Election go-ahead

Well our friend Ranj says February 27th is his best bet for the election date:

A spokesman for Iraq’s parliament speaker says a political accord has been reached to clear the way for parliamentary elections next year. Omar Al Mishhadani, the spokesman for Parliament Speaker Ayad Al Samarie, had no details of the pact reached after marathon talks yesterday. A late-night emergency session was called for parliament members to vote on the deal.

Ayad Jamalhuddin and the UK

Today Ahrar's leader Ayad Jamal Aldin, sent a personal letter to the Chairman of the Iraq Inquiry in the UK, Sir John Chilcot requesting an opportunity to come and listen to an evidence giving session.
The inquiry is investigating the build up to the war in 2003, which saw the overthrowing of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Speaking about the letter, Ahrar's leader said, "There is no other group of people who deserve the opportunity to listen to the evidence provided to the inquiry than the Iraqi people."
"It is my belief, that as a representative of the Iraqi people, my presence will serve as a reminder to the Great British government that Iraq still reverberates to the actions taken 6 years ago. Instead of fearing Saddam Hussein's regime, Iraqis live in fear of sectarian violence and the endemic corruption which need to be tackled, more so now than ever. The British people may have moved on, but the consequences of that action remain apparent and without strong international oversight, the forthcoming elections may be hampered severely by sectarianism and corruption. Ahrar calls upon the British and international community to ensure a fair, free and safe election once it has been called."

Read Ahrar Leader Ayad Jamal Aldin's letter to Sir John Chilcot here

More trouble for Iraq's elections

Iraq's Kurdish region is trying to mess up the elections. They don't want to face the fact that the established parties (PUK/KDP) are likely to do less well than before. So they use a credible delaying tactic for less than credible reasons - complaining about their allocation of seats. Stafford writes:

The updated table below corrects the total number of seats which is based on one seat per 100,000 population for a highly questionable total population of 32,300,000.

Given obvious migrations into the Kurdistan Region since 2003 by returnees and those fleeing violence from other parts of the country since 2005, it is difficult to accept that such population increases are not reflected in a higher number of seats. Governorate (provincial) population increases in the total (unrealistic) figure of 32.3 million are questionably allocated largely among governorates outside the Region.

The last official figures with some semblance of official international certification were governorate figures listed in the December 2002 Distribution Plan for the UN-managed oil-for-food program. For certain parts of the country, however, these figure were estimated to have been inflated by as much as 3 million.

To view the Iraq Parliament Seat Allocations Click here

Talabani tries to undermine elections

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is still smarting from the drubbing he got at the ballot box in the recent elections in Kurdistan and he can't face another humiliation. So he is trying to stop the January elections for the national parliament. The way he has chosen to do it is to undermine things by refusing to sign any election law unless parliament increases minority representation. Of itself a good idea were his motives less impure.

Agence France-Presse - 17 November, 2009
Iraq's general election in January was thrown into doubt on Monday when the war-torn country’s presidential council demanded a greater say for minorities and nationals living abroad.

President Jalal Talabani told AFP he wants parliament to change the electoral law governing the vote so that the number of seats set aside for minorities, including Christians, and Iraqi expatriates will be tripled.

Elections dispute

The New York Times writes: The dispute over the election law centers first on the question of whether voters can cast their ballots for parties or individuals. Voting for individuals is preferable because it offers a more direct connection between politicians and their constituents and helps weaken ethnically based parties.

Staffod Clarry responds: Yes, but no individual is likely to be effective without group support. The corollary: individuals can be made ineffective by groups. Iraq is not there yet.

Iraq is a country deeply divided into groups and by groups (ethnic groups, sectarians groups, clans, tribes). In groups there is power to be constructive, or destructive. In individuals, without group support, there is limited opportunity to be constructive, or destructive.

The New York Times writes: The second, even more difficult issue, is who should be eligible to vote in Kirkuk. Mr. Hussein drove Kurds out of the region; Arabs now charge that the Kurdish regional government is flooding the city with Kurds to bolster its territorial claims.

Stafford Clarry writes: It is indeed rather amazing that this persistent specious argument has not yet been put to sleep. Facts say something else. Which residents have ancestral ties to the area whose families were forced to migrate? The corollary: which residents of Kirkuk have ancestral ties to some place else, but came to Kirkuk after others were forced to migrate in order to occupy their properties?

Elections Trouble

So the Iraq electoral law has not been passed yet. What a nuisance. If they use the old law with its "party list" system which means people can't vote for individuals - it will be a shame.

The hold up is - of course - Kirkuk. Blame the British for kicking that can down the road. British diplomats campaigned hard to stop a resolutrion of the Kirkuk issue in the early days when they said it was explosive. Leave a wound and it festers. And now it's truly explosive. Stupid bloody Brits.

Big big trouble brewing - nasty VERY NASTY

Iraq is - potentially - heading for civil war. It is time to difuse the tension between the Kurds and the Central Government - IMMEDIATELY:

Kurdish officials are planning a January referendum on a controversial draft constitution for the region, despite protests that it flouts Iraqi law, could heighten tensions with Baghdad and even lead to a dictatorship. The proposed constitution, which was overwhelmingly approved by Iraqi Kurdistan’s parliament in June, gives sweeping powers to the presidency and declares disputed territories – including the oil-rich province of Kirkuk – part of the Kurdish region.

Before it can be placed on the statute book, the planned basic law needs to be ratified in a referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan.

