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

We will provide Iraq with fuel for coming 7 months- Iranian official

The Iranian government will supply Iraq with fuel and electricity during the coming seven months and allocate $1 million to rebuild Iraqi infrastructure, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Rida Baqeri said.

During a news conference held following the second Iraq's Neighbors' Conference on Sunday, Baqeri indicated that his government will provide Iraq with up to 1,250 megawatts of electricity during the coming few months.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Sunday inaugurated the 2nd conference of Iraq's neighbors in Baghdad with the participation of more than 22 states, regional and international organizations. The conference aimed to assess progress achieved on the recommendations from the first neighbor's conference and the Sharm al-Sheikh conference held in May 2007.

Describing the conference's deliberations as "good and positive," Baqeri noted that the talks demonstrated the Iraqi government's ability to surmount all challenges, and a significant improvement in the security situation.

Baqeri also revealed his plan to discuss with Iraqi officials ways to boost mutual relations between the two countries.

In response to a question about recent developments in U.S.-Iranian talks, Baqeri said, "We accepted to sit down and talk with our enemies (in reference to the U.S. side) for Iraq's sake. If the Iraqi government asks us to sit down and talk with them again, we will consider its request."

We will provide Iraq with fuel for coming 7 months- Iranian official | Iraq Updates

Demand for dollar up, exchange rate down in daily auction

Demand for the dollar was higher in the Iraqi Central Bank’s auction on Monday, reaching $114.625 million, the largest in two months, compared with $67.20 million on Sunday.

In its daily statement the bank said it had covered all bids, including $14.795 million in cash and $99.830 in foreign transfers, at an exchange rate of 1,236 dinars per dollar, one tick lower than yesterday.
None of the 14 banks that participated in Monday's session offered to sell dollars.

In statements to the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI), Ali al-Yasseri, a trader, said the decline in the exchange rate after stability that lasted for five sessions has encouraged traders to send their remittances.

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

Demand for dollar up, exchange rate down in daily auction | Iraq Updates

Iraq to increase oil output

Iraq is seeking to raise its oil output to 3.5 million barrels per day by the end of next year and plans to construct pipelines to supply oil and gas to Iran and Syria, reported Khaleej Times citing the Iraq Oil Minister.

Iraq would supply Syria with a total of 50 million cubic feet of gas daily and Iran with 100,000 bpd of crude via pipelines that are scheduled to be built in 2008.

Iraq to increase oil output | Iraq Updates

GOP support for Iraq war on shaky ground

Republican support for the Iraq war remained on shaky ground in Congress but wasn't lost after a four-star general recommended keeping some 130,000 U.S. troops in the country through next summer.

With Gen. David Petraeus scheduled to testify Tuesday before Senate committees heavy with 2008 presidential candidates, many rank-and-file Republicans said they still were uneasy about the lack of political progress in Iraq. But they also remained reluctant to embrace legislation ordering troops home by next spring, increasing the likelihood that Democrats will have to soften their approach if they want to pass an anti-war proposal.

"I think people recognize the surge (in U.S. troops) has made a difference, but it hasn't enabled the Iraqi government to get its act together," said Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Ill., among the nearly dozen House Republicans who went to the White House last spring to personally relay their concerns about the war to President Bush.

"There's going to continue to be some heartburn," he said, adding that he would like to see Bush call for new elections in Iraq and possibly a more drastic drawdown of troops than suggested by Petraeus. He said he is not keen on forcing a timetable on the war.

The view of LaHood and other Republicans will factor in heavily as Democrats decide their next step. Democrats had anticipated that a larger number of Republicans by now would have turned against Bush on the war because of grim poll numbers and the upcoming 2008 elections.

Without their support, Democrats repeatedly have fallen short of enough votes to pass legislation ordering troop withdrawals to begin this fall and be completed by spring.

Petraeus told two House committees on Monday that he envisions the withdrawal of as many as 30,000 U.S. troops by next summer — down from the current 160,000-plus — beginning with a Marine contingent of about 2,000 Marines later this month and an Army brigade numbering 3,500 to 4,000 soldiers in mid-December. After that, an additional four brigades would be withdrawn by July 2008, he said.

Bush is widely anticipated to embrace the withdrawal goals when he unveils his plan for Iraq later this week.

Petraeus' testimony Tuesday was expected to be in an arena thick with politics. In separate hearings conducted by the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, the general and U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker were to face five presidential hopefuls: Republican John McCain of Arizona and Democrats Joseph Biden of Delaware, Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and Barack Obama of Illinois.

