Thread: Iraq/Dinar News until 5PM CST May 10,2007

Iraqis jailing innocent Sunnis, U.S. officials say
U.S. officers here are increasingly troubled by the high number of innocent Iraqis being detained and held — in some cases for many months — by the Iraqi army.

Several officers who serve as advisers to the Iraqis said at least half the people detained by the Iraqi army in Baghdad are innocent.

And the advisers say their close association with the units doing the detaining is placing the Americans on the horns of an ethical dilemma: On one hand, they are forbidden from taking unilateral action in order to free the prisoners; on the other hand, by not freeing innocent detainees being held by their close allies, they feel complicit in what some termed “a war crime.”

“Of the lists that come down from higher, maybe 5 percent are Shi’a,” and even those names may be there only because of the influence of the U.S. advisers at the division level or higher, Johnson added.

The main reason why the Iraqi army is detaining so many people that both U.S. and Iraqi officers are convinced are innocent is that the Iraqi defense and interior ministries are drawing up lists of individuals to be detained and sending them down to brigade and even battalion levels of the Iraqi army, all based on “intelligence” that is never shared with either Iraqi commanders or their U.S. counterparts, according to American and Iraqi officers.

“Between 50 percent and 60 percent” of all detainees picked up by the 6th Iraqi Army Division’ 5th Brigade were detained only because their names were on lists sent down from above division level, Johnson said.
“In the old days — and now — we are the ones who create intelligence according to information we receive from sources,” said Capt. Amjad Abbas Hasson, intelligence officer for 3rd Battalion, 5th Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division.

“Back in the day the orders were to investigate the targets,” Amjad added. “Now it’s always ‘detain,’ never ‘investigate.’”
“I understand the concern,” said a senior U.S. Army official in Baghdad. “I share the same concern. ... Believe me, I fight this every week.”

The murkiness of the system and the fact that the target lists are overwhelmingly made up of Sunni Muslims has led many U.S. and Iraqi officers to suspect that sectarian bias in Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shi’a-dominated government is driving the process.

The senior U.S. Army official said he had boycotted a joint targeting meeting with Iraqi generals three months ago because for two weeks running the Iraqis had presented target lists made up entirely of Sunnis.The U.S. official said that when he had told the Iraqis, “You’ve got to have some balance,” they replied that “all the terrorists are Sunnis.”

http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/20...inees_070504w/

Hundreds of Jordanians eager to become suicide bombers to kill Shia in Iraq
Abu Ibrahim considers his dead friends the lucky ones. Four died in Iraq in 2005. Three more died this year, one with an explosives vest and another at the wheel of a bomb-laden truck, according to relatives and community leaders.

Abu Ibrahim, a lanky 24-year-old, was on the same mission when he left this bleak city north of Amman for Iraq last October. But he made it only as far as the border before he was arrested, and is now back home in a world he thought he had left for good — biding his time, he said, for another chance to hurl himself into martyrdom.

“I am happy for them but I cry for myself because I couldn’t do it yet,” said Abu Ibrahim, who uses this name as a nom de guerre. “I want to spread the roots of God on this earth and free the land of occupiers.

I don’t love anything in this world. What I care about is fighting.”
Zarqa has been known as a cradle of Islamic militancy since the beginning of the war in Iraq. It was the home of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, who was killed last summer. Today it is a breeding ground for would-be jihadists like Abu Ibrahim and five of his friends who left about the same time last fall, bound for Iraq.

Interviews with Abu Ibrahim and relatives of the other men show that rather than having been individually recruited by an organization like Mr. Zarqawi’s, they gradually radicalized one another, the more strident leading the way. Local imams led them further toward Iraq, citing verses from the Koran to justify killing civilians. The men watched videos depicting tortured and slain Muslims that are copied from Internet sites.

“The sheik, he was a hero,” Abu Ibrahim said of Mr. Zarqawi. But, he added, “I decided to go when my friends went.” For the final step, getting the phone number of a smuggler and address of a safe house in Iraq, the men used facilitators who act more like travel agents than militant leaders.

The anger is palpable on the streets of Zarqa. “He’s American? Let’s kidnap and kill him,” one Islamist activist said during an interview with a reporter before the host of the meeting dissuaded him.

The stories of the men from Zarqa help explain the seemingly endless supply of suicide bombers in Iraq, most of whom are believed to be foreigners. Suicide bombings in Iraq are averaging roughly 42 a month, American military officials said.

