperation to show progress on political reconciliation before Petraeus and American Ambassador Ryan Crocker report to Congress next month.

U.S. officials in Baghdad and Washington did not immediately signal support for the new political alliance, with a senior diplomat saying its lack of Sunni participation was a significant problem.

But President Jalal Talabani, one of the signers of the new coalition blueprint, appeared puzzled Friday by the lack of U.S. enthusiasm.

"I don't hear any American welcome for the new alliance," he said at a news conference, arguing that the U.S.-backed Iraqi constitution was partly to blame for the political paralysis. He apparently was referring to the complicated apportionment of key positions in government and parliament according to sectarian quotas.

Iraq leader seeks help in Saddam's home - Yahoo! News

Vice President of the Federation of Businessmen : the industrial sector is suffering from a serious erosion

Source : Sabah Al-17/08/2007

He stressed that need foreign capital Dovetailing with the local
The Deputy Chairman of the Federation of Iraqi businessmen Bassem Jamil : that the success of the reform depends on the economic package and the package of legislation, plans and political convictions, will advance the implementation of efficient and added that the industrial sector, which suffers from an imbalance and the retreat seriously need to set concrete steps and actions to contribute to the rebirth of the The activation cycle and saved plight of the challenges and seeking to abort and sold for scrap in the auction, without the political will and convictions of full and plans that are jointly prepared everyone will not be what we aspire to achieve in the restoration of the role of this vital sector.

He explained : that the transfers of public sector companies into joint stock companies is part of the reform process which is important in good standing but must study and create success factors for this step first and diagnosis of the causes of failure of mixed companies and contributing existing at the present time and experiencing the same reasons afflicting public sector companies. After identifying these reasons and more accurate subsequent steps come any steps transition and thus avoid the obstacles, as does the rapid transformation or sudden We shareholding companies failed?

And de****e the importance of legal and legislative framework is needed to study the case meets and integrated with existing conditions, and the surrounding fee goal to bridge crises and the many and complex challenges that are relevant Palmertkzat core of the Iraqi economy and the market, raw materials and the level of employment, capital and marketing and the nature of the product and its relationship to the market and competition .. Etc..

Mr. Jameel goes in the modern : he says must study the conditions of workers and technical levels and numbers and the nature of boards of directors of companies and the level of efficiency and then move to assess the financial capabilities that they enjoy to enable them to buy shares and underwriting and active participation in the new direction, and do not face a bigger problem concerning leaked numbers of workers in the sectors in which we intend to convert to joint stock companies.

We must think how Dovetailing foreign capital in the case of the companies and institutions with investment of domestic capital and to take advantage of technology in the world enjoyed by those companies and thus achieve our targets and chart the proper way to our sound at this level and become our steps on the path of reform, and I think serious talk to a member of the Union businessmen that the reform processes of Atnhasr As stated in the framework of only one such legislation, law and the law of domestic and foreign investment, comparative.

It connected by the sectors expected to shift and the reasons for failure and the challenges they face and their current problems. After a thorough search and address all these things are taking steps transformation and systematic and scientific way depends on the activation of all joints from the end boards and machine factor. He concluded his speech by saying beautiful : Now we do not need theory, we need to touch the actual diagnosis and benefit from the experiences of sudden in this field and has achieved remarkable successes.

Bill Gates Charitable Foundation allocated five million dollars to help 150 Iraqi scientists

Source : Radio Sawa - 17/08/2007

Decided the Bill and Melinda Gates fund a new initiative for the transfer of 150 scholars and scientists from Iraq who face a threat endangering their lives and their families at risk.

The spokeswoman said that the Foundation Bill and Melinda Gates support the project, because their protection will be important to the future development of this country.

The British newspaper Financial Times that some Iraqi scientists and researchers would be transferred to Jordan, where a number of them difficult material conditions forced them to work taxi instead of working in the field of teaching and scientific research.

She charitable institution in the hope that the Iraqi scientists and teachers to continue their mission and teach their students through lectures and television distance education.

The newspaper said that the institution would provide about five million dollars for the project, which will give grants to educational researchers and professors Iraqis to complete their work at institutions in other countries, stressing that the American Congress allocated another five million for the same purpose.

The newspaper pointed out that Save the researchers and scientists another institution established in 2002 began focusing on the Iraqi scientists and researchers since the bombing, which targeted Mustansiriyah University this year, which killed 70 people.
The newspaper pointed out that the requests for assistance made by researchers Iraqis rose up to 40 requests a week after he was the rate ranges between three or four applications autumn last year.

Semi Chairman Alan Goodman, the International Foundation for Education what is happening in Iraq as the earliest example of what is happening in the war of genocide in terms of targeting of science and education.

He Henry Yareski chairman of the Foundation save researchers and scientists amazement at the failure to arrest those who annoy Iraq scientists and researchers and punished.

He Yareski hoped that the project works to reintegrate Iraqi scientists with international educational institutions after years of isolation under the rule of the former regime.