From Kurdistan with Love

Stafford sent this in (written by our old friend Jackie) - which is interesting because hatred of Israel in the Mid East is such a transient thing - as the Abdullah Plan shows. If Israel but actually had a just peace with the Palestinians the whole Islamic World would change it's perspective. But Isrfaelis like to suffer I guess - else this would have all long ago been resolved.

Text of report by centrist Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv on 21 September [Report by Jacky Hugi: "From Kurdistan, With Love"] An overwhelming majority of the Kurds in northern Iraq support close relations with Israel, and view them as vital for shaping the future of the nascent Kurdish state - this is shown by an updated poll conducted by a polling institute based in Arbil, capital of the Kurdish region, the full details of which have reached Ma'ariv.

According to the data, 87.5 per cent of the respondents believe that there are deep and historical relations between the two peoples - the Kurds and the Israelis. 61.4 per cent of them call upon the autonomous Kurdish government to launch talks in the economic and cultural areas with Israel, as a preliminary stage to full relations. Most of them (60 per cent) even reject secret relations, as is customary in some Arab states, and demand that they be made public. The poll was conducted by the Point institute for polls and strategic studies, and it questioned 1,000 men and women in the large cities Arbil, Sulaymaniyah, Duhok, Mosul and Kirkuk. The pollster who conducted the poll, researcher and journalist Khader Domli, believes that the results have effectively decided the question of the Kurdish public's desire for relations with Israel. This is contrary to the official position of the Kurdish leadership, according to the time is not yet ripe for this. "This poll showed that a large percentage of Kurdistan's citizens, which reaches 68.4 per cent, believes that the Kurds would benefit from strengthening their ties with the State of Israel," Domli writes in the conclusions of the study, "perhaps the reason is that many respondents believe that Israel will forever remain strong and a major player in shaping policy in the region. "The pollsters also queried the respondents whether it would be best to sever ties with Israel altogether. Only nine per cent responded in the affirmative, and the overwhelming majority (71.4 per cent) said "no." In addition, most Kurds (59.2 per cent) believe that Israel sees them as a strategic ally, as in the past. Finally, nearly 67 believe that the relations with the State of Israel have an important role in building the independent Kurdish state, which will be established in the future. Q: Are there historical ties between the Kurdish and Israeli leaderships? Yes: 87.5 per cent; No: 2.6 per cent; Don't know: 9.9 per cent Q: Do the ties with Israel have a role in accelerating the establishment of a Kurdish state? Yes: 66.9 per cent; No: 11.8 per cent; Don't know: 21.3 per cent Q: Should the Kurds' ties with Israel remain secret? Yes: 21.3 per cent; No: 60.4 per cent; Don't know: 18.3 per cent.

Syria - Iraq squabble continues

Malaki continues to play the Syrian card to account for increasing levels of violence within Iraq. Truth is most of Iraq's neighbors are responsible for destabilising that country in their different ways - but Syria makes a convenient whipping boy.

Kuwait Times - 20 September, 2009
A meeting of Iraqi and Syrian officials over accusations Damascus shelters Iraqi insurgents yielded nothing and further talks were unlikely to do much better, Iraq's government said yesterday. Government spokesman Ali Al-Dabbagh said there was a lack of political will on the part of Syria.

Mosul governance pushing away the Kurds

Mosul has been the most prominent flashpoint of Arab-Kurd tension since the drafting of the constitution, but hopes for reconciliation are diminished now more than ever. In the country’s most recent elections, the predominantly Sunni Arab, pro-Ba’athist al-Hadba list came into power.

A largely pro-Arab agenda in this highly divided municipality presents a major gap in government credibility. Al-Hadba, after its election, ignored the large number of votes for Kurdish leaders and did not incorporate any opposition leaders into the Mosul government. In doing so, the party has alienated majority Kurdish districts in Mosul.

The Kurdistan Regional Government has gotten involved, as Mosul and other parts of Nineveh province are disputed Kurdish territories, encouraging negotiations with American supervision. Despite the negotiations, Kurdish districts still strongly distrust al-Hadba and have threatened to form their own separate municipal administration, according to the Kurdish Globe newspaper (http://www.kurdishglobe.net/displayArticle.jsp?id=429F8E61C3B94F846286953586CD236F).

It is not surprising that the Kurdish districts are considering secession. They perceive their security threatened by a Sunni Arab group bent on controlling Mosul. Such a view has been reinforced by recent attacks on Kurds in other parts of Nineveh, including Sinjar, home to a large Kurdish-speaking Yazidi population.

Power-sharing is quite absent in Mosul, and if al-Hadba does not soon make compromises and place some power into the hands of Kurds, it will further entrench divides. What are currently spontaneous ethnic rifts could turn swiftly into entrenched formal statutory boundaries in municipal government.

Syria and Lebanon: Iraq bombings widen rift with Syria

Syria and Lebanon: Iraq bombings widen rift with Syria

Difficult times one way and another

See also Ranj's piece

The Kurdistan Regional Government and PriceWaterhouseCoopers

Recently, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) signed a large agreement to develop a "Department of Information Technology" to battle corruption in the KRG.

On the surface, and in its conception, it is fantastic that PwC is providing a framework for Kurdistan to hold its government accountable. PwC has actually developed a business strategy around countering corruption, arguing that it is in the best interest of private business to have a fair and transparent government.

