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Senators square off on eve of Iraq report

Two U.S. senators Sunday offered their views on the military surge in Iraq and how to lower the number of U.S. combat troops there.

Army Gen. David Petraeus, top U.S. military commander in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, are to deliver their report and testify before the U.S. House Armed Services Committee Monday. The two are expected to assess what's happened and offer trends in Iraq since the United States began its surge of additional troops early this year.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on "Fox News Sunday" he was "pleased" with the results of the surge.

"There's local political reconciliation. The people in Iraq are war-weary," said Graham, who just returned from two weeks on Air Force Reserve duty on Iraq. "It won't be long 'til Baghdad politicians follow through with major reconciliation."

Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., said on the same show that some areas of Iraq are more secure, but, "I think in terms of giving the breathing room to make the political accommodations, (the surge) has not worked to do that."

Saying Petraeus was "greatly respected," Feinstein said lawmakers would listen to him, "(but) there is not a military solution to this problem. There's only a political solution."

Graham said, "We need to listen to this general, listen to this ambassador and understand that we have made progress."

Senators square off on eve of Iraq report : World

Arab returnees from Kirkuk start collecting compensations – minister

Arbil - Voices of Iraq
Sunday , 09 /09 /2007

Arabil, Sept 9, (VOI) – An Iraqi minister said she signed hundreds of checks at a total value of 6 million dollars on Sunday as compensations for the Arabs returning from Kirkuk to their original areas.

"The Iraqi government allocated 200 million dollars as compensations for Arabs in Kirkuk who wish to return to their original provinces," said Nermin Othman, the minister of environment and the official in charge of financial affairs in the high committee on the application of article 140 of the constitution, during a press conference held in Arbil on Sunday.

Othman did not set a number of Arabs to receive the compensations, noting her committee forwarded a budget for the year 2008.

"We offered the budget for the year 2008 because we believe that disbursing those compensations would not end this year," she said.

Art. 140 of the Iraqi constitution provides for normalizing conditions in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, 250 km north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, over three stages, starting with having the displaced Iraqis residing there returned to their original areas and compensated and ending with a referendum by the end of 2007 on whether Kirkuk should be annexed to the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region.

Article 140 of Iraq’s constitution states that in Kirkuk there must be a normalization (return of expelled and deported citizens), a census and then a referendum to be carried out no later than the end of 2007. Eligible citizens will vote in the referendum to decide whether they wish Kirkuk to be part of the Kurdistan Region, or to be a separate province outside it.

Implementation of article 140 of the Iraqi constitution is pertinent to the overall security situation of Iraq. Approved by the Shiite and Kurds, Article 140 calls for reversing the "Arabization" policy implemented under former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Othman said each Arab family wishing to return to its original province would get 20 million Iraqi dinars (roughly US$ 16,000) with a plot of land in the city to which it would go and will have the right to sell their property in Kirkuk and other disputed areas.

"Moreover, the displaced Kurds wishing to return to Kirkuk would have 10 million Iraqi dinars (roughly US$ 8,000) per each family," she said.

The Iraqi officials said she does not have an accurate number of the Arabs residing in Kirkuk and willing to return to their original provinces.

"The number is growing day by day. There are some who register for returning to their original provinces while other Arabs do not wish to return," she noted.

Aswat Aliraq

Commerce Seeks Adviser for Iraq Oil Interests

Monday, September 10, 2007

The United States is getting ready now for the Iraqi government to get its house in order and pass a detailed law that will govern the future handling of its vast oil fields, which contain the world's third-largest proven petroleum reserves.

In preparation for that moment, and in apparent hope that the United States will be central to the process for years to come, the Commerce Department is seeking an international legal adviser who is fluent in Arabic "to provide expert input, when requested" to "U.S. government agencies or to Iraqi authorities as they draft the laws and regulations that will govern Iraq's oil and gas sector."

