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

POL-JORDAN-BUSH-MALIKI
Bush, Jordan's King, Maliki not to hold tri-meeting -- Jordanian official

AMMAN, Nov 29 (KUNA) -- A meeting that includes Jordanian King Abdullah II, US President George W. Bush, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki in Amman has been canceled, announced a Jordanian official on Wednesday.

An official in the Jordanian Royal Court, who requested anonymity, told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) that Al-Maliki was supposed to join a meeting that took place between King Abdullah II and Bush upon his arrival in Amman earlier tonight, but due to tight schedules and loaded agendas, the meeting did not go as planned.

Al-Maliki's meeting with King Abdullah II earlier today, and his meeting with Bush, originally scheduled for Thursday morning, aim at ending sectarian violence in Iraq, maintaining Iraq's unity, and restoring security and stability in the country.

The Jordanian-US action also aims at saving the Palestinian and Lebanese arenas from similar political and security conflicts. (end) mms

Kuna site|Story page|Bush, Jordan''s King, Maliki not to hold tri-meeti...11/30/2006

Check this y'all.


U.S.-Iraq summit abruptly canceled By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer
47 minutes ago



AMMAN, Jordan - President Bush's high-profile meeting with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Wednesday was canceled in a stunning turn of events after disclosure of U.S. doubts about the Iraqi leader's capabilities and a political boycott in Baghdad protesting his attendance.

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Instead of two days of talks, Bush and al-Maliki will have breakfast and a single meeting followed by a news conference on Thursday morning, the White House said.

The abrupt cancellation was an almost unheard-of development in the high-level diplomatic circles of a U.S. president, a king and a prime minister. There was confusion — and conflicting explanations — about what happened.

Bush had been scheduled to meet in a three-way session with al-Maliki and Jordan's King Abdullah II on Wednesday night, and had rearranged his schedule to be in Amman for both days for talks aimed at reducing the spiral of violence in Iraq.

The last-minute cancellation was not announced until Bush had already come to Raghadan Palace and posed for photographs alone with the king.

White House counselor Dan Bartlett denied that the delay was a snub by al-Maliki directed at Bush or was related to the leak of a memo written by White House National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley questioning the prime minister's capacity for controlling violence in Iraq.

"Absolutely not," Bartlett said." He said the king and the prime minister had met before Bush arrived from a NATO summit in Latvia. "That negated the purpose to meet tonight together in a trilateral setting."

A senior administration official, who spoke with U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, basically echoed Bartlett's account.

The Jordanians and the Iraqis jointly decided it was not the best use of time because they both would be seeing the president separately, said the official.

Members of the Jordanian and Iraqi delegations contacted Khalilzad, who called Air Force One and spoke with Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, giving them a heads-up, the official said.

However, Redha Jawad Taqi, a senior aide of top Shiite politician Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim who also was in Amman, said the Iraqis balked at the three-way meeting after learning the king wanted to broaden the talks to include the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Two senior officials traveling with al-Maliki, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, said the prime minister had been reluctant to travel to Jordan in the first place and decided, once in Amman, that he did not want "a third party" involved in talks about subjects specific to the U.S.-Iraqi relationship.

With Maliki already gone from the palace, Bush had an abbreviated meeting and dinner with the king before heading early to his hotel.

The cancellation came after the disclosure of a classified White House memo, written Nov. 8 by Hadley. In one particularly harsh section, Hadley asserted: "The reality on the streets of Baghdad suggests Maliki is either ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action."

Administration officials did not dispute the leaked account, saying that on balance the document was supportive of the Iraqi leader and generally portrayed him as well-meaning.

The president "has confidence in Prime Minister Maliki," said Bush spokesman Tony Snow, who added that al-Maliki "has been very aggressive in recent weeks in taking on some of the key challenges."

The memo recommended steps to strengthen the Iraqi leader's position, including possibly sending more troops to defend Baghdad and providing monetary support for moderate political candidates for Iraq's parliament.

The Iraqi prime minister also faced political pressure at home about the summit. Thirty Iraqi lawmakers and five cabinet ministers loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said they were boycotting Parliament and the government to protest al-Maliki's presence at the summit.

Bartlett said that Wednesday night's three-way meeting had always been planned as "more of a social meeting" and that Bush and Maliki on Thursday would have a "robust" meeting on their own.

The president was expected to ask the embattled Iraqi prime minister how best to train Iraqi forces faster so they can shoulder more responsibility for halting the sectarian violence and, specifically, mending a gaping Sunni-Shiite divide. There are about 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, and Bush is under unrelenting pressure from Democrats and many Republicans to start bringing them home.