He also was to face several of the GOP senators who have been the most vocal against Bush's decision to send an extra 30,000 troops to Iraq this year.

"While I agree with General Petraeus that an abrupt withdrawal of our troops would have catastrophic consequences, I disagree that it is premature to immediately transition the mission of our troops," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who is up for re-election next year and under substantial pressure by voters to help end the war.

Collins, along with Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., supports legislation limiting the mission of U.S. troops.

In statements, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said keeping troops in Iraq is not "in the national interest," while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., deemed it "unacceptable."

"The longer we keep over 130,000 troops in Iraq, the less incentive Iraqis have to engage in the needed political reconciliation and the longer we avoid dealing with several pressing threats to our national security," said Reid, D-Nev.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said: "As Congress prepares to take our next steps in support of our troops, we are faced with a critical choice. Will we ignore the progress we've made and play politics with the security of our nation, or will we finally listen to the generals?"

Other Democrats and several Republicans say there is plenty of room for compromise. Congressional aides say bipartisan proposals are in the works and that Reid has reached out to several GOP senators to discuss potential common ground. However, a major hurdle remaining are politically influential organizations like MoveOn.org who say Democrats shouldn't water down the debate with more moderate legislation.

Alternative legislative proposals on Iraq include:

_Ordering troop withdrawals to begin this fall, but set the spring date of completion as a nonbinding goal.

_Limit the mission of U.S. troops to training the Iraqi security forces, fighting terrorists and protecting U.S. assets, but leave it up to military commanders to determine force levels.

_Demanding Bush submit a new war strategy to Congress by fall that would limit the mission of U.S. forces and begin drawing down force levels in coming months.

GOP support for Iraq war on shaky ground | Iraq Updates

What’s missing in Baghdad

One of the most troubling lessons of the Iraq invasion is just how empty the Arab dictatorships are. Once you break the palace, by ousting the dictator, the elevator goes straight to the mosque. There is nothing in between — no civil society, no real labor unions, no real human rights groups, no real parliaments or press. So it is not surprising to see the sort of clerical leadership that has emerged in both the Sunni and Shiite areas of Iraq.

But this is not true in northern Iraq, in Kurdistan. Though not a full-fledged democracy, Kurdistan is developing the key elements of a civil society. I met in Erbil with 20 such Kurdish groups — unions, human rights and political watchdogs, editors and women’s associations. It is worth studying what went right in Kurdistan to understand what we still can and can’t do to promote democratization in the rest of Iraq and the Arab world.

The United States played a critical role in Kurdistan. In 1998, we helped to resolve the Kurdish civil war — the power struggle between two rival clans — which created the possibility of a stable, power-sharing election in 2005. And by removing Saddam, we triggered a flood of foreign investment here.

But that is all we did. Today, there are almost no U.S. soldiers or diplomats in Kurdistan. Yet politics here is flourishing, as is the economy, because the Kurds want it that way. Down south, we’ve spent billions trying to democratize the Sunni and Shiite zones and have little to show for it.

Three lessons: 1) Until the power struggle between Sunnis and Shiites is resolved, you can’t establish any stable politics in southern Iraq. 2) When people want to move down a progressive path, there is no stopping them. When they don’t, there is no helping them. 3) Culture matters. The Kurdish Islam is a moderate, tolerant strain, explained Salam Barwari, head of Kurdistan’s Democracy and Human Rights Research Center. “We have a culture of pluralism,” he said. “We have 2,000 years of living together with people living around us.” Actually, there are still plenty of Arab-Kurdish disputes, but there is an ethos of tolerance here you don’t find elsewhere in Iraq.

While visiting Kurdistan, I read a timely new book, “Democracy’s Good Name: The Rise and Risks of the World’s Most Popular Form of Government,” by my friend Michael Mandelbaum, a foreign affairs expert at Johns Hopkins University. It is highly relevant to America’s democracy project in Iraq and beyond.

Mr. Mandelbaum argues that democracy is made up of two elements: liberty and popular sovereignty. “Liberty involves what governments do” — the rule of law, the protection of people from abuses of state power and the regulations by which government institutions operate, he explains. Popular sovereignty involves how the people determine who governs them — through free elections.

What Baghdad exemplifies, Mr. Mandelbaum says, is what happens when you have elections without liberty. You end up with a tyranny of the majority, or what Fareed Zakaria has labeled “illiberal democracy.” Kurdistan, by contrast, has a chance to build a balanced democracy, because it is nurturing the institutions of liberty, not just holding elections.