The Government Accountability Office report on Iraq last week found that the benchmark efforts to develop a new oil system were still in early stages. The framework of a new law with provisions for revenue sharing and restructuring of the Oil Ministry has been drafted, but the single, new Iraq National Oil Co. remains to be formed.

Nonetheless, the Commerce proposal put out Aug. 21 predicts that "as part of a U.S. government inter-agency process, the U.S. Department of Commerce will be providing technical assistance to Iraq to create a legal and tax environment conducive to domestic and foreign investment in Iraq's key economic sectors, starting with the mineral resources sector."

And it added: "Through this initiative, Iraqi officials will be able to access the expertise of world-class professors and practitioners; they will also attend technical workshops which will address Iraq-specific legal and tax issues."

According to the January 2007 Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction report, Iraq's petroleum sector faces serious technical challenges in virtually every aspect of its operations, from procuring, transporting and storing crude and refined products to managing price controls and imports, fighting smuggling and corruption, improving budget execution and sustaining operations.

But Iraq is not a novice in the oil business.

The U.S. Department of Energy reported that in 1989, under Saddam Hussein, Iraq produced almost 3 billion barrels of oil a day. It had an oil ministry at the time and regional oil companies operating its major fields in the north and south of the country. It was a founding member, with Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which was created in Baghdad in September 1960.

Based on the Commerce proposal, the United States has decided that Iraq needs a U.S.-funded expert who will be responsible "to review draft [Iraq] subsoil laws and draft subsoil regulations to ensure their compliance with international legal standards" and share his or her conclusions with U.S. agencies "or with Iraqi authorities."

In addition, the contractor is to review "the draft by-laws of the Iraqi agencies that will be created to grant exploration and exploitation licenses, to enter into joint venture agreements with foreign firms . . . . and to regulate Iraq's hydrocarbon sector." The contractor is "to plan technical workshops and seminars geared toward the legal issues critical to the oil and gas sectors."

This is not viewed as a short-term relationship. The proposal says the contract will run from the date of the award through July 31, 2008, and has two 12-month extension options through July 31, 2010. During that time period, the contract lawyer is expected to spend no less than 360 hours (45 days equivalent full time) on Iraq oil matters. Commerce said it would take into consideration the contractor's teaching and research commitments when setting dates for finishing projects.

There is one recognition that given the situation in Iraq, things may change for the United States in that country. The proposal states that "in case of events beyond the control of the parties," the Commerce Department and the contractor "will agree upon a new schedule and period of performance."

washingtonpost.com

The Iraq Report's Other Voice

Ambassador's Appraisal May Carry a More Lasting Weight

Monday, September 10, 2007

Two witnesses will testify to Congress today on progress in Iraq. One arrived last week from Baghdad aboard a military aircraft, flanked by a bevy of aides and preceded by a team of advisers assigned a suite of Pentagon offices. The other flew commercial, glad that the flight was long enough to qualify for a business-class government ticket.

Their disparate routes to Washington capture the differences in anticipation and hoopla surrounding their joint congressional appearance. What lawmakers will hear from Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, has been the subject of frenzied speculation for months. Armed with four-star authority and a stack of charts, he is expected to say that expanded U.S. military operations show signs of success and merit more time.

Most of Crocker's time is spent in the controlled chaos of meetings with Iraqi officials -- cajoling, commiserating and pressuring -- or hearing from and issuing instructions to a massive embassy staff of more than 600. He has hosted a flood of congressional and other high-level delegations that have swept through Baghdad.

His preferred method of information-gathering, however, is to be out and about among Iraqis. His fluent Arabic allows him to question shopkeepers and passers-by, while aides frantically ask embassy interpreters what he is talking about. Crocker's walkabouts attract hordes of Iraqis with everyday complaints about security threats, electricity shortages and missing paychecks. Although his excursions are choreographed with security teams and hangers-on, Crocker's entourage pales beside that of Petraeus in similar outings.