Some analysts suggested that the memo might actually help more than damage al-Maliki, showing distance between him and Bush.

Jon Alterman, former special assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, said the memo's doubts about al-Maliki "seemed calculated to steel his spine."

"This memo reads to me more like a memo to Prime Minister al-Maliki than to President Bush," said Alterman, now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "It has his entire to-do list as well as a list of what he'll get if he agrees."

In Washington, Sen. Jack Reed (news, bio, voting record), D-R.I., called on Bush to appoint a high-ranking special envoy to work with the Iraqi government on disbanding militias, including all Iraq's factions in the nation's political process and equitably distributing resources such as oil revenue.

"Steps have to be taken now," he said.

Bush's meeting with al-Maliki is part of a new flurry of diplomacy the administration has undertaken across the Middle East. Hadley's memo suggests that Secretary of State Rice should hold a meeting for Iraq and its neighbors in the region early next month and also that the U.S. could step up efforts to get Saudi Arabia to help. It was written just weeks before Secretary of State Dick Cheney was dispatched to Saudi Arabia.

Senior administration officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the document is still classified even though published, said that many of the concerns raised by Hadley have been or are being rectified in the month that has passed since his trip to Baghdad.

This is from an Arab newspaper....informative and not bias. Hey ABC, CBC, NBC, AND CNN (crap news network) take a look at what nonbias accurate journalism is. FOX News has done a pretty good job as usual.

Arab News - 3 hours ago

AMMAN, 30 November 2006 — US President George W. Bush’s high-stakes summit with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki was put off yesterday after public disclosure of US doubts about his capacity to control sectarian warfare. The White House said the two leaders would meet today.

The postponement was announced shortly after Bush arrived here for talks with Jordan’s King Abdallah and Maliki. Bush’s meeting with the king proceeded on schedule.

White House counselor Dan Bartlett denied that the move was a snub by Maliki or was related to the leak of a White House memo questioning the prime minister’s capacity for controlling violence in Iraq.“Absolutely not,” Bartlett said.

He said the king and the prime minister had met before Bush arrived from a NATO summit in Latvia. “It negated the purpose for a meeting of the three of them,” Bartlett said.

Bartlett said that last night’s three-way meeting had always been planned as “more of a social meeting” and that Bush and Maliki today would have a “robust” meeting on their own.The president was expected to ask the embattled Iraqi prime minister how best to train Iraqi forces faster so they can shoulder more responsibility for halting the sectarian violence and, specifically, mending a gaping Sunni-Shiite divide.

Bush arrived here amid disclosure of a memo by a top White House adviser that raised doubts about Maliki’s ability to halt escalating sectarian violence in Iraq, where US involvement now exceeds the length of America’s participation in World War II.“We will discuss the situation on the ground in his country, our ongoing efforts to transfer more responsibility to the Iraqi security forces, and the responsibility of other nations in the region to support the security and stability of Iraq,” Bush said Tuesday at the NATO summit.“We’ll continue to be flexible, and we’ll make the changes necessary to succeed. But there’s one thing I’m not going to do: I’m not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete,” he said.

Meanwhile, Iraqi lawmakers and Cabinet ministers loyal to anti-American cleric Moqtada Sadr suspended their participation in the Parliament and government in protest over Maliki’s summit with Bush.

In Syria, President Bashar Assad said his country will continue to challenge US efforts to exert control over the Middle East.

The White House has avoided saying that Bush will be pressuring Maliki at the meeting to do more to stop the bloodshed. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley says the Iraqi prime minister pushes himself — and that Bush will be listening to Maliki’s ideas, not imposing plans on him. But in a classified Nov. 8 memo following his Oct. 30 trip to Baghdad, Hadley expressed serious doubts about whether Maliki had the capacity to control the sectarian violence in Iraq, and recommended steps to strengthen the Iraqi leader’s position, The New York Times reported yesterday.“The reality on the streets of Baghdad suggests Maliki is either ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions, or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action,” the memo said.

The White House did not dispute the accuracy of the memo, but a senior administration official said the document, taken as a whole, is an expression of support for Maliki. “You have a constant reiteration of the importance of strengthening the Maliki government, the need to work with him, to augment his capabilities,” the official said.

Originally Posted by CharmedPiper

I really like the part below in red.....!!!

Hopefully it will be like the press conference that Bush had with Rumsfeld...announce Maliki's resignation!! Then we can get an Iraqi Prime Minister who has some cajones. LOL

I could not find an exact date but a good read.

