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

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Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki speaks to reporters after a meeting with his Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani (R) in Baghdad August 23, 2006.
REUTERS/THAIER AL-SUDANI

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Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki speaks to reporters after a meeting with his Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani (R) in Baghdad August 23, 2006.
REUTERS/THAIER AL-SUDANI


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Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki (R) gestures as he speaks to Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani during a meeting in Baghdad August 23, 2006.
REUTERS/THAIER AL-SUDANI


Previous | Next
Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki speaks to reporters after a meeting with his Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani in Baghdad August 23, 2006.
REUTERS/THAIER AL-SUDANI


Background


Iraq in turmoil
Afghan reconstruction
More


By Mussab Al-Khairalla
BAGHDAD, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki insisted on Wednesday his forces would be ready to take control of most provinces within months, even though the U.S. military has boosted troop levels in Baghdad to shore up his government.
The U.S. Marine Corps announced on Tuesday it was calling up inactive service members to return to duty, possibly in Afghanistan and Iraq, to counter a steady decline in the number of such troops who volunteer.
"We will assume responsibility for security in one province this month and another next month. At the end of the year we will take control of most provinces," Maliki told reporters.
Washington's strategy is to train Iraq's security forces to assume responsibility for the country's 18 provinces and pave the way for the withdrawal of U.S. troops, but a surge in sectarian violence in recent months has frustrated that plan.
While the U.S. military has been handing over control of more "battle space" in provinces to Iraqi forces it has been forced to send reinforcements to Baghdad to help the government take back the streets from sectarian militias and death squads.
It has boosted the number of its troops in the country from 127,000 to 135,000 as part of a major clampdown in the capital, which U.S. officials say has already seen a sharp decline in violence in some volatile Sunni and Shi'ite neighbourhoods.
Maliki said that as Iraqi forces "gain in strength and become successful, the role of the Multi-National Forces will decrease and disappear".
The Iraqi security forces comprise 165,000 police and 129,000 soldiers, according to figures released by the U.S. military on Wednesday, while 85 Iraqi army and police battalions have taken the lead in fighting insurgents across Iraq.
TROOP WITHDRAWAL
While Washington is keen to reduce the number of its troops fighting in a war increasingly unpopular with American voters, President George W. Bush insisted this week that talk about pulling troops out before Iraq was ready was "absolutely wrong".
A senior British commander said Britain, Washington's main ally in Iraq, may halve its 7,000-strong force by mid-2007 after handing over security responsibility for the south to Iraqi security forces within nine months.
Bush has repeatedly said that any troop withdrawal will be dependent on conditions on the ground, but sectarian violence between minority Sunnis, once politically dominant under Saddam Hussein, and majority Shi'ites has raised fears of civil war.
Lieutenant-General Robert Fry, the top British general in Iraq and deputy commander of Coalition forces, said Iraq was in a "very intense sectarian conflict" but not a civil war.
"It is geographically defined. It is not resulting in the mass movement of population, which is characteristically what civil wars do," Fry told reporters in Washington.
"It's still being conducted in an environment which has the central institutions of the state functioning," he said.
Saddam's genocide trial for a military campaign against Iraq's ethnic Kurds in 1988, which killed between 50,000 and 100,000 by some estimates, continued in Baghdad.
Cursing the former Iraqi leader, a Kurdish woman told the court she was horribly burned after aircraft bombed her mountain village with chemical weapons.
"I lost my sight. My children lost their sight ... My house was razed to the ground. May God blind them all," said Adiba Owla Bayez, pointing at Saddam and his six co-defendants on the third day of the trial.
The seven are charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes. Saddam and his cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, nicknamed "Chemical Ali after poison gas attacks in the north, also face the charge of genocide. All the charges carry the death penalty. (Additional reporting by Kristin Roberts in Washington, Peter Graff in London, Ross Colvin and Michael Georgy in Baghdad)

Originally Posted by ourhouse37

really? me too. Someone told me when I was little that the devil has red hair, blue eyes and is left-handed. uh-oh. mwaaahahahaha.

that's only moderately funny there Ourhouse37.

Violence and unstable oil exports fuel Iraq inflation
23/08/2006
Source: Azzaman

Inflation soared in July, driven mainly by unstable levels of oil exports and rising level of violence.

The inflation rate, according to Central Bank, skyrocketed to 70% leading to a sharp rise in prices of most commodities.

In a statement, the bank attributed the hike to the fluctuations in Iraqi oil revenues due to unstable exports.

“The economy is lapsing into inflationary stagnation,� the bank warned.

In a bid to stem the inflationary spiral, the bank has issued new 182-day bonds as part of measures to withdraw some money from circulation.

The Central Bank is an independent entity in Iraq under law but it does seem it has the leverage to curtail government spending.

Corruption is rampant in Iraq and arrest warrants have been issued against two ministers in the former government for embezzlement.

Analysts say the bank’s measures will do little to alleviate prices and lower inflation.

The bank has stopped issuing figures on economic growth, citing the same reasons for the current level of inflation.

Oil output and exports are erratic and there are reports of huge smuggling taking place at the oil centers in Basra where most of current output originates.

This baby is gonna hit 300,000 thread views tonight! HOLY COW!!! GOOOOO DINARS!!!

tiffy hows it going with car business?