The near-simultaneous appointment of new U.S. diplomatic and military leadership in Iraq last winter was widely read as a signal that, de****e the optimism with which Bush announced his new strategy, Washington finally recognized the perilous state of its Iraq venture and was prepared to step back from micromanagement and blue-sky assessments. Crocker's instructions, the official familiar with his thinking said, were, "It's going to be hard. . . . Get in there and make things happen."

He found Baghdad vastly changed -- and not for the better -- from his last posting there, in the summer of 2003, when he briefly served as political adviser to occupation czar L. Paul Bremer. Entire neighborhoods Crocker knew intimately from then -- and from his first Baghdad tour as a junior diplomat in the late 1970s -- had been destroyed by terrorist attacks and an escalating sectarian war. The U.S. military presence had become overwhelming, and the embassy that opened with Bremer's departure in 2004 was bloated and in disarray, with too many of the wrong people and not enough of the right ones.

Crocker demanded and received a high-level State Department review of staffing and brought in several of his own choices -- some of whom had to be persuaded to leave senior posts elsewhere -- for top positions in the Iraqi capital. "Originally, many of the people assigned to Baghdad had never been overseas before," said a U.S. official who recently returned from Iraq. "This trip was the first time I've had confidence in the people running the show. . . . We've finally replaced noble-minded, idealistic political appointees with people who can really make long-term plans."

Except for wry outbursts intended as humor, aides said, Crocker keeps his frustrations and irritations to himself, working them off in marathon jogs around the Green Zone, sometimes with Petraeus. The two men appear similar on the surface -- intense, high-achieving fitness enthusiasts -- and both have told intimates that their overall goal in today's congressional testimony is to maintain their integrity and that of their institutions.

But they also represent two vastly different diplomatic and military cultures, bringing different experiences and frames of historical reference to their jobs. Vietnam -- the defining event for a U.S. military generation -- was the subject of Petraeus's 1987 doctoral dissertation, though he did not serve there. While cautioning that historical analogies are always imprecise, Petraeus wrote that "there is no desire" within the military "to repeat the experience that provided the material for such descriptively titled books as 'Defeated: Inside America's Military Machine.' "

Beirut was Crocker's Vietnam. A brief U.S. intervention in its civil war ended when a terrorist truck bomb killed 241 Marines in 1983. For many in the Bush administration who frequently refer to the attack, the lesson was that the U.S. withdrawal represented a capitulation to terrorism. For Crocker, what stuck was the unpredictable consequences of American involvement in an internal conflict it does not understand.

washingtonpost.com - nation, world, technology and Washington area news and headlines

Iraq Debate Is Sea of Statistics


Sunday, September 9, 2007

WASHINGTON -- In vertical bars of blue, green, gray and red, a briefing chart prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency says what Gen. David Petraeus won't.

Insurgent attacks against Iraqi civilians, their security forces and U.S. troops remain high, according to the document obtained by The Associated Press. It is a conclusion that the well-regarded Army officer who is the top U.S. commander in Iraq is expected to try to counter when he and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, testify before Congress on Monday and Tuesday.

More than four years into a conflict initially thought to be a cakewalk, the war has become a battle of statistics, graphs and conflicting assessments of progress in a country of more than 27 million people.

The defense intelligence chart makes the point, with figures from Petraeus' command in Baghdad, the Multinational Force-Iraq. Congressional auditors used the same numbers to conclude that Iraqis are as unsafe now as they were six months ago; the Bush administration and military officials also using those figures say that finding is flawed.

With so much depending on how the statistics are collected and interpreted, policymakers in Washington are confused.

Rep. Ike Skelton, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, summed up the situation during a hearing last week on the report by congressional auditors at the Government Accountability Office.

"What is really going on? What standards should we look at? Where do we go from here?" asked Skelton, D-Mo.

For every positive step, a negative one follows.