What the Kurdistan-Baghdad contrast also illustrates, notes Mr. Mandelbaum, is that “we can help create the conditions for democracy to take root, but people have to develop the skills and values that make it work themselves.”

In the southern part of Iraq “you have people who are undemocratic who have a democratic government,” said Hemin Malazada, who heads a Kurdish journalists’ association. “In Kurdistan, you have a democratic government for a democratic people.”

One way a country develops the software of liberty, Mr. Mandelbaum says, is by nurturing a free market. Kurdistan has one. The economy in the rest of Iraq remains a mess. “A market economy,” he argues, “gives people a stake in peace, as well as a constructive way of dealing with people who are strangers. Free markets teach the basic democratic practices of compromise and trust.”

Democracy can fail because of religious intolerance, the curse of oil, a legacy of colonialism and military dictatorship, or an aversion to Western values — the wellspring of democracy. The Middle East, notes Mr. Mandelbaum, is the one region afflicted by all of these maladies. That doesn’t mean democratization is impossible here, as the Kurds demonstrate. But it does mean it’s really hard. Above all, Iraq teaches us that democracy is possible only when people want both pillars of it — liberty and self-government — and build both themselves. We’re miles away from that in Baghdad.

What’s missing in Baghdad | Iraq Updates

Iraqi government welcomes US commander's report

Baghdad - The Iraqi government welcomed Tuesday the report presented to Congress in Washington by US commander in Iraq General David Petraeus, who recommended that the United States would need fewer forces in Iraq in the near future.

Speaking at a Baghdad press conference, Iraq's National Security Advisor Muwaffaq al-Rubaie said the report was 'transparent' in assessing the situation in Iraq.

He described what the Iraqi government had achieved so far as 'a historical progress' towards the setting up of democracy.

'Iraq's government and the security forces would remain in need of the support of the US-coalition forces' until they were fully prepared to take on Iraq's security themselves, al-Rubaie said.

According to al-Rubaie, seven Iraqi provinces had so far come under the control of the Iraqi security forces from the US and British forces.
On Monday, both Petraeus and the Iraqi Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker presented their reports before Congress about the situation in Iraq.

Petraeus proposed that the increase in troops, ordered by US President George W Bush to quell sectarian violence in Iraq, could end by mid-July 2008.

'The military objectives of the surge are in large measure being met,' Petraeus told a hearing in the US House of Representatives. A 'premature' force reduction could be 'devastating,' he said.

Bush in January announced a boost in US troop strength from about 130,000 to more than 160,000. He has urged Americans to give the 'surge' time to work and has portrayed Petraeus' report as crucial to the future US course in Iraq.

Petraeus said US and Iraqi forces have 'dealt significant blows' to al-Qaeda operations in Iraq and violent attacks in the last two weeks have dropped to the lowest in more than a year.

'Though al-Qaeda and its affiliates remain dangerous, we have taken away a number of their sanctuaries and gained the initiative in many areas,' he said.

Crocker, a seasoned diplomat who has headed the Baghdad embassy since March, acknowledged that progress is slow.

'The American people are frustrated. I am frustrated every day I spend in Iraq on the lack of progress on legislative initiatives. Iraqis themselves are frustrated,' he told the hearing.

Still, Petraeus said Iraqi forces were increasingly providing for the country's security and cited dramatic progress in Anbar province, where local Sunni leaders have allied with US forces in combating al- Qaeda.

Violent deaths among Iraqi civilians have fallen by more than 45 per cent since the peak of sectarian violence in December 2006, and ethnic killings are down by more than 55 per cent, he said.

Iraqi government welcomes US commander's report - Middle East

British government says it will take its own decisions on Iraq

London - The British government is 'working very closely' with Washington on future troop levels in Iraq, but any decision on the withdrawal of British forces would be independent of the report presented by US commander General David Petraeus, a Downing Street spokesman said Tuesday.

He said Prime Minister Gordon Brown and US President George W Bush had a 'lengthy' video conference discussion Monday after General Petraeus told Congress he believed a reduction of US troops could begin.

The talks were 'very cordial and constructive,' the spokesman said, following a cabinet meeting at which the US commander's call for a cut by 30,000 of US troop levels was discussed.

'We will work very closely with them (the US) but our decision on troops in Basra will be based on an assessment on the ground and the readiness of the Iraqi security forces,' said the British spokesman.

'The decision in relation to our troops in Basra will be based on an assessment by our military commanders of the situation on the ground.'