This was on another forum.

All right you talked me into it. I have a friend ( I really do) he is a Iraqi that lives here in the US and his family is still in Iraq. They told him there will be a RV by the end of Aug. I just couldn't take all of this withdrawal symtoms I see going on here, so I figured I better share this with all of you. No amounts. Besides I don't want to dispel Adsters 2.00 rumor, that still gets my heart rate up where it belongs and I don't think it can be beat.

Originally Posted by pipshurricane

Violence and unstable oil exports fuel Iraq inflation
23/08/2006
Source: Azzaman

Inflation soared in July, driven mainly by unstable levels of oil exports and rising level of violence.

The inflation rate, according to Central Bank, skyrocketed to 70% leading to a sharp rise in prices of most commodities.

In a statement, the bank attributed the hike to the fluctuations in Iraqi oil revenues due to unstable exports.

“The economy is lapsing into inflationary stagnation,� the bank warned.

In a bid to stem the inflationary spiral, the bank has issued new 182-day bonds as part of measures to withdraw some money from circulation.

The Central Bank is an independent entity in Iraq under law but it does seem it has the leverage to curtail government spending.

Corruption is rampant in Iraq and arrest warrants have been issued against two ministers in the former government for embezzlement.

Analysts say the bank’s measures will do little to alleviate prices and lower inflation.

The bank has stopped issuing figures on economic growth, citing the same reasons for the current level of inflation.

Oil output and exports are erratic and there are reports of huge smuggling taking place at the oil centers in Basra where most of current output originates.

What on earth are they waiting for: Does the government want the people to become so distraught that a true civil war is inevitable? .....This is becoming a real nail-biter. Why would the CBI issue 182 day bonds if there is an imminent reval?

I have my toesm and fingers crossed that you are right cigarman.

you got me al nervous there I ment toes

By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
August 23, 2006

The U.S. command in Iraq yesterday spoke of "life coming back to some normalcy" in violence-racked Baghdad, where for weeks American and Iraqi forces have launched raids to subdue various insurgent groups and militias that seem bent on instigating a civil war.
"We are cautiously optimistic and encouraged by all the indicators that we are seeing," Army Maj. Gen. William Caldwell told reporters in the Iraqi capital in an assessment of Operation Together Forward. "What we're seeing in these areas is life coming back to some normalcy. We see women and children walking freely in Amiriyah [neighborhood], something that was not seen prior to Operation Together Forward."
He displayed a map of the multiethnic city, with neighborhoods shaded in different colors to show how far they had progressed in reducing violence and restarting city services.
Gen. Caldwell's report came a month after Army Gen. John Abizaid, chief of U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee he had not seen such a high level of violence in Baghdad since the city was liberated from dictator Saddam Hussein in April 2003. The general said he feared a Sunni-Shi'ite civil war, but added that he thought the new government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki would prevent it.
Gen. Caldwell said that today, the Iraqi government is preventing such a war, and pointed to statistics that attacks in some city sections have gone from 30 a day to zero.
"There in fact has been a downturn in the level of violence within Baghdad over the last three weeks," he said. "The prime minister and his government has formulated a plan that is in fact proven at this point to have been very effective. And time will tell -- months will tell how effective it really is, but the initial indicators are very positive."
U.S. and Iraqi forces are facing multiple enemies in Baghdad: Al Qaeda in Iraq terrorists, Iraqi Sunni insurgents and Shi'ite death squads connected to the Mahdi's Army of cleric Muqtada al Sadr, who the United States says is financed by Iran's radical Islamic regime.
American commanders have given optimistic assessments before for Iraq, only to see parts of the country fall into chaos and violence. It remains to be seen whether the favorable trend continues in Baghdad.
"There is still much to be done, and we, together with the government of Iraq, have a long way to go," Gen. Caldwell said. "But with Iraqis in the lead making things happen, there's hope for the future."
The command's chief spokesman ticked off a list of raids and arrests in various Baghdad neighborhoods in recent days that resulted in decreased violence and a return of residents to shops and outdoor markets.
He said the coalition has mounted up to four major operations a night for several weeks to clean out one neighborhood at a time. An Iraqi reporter asked if the United States will produce "miracles" in the small town of Dura, such as paving the streets and bringing electricity.
"If there's a miracle that's going to occur in Iraq, it's going to be the Iraqis that will produce that miracle," Gen. Caldwell said.
Lt. Gen. Robert Fry, the senior British commander in Iraq, joined the debate on whether Iraq is, or isn't, in a civil war. Gen. Fry said the sectarian violence is largely confined to greater Baghdad and that the central government is functioning.
"I do not see a condition of civil war," he said from Baghdad in a conference call at the Pentagon. "The numbers of sectarian killings which have taken place in Baghdad over the last few weeks are dramatically reduced."

General sees 'some normalcy' of life in Baghdad - Nation/Politics - The Washington Times, America's Newspaper

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August 23, 2006
Good news from Baghdad

ABC News finds that the U.S. re-deployment of troops to Baghdad, and their placement in large numbers in the most dangerous neighborhoods, appears to be working. Preliminary reports show a significance decrease in violence. Iraqi authorities say the number of violent attacks has gone down by 30 percent. The U.S., using different calculations, says such attacks have decreased by 22 percent.