Thread: Iraq/Dinar News. 09/05 to 01/14/07

Hot line for tips on insurgents a 'joke'
By Kirk Semple
The New York Times
When armed insurgents moved into her southern Baghdad neighborhood last spring and started threatening Shiite families like hers, Umm Hussein called Iraq's widely publicized 24-hour terrorism hot line.

Nobody answered.

After several attempts over several days she finally got through and was assured that the police would follow up.

"But nothing happened and no one ever came," recalled Umm Hussein, who told her story on the condition that she be identified only by her Shiite nickname. Several days later she moved her family from their neighborhood, Hor Rijeb, to the relative safety of Zayouna, a mixed neighborhood in central Baghdad.

The hot line, she said, is "a joke."

Her experience has been woefully common, with many Iraqis complaining that they have been unable to get through on the line or have seen no response to their tips.

In the past few weeks, the U.S. military command, which has invested millions of dollars in publicizing the operation, has made some emergency modifications to try to rescue it. The changes appear to have had an effect, increasing the number of tips. But one of the biggest challenges remains: trying to change Iraqis' opinion of a program they had all but written off.

The National Tips Hot Line, as it is known, was founded in 2003 by the Coalition Provisional Authority, guaranteeing callers anonymity and collecting information about insurgent activity, bomb threats, kidnappings, killings and other major crimes. The hot line, which later became a joint coalition-Iraqi venture, was a foreign concept in a country that associated intelligence gathering by the state with brutal coercion.

The U.S. military started a multimedia promotional campaign for the hot line, budgeting $9.9 million through March 2007 for billboard, print, radio and television advertisements, as well as market research. And month after month, officials hailed it as a growing success. A senior U.S. spokesman said at a news conference in March that the rising number of tips represented a "groundswell of support" from citizens for the U.S.-led fight against the insurgency.

Yet too often, Iraqis were calling the number, 130, and not getting through. Some who did complained later that no response by security forces was evident.

The author of a Baghdad Web log, who calls himself Zappy Corleone, described in an entry last month how he saw gunmen in more than 10 cars seal off a street in the Rusafa neighborhood, kidnap a man from his house and stuff him in a car's trunk. The writer said he called the tips line six times but was unable to connect. In an e-mail response to questions, he said, "The cruel impact of it is that it raises real hopes that somebody would save you, but actually it's a slap on the face, like everything else in Baghdad."

Meanwhile, after rising slowly yet steadily since the hot line's inception, the number of tips suddenly started to dry up last summer.

From a rate of about 62 usable tips a day in June, the number dropped to about 29 tips a day in mid-September, according to statistics provided by the U.S. military. On Sept. 19, the operators recorded only one usable tip.

Officials at the highest levels of the U.S. command, which had taken great pride in the tips line, saw the woeful data in September and demanded to know what was going on.

It turned out that while plenty of people were calling, they were mostly the wrong kind of callers. Almost all intended to harass the operators, presumably as part of an effort by the insurgency to tie up the lines. Callers berated and threatened the operators. Women called to offer the operators sex or, they said, just to chat. Whether or not they were part of a larger ruse was unclear, but the effect was the same: Legitimate callers could not get through.

Furthermore, at any given time, there were at most five operators answering 15 lines at the headquarters, located in a pair of small, windowless buildings in the Green Zone. And some operators, out of fatigue, frustration or laziness, were simply taking their phones off the hook.

Officials associated with the hot line said it had slipped between the bureaucratic cracks, somewhere between coalition and Iraqi oversight. The operators felt like "neglected children," said Lieutenant Colonel David Robles, a U.S. adviser to the Interior Ministry who was drafted in September to help resuscitate the hot line and to keep an American hand firmly on the operation.

No coalition money had been budgeted for the operation in 2006 except for advertising and to pay the salaries of several British contractors who trained the hot line operators, officials said. The telephone technology, the condition of the offices, supervision and morale were suffering.

Robles and an Iraqi counterpart, a police brigadier who requested anonymity, introduced a new work ethic, resolved some technical issues and improved the working conditions. By the second week of October, the number of usable tips had tripled, hitting about 89 a day. For the first time, the Robles said, the operators "recognized that someone was paying attention." New operators and new lines will be added in the coming weeks, he said, and the center will soon shift to a new, undisclosed location where it will have better phone technology.

Operators' techniques are continuing to improve, officials said, drawing more information from the callers and enabling the security forces to act on more tips.

There is still no solution to the chronic problem of nuisance calls, an issue that was on full display during two visits to the call center last month, the first time the U.S. command has granted access to the news media. It was a relatively slow day because it was a national holiday, but still the phones rang constantly, at least one call every two seconds. Nearly all the calls, however, were harassing ones.