This concept goes hand-in-hand with recent theories and rhetoric in academic literature on post-conflict development. However, there are two major questions that have not been answered in this relationship. The KRG is paying PwC for its services in developing this anti-corruption system. Is PwC independent of restrictions from the KRG or is it developing a facade of transparency so that the population will perceive the government as fair? In other words, is PwC developing independent software so that the KRG can be effectively monitored?

The second question may be posed a bit to early for us to answer – is the program working? Obviously, the agreement was made in July, so results from the program are far away. However, taking a look at the status of PwC's activity could shed some light on the future effectiveness on this system and what steps can be taken to further this goal.

Anti-gay gangs terrorise Iraq

The Guardian
Scott Long

Who rules Iraq? If you ask Baghdad officials or the Obama administration's proconsuls, they will tell you: a democratically elected Iraqi government, a triumphant product of the "purple revolution" that reflects the will of Iraq's people.

If you ask Mashal, a shopkeeper from Baghdad's al-Sha'ab neighbourhood, he has a different answer.

"Four men came into the shop," he told us about one awful evening in April. "They pulled out guns. They were the Mahdi army.

"The place they took me to was very close to a mosque or actually in the courtyard – I could hear the call to prayer very clearly. When they hauled me out of the car, they beat me unconscious.

"Late the next day, they came to me and said, 'We know you are gay.' They pulled out a list of names and started reading them ... I knew four who were still alive. One they had already killed.

"They interrogated me for three hours that night. They demanded I give them names of other gays. At night they got a broomstick. They used it to rape me."

Mashal got away with his life because his terrified family sold everything they owned for a ransom. He remembers one thing clearly: a police patrol parked next to his shop watched the kidnapping, and did nothing.

"Everyone believes the police in the neighbourhood are controlled by the Mahdi army."

Across Iraq, a killing campaign has spread since early this year. Armed gangs have kidnapped men and tortured them, leaving castrated and mutilated bodies dumped in the garbage or in front of morgues. In April, during a Human Rights Watch research trip to Iraq, men told us tales of death threats, blackmail, midnight raids by masked men on private homes and abductions from the streets. The targets? Men suspected of being gay, or of not being "masculine" enough in their killers' eyes.

Most survivors pointed to Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army, the largest Shia militia in Iraq, as the driving force behind the killings. Sadrist mosques and leaders have warned loudly that homosexuality threatens Iraqi life and culture – though even some Sunni militias may have joined the violence, competing to show their moral credentials. No one can yet give an accurate tally of the victims, but some say the dead may number in the hundreds.
Police and prosecutors ignore the murders. Infiltrated by militias, fearing for their reputations if they defend "effeminate" men, government officials give the killers virtually complete impunity. One 21-year-old even told us how interior ministry forces kidnapped him in February, believing that gay people had access to western money. They tortured him and raped him repeatedly over three weeks, until he managed to raise cash to pay for his freedom. He says he saw the bodies of five other gay men whom the police killed because they could not pay.

The militias mask themselves in moral purpose, but politics underlies the violence. The US "surge", which supposedly cemented Iraq's democracy by ensuring security, succeeded mainly because the Mahdi army chose a strategic retreat. In the process, though, it lost considerable credibility on the street. Now, many believe, it is trying to recoup its reputation by recasting itself, through these murders, as a defender of Iraqi manhood and morality.

Some Iraqis buy the moral posturing. The Baghdad press has kept up a drumbeat of articles warning about the "feminisation" of Iraqi men under the strains of a demoralising and emasculating occupation. A panic over endangered manhood and the spread of the "third sex" has infected parts of Iraqi society.

Most Iraqis, however, know better. They know that when one group is singled out and demonised, the hatred will spread. Iraqis rightly look with tense apprehension on the evidence of the reviving sectarian and ethnic violence that followed the US invasion. The killings of gay people serve as a bellwether and barometer, the sign of darkness to come.

The government's failure to counter militia violence against a defenceless, marginalised group is the most ominous sign of all. Despite the glib rhetoric of success that surrounds the US "surge", militias can still kidnap and kill men in broad daylight on the streets of Baghdad. "Day after day they are more prominent," one man said of the anti-gay gangs. "At first they did it secretly; but now they stop you and search you on the street, in front of others.

"The same thing that used to happen to Sunnis and Shias is now happening to gays."

This stark reality belies all the promises of increased security. In the Green Zone, leaders talk about investment, progress and the rule of law. In Baghdad's neighbourhoods, though, hatred legislates and guns rule. There will be no real democracy in Iraq until the government recognises what is happening on the streets, and shows itself ready to defend the lives and rights of all its citizens.

To view the article on-line please click on the title

New Shiite coalition

New Iraqi Shia coalition announced, Maliki is not in it. Below are the members of the coalition

1. Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Ja'fari
2. Iraqi Deputy Vice President Adil Abd-al-Mahdi
3. Karrar al-Khafaji
4. Shaykh Humam Hammudi
5. Hadi al-Amiri
6. Muhammad al-Haydari
7. Abd-al-Karim al-Anzi
8. Salih al-Fayyad
9. Dr Nassar al-Rubay'i
10. Dr Aqil Abd-al-Husayn
11. Dr Qasim Dawud
12. Hashim al-Hashimi
13. Hasan al-Sari
14. Qusay al-Suhayl
15. Shaykh Khalid al-Mulla
16. Dr Ahmad Chalabi
17. Shaykh Hamid al-Hayis
18. Shaykh Khalil al-Zarba
19. Dr Zuhayr Hammadi
20. Nuri al-Badran
21. Dr Ibrahim Bahr-al-Ulum
22. Jawad al-Attar
23. Ahmad al-Asadi
24. Amir al-Fayiz
25. Izzat al-Shawi
26. Hani Idris
27. Dalilah Abu-al-Timman
28. Dr Amir al-Thuwayni
29. Dr Hilan al-Yasiri
30. Muna Zalzalah
31. Maha al-Duri
32. Khalid Marza
33. Muhammad Jasim KhUdayir
34. Ilyas Sah
35. Riyad al-Kayyah
36. Layla Abd-al-Latif
37. Ali Asghar Abd-al-Razzaq
38. Shaykh Ali al-Burhan
39. Abd-al-Karim al-Naqib
40. Muhammad Taqiyy-al-Mawla