He stressed that the 'general approach' taken by the US and Britain was 'entirely consistent.' But conditions in the south of Iraq, where British troops are based, were different from those elsewhere in the country.

Brown is due to make a statement on Iraq to parliament on October 8. Last week, British troops withdrew from the centre of Basra, in southern Iraq, to their new headquarters near the airport on the outskirts of the city.

He is expected to announce that Britain will hand over security responsibility for the whole of Basra province to Iraqi forces, changing the role of the remaining 5,500-strong British contingent from 'combat to overwatch' in what is widely seen as preparation for a withdrawal by early next year.

British government says it will take its own decisions on Iraq - Middle East

No safe haven left for Iraqi refugees, says UN

New visa regulations introduced by Syria mean there is no safe haven for Iraqi refugees escaping the conflict within their country, the UN refugee agency UNHCR warned Tuesday.

The requirements had had 'a direct and immediate impact' said UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond speaking in Geneva just 24 hours after they were introduced. Field workers had reported no sign of Iraqis waiting to cross the border, for the first time in months.

'The regulations effectively mean there is no longer a safe place outside for Iraqis fleeing persecution and violence,' he added.

Syria has taken in around 1.4 million Iraqis, the bulk of the 2 million said to have fled the country since the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime. The government brought in the restrictions Monday, claiming the country was at breaking point as a result of the influx.

Jordan had already tightened its regulations after letting in 750,000 refugees, equivalent to more than 10 per cent of the population.

UNHCR said it was still waiting for full details of the new measures but was pressing for Syria to introduce a 'humanitarian visa' to continue accepting refugees who fear persecution or violence.

Last week the International Organization for Migration said it was concerned over the 2.2 million internally displaced people, IDP's, within Iraq as 11 out of 18 districts had now restricted access to IDP's.

'An estimated 2,000 Iraqis flee their homes daily inside the country so we are increasingly concerned about their fate as their options for safety are reduced,' said Redmond.

No safe haven left for Iraqi refugees, says UN - Middle East

Iraqi politicians and leaders divided over US report (Roundup)

Baghdad - Iraqi politicians and leaders have been divided over the report on the situation in Iraq presented to the United States Congress by US commander in Iraq General David Petraeus and US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker.

On Monday, both Petraeus and Crocker recommended that the United States would need fewer forces in Iraq in the near future.

Petraeus proposed that the recent increase in troops or 'surge' ordered by US President George W Bush to quell sectarian violence in Iraq could end by mid-July 2008.

Speaking at a Baghdad press conference, Iraq's National Security Advisor Muwaffaq al-Rubaie said the report was 'transparent' in assessing the situation in Iraq.

He described what the Iraqi government had achieved so far as 'a historical progress' towards the setting up of democracy.

'Iraq's government and the security forces would remain in need of the support of the US-coalition forces' until they were fully prepared to take on Iraq's security themselves, al-Rubaie said.

Seven Iraqi provinces had so far come under the control of the Iraqi security forces from the US and British forces, al-Rubaie said.

Another Iraqi official, government spokesman Ali al-Dabagh, said the Petraeus-Crocker report 'depicted a clear picture of the political and security (goals) Iraq had accomplished in the past months.'

'The development in the security situation in the preceding months was clear, de****e the crises in the political arena requiring reform and intensive efforts,' al-Dabagh said in press statements.

'The withdrawal of the US-led coalition is based on the success of the government in building up its military force,' al-Dabagh noted.

MP Salim Abdullah for the Sunni National Accord Front said the US report was 'accurate and realistic.'

'The Iraqi politicians could not have got ready solutions from this report,' he said, but rather 'it was a description of the Iraqi reality on both security and political levels.'

MP Abdel-Khaliq Zankana for the Kurdistan Alliance said: 'The report tackled the success of the US forces in striking al-Qaeda and reducing violence in Baghdad.'

Other politicians and leaders, however, criticized the report, with one Sunni MP on Tuesday describing the US report as 'drawing a rosy picture of the Iraqi reality, where life comes to a standstill at 6.00 pm in the capital.'

Shiite Sadrist leader Asmaa al-Mawsawi meanwhile said 'the report included nothing new.'

'The solutions the US ambassador suggested in the report about facing up to the al-Qaeda terrorist network and arming tribes came late,' she added. According to her, quelling al-Qaeda was an Iraqi initiative rather than an American one.

Al-Mawsawi believes the US pull out from Iraq has become 'inevitable.'
Bush in January announced a boost in US troop strength from about 130,000 to more than 160,000. He has urged Americans to give the 'surge' time to work and has portrayed Petraeus' report as crucial to the future US course in Iraq.

