Thread: Iraq/Dinar News. before Febuary 2nd 2006

Iraq security forces briefly halt top Sunni leader





REUTERS

3:54 a.m. January 26, 2007

BAGHDAD – Iraqi security forces briefly prevented Sunni Arab political leader Adnan al-Dulaimi from boarding an international flight on Friday, but he and his party were released, an aide to Dulaimi and a government source said.
They said an arrest warrant was outstanding against Dulaimi's son Munkith, who had been travelling with his father to the Jordanian capital Amman. The two men, along with a parliamentary spokesman for Dulaimi's party, the Iraqi People's Conference, were allowed to continue their journey after checks.



Advertisement The parliamentarian, Dhafir al-Ani, told Reuters from Baghdad airport: 'As we were about to board, they told us there was an arrest warrant for Munkith ... it was then cancelled.
'We're leaving now.'

A government source confirmed the three men had been briefly stopped over a warrant. He declined to confirm what it was for.

Warrants have been issued for Iraqi politicians before. Many in the once-dominant Sunni minority were angered late last year when the government sought the arrest on suspicion of terrorism of senior cleric Harith al-Dari. He is now in exile in Jordan.

Four months ago, Dulaimi denied accusations from Shi'ite majority politicians that he had sheltered an al Qaeda cell plotting a car bomb attack on the Green Zone official compound.

The allegations came after the U.S. military arrested a man it described as a bodyguard to Dulaimi. U.S. officials said at the time that Dulaimi himself was not under suspicion.

A senior figure in the Accordance Front, which groups most minority Sunni Arab parties in parliament, Dulaimi is a frequent critic of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's national unity coalition. But he joined a unanimous vote in the chamber on Thursday supporting a new security crackdown in Baghdad.
SignOnSanDiego.com > In Iraq -- Iraq security forces briefly halt top Sunni leader

Feelers from Sadr's Stronghold


Radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr at a news conference (AP/Hadi Mizban, File).
January 26, 2007
Prepared by: Lionel Beehner


Schools and mosques, homes and government offices—all are fair targets under the new U.S.-Iraqi military plan to secure Baghdad and Anbar Province. "There will be no safe place in Iraq for terrorists," promised Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. But it remains to be seen whether his predominantly Shiite security forces will be willing to target Sadr City, a stronghold of Shiite militias.

There are some signs of new vigor in dealing with the militias. The U.S. military has already arrested hundreds of militants (LAT), including a top lieutenant of the Mahdi Army—the militia of the anti-U.S. cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr—who stands accused of carrying out extrajudicial killings against Iraqi security forces. Moreover, the mayor of Sadr City reportedly reached a deal (AP) with local militia and religious leaders to keep arms off the streets and rid the slum of sectarian violence. His motivation was to prevent U.S.-Iraqi forces from targeting Sadr City in their latest crackdown. The neighborhood acts as the Mahdi Army’s de facto headquarters. In 2004, U.S. soldiers fought a series of pitched battles with the Mahdi Army in the southern city of Najaf.

A full-scale assault into Sadr City, home to 2 million mostly poor Shiites, may trigger a bloodbath for both U.S. forces and Iraqis, some military analysts fear. That could play to Sadr's advantage, says defense consultant Gary Anderson in the Washington Post, speculating on the strategy of his Mahdi Army. "Waging a stand-up battle could create such chaos and so many disturbing images of casualties," he writes, "that the American public and Congress will demand an immediate withdrawal." From the Americans' perspective, Michael Yon, a web journalist embedded with U.S. forces in Iraq, says, “We will lose a lot of people taking on the militias, but we should either take them on or pack up and go home.”

Some might draw encouragement from the fact that Sadr, who controls over thirty seats in parliament, recently indicated he would end his two-month boycott (AP) of political participation he began in response to Maliki’s November meeting with President Bush. Experts say the move may signal an easing of tensions among Iraq’s warring Shiite factions. It also may allow Sadr to soften his position and restore discipline within his 60,000-strong militia, whose members appear to be splintering. He reportedly told his flock to maintain a low profile ahead of the U.S.-Iraqi security operation into Baghdad. A lawmaker associated with Sadr even announced his parliamentary bloc would lend its support (RFE/RL) to Maliki’s security plan.

If the U.S. military opens up a new front against Shiite militias, some fear this will only further strain relations between Washington and Baghdad. Some Iraqi Shiites were outraged (The Age) by a section of President Bush’s State of the Union speech, in which he compared Shiite militias to al-Qaeda extremists. Another sign of possible tensions was outlined by regional expert Gary G. Sick in an interview with Bernard Gwertzman: the development of an informal U.S. alliance with Sunni Arab states in the region aimed at checking Shiite expansion. Although aimed primarily at Iran, an unintended consequence of Washington’s Middle East policy may be the alienation of Iraq’s Shiite-led government at a crucial time in its transition.

If doubts exist among Iraqi lawmakers about the efficacy of President Bush’s plan to secure Baghdad, there are even greater doubts among U.S. lawmakers in Congress. The Senate Armed Services Committee easily approved the new commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, while the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted twelve to nine against the troop surge plan (SFChron), declaring the escalation not in America’s “national interest."
Feelers from Sadr's Stronghold - Council on Foreign Relations

FYI...just ordered another 100k from my bank here in West Virginia.

Price =$92.50 + $5 fee + $10 Fed Ex fee.

It is coming from Banker's Bank in North Carolina and should be there monday.