US troops are still needed in Iraq

Guardian UK, 22 August 2009

Ranj Alaaldin

It was hailed as National Sovereignty Day – a day when Iraq was being handed back to Iraqis. But the US withdrawal from Iraqi towns and citieson 30 June has failed to live up to its expectations, and with devastating consequences for the Iraqi people.

An escalation of attacks since that day, including a multitude of near-simultaneous attacks on Wednesday that killed at least 95 people and injured more than 560, suggest the Iraqi security forces are not yet able to combat the insurgent and terrorist threat independent of US supervision.

What makes Wednesday's attacks – blamed on Sunni extremists – particularly significant is that they were carried out with an unusual level of sophistication in some of the most secure areas of Baghdad. Reports suggest the attackers had the backing of political actors high-up within the Iraqi government, something that becomes worryingly plausible when trying to comprehend how exactly a lorry packed with explosives was able to make its way through countless checkpoints and up to 30ft near a heavily guarded ministry.

Such assertions, and the fact that militants are still able to hit heavily guarded targets, provides considerable cause for concern since it would suggest that the Sunni insurgency, usually contained in the volatile north in places like Mosul, is now gaining ground, able to extend its reach to, and cause havoc in, the generally more secure south. Complacency and negligence, like removing security barriers, will have made the attacks more fatal than usual.

Despite all this, US troops are unlikely to return to the streets in Baghdad: first, because attacks of great magnitude, like those on Wednesday, do not form part of daily Iraqi life as they have done previously and, second, since Maliki – who called the withdrawal a "repulsion of the occupiers" – has engaged in too much nationalistic posturing to opt for what would be a politically disastrous and embarrassing retraction.

However, US troops are returning to northern Iraq where Arab and Kurd confrontations along a 300-mile long swath of disputed territory could all too easily make the transition to civil war.

It is in Mosul specifically that tensions are at their highest between the Kurds and the Arabs, represented essentially by a Ba'athist anti-Kurd grouping called al-Hadba, which took control of the province from the Kurds after it won the January provincial elections this year. The Kurds want to incorporate several areas in northern Mosul province, in accordance withArticle 140 of the Iraqi constitution, while al-Hadba, backed by exiled Ba'athists in Syria and Yemen accused of sponsoring the insurgency, fiercely oppose this.

Political wrangling between the two has led to tit-for-tat accusations of terrorist attacks on civilians and al-Hadba's refusal to include members of other groups in the provincial council, in contrast to efforts made by the Kurds after the 2005 elections, which the Sunnis boycotted, but who were nevertheless offered seats on the council.

To prevent all-out war, as they have done before, the US will act as a buffer between the two groups and stop the terrorists from capitalising on the tensions. But for how long? Kurd-Arab tensions in northern Iraq may not be resolved until Kurd-Arab reconciliation takes place in Baghdad. This, however, requires resolution of outstanding issues like the disputed territories that, in light of the recent decision to indefinitely postpone a nationwide census, is set to remain unresolved for some time.

US troops may have also returned to northern Iraq as part of Maliki's electoral strategy, since it would have been more feasible to have kept them there in the first place.

Maliki will need some sort of stability and security to return to Iraq as it heads closer to the national elections; but he will also advocate his nationalistic credentials and so cannot have a significant US presence in town come January. It is possible, therefore, that the PM may have US troops operating in significant numbers for up to two months to instil a sense of security in the electorate. He may even launch an audacious security operation. This would give him at least another two months to capitalise on what could be an acceptable degree of stability and credibly campaign on his usual security platform with only a minimal US presence. The January 2010 referendum on the Sofa agreement could also be utilised to bolster his nationalistic credentials.

Having said that, it would be unfair to appraise Maliki's every move as part of a wider quest for power. Mosul, for example, might now have a more urgent need for a sizeable US force given that the insurgents have shown they can effectively strike at other parts of the country beyond their bases in the north.

Juan Cole and Jonathan Steele retain some hope and advise that future attacks could be prevented if there is reconciliation with disgruntled Sunni Arabs. But what if the discontent among the Sunni Arabs, including the insurgency, is more to do with a refusal to accept that they no longer dominate the seats of power? Cole refers to this but fails to provide a remedy.

As it stands, President Obama's promise to remove US troops over the next 12 months is optimistic, even reckless. The withdrawal should now be under review and altered to accommodate on-the-ground realities if the country is to be saved from falling into the hands of a potentially revitalised insurgency.

It is highly likely that a huge contingent of US forces will remain in the north should such a US withdrawal materialise; perhaps it is time to reconsider the South-Korean model for Iraq. As Oliver August writes for the Times in Baghdad, the Americans are perceived in a more positive light "having gone from occupier to policeman" since the handover in June.