Progress by the Iraqi army is offset by the failures of the national police, which an independent assessment rates as "operationally ineffective."

Nearly 77 percent of Iraqis want the militias in Iraq to be dissolved, according to the GAO, yet their government has not written legislation to do so.

While the rights of Iraq's minority political parties are protected in the legislature, the GAO said violence against minority religious and ethnic groups continues "unabated" in most areas of Iraq.

The report used the defense intelligence's countrywide figures to conclude that the average number of daily attacks against civilians has remained "about the same" during the past six months.

The auditors could not determine if sectarian violence had declined since the start of the president's troop increase.

The agency's findings are contentious because the Bush administration and military officials in Iraq have said security has improved over the same period due to the additional 30,000 U.S. troops in Baghdad and other trouble spots.

In July, the White House, citing "trends data" from Petraeus' command, said sectarian violence, particularly in Baghdad, had declined since the troop increase began in February.

"There's a difference of opinion _ a strong difference of opinion _ as to whether or not sectarian violence has decreased," David Walker, who heads the auditing agency, said last week.

In a letter to his troops Friday, Petraeus acknowledged progress has been "uneven," but said sectarian violence has fallen considerably. The number of attacks across the country has declined in eight of the past 11 weeks, he said. The letter from Petraeus does not provide any figures.

According to the DIA chart, there were 897 attacks against Iraqi civilians in January and 808 in July. There were 946 attacks against Iraqi security forces in January and 850 in July.

An attack is defined as a violent act that may or may not produce casualties.

Coalition forces, which include more than 160,000 U.S. troops, were attacked the most. Slightly more than 3,300 attacks were recorded in January and 3,143 were reported in July, the DIA said.

Charts from the Multinational Corps-Iraq, the war-fighting unit headed by Army Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, tell a different story with bar graphs and arrows. The charts contain no numbers and they focus on Baghdad, where the bulk of the additional U.S. troops went.

The number of roadside explosions in the Iraqi capital dropped sharply between June and the beginning of August, according to one chart; so, too, have monthly car bomb attacks.

One chart shows a decline in monthly casualties in Baghdad, a trend that U.S. military officials attribute to the "diminishing effectiveness on the part of the enemy," according to the chart.

Telephone and e-mail messages left with Odierno's unit seeking more clarity about the charts were not immediately returned.

Critics say those gains amount to "cherry-picking" the most favorable data. But U.S. officials, including the head of U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, cite the gains as evidence Iraq is moving in the right direction.

"In the less than six months I've been in this job, I have seen a substantial change and it gives me some significant optimism that this place may just work out the way we had envisioned, or some had envisioned, when the tasks were undertaken," Adm. William Fallon told the Commonwealth Club of California, a public affairs forum, last week.

Fallon took over in March as head of the command.

Gordon Adams, a former Clinton administration official who specializes in defense issues, said all the statistics coming from Iraq need to be questioned.

"When you really care about something, you're really tempted to use the numbers that look best to you," said Adams, a professor at American University's School of International Service.

Adams drew a parallel to Vietnam, when body counts became a measure of success.

"There have been too many claims of victory. Too many claims of progress. No one trusts it anymore," he said.

An independent panel led by former Marine Corps Gen. James Jones found much to criticize in a report it released last week.

Jones and other retired military and law enforcement officials concluded that Iraqi security forces would be unable to take control of their country in the next 18 months.

Among the shortcomings are a national police force that is so flawed it should be disbanded and reorganized, and a corrupt border patrol that leaves Iraq's boundaries "porous and poorly defended."

The tension and violence is "fed by the slow and disappointing pace" of political reconciliation, according to the 20-member panel, which spent three weeks in Iraq. Nonetheless, they said there are "signs of encouraging tactical success" in and around Baghdad.

Michael Heidingsfield, a member of the panel, said he does not expect Petraeus to tell Congress he is satisfied with the current level of violence in Baghdad. It is, however, lower than it has been since 2004 due to the infusion of troops, Heidingsfield said.