The anger among militants in Zarqa, a mostly Sunni city, is now directed at Shiites as much as Americans, reflecting the escalation in hostility between the two branches of Islam since Shiites gained dominance in the new Iraqi government. “They have traditions that are un-Islamic and they hate the Sunnis,” said Ahmad Khalil Abdelaziz Salah, an imam whose mosque in Zarqa was attended by some of Zarqa’s bombers.

Asked to name his targets, Abu Ibrahim said: “First, the Shiites. Second, the Americans. Third, anywhere in the world where Islam is threatened.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/04/wo...&ex=1178424000

Last weekend a traffic jam several miles long snaked out of the Mansour district in western Baghdad. The delay stemmed not from a car bomb closing the road but from a queue to enter the city's central amusement park. The line became so long some families left their cars and walked to enjoy picnics, fairground rides and soccer, the Iraqi national obsession.
Across the city, restaurants are slowly filling and shops are reopening. The streets are busy. Iraqis are not cowering indoors. The appalling death tolls from suicide attacks are often high because of crowding at markets. These days you are as likely to hear complaints about traffic congestion as about the security situation. Across Baghdad there is a cacophony of sirens from ambulances, firefighters and police providing public services. You cannot even escape the curse of traffic wardens ticketing illegally parked cars.
These small but significant snippets of normality are overshadowed by acts of gross violence, which fuel the opinion of some that Iraq is in a downward spiral. The Iraqi people are indeed suffering tremendous hardships and making grave sacrifices -- but daily life goes on for 7 million Baghdadis struggling to take back their capital and country.
Today, at an international summit on the future of Iraq in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, my government will ask the international community to maintain its engagement in our country to help us achieve our goals of security and stability. We recognize that our request conflicts with a plethora of voices decrying the situation in Iraq and those in the British and American publics who seek an expeditious withdrawal from a war they claim is all but lost.
So why should the world remain engaged in Iraq?
There is no denying the difficulties Iraq faces, and no amount of good news can obscure the demons of terrorism and sectarianism that have risen in my country. But there is too much at stake to risk failure, and everything to gain by helping us protect our hard-won democratic achievements and emerge as a stable, self-sustaining country.
We remain determined in spite of our losses. Spectacular attacks may dominate foreign headlines, but they cannot change the reality that Iraq has made steady political, economic and social progress over the past four years. We continue to strengthen our nascent democratic institutions, pursue national reconciliation and expand Iraqi security forces. The Baghdad security plan was conceived to give us breathing space to expedite political and economic development by "securing and holding" neighborhoods across the capital. There is no quick fix, but there have been real results: Winning public confidence has led to a spike in intelligence, a disruption of terrorist networks and the capture of key leaders, as well as the discovery of weapons caches. In Anbar province, Sunni sheikhs and insurgents have turned against al-Qaeda and to the side of Iraqi security forces. This would have been unthinkable even six months ago.
Contrary to popular belief, most government ministries are located outside the Green Zone, and employees drive to work every day despite death threats and attacks on colleagues and families. We government ministers are always at risk of assassination. When a suicide bomber attacked parliament last month, the legislators sat in defiance in an extraordinary session the following day. I am particularly inspired by the commitment of the young diplomats in the Foreign Ministry, a diverse mix of Sunni, Shiite, Christian, Arab and Kurdish men and women who serve their country without subscribing to religious or sectarian divisions.
Iraqis are standing up every day, and we persevere because there is no other option. We will not surrender our country to terrorists. They have failed to cripple the elected government, and they have failed to intimidate us into submission. Iraqis reject their vision of a future whose hallmarks are bloodshed and hatred.
Those calling for withdrawal may think it is the least painful option, but its benefits would be short-lived. The fate of the region and the world is linked with ours. Leaving a broken Iraq in the Middle East would offer international terrorism a haven and ensure a legacy of chaos for future generations. Furthermore, the sacrifices of all the young men and women who stood up here would have been in vain.
Iraqis, for all our determination and courage, cannot succeed alone. We need a healthy and supportive regional environment. We will not allow our country to be a battleground for settling scores in regional and international conflicts that adversely affect stability inside our borders. Only with continued international commitment and deeper engagement from our neighbors can we establish a stable democratic, federal and united Iraq. The world should not abandon us.
The writer is foreign minister of Iraq.

Hoshyar Zebari - Don't Abandon Us - aliraqi Community

This is taken from an Iraqi Forum I frequent....

Posted by: azinorum

Another genuis comes up with a "new" plan for Iraq.

WASHINGTON, May 2 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. Joe Biden has reintroduced his decentralization plan to effectively partition Iraq into three distinct regions.