In other words, having Americans around would not be so bad after all. The question is whether the Obama administration will continue to overlook Iraq in favour of the publicly "more acceptable" war in Afghanistan, a country of far less wealth, potential, and geopolitical importance.

This article was originally published by the Guardian and can be found here

Can Democracy Survive in Kurdistan?

Guardian UK, 09 August 2009

Ranj Alaaldin

Iraqi Kurdistan's parliamentary and presidential elections have given birth to a viable opposition group for the first time since the autonomous Kurdish region was established in 1991.

Kurdish politics has traditionally been dominated by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, led by Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, and the Kurdistan Democratic party, led by Kurdistan region president Massoud Barzani. But the results of last month's election show that the PUK and KDP alliance received only 57% of the total votes – a dramatic decline from the previous election in 2005, when they won more than 85%.

The decline might have been even more severe had it not been for some unprecedentedly vigorous campaigning by PUK officials like Barham Salih and KDP officials like Masrour Barzani (son of Massoud Barzani and potentially a future party leader).

The Change list, which campaigned on an anti-corruption and public services platform, won an unexpected 24% and other opposition groups got at least 15%.

The work of the Kurdistan Regional government is therefore set to face effective scrutiny for the first time since its inception in 1992 and the Kurdish parliament will now operate as a more credible and vibrant entity as opposed to a rubber-stamping institution. With Change holding more than 20 of the 111 assembly seats, and other opposition parties doing well, democracy seems to be properly taking root in Kurdistan and a new culture of criticism and public scrutiny is setting in.

But despite these successes, hard-work and uncertainty still looms around the corner. Internally, Kurdistan must get its house in order. The emergence of Change has led to a combined sense of uncertainty and suspicion that threatens to implode Kurdish politics altogether. The main victim of Change's electoral success is the PUK, which lost to Change in its stronghold province of Sulaymaniah and which has seen its members defect to the offshoot group; it now faces serious questions about its future.

Significant within this context is how the KDP will react. Will it continue with its 50:50 power-sharing agreements and accordingly pass the all-important post of KRG prime minister to PUK man and current Iraqi deputy PM Barham Salih or, in the light of the PUK's decline, will it now consider itself the main source of authority in the region and see no reason to do so?

To survive and retain credibility, the PUK's foremost task will be to embark upon a course of damage control whereby it re-asserts itself, faces up to the KDP and ensures that it gets the KRG premiership.

The uncertainty created by Change also extends beyond the Kurdish borders. Kurdistan's leaders may publicly celebrate their recent electoral success, but privately they know that Change complicates their plans for Iraq's national elections at the end of the year.

Change may seek to build on the momentum of its electoral success by choosing to go it alone at the national elections rather than join the PUK-KDP coalition. In this scenario, the Kurds' influence in Baghdad will be severely weakened, while rival Shia and Sunni parties, still yet to finalise their own coalitions, will become emboldened. Although Change's credibility will be undermined if it does eventually decide to join a Kurdish bloc that it has accused of corruption and cronyism, it could use Kurdish nationalist arguments to justify such a manoeuvre.

The Iraqi prime minister, Nouri-al Maliki, will also be watching developments in Kurdistan with interest. He will look to capitalise on the uncertainty that Change has spawned, since it may weaken the Kurds' so-far-united front over issues like the status of the disputed territories and a proposed oil law.

To discuss these issues and others, Maliki visited Kurdistan last Sunday for the first time since becoming PM and met with Talabani and Barzani. But Kurdistan is still one skirmish away from armed conflict with Baghdad. Since Maliki and Barzani had previously not been on speaking terms, the meeting was a positive step but both men went back to their fortified compounds no closer to a resolution.

Unconfirmed reports also suggest that Maliki is courting Change leader Newshirwan Mustafa. Such an alliance could be used as a bargaining chip by both Mustafa and Maliki. The latter seeks another term in office and knows that though the PUK and KDP are vehemently opposed to this, they could be swayed if a Maliki-Mustafa partnership, public or private, became a real possibility since this would threaten PUK-KDP interests in Baghdad.

Mustafa, meanwhile, may use this to garner concessions, official or otherwise, from the PUK and KDP but will recognise that any public alliance could constitute political suicide in the current climate of tension between Iraq's Arabs and Kurds.

The recent elections may have been a victory for Kurdish democracy, but whether the internal divisions will glitter or tarnish the Kurdish quest for increased autonomy and wealth remains to be seen. Much now depends on how the KRG and Baghdad move forward on issues like Kirkuk – the mother of all the outstanding issues.

The dilemma for the PUK and KDP is that they have long been uncompromising in their insistence that Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution must be implemented, with a referendum to determine the status of the province. Though this position has little or no backing beyond Kurdistan, for them to back away from it now will strengthen the hand of the opposition groups. Intransigence over these issues with Baghdad will therefore continue for some time, with internal divisions creating a dangerously uncertain future for the Kurdish region.

Article published by the Guardian at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/09/democracy-kurdistan-internal-dissent-elections

Bombs rock Baghdad

All this sectarian violence in Iraq should end. It is beyond pointless. The main motive is vengeance like some old fashioned feud. It is shameful and largely fuelled by external interests whether Sunni or Shiite.

http://www.english.globalarabnetwork.com/200908102138/Iraq-Politics/bombs-rock-baghdad-and-iraqs-north.html

Iraq inquiry sessions to be held in secret even where no national security involved

The Daily Telegraph
Rosa Prince

Sir John Chilcot suggested that whistleblowers would be able to speak with greater "candour and openness" if their evidence was held behind closed doors.