Petraeus said US and Iraqi forces have 'dealt significant blows' to al-Qaeda operations in Iraq and violent attacks in the last two weeks have dropped to the lowest in more than a year.

'Though al-Qaeda and its affiliates remain dangerous, we have taken away a number of their sanctuaries and gained the initiative in many areas,' he said.

Crocker, a seasoned diplomat who has headed the Baghdad embassy since March, acknowledged that progress is slow.

'The American people are frustrated. I am frustrated every day I spend in Iraq on the lack of progress on legislative initiatives. Iraqis themselves are frustrated,' he told the hearing.

Still, Petraeus said Iraqi forces were increasingly providing for the country's security and cited dramatic progress in Anbar province, where local Sunni leaders have allied with US forces in combating al- Qaeda.

Violent deaths among Iraqi civilians have fallen by more than 45 per cent since the peak of sectarian violence in December 2006, and ethnic killings are down by more than 55 per cent, he said.

Petraeus added that violence in provinces such as Nineveh and Salahaddin had clearly dropped over the last two weeks.

Iraqi politicians and leaders divided over US report (Roundup) - Middle East_

Iran intelligence officer among militants killed in Iraq (Roundup)

Baghdad - An Iranian intelligence officer and an al-Qaeda terrorist network leader in Salahaddin province were killed in a US raid in the city of Samarra, while three people were killed and 13 wounded in another US attack in eastern Baghdad's Sadr City, sources said Tuesday.

Twelve militants, including the reported Iranian intelligence officer and the al-Qaeda leader Abu Obeid al-Jazaeri, were killed in the US raid carried out Monday in Samarra, 125 kilometres north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, in Salahaddin province, according to an official report.

The unnamed intelligence officer was carrying an Iranian passport, but the report gave no further details.

The al-Jazaeri's wife was also killed in the operation.

In Sadr City, US soldiers raided neighbourhoods during the early hours of Tuesday, killing three and injuring 13, as US aircraft launched strikes during the arrest of some Mahdi Army militants, a witness told independent Voices of Iraq news agency.

Qassem al-Mudallal, director of al-Imam Ali ho****al in Sadr City, said two bodies and 10 wounded were received during the early hours of Tuesday, while Weiam Ismail, director of Sadr ho****al, said one body and three wounded men were received by the ho****al.

The Mahdi Army, also known as Mahdi Militia or Jaish al Mahdi, was formed by Shiite cleric and leader Moqtada al-Sadr in 2003.

A member of al-Sadr's office said on condition of anonymity that the US troops stormed the house of a key Mahdi Army member but did not find him.

The US military did not comment on the incident.

On Tuesday morning, armed groups attacked an Iraqi army company in the village of Mekheisa in Abi Sayda district in Baquba, killing three soldiers and seriously wounding another, Voices of Iraq reported, citing an official security source.

Mekheisa, an al-Qaeda stronghold in Diyala province, is considered a hotbed of terrorists from other Arab countries and Afghanistan, who use the village's undergrowth as refuge, the source added.

Villages in Abi Sayda have recently witnessed several reconciliation meetings among Sunni and Shiite tribal leaders to fight terrorist groups.
Baquba, the capital of Diyala province, is some 60 kilometres north of Baghdad.

In another act of violence, four Iraqi policemen were killed in two separate attacks Tuesday in Mosul city in Nineveh province, Voices of Iraq quoted General Abdul-Kareem al-Juburi, the Nineveh police operations chief as saying.

He added that a group of gunmen opened fire at a patrol vehicle in the area of Karama in east Mosul, 400 kilometres north of Baghdad,
Other gunmen killed a policeman in Yarmuk in western Mosul in a drive-by attack, he said.

In other news, an explosive device went off near a police patrol on the main road linking Kirkuk to Mosul, wounding two policemen and destroying their vehicle, a Kirkuk security source told Voices of Iraq.

In the predominately Shiite city of Basra, 550 kilometres south of Baghdad, unknown gunmen killed an aide to top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, an official source from the city provincial council said Tuesday.

'Unknown gunmen stormed Monday night the house of Sayed Hussein al-Husaini in the Jiniynah neighbourhood in north Basra and killed him, the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity,' the source told Voices of Iraq.

Al-Husaini, an al-Sistani representative in Basra, is also the Imam of the Shiite Mahtah mosque.

Iran intelligence officer among militants killed in Iraq (Roundup) - Middle East_