Biden, D-Del., the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the U.S. Senate, drew up a plan that envisioned dividing Iraq into three distinct Kurd, Sunni and Shiite regions. He introduced the plan last year, but on Tuesday he called for a second look at the proposal.

"One year ago today, Les Gelb (the president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations) and I announced our plan for a way forward in Iraq. And one year later -- with the administration's flawed policy leading us nowhere and today's news that April is the deadliest month this year -- our plan becomes more urgent every day," Biden said in a statement.

Biden's plan calls for the three main groups in Iraq to have regional autonomy while a central government manages common interests such as border security and distribution of oil revenues.

"The Bush administration still believes that Iraqis will rally to a strong, democratic central government that treats everyone equitably. ... But there is no trust within the government, no trust of the government by the people and no capacity by the government to deliver security and services," Biden said.

The Biden plan may fuel the violence, however, because it provides incentive to continue or even accelerate the sectarian killing. In the process of drawing the regional borders, sectarian militias would have every incentive to use ethnic cleansing to create a majority of their sect in order to be included in one region or another.

Meanwhile, violence in Iraq is creating a de facto situation similar in some ways to the Biden plan. Sectarian militias are carving out spheres of influence that tend to fall within the boundaries of their respective regions.


United Press International - News. Analysis. Insight.



Cheers!
DayDream

Rice Presses Maliki on Eve Of Conference on Iraq Aid

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 3, 2007; A13

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt, May 2 -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki here Wednesday that he needs to work harder to convince Iraq's Arab neighbors of his commitment to heal sectarian divides and ensure more participation by minority Sunnis, as she redoubles her efforts to persuade those governments to be more understanding and supportive of Iraq.

On the eve of an international conference the Bush administration hopes will lead to increased financial and political backing from the region for Baghdad, Rice told Maliki in a 90-minute meeting that "progress has to take place as rapidly as possible" toward political reconciliation among Iraq's ethnic and religious groups, a senior administration official said.

For their part, the official said, Arab governments need to show more appreciation of the problems Maliki faces and the progress, however slow, he has made. Iraq's Sunni Arab neighbors, including Saudi Arabia, do not understand "what's really happening in Iraq," he said.

The official, who briefed reporters after attending the Rice-Maliki meeting, said that negative Arab views of Maliki's Shiite-dominated government are skewed by a fixation on the Sunni-Shiite divide, based on information from "interested parties" inside Iraq.

While the administration shares their concerns about Sunni minority rights and Shiite Iran's growing influence in Baghdad, he said, the answer "is not exclusion, passivity and ostracization of Iraq" by its neighbors.

The comments highlighted what has become a significant challenge for U.S. efforts to prop up the Maliki government, as growing sectarian violence in Iraq deepens ethnic divides and suspicions throughout the Middle East.

Much of the attention surrounding the two-day gathering of nearly 60 governments has focused on whether Rice will meet with her counterparts from Syria and Iran, who are also attending. Rice said early Wednesday that she "wouldn't rule out" a meeting with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem.

The Bush administration downgraded relations with Damascus in early 2005 after Syria's alleged complicity in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri. Washington has accused Syria of supporting foreign terrorist groups and allowing foreign fighters and suicide bombers to cross its border into Iraq.

A bilateral meeting with either Moualem or Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki would mark a sharp change in policy for the administration, which has accused Tehran of training and sending weapons to Shiite militias in Iraq. Last month, the White House sharply criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for visiting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, saying Syria had shown no interest in stopping its support of terrorists.

Syria will also figure in an informal meeting Friday, on the sidelines of the Iraq conference, to be held by Rice and envoys from other major powers involved in finding a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Rice was less optimistic about substantive talks with Mottaki, saying it was "probably better not to speculate on whether this will happen." While she said she was a "polite person" and would not turn away from an encounter with Mottaki, "we're not seeking a bilateral session."

U.S. officials have said they have received indirect messages recently from the Iranian government that Mottaki is not a senior player in Tehran and could not speak for the country's religious leaders.

Both Syria and Iran have denied U.S. allegations of aiding insurgents and militias in Iraq and have called for U.S. military forces to withdraw.

This week's gathering of foreign ministers, following a preparatory "neighbors conference" in Baghdad in March, is the beginning of a lengthy process, Rice said. "The most important message I'll be delivering is that a stable, unified and democratic Iraq is an Iraq that will be a pillar of stability in the Middle East," she said. "The region has everything at stake here. Iraq