"That process works," said Heidingsfield, who spent 14 months in Iraq as a police adviser. "The challenge is, can you sustain it?"

Andrew Bacevich, a professor of international relations at Boston University, said the debate over what to do in Iraq has concentrated too much on near-term gains.

To gauge the success against an insurgency on month-to-month data "is to set yourself up for a surprise," said Bacevich, a retired Army colonel and a vocal critic of the war.

"The argument in Washington _ Is the surge working? Is the surge not working? _ is a debate that does not show sufficient awareness of the overarching strategic issues that are at hand," he said.

washingtonpost.com

The Bottom-Up Partition

Monday, September 10, 2007

The benchmark-centered reports on Iraq agree: The "surge" has failed to achieve its most fundamental objective, which is to catalyze a political reconciliation among Iraqis. Buried in the data, however, is plenty of evidence that Iraq is slowly moving toward a new political order. It's just not the one the Bush administration has in mind, and it's not happening on the timetable Congress wants.

Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker will probably concede today that the Shiite-led government hasn't delivered key legislation, such as a national oil law, and has done little to reconcile with minority Sunnis. But those benchmarks suppose a relatively centralized Iraq -- with a dominant national oil company, for example -- governed by a "unity" government in which Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds share power. They also assume that a decisive breakthrough toward this outcome will take place this year.

What's really happening is that Iraqis are slowly moving toward the solution their politicians first outlined in their constitution two years ago de****e stiff American resistance. This is a loose confederation of at least three self-governing regions, each with its own government, courts and security forces; and a weak federal government whose main function will be redistributing oil revenue so that each region gets a share based roughly on its proportion of the population.

This is not the best outcome from the American point of view. It's possible that one of the regional mini-states, in the oil-rich Shiite south, will become an Iranian client, while Sunnis in the West may be ruled by the same toxic Arab national so******m championed by Saddam Hussein. A look back at the past eight months nevertheless provides plenty of evidence of Iraqi "progress" toward that political settlement.

Start with the Government Accountability Office's report on the benchmarks, which gives partial credit to the Iraqi parliament for just one piece of legislation: a bill passed last October that sets out the procedures for forming autonomous regions. Formal steps to create the regions are prohibited until next April. But Kurds in the north and Shiites in the south are already racing ahead. The most powerful Shiite party, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, has been campaigning hard for the project. Last month a group of 45 tribal leaders met in Najaf to launch a separate movement for "the self-rule government of the Iraqi south," electing a president and announcing plans for a 130-member council.

With the national oil law stalled, the already-extant Kurdish regional government in the north passed its "Kurdistan Oil and Gas Law" on Aug. 6. The legislation is more progressive and welcoming of foreign investment than that favored by the Iraqi government, but it still foresees that revenue will be redistributed nationally.

Iraqi sectarianism remains undiminished, and sentiment about partition is shifting. A national poll sponsored by Western news media showed that public support for either "regional states" or "independent states" as a political solution rose from 18 percent in 2004 to 42 percent in March. Meanwhile, the Iraqi population that most opposed separation -- in the mixed neighborhoods of Baghdad -- is rapidly if brutally diminishing, thanks to continuing ethnic cleansing by Shiite militias and the flight of tens of thousands of Sunni families to Jordan and Syria.

The biggest step toward federalism is the one President Bush sought to focus attention on last week: the "Sunni awakening," in which dozens of tribes and tens of thousands of men have effectively abandoned the insurgency against U.S. forces and joined the fight against al-Qaeda. This development wasn't directly caused by the surge, and administration officials have trouble explaining how it will contribute to the national political reconciliation they say they are still seeking.