Iraq eRocket #10
Dinar’s Club: Arrival of Iraq’s First Pre-paid Card Pulls Modern Commerce to Iraq … and Iraq into the Global Economy

Until a few days ago, 26 million Iraqis could hardly imagine that familiar cash register refrain, “paper or plastic?” Iraq has been a cash economy. No credit cards. Zero debit cards. Are you trying to be funny with that personal check? Something as simple as holding a hotel room on a foreign trip would require the average Iraqi to mobilize a web of compensating cash transactions or call on the goodwill of overseas connections.

Given the volume of bills one had to carry, a trip to one of Baghdad’s popular gold jewelry markets could be a pulse-quickening experience.

But the beginning of the end of cash-only was heralded on April second. On that day Security Financial Services, Inc. (SFS), unveiled its “AMAN” cards, pre-paid purchase and Internet shopping cards, offered under the MasterCard International logo. Now Iraqis can “charge up” a plastic card with as little as $25 for the Internet version, and $100 for the standard one. The maximum values are $5,000 and $10,000, respectively, and the funds can be input at banks throughout Iraq.

In a plastic-starved consumer culture the appetite has been, not surprisingly, voracious: a reported 1,200 applications were received in the first 18 hours of operation and some 3,000 inquiries logged. SFS believes it will sign up 100,000 users for each of the two cards by the end of 2006. Younger Iraqis and others under the spell of e-commerce are expected to be the most eager adopters of the less-paper trend.

However, Iraqis are traditionally skeptical of banks as a place to store wealth, so it remains to see how readily they will trust a non-bank banker.

Over time the obvious safety and convenience benefits of the new cards will be joined by an increase in goods and services coming into Iraq from abroad. Product launches that are not yet profitable, given the slowness and cost of cash transactions, will become viable for foreign suppliers. Competition will rise, and still more innovative financial and marketing schemes will be offered, fueling a virtuous cycle for the consumer and the economy. The backbone of a modern financial system has been under painstaking construction for the last two and a half years, and the impact is finally hitting the consumer squarely in the wallet with breakthroughs such as “AMAN,” Arabic for “safety.”

SFS Inc. is a Southfield, Michigan-based financial services firm that grew out of the convenience store business http://www.sfsent.com1. The parent company leveraged Iraqi-American roots into a Middle Eastern business lines with bases in Baghdad and Amman, Jordan.

The company received its approvals and licenses from Iraq’s Ministry of Finance and Central Bank after a two-year effort to convince the authorities that not only banks have financial products that consumers need. Private banking itself is undergoing a major capital and know-how infusion thanks, in part, to foreign investment, but these institutions have not yet proven as fleet of foot as SFS. The firm has invested some $4 million in training staff and setting up an internal network that will link offices in Irbil, Suleimaniyah and Basra, in addition to the initial marketing center in Baghdad.

As novel as the pre-paid cards are, they are only the vanguard. SFS has its sites set on establishing 2,500 point of sale stations in shops, hotels and restaurants throughout Baghdad by the end of the year. They hope to rollout ATMs and a “moneygram” product, as well, on a similarly ambitious schedule. (Western Union has recently introduced its wire services in Iraq, as well). By starting with pre-paids, SFS aims to establish the credit histories and consumer practices that are necessary to be able to offer standard credit cards or the American Express card. The Trade Bank of Iraq has had a debit card on the market for about six months, but due to a few missing vertebrae in the country’s banking communications backbone and the paucity of merchants accepting it, their use has been limited to date. Even if all of SFS’ grand targets are not reached in the next months, in a long stretch of gridlock punctuated by bad news in Iraq, a strike for economic progress such as the pre-paid cards constitute is more than welcome. The value of a little “aman” for Iraq’s beleaguered people? Priceless.

Originally Posted by danny51

Hopefully it will be like the press conference that Bush had with Rumsfeld...announce Maliki's resignation!! Then we can get an Iraqi Prime Minister who has some cajones. LOL

I'm talking about announcing the reval, oil law, and investment law....!!!!

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan commission, under pressure to offer a U.S. exit strategy for the increasingly unpopular war in Iraq, has reached a consensus and will announce its recommendations next week, the group's co-chairman said Wednesday.



Former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., declined to disclose any specifics about the Iraq Study Group's decisions. The report, much anticipated by the Bush administration and members of Congress, is coming out next Wednesday amid the spiraling violence in Iraq that has raised questions about the viability of the Iraqi government.

"This afternoon, we reached a consensus ... and we will announce that on December 6," Hamilton told a forum on national security at the Center for American Progress, a liberal group.

"We're making recommendations," said Hamilton, who led the group with former Secretary of State James A. Baker III.