But critics including Opposition parties said that the public had a right to hear all the evidence presented to the inquiry, which Sir John disclosed was not likely to report back until the end of next year at the earliest.
Tony Blair is the only witness whose attendance at the hearings he would confirm, raising the prospect that the former prime minister could seek to give some of his evidence in secret.

The panel does not have the power to compel witnesses to appear before it, and those who do will not take a legal oath before giving evidence.
But Sir John said that his eventual report would not be a "whitewash" and denied that the five-member panel, made up of four knights and a peer, was too "establishment".

Gordon Brown had originally announced that the inquiry would be held behind closed doors, but, amid public outcry, was forced to agree that Sir John would have the final say over which sessions would be held in public.
The senior privy councillor had repeatedly insisted that he was committed to "openness".

But at a press conference to launch the inquiry, which covers the years running from summer 2001, shortly before the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York, to this month, when most British troops left Iraq, he admitted that secret sessions would not simply be restricted to matters of national security.

Sir John said: "If the inquiry is to succeed in getting to the heart of what happened and what lessons need to be learned for the future, we recognise that some evidence sessions will need to be private.

"Sometimes that will be consistent with the need to protect national security, sometimes to ensure complete candour and openness from witness."

William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, said: "It is worrying that ministers and former ministers will still have significant wriggle room if they want to avoid giving their evidence in public.

"If there are difficult truths to be told they should be told in the light of day, not behind closed doors.

"It would be unacceptable if sessions are held in private simply because ministers or former ministers, including Tony Blair, want to avoid embarrassment."

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, added: "Sir John's assurance that evidence will be held in public 'wherever possible' is welcome. But where evidence is given in private, a genuine national security interest must be proven in each case."

Mr Brown had originally intended that the inquiry would not "apportion blame". But Sir John said: "This committee will not shy away from making criticism. If we find that mistakes were made, that there were issues which could have been dealt with better, we will say so frankly."

Rather than a formal oath, Sir John said that he would ask all witnesses to give an undertaking to be "truthful, fair and accurate'' in their evidence.
He insisted that it was "highly unlikely" that any witnesses would refuse to testify before the committee, adding: "The inquiry will have access to all the information held by the Government and may ask any British citizen to appear before it. In the Prime Minister's words: 'no British document and no British witness will be beyond the scope.'"

But Chris Nineham, of the Stop The War Coalition, said: "The British public has the right - and wants - to know who bears responsibility for the decision to go to war.

"And, above all, why should these questions not be asked and answered in public?"

A spokesman for Tony Blair said: "As we've said from the outset, Mr Blair will of course cooperate fully with whatever format Sir John Chilcot sets out for the inquiry."

To view the article online please click on the title

Audit finds contractor oversight improving in Iraq

By LARA JAKES

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government has kept a closer eye on U.S. contractors in Iraq since a deadly 2007 shooting by Blackwater guards, but it still needs to do a better job tracking and investigating when private security guards fire their guns, two new Pentagon audits have found.
The reports were released Tuesday by the Pentagon's special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. They looked at the oversight of at least 13 U.S. firms working for the Defense and State departments between May 2008 and February 2009.

In perhaps the most serious lapse of oversight, one of the audits concluded, contractor watchdogs did not properly report and track the May 2008 death of an Army Corps of Engineers employee who was caught in a gunfight between security guards and al-Qaida suspects near Bayji, in central Iraq.
Pentagon auditors said the employee's death should have been recorded in a database and triggered an Army investigation. U.S. officials in Iraq, however, said that was unnecessary if "the incident is caused by the enemy and does not involve a local national," the audit found.

"Because of the lack of documentation, we could not determine if the incident was not investigated for the reasons cited by ... officials or there simply is no record of an investigation," the audit noted.

In all, contractor watchdogs did not record five out of 109 incidents where private guards fired their weapons during the 10-month period, the audit found. Moreover, the watchdogs' database did not have evidence supporting 51 percent of the incidents reported.

Responding, the military's Armed Contractor Oversight Branch in Iraq reported that it now tracks all serious incident reports of contractor shootings in its database, including 44 between February and June.
The reports ranged from 25 accidental shootings and the killing of a poisonous snake to 17 so-called "graduated force response" incidents that escalated into shootings. Of those 17, three have been referred for investigation, auditors found.

The second audit found that new rules for contractors that were put in place after the 2007 Blackwater shootings generally have helped oversight and coordination between private guards and the military.

Seventeen Iraqi civilians died in the notorious Blackwater shootings in Baghdad's Nisoor Square, an incident that strained U.S.-Iraqi relations. Blackwater is no longer operating in Baghdad, although it still has guards in some southern areas who are working under the company's new name, Xe.
Five Blackwater guards have pleaded not guilty in the shootings, which Justice Department prosecutors say was an unprovoked attack on civilians. The guards' lawyers, however, say the five men believed they were under attack and acting in self-defense.

A sixth Blackwater guard struck a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to killing one Iraqi and wounding another

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Ministry of Defeat: the British War in Iraq 2003-2009 by Richard North: review

The Daily Telegraph

Richard North might mock himself as an “armchair general”, but this forceful and searching analysis of the British military’s failings in Iraq provides greater plausibility than anything else put forward to date. Ministry of Defeat tells us that the British Army that was sent into Iraq partly to secure its strategic alliance with the US has suffered a humiliating setback that has lowered its standing in the eyes of the Americans.