Yet it's clear that the new Sunni coalition provides an alternative source of order in Sunni areas to either al-Qaeda or the Shiite government -- a crucial missing element during the past several years. Many of the tribes seem unwilling to accept the current national regime, but they could be the foundation for a regional administration in the majority-Sunni western provinces, and perhaps the western neighborhoods of Baghdad where Sunnis are still the majority. Their militia forces may deter Shiites, such as Moqtada al-Sadr, who have aspired to create a dominating national power.

All of this is good news for Sen. Joseph Biden and other Democrats who have been proposing a "soft partition" of Iraq for some time. But the problem with Biden's strategy is that it calls for the United States to join with an international coalition in essentially forcing the scheme on Iraqis. The events of the past year have demonstrated, again, that Iraqis won't respond to guidelines and timetables drawn up in Washington or at the United Nations. Slowly and very painfully, they are moving toward a new political order. But they will do it -- they have to do it -- on their own time.

washingtonpost.com - nation, world, technology and Washington area news and headlines

We Need Time, Not Timetable, Iraq Says

Published: Sep 10, 2007

BAGHDAD - The Iraqi government defended its efforts to stabilize the country on the eve of a key U.S. progress report but said Sunday it needs more help and was not ready for a timetable on the withdrawal of U.S. forces.

Iraq also issued an appeal to neighboring countries to step up assistance at a conference that drew delegates from across the Middle East and representatives of the United States, the United Nations and the Group of Eight industrialized nations.

Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said bordering countries had been slow to fulfill promises to stem the flow of fighters and weapons into Iraq.

"There is movement, but it has not reached the level we want or hope," he said.

He urged Syria and Jordan to ease restrictions on Iraqis trying to enter those countries.

"Iraq's failure means the failure of the whole region and no one, in my opinion, will win as a result of this," Zebari warned. "What is happening in Iraq and what will happen in Iraq will decide the future of this region."

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Iraqi security forces have come far but need more time to prepare before they can take over security. He pointed to a decrease in the number of kidnappings and other sectarian attacks but gave no figures.

"We feel that there is progress on the security side, particularly in Baghdad," he said.

The U.S. military on Sunday reported that a soldier was killed in fighting in western Baghdad.

At least 35 Iraqis also were reported killed or found dead on Sunday, including 12 bullet-riddled bodies that were handcuffed and blindfolded and showed signs of torture.

The deadliest attack was a raid by gunmen against a police station that killed at least nine people. Police and witnesses said five police officers and four civilians were killed before the attackers were driven off with the help of residents in the predominantly Sunni village of Hajaj.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki argued that his Shiite-dominated government has made great strides since he took office in May 2003 promising to bring minority Sunnis into the political process and stem support for the insurgency.

"The Iraqi national unity government has achieved great victories in different fields as it works seriously to improve the economic situation, and has achieved major results de****e the major economic destruction that we inherited from the former regime," he said in opening the conference.

Zebari warned the violence could spill across Iraq's borders into other nations.

"Terrorism should be fought ... because the fires that they are igniting in the land of the two rivers [Iraq] will spread outside the borders and endanger neighboring countries," he said.

He did not identify any country by name, but the Iraqi and U.S. governments have accused Syria of allowing foreign fighters to cross into Iraq and say Iran is supplying Shiite militias with weapons - claims that both countries deny.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohamed Reza Baqiri said his country "wants to help in healing Iraq's wounds for humanitarian reasons" but gave mixed signals about Tehran's willingness to work with the United States to achieve stability in the country.

"The regional matters in our area should be solved in the hands of the governments, states and people of this region," he told reporters after the conference.

We Need Time, Not Timetable, Iraq Says

Iraq Oil, Gas, Petrochemical & Electricity Summit concludes

Monday, September 10 - 2007

The summit, which took place at the Grand Hyatt Dubai, welcomed a delegation of Ministers and Director Generals from the Iraq Government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), as well as representatives from Parliament, the Office of the Prime Minister and from the Governates of Kirkuk, Najaf and Missan.