Bill

Originally Posted by buddyboy

Forex Web Site* "Bets" On Iraqi Dinar - Street Signs - MSNBC.com

Hey was this every posted! It is from CNBC website and promoting bet on iraq website

FYI: the Iraqi dinar was introduced into circulation in 1931 and was at par with the pound sterling. Between October 15, 2003 and January 15, 2004, the Coalition Provisional Authority issued the new Iraqi dinar printed by De La Rue using modern anti-forgery techniques to "create a single unified currency that is used throughout all of Iraq and will also make money more convenient to use in people’s everyday lives". Old dinars were exchanged for new dinars at a one-to-one rate, while Swiss dinars were exchanged at a rate of 150 new dinars for one Swiss dinar. (Source: Wikipedia)

To anyone who already had prior knowledge of this info ( that the old Dinar was exchanged with NID at 1:1) please have patience with me. Till now I had questions about the actual 'VALUE' of the nid, not knowing that it was exchanged equally. Thank-you for finally putting to rest my questions.

P.S CareBear Give me a call when you read this LOL

Originally Posted by neno

What I am saying is what I am saying in the Senario you put the question.

As far the Negative, hummmmm, havent figured that one out. But I have really not indured too.

Here is a couple God Painted Picture's for you. Enjoy.

Thanks Neno! I love the Fall colors...gives us a reminder of God's wonerous glory as we enter into the seeming barrenness of the Winter. We are in a season, perhaps, of seeming "barrenness", figuratively speaking, but Spring is coming.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), a leading critic of President George W. Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq, arrived in Baghdad on Friday for a closer view of a war she opposes.

Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's office said he assured her he wanted his forces to take control of security from U.S. troops as soon as possible and called for an acceleration of their training and more military equipment.

A U.S. embassy official said Pelosi, the first woman speaker of the House, was in Iraq as part of a six-member congressional delegation for meetings with Iraqi and U.S. officials.

Pelosi emerged from her talks with Maliki saying "we come out with a greater understanding of each other's point of view."

She also said the delegation wanted to show U.S. troops in Iraq "the appreciation of the American people for what they are doing ... to applaud their patriotism, the sacrifice they are willing to make."

Pelosi has already said the new Democratic-controlled Congress will vote against the new strategy but will not seek to block funding for a troop increase.

Some 66 U.S. soldiers have died so far this month, taking the U.S. death toll since the war began in March 2003 to 3,067. Many of Bush's critics in Washington fear sending more troops will simply give militants more targets.

Bush has said the United States must not quit Iraq now as that would leave Iraqis prey to more sectarian violence and allow al Qaeda to operate from Iraq with impunity.

Pelosi, a key player in the Democratic takeover of Congress, has helped lead opposition in Washington to Bush's retooled Iraq strategy which envisages sending 21,500 more troops to help quell raging sectarian violence, especially in Baghdad.

She has accused Bush of playing politics with soldiers' lives and said after his State of the Union address to Congress this week that he had ignored the concerns of the American public over the unpopular war.

Democrats are pushing for a phased withdrawal from Iraq. Opinion polls show Americans are strongly opposed to Bush's plan for a troop increase.

Pelosi in Iraq to see for herself how war is going - Yahoo! News

DAVOS, Switzerland (AFP) - Jordanian King Abdullah II has warned the United States that "tough decisions" would be necessary if its troop build-up in Iraq fails to work within six months.

Abdullah said at the World Economic Forum in Davos that he had questioned President George W. Bush about the open-ended nature of the deployment of an additional 21,500 US troops under a plan agreed with the Iraqi government.

"This needs to be benchmarked weekly or monthly and if in six months it's not working, then you are going to have to take some tough decisions," Abdullah said in a public debate.

"We'll try and all help to bring stability to Iraq," he added.

"But if the government cannot fulfill the demands that are expected of it, then we are going to call it for what it is and I think we'll have to look for where we go from there," he added.

Bush discussed his new Iraq plan with Abdullah II and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak shortly after it was unveiled on January 10.

The US Senate, which is deeply skeptical about the White House strategy in Iraq, on Friday confirmed the nomination of Lieutenant General David Petraeus as commander of US forces deployed in the country.

Jordan's king gives US Iraq plan six months to work - Yahoo! News

Trade fair of Iraqi products
Azzaman - [26/01/2007]

The Ministry of Trade is to hold a trade fair specifically for products made in Iraq.

The four-day exhibition, to start April 25, is to show that Iraqi industry is still alive despite mounting violence and lack of security, a ministry statement said.

It said companies from the private, mixed and state sectors will be taking part.

“It will be a show in which all sectors will demonstrate their goods and products,” the statement said.

The statement said the ministry wanted the fair to signal to the world and Iraqis in particular the face of the new Iraq.

“The general aim of the fair is to reconstruct a new Iraq and encourage investment by Iraqis,” it said.


http://www.iraqdirectory.com/DisplayNews.aspx?id=3021

Forgive my ignorance folks, but could someone help me find the tax laws regarding currency exhange. Someone preciously had said that it was 15% but my accountant (small town hick type CPA) said she did not think currency exchange was taxable. SO I am confused.

I appreciate the help

JD

Originally Posted by bglong

FYI...just ordered another 100k from my bank here in West Virginia.

Price =$92.50 + $5 fee + $10 Fed Ex fee.

It is coming from Banker's Bank in North Carolina and should be there monday.

Bill

Thanks Bill, that is interesting, I live in NC and had no clue they sell...

Banker's Bank has an office right here in Winston-Salem and a regional office down in Charlotte, I'm going to have to go check them out... I'll let everyone know there position once I go and speak with them after the weekend...

Thanks again