North’s greatest service is to highlight the great disservice to the Lions fighting on the front line led by the Donkeys back in Whitehall. In particular, the Army’s current chief, Gen Sir Richard Dannatt, is accused of focusing on purchasing equipment for some unknown future conflict rather than getting desperately needed mine-protected vehicles into Iraq. He questions the MoD’s priorities of spending billions on aircraft carriers and fighter jets when the Army is doing the bulk of the fighting “palmed off with wholly unsuitable, second-hand equipment”.

North, a blogger and political researcher, was quick off the mark in criticising the now-notorious Snatch Land Rover used in Iraq, long before it was picked up by the mainstream press. While the Army had much ill-chosen equipment, North chooses Snatch as the symbol of the Army’s “culpable ill-preparedness and lack of flexibility” in dealing with the insurgency.

Ministry of Defeat also highlights a previously unreported “major strategic failure” in that when the British abandoned the volatile town of Al Amarah they opened the door to the insurgents creating the biggest bomb-making factory for all Iraq.

With the right equipment the British could have held the base, North argues, but instead, the town had to wait for the joint US and Iraq offensive in 2007 to be liberated from the insurgents. Similarly, he accuses the British of precipitately abandoning their bases in Basra city and choosing to “skulk” in the airbase on the outskirts.

North also focuses on the media’s lacklustre coverage of southern Iraq, which allowed much of the story to go unreported. But he also makes allowance for the climate of spin that led one British Army spokesman to proclaim all was “very, very quiet” in southern Iraq when in fact the nascent insurgency was in full cry. “Instead of a portal for information,” the MoD chose to use its resources “for propaganda, distorting rather than illuminating”. Often the insurgent outlets were better sources of information, North concludes.

He makes the point that while the US media reporting shaped the campaign, the British media’s “lack of engagement” meant mistakes went unreported.

If the important inquest into Britain’s questionable performance in Iraq is going to have any impact then those in positions of power should take heed of North’s urging that to recognise failure “is not to apportion blame, but to prevent it from being repeated”.

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U.S. military boss urges Iraq to settle differences

The Americans are asking the Iraqis to stop arguing over Kirkuk. Can you believe it? When it is the Americans who have been keeping the pressure up to kick that can down the road. The USA has caused the Kirkuk problem along with the Brits by endlessly refusing to address it.

The top U.S. military commander urged rival factions in Iraq's disputed city of Kirkuk, the heart of a bitter feud over land and oil, to reconcile ahead of the coming U.S. military withdrawal.

American Troops Withdraw

There seems to be a mixed reaction to the 'withdrawal' of American troops from Iraq. 

On the one hand Prime Minister Maliki delivers a proud speech rejoicing Iraq's sovereignty to his nation followed by street celebrations. However many Iraqis are not satisfied with the extent of the withdrawal, citing that 130,000 troops remain less than 30mins from the major cities. Similarly there is worry that Iraq's security forces are not yet ready to deal with the ever constant threat of sectarian violence by themselves and that withdrawal is simply a measure taken by Obama to placate the American public.  The bombings that occurred on the day of withdrawal seem to have undermined the Prime Ministers words about Iraq's capability to deal with sectarian violence and also stir up wariness among the Iraqi people as to whether this withdrawal is really a cause for celebration.

Iraqi whose lies made the case for war looks on from afar

The Guardian
Martin Chulov

When the Iraqi who could be considered more responsible than any other for the US invasion six years ago quietly returned last March to the land his lies helped shape, Iraq was entering one of its most stable and promising phases in six years of turmoil

Rafid Ahmed Alwan – otherwise known as Curveball – slipped back into Baghdad after 10 years of exile in Germany.

Before the invasion, Curveball had become the CIA's most valuable source on Iraq's fictitious chemical and biological weapons programme, a man who underscored the White House's push for war through a litany of lies that later claimed the careers of the former secretary of state Colin Powell, and CIA chief George Tenet.

Both were forced to admit they had gone to war partly on the word of a collaborator whom no American agency had even debriefed until one year after Baghdad fell.

Curveball was a trained chemical engineer, who had been taken straight from university to work in a division of Saddam Hussein's intelligence services, known as division four, which dealt with the former dictator's pet projects. That much was true. But he also harboured illusions of grandeur; a life in a new land with riches, unveiled women and a new Mercedes.
The Baghdad he returned to in March must have seemed almost unrecognisable. Curveball stayed with a nephew in Baghdad's north-east who he told he was planning to return for good from Germany, which has continued to offer him sanctuary.

The plump 42-year-old saw none of his old friends or colleagues during his visit; nor did he bother the alumni of Baghdad University of Technology – a campus still reeling from the conduct of its former student.

"Are you here to talk about uncle coming back again?" his nephew asked expectantly last week, believing the Guardian was facilitating Curveball's travel. "He hasn't been gone long and we are expecting him soon."

Had he gone near his old workplace, the Saad State Company for Housing and Construction, Curveball would have found his former colleague Dr Abdul Salam Jeber at his desk. He agreed to talk for the first time about his three months in CIA custody, which he now knows were caused by Curveball, a man he barely knew, but never trusted.

Two months after Baghdad fell, Jeber was approached by his boss who told him a group of Americans wanted to meet him. At the time, the American military was scanning Iraq intensively, looking for proof of a chemical and biological weapons programme. They were building their case on the word of Iraqi collaborators who had filled in the dots when United Nations weapons inspectors could not.

There were about six high value informants, used by the US and Britain, none more so than Curveball.