Summit Report
The leading figures from within the global energy sector gathered in Dubai on 2-4 September 2007 for the Iraq Oil, Gas, Petrochemical & Electricity Summit, the world's first event organised to consider the future of Iraq's abundant energy resources through direct consultation with the international private sector.

The summit was the first of its kind to bring senior Iraqi officials to a specific event in order to engage in direct consultation with global energy corporations. It was opened on Sunday 2 September with addresses from the Iraqi Minister of Electricity H.E. Kareem Wahid and the Iraqi Minister of Industry & Minerals H.E. Fawzi Hariri. These were complimented by an address from the KRG Minister of Electricity H.E. Hoshyar Sowaily and the Iraqi Government Spokesman Ali Al-Dabbagh.

The morning conference continued with a crucial session on Iraq's Oil Strategy, chaired by Ibrahim Bahr-Alolom, a former oil minister and led by Thamir Ghadbban, also a former oil minister and Chairman of Iraq's Oil Commission. After detailed deliberations by both of these key oil figures, the session continued with presentations by the Governors of Kirkuk, Najaf and Missan, each of whom described the various prospective opportunities to be found within their respective provinces.

With the afternoons on each day given over to roundtable meeting sessions between the various Iraqi bodies and the attending corporations, much was achieved in terms of enabling direct face-to-face discussions and the chance for companies to speak specifically about the contribution they could make to Iraq's energy sector.

As has become ever clearer over the last few months, Iraq's energy sector is heavily dependent on the result of the various deliberations regarding the proposed hydrocarbon law. Attending the summit to offer the perspective of the Iraqi Parliament were Dr Abdulmadi Al-Hasani, Deputy Head of the Iraq Energy Committee, Dr Kamal Field Al-Basri, senior economic adviser to Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki and executive director of the Iraq Institute for Economic Reform and Sammy Al-Askary, a member of parliament and a senior advisor to the PM. These officials led a hugely informative session on the present status of the law, expectations in light of parliament's imminent return from recess and predictions for when it is expected to be passed in the coming weeks.

The morning continued with a special session led by Khaldoun Subhi, Director General of Geological Survey within the Iraqi Ministry of Industry & Minerals, before a special session on Iraq's Petrochemical Sector, led by Dr Mustafa Al-Jerrah, Director General within the Ministry and also featuring presentations from Nasir Naiam, Director General for Petrochemicals, Faris Taha, Director General for Petrochemical Industries and Haifa Abdulhameed, Director General for Petrochemical Investments. This session proved hugely beneficial in outlining requirements for the petrochemical sector, covering issues such as refinery and petrochemical integration, feedstock flexibility and production availability for petrochemical production.

With so much of Iraq's energy reserves unexplored, the opportunity to discuss with the attending Iraqi delegation potential deals for entering into the sector was one not be missed, with some of the pre-eminent operators holding consultations on the afternoon of Day Two also. These deliberations were held with the likes of Chevron, BP, Conoco Phillips, Marathon Oil, Total, Exxon, Lukoil, Statoil, GE, Cummins, ONGC, Reliance Industries, Dana Gas, Oracle, Raytheon, Crescent Petroleum and Hawker Beechcraft.

Day Three of the summit concluded with a special session on Project Finance, led by Timothy B. Mills, President of the Amercian Chamber of Commerce - Iraq and featuring Zaid A. Mahdi, Business Development Director at the Trade Bank of Iraq and Robert Pingeon, President of Meistre Associates, who gave a special presentation on insurance issues.

The summit was concluded by the Iraqi Ministry of National Security Affairs, for whom Hadi Ibrahim Hani, Director General for National Security and Issa Jaffar Jabir, Director General, Economic Security both gave addresses on the implications held for the energy sector with the volatile security situation in Iraq and in particular the protection of power stations, pipelines, refineries and other associated energy facilities and the various security provisions required.

Overall, much was achieved at the summit, with three days of insightful content and crucial dialogue exchange. A follow-up to the summit is expected to take place in 2008, by which time Iraq's hydrocarbon law will have been approved.