Originally Posted by Vipor

Thanks Kiko. I got a similar email from them today after requesting status on my last purchase.

Dear Mr. XXX,

Your stock order was executed in the last trading session dated 1st of November 2006 and we are waiting to receive our stock purchases from our brokerage office and we will provide our sincere clients with their full purchase details as always.

There has been a delay because all government and private sectors are closed because of the general curfew imposed by the Iraqi Government due to the court sentencing of the former dictator and regime members.
I thank you for your fine understanding and cooperation.

Many thanks and best regards,

Manager

International Foreign Relations Dept.

Hum, If the government and private sectors are closed why does everybody keep getting e-mails from here. Someone must be working to be sending out e-mails. So somebody could be working a cbi????? Just a thought.

Originally Posted by fsndirector

I believe that you will find when it is R/Ved and it will be!!!!! The autions will be stopped as they will no longer need that method to keep the currency stable. I think that we havn't seen it today because of the curfew. jmo

al sabaah not posting and no auction posted are not typical of a curfew tho.

Originally Posted by Mike5200

Apparently common sense is not their strong suit!!

Funny,

I was saying the same thing earlier, there is no logical commons sense in Iraq, other than in Kurdistan. Having worked in the region, it is obvious most do not think like we in the west do. Everywhere you look, you see contradictions to logical thinking, so expect delays like we have seen, it is the only logical outcome of an illogical thinking country.

All one has to do is read some of the comments coming out of region now that verdict is known to see how illogical these people are. Here we see the conviction of a sadistic killer and many are condemning it, and what are these same people who are condemning Saddam doing, they are killing fellow Iraqi's. Now does that make any common sense?

Although all the pieces of puzzle are falling into place, and we are seeing everything pointing in the right direction, there is no logics to why we have not seen a reval yet. Think about it, they make announcements before the fact, and after the fact with no logical pattern. We hear about 10K weeks ago, yet nothing since, and certainly no one has received it yet, how crazy is that. Put it into context, Bush announces tax cut, and then we don't get it as promised, same thing.

Even my associates in Kurdistan are scratching there heads at this point and are disgusted with Baghshit, just as we are. It is a disgrace to see so many cabinet and members of parliament so unconcerned with important issues which impact everyone in Iraq, not just one sect. And to think we have been hearing about these issues for months with no action at all, just more talk. This is another illogical inaction showing total indecision by Maliki. Any day now is frustrating everyone, but better to be getting closer than further away from reval.

Good luck to all, Mike

After passing the FIL on the 10th of october I asked Warka when the FIL was enacted.

Answer: within a month we are now finalizing the procedures.

Ok, FIL should be enacted around the 7th of November.

I asked them again and got e-mail today:

answer: we are finalizing the procedures

So as we can see they use standard sentences and e-mails and don't tell us anything.

How about IMF article VIII, anybody heard anything on this one? No way, but the official date of december was moved to 31 october last. Two weeks delay in the 10,000 dinar handout. We don't hear anything until last week.

Everything is pointing that a RV will occur and very very soon. They have planned it all. But it must be a surprise.

In my opinion, hitting the forex tonight is the best time with the ISX closed tommorow. CBI closed for now (although that is what we must believe).

To many coincedence. We are close!!

I must of missed it. What was said about the economic package?

"MY DAD JUST SENT MEa copy of dinars on NYSTOCK exchanged listing prices of dinar .in the foriegn currency section ..this is a 1st.. since we started watching....are we rich yet????"

I just got this e-mail from a co-worker. Is this out of the norm or even true. Can anyone confirm this? I'm working on it.

Originally Posted by Original Spiderman

"MY DAD JUST SENT MEa copy of dinars on NYSTOCK exchanged listing prices of dinar .in the foriegn currency section ..this is a 1st.. since we started watching....are we rich yet????"

I just got this e-mail from a co-worker. Is this out of the norm or even true. Can anyone confirm this? I'm working on it.

Do you have a link to this or can you get a copy?

Originally Posted by rodney ewalt

If today comes and goes with no R/v and November comes and goes with no R/V, are we destined to keep looking to the next month and the next and so on and so on or is there someway to really understand what's happening over there?

The Iraqi leadership is ILLITERATE, CORRUPT and LAZY...they do not care about the Iraqi people as long as they can line their own pockets...so YES is the answer to your question until the Iraqi people themselves rise up and replace these morons with the true leaders of Iraq...the KURDS!! As much as we enjoy connecting the dots and speculating about the RV, it is an exercise in futility to attempt to predict when it will actually take place.

Originally Posted by Texas_Tea

I must of missed it. What was said about the economic package?

we have no idea maybe pres bush will let all in the know at 2