As the ultimately fruitless search intensified, Curveball remained under the protection of his German handlers, who drip-fed reports to the CIA throughout the lead-up to the invasion and the increasingly desperate months that followed.

Their man was sticking to his story. He had provided highly detailed and technically specific information about several facilities around Iraq that apparently masqueraded as agricultural plants. Jeber worked at one of them, the al-Hakem plant, south-west of Baghdad.

"They were expecting to find information about fermentation projects for bacterial weapons. I was the chief of the fermentation section of the company at the time," he said. "I know exactly what all the facilities were used for and there was no dual purpose for any of them.

"The Americans interrogating me didn't understand that if a project like that was to be started, a minimum of 200 people would know about it; there would be technical reports, chemical process designs, mechanical design, installation, then operation. Any one of the 800 employees in Saad Company may well have known about it."

Jeber was moved around Iraq from American-run prisons at Baghdad airport, to Camp Bucca near the Kuwaiti border, desert tents nearby, Abu Ghraib, and a small room in one of Saddam Hussein's over-run palaces. He estimates he was interrogated at least 50 times – always the same questions.

He was blindfolded and sleep-deprived for days then enticed with fruits and family visits. It was a classic counter-espionage routine designed to break defences that didn't exist.

"They said I had signed an agreement not to disclose information to foreigners, which is totally true. We all had to do that," he said.

"I now know that the 15 July date they kept talking about was a date in which Rafid had told them about an important moment in the so-called dual purpose facility. They also asked me about the three tucks that he talked about."

Jeber was given $1,000 and released in September 2003. Within eight months Tenet and Powell had resigned. He is, however, satisfied at a serendipitous achievement that he lays at Curveball's feet. "It was very important to get rid of Saddam," he said. "I never expected he would be removed from Iraq.

Should Curveball return, he faces a highly uncertain future in Iraq. Ba'athist militias still see him as an enemy. His friends seem to have largely disowned him and his family has scattered to the four winds. The wife he abandoned when he fled to Germany will have nothing to do with him. Tracked down at her home in Baghdad, she sighed and, holding her three-year-old son said: "My life with him was lie after lie after lie."

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Goodye America

So the USA is to pull out of Iraq's cities. I bet that doesn't mean they pull down the wall around that squalid testimony to fear they call the Green Zone. Ah well.

Iraqi Kurds seek change

The Kurds are getting rolling on a very tough election battle. The temptations to stuff ballots and the like will abound. They have pulled the invitation for the NCF to monitor the elections - which bodes ill. Still, the people are excited = the fight to win the ballot is on.

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq – Kurdish candidates have begun campaigning for the first elections in four years in their semiautonomous territory in northern Iraq — and the kickoff heralds an unusually bitter campaign. The July 25 vote for a new 111-seat Kurdish National Assembly is expected to cast a spotlight on allegations of corruption and financial improprieties among the entrenched political parties who have held sway in this northern region for decades.

Death in Kirkuk

A suicide bomber killed 70 people on Saturday as they left a mosque, shortly after the prime minister urged Iraqis not to lose faith if a US military pull-back sparked more violence.

This obscenity took place in Kirkuk. The problem with the Kirkuk issue is that all parties, the Kurds, The Iraq government, the USA and UK, want to kick this can down the road. Aws long as countries like Britain and America continue to push to stop the resolution of this issue, the more violence we willl see.

Maliki Vs the Guardian

The Iraqi Intelligence Service was instructed by the Iraqi Prime Minister to launch court actions against the Guardian news paper for a sum of $1 million for damages caused by the report published in April by award winning correspondent Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, after he had interviewed the Iraqi Prime Minister. It is not clear why Nouri al-Maliki has launched court action when there is clear evidence that elements of his government do indeed resemble a dictatorship. It seems that the Iraqi Prime Minister is trying to make a nuisance of himself on the global media stage rather than dealing with more serious issues concerning Iraq’s post-war reconstruction and stability.

Iraq's forgotten people: Refugees and IDPs

Iraq has forgotten about its 3.6 million refugees and Internally Displaced People

In Iraq, one of the best indicators of security and stability is the extent/degree to which displaced citizens return to their original homes.

Iraq still has major social issue that hinder its attempts to strengthen its security and to stabilize its social structure. The issue of almost 3.6 million Iraq (refugees + IDPs) in Syria and Jordan have yet to be resolved. Estimates of 75% of Iraq’s refugees are from Baghdad.

This is placing a huge pressure on the Iraq’s neighbouring countries which are already struggling with a weak economy and high levels of unemployment within their own populations. It has been reported that only 18% of Iraq’s IDP have returned to their homes and only 1% of Iraqi refugees from Syria and Jordan have resettled. This is not the mass refugee return that is meant to signify Iraq’s attempt to normalise itself, further straining Iraq’s fragile political relations and position in the Middle East.

The Kurds sell out Kirkuk?

The question was always whether the Kurdish Regional Government would go for an "oil for soil" deal whereby they gave up the independant exploitation of their oil resources for an agreement that would allow the absorption of Kirkuk and other "disputed territories" into the KRG.

The vibes we get are that there will be no elections in Kirkuk this year and there will be no referendum on the status of Kirkuk over the next decade. So where are the thirty pieces of silver? Here they are:

Last week the tug-of war between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the federal government in Baghdad took a major twist when after years of heated tit-for-tat exchanges Baghdad finally agreed to allow Kurdish oil exports through the national pipeline and into international markets.