Iraq Oil, Gas, Petrochemical & Electricity Summit concludes | Iraq Development Program

Iraqi PM Maliki expected to go on defensive

Mon Sep 10

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will address parliament on Monday just hours before American officials deliver a vital progress report on Iraq that could influence future U.S. strategy on the war.

An official in Maliki's office and officials at parliament said the Shi'ite prime minister would appear before lawmakers. The session opens around midday (0800 GMT), although it was unclear precisely when Maliki would speak.

Maliki is expected to defend his government's record in the face of blistering criticism from both Iraqi and U.S. lawmakers. Some opposition Democratic legislators in the United States have even called for him to be replaced.

Later on Monday in Washington, the U.S. military commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, will give his assessment of President George W. Bush's decision early this year to send an extra 30,000 troops to Iraq.

The testimony by Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker to Congress could be a turning point and is considered key to any decisions by Bush on force levels as he faces demands from Democrats and some senior Republicans for U.S. troops to start leaving Iraq.

A U.S. official who asked not to be identified said on Sunday that Petraeus and Crocker would argue that a major pullout of forces would hurt progress made since troop levels were increased to 168,000.

THE GOOD AND THE BAD

Petraeus and Crocker are expected to highlight improved security in Iraq but criticize the country's politicians for failing to pass laws seen as vital to healing sectarian divisions between warring majority Shi'ites and Sunni Arabs.

The U.S. official said Petraeus and Crocker were not expected to advocate any change in Iraq's leadership.

Bush's top officials in Iraq speak before a joint session of the House Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees. Petraeus' testimony starts at 1630 GMT.

Maliki has been combative in the past few weeks, appearing regularly before the media to respond to his detractors.

Earlier this month he said his government had stopped Iraq from plunging into sectarian civil war and accused his critics in the United States of encouraging militants trying to destabilize the country.

Top Iraqi officials have warned that a premature U.S. troop pullout would tip the country into an all-out civil war that would also engulf the region.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh on Sunday said it was too early to talk about a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops, saying Iraq's security forces needed more training.

Citing U.S. officials, The New York Times reported on Monday Petraeus has recommended that decisions on major troop cuts in Iraq be delayed until March 2008.

A majority of Americans are skeptical of what Petraeus will report and most support setting a timetable to withdraw forces regardless of what is going on in Iraq, according to a USA Today/Gallup poll conducted released on Monday.

Bush is under pressure to pull out at least some of the troops in Iraq after more than four years of war that has killed over 3,700 U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis as well as forced millions of Iraqis to flee their homes.

He raised the prospect of a drawdown on a visit to Iraq a week ago, but said any withdrawals had to come from a position of strength.

Iraqi PM Maliki expected to go on defensive - Yahoo! News

Petraeus assessment on Iraq questioned

4 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Gen. David Petraeus went before a deeply divided Congress on Monday, the commander of 165,000 troops heckled and attacked by anti-war critics before he began to speak.

"Tell the truth, general," shouted protesters as the four-star general made his way into the crowded hearing room.

Petraeus did not respond, either to them or to the sole heckler who interrupted the session in its opening seconds.

"We're not going to have any disturbances," declared Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., who presided over the long-awaited hearing. "We're going to ask that they be immediately escorted out. Do that now. Out they go," he said.

A moderate midwesterner and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Skelton welcomed Petraeus to hearing with wistful words of praise.

Petraeus is "almost certainly the right job for the job in Iraq, but he's the right person three years too late and 250,000 troops short," Skelton said.

Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker listened quietly at the witness table as Skelton called on them to "tell us why we should continue sending our young men and women to fight and die if the Iraqis won't make the tough sacrifices leading to reconciliation."

"....Are we merely beating a dead horse?" the congressman asked.

Petraeus assessment on Iraq questioned - Yahoo! News