Defense officials, meantime, said the Pentagon is developing plans to send four more battalions to Iraq early next year, including some to Baghdad.

The extra combat engineer battalions of Army reserves, would total about 3,500 troops and would come from around the United States, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the deployments have not been announced.

President Bush is under growing pressure to withdraw substantial numbers of U.S. troops while shifting more responsibility to the Iraqi government. Even so, top military commanders have said they would consider increasing U.S. troop levels, at least temporarily, if they deemed it necessary.

Bush said Tuesday he would not withdraw American forces "until the mission is complete."

The study group is expected to recommend regional talks involving Syria and Iran. The administration has been reluctant to engage those two countries, which it says have abetted the violence in Iraq.

It was unclear what the group would recommend regarding possible U.S. troop withdrawals, an issue that proved divisive during meetings this week. The members — five Democrats and five Republicans — were split over the appropriate U.S. troop levels in Iraq, and whether and how to pull American forces out, according to one official close to the panel's deliberations.

A second official has said the commission was unlikely to propose a timetable for withdrawing all U.S. troops, but that some members seem to favor setting a date for an initial withdrawal. That is an idea favored by many congressional Democrats.

The Iraq panel is expected to brief the administration and congressional leaders before making the report public.

There are currently about 139,000 U.S. troops in Iraq; some 20,000 are in and around Baghdad, the capital.

At a Pentagon press conference Wednesday, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, would not say whether more troops are planned for Baghdad. He did say that was among the ideas that commanders are debating.

He also said there was no plan to shift all troops from the volatile Anbar Province into Baghdad.

Pace was asked if the advice of generals was becoming less important because of the commission's impending report and the congressional takeover by Democrats, some of whom have been critical of the war.

"This is a very complex problem, and the more 10-pound brains we can bring to bear on the problem for our nation, the better," Pace said.

The Pentagon's decisions on which reserve battalions to send to Iraq next year would depend on how long the units had served on the battlefront because the Pentagon is trying to not break a policy of deploying troops no longer than 24 months on the ground in Iraq. The decision-making process was described by defense officials who requested anonymity because the plans have not yet been announced.

In addition, military leaders are shifting brigades within Iraq. The officials said they are moving an agile Stryker Brigade into Baghdad to help shore up security there. The 3rd Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division will move from Mosul in northern Iraq to Baghdad, replacing a Stryker brigade that has gone home to Alaska.

Portions of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division are moving into Iraq and heading up to Mosul to take its place, officials said.

Robert Gates, Bush's nominee for defense secretary, has endorsed the idea of engaging Iran and Syria for help in stabilizing increasingly violent Iraq.

Gates made the comments in response to a questionnaire from the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is to hold a confirmation hearing Tuesday. Gates also submitted to the committee a financial disclosure report, the contents of which have not been made public.


Lee Hamilton was on C-SPAN tonight answering questions and I just caught the last part of one of his answers and he was stressing how a strong Iraqi economy is very important in calming things down over there...

I love the paint job, of the official Iraqi Presidential Jet. That we bought for them! The top half is my favorite color GREEN! The bottom half is white. Green is their national color! I know this because of my Iraqi collection.

Press statement

28 / 11 / 2006

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki today by the President of the whole territory Cordstan Mr. Masood Albarazani and the Territory's Chief Minister Mr. Najirfan Albarazani and a number of ministers of the region and members of the National Council Alcordstani.

It was during the meeting discussed developments in the political process and the efforts of national reconciliation and reconstruction projects, the parties also discussed ways to strengthen the economic situation and coordination between the bodies concerned in the central government and the territorial government in the areas of finance and economic development.

The meeting was attended by foreign ministers of finance, trade, planning, higher education, scientific research and a number of members of the House of Representatives

Translated version of http://www.iraqigovernment.org/

Hakim : the losers will be the year of sectarian war in Iraq that occurred



- 2 - مرة/ مرات قرأ هذا الخبر- 2-once / read times this news


Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq during the reception of the Jordanian monarch, King Abdullah II him Thursday in Amman said that the year will be "the biggest loser" of sectarian war in Iraq that occurred.
A statement issued by the Jordanian Royal Court announced that Hakim said at the meeting : "We take pride in the Arab identity of Iraq, The sectarian war will be the biggest loser where are our brothers year. "
Hakim explained that "the return of Iraq back."
He said, "We look forward to supporting Iraq in the Arab world and to stand by his people," pointing out that "the interest of the Arabs not to pull back from Iraq and understand the nature of the circumstances that the country is undergoing."

Translated version of http://www.araahurra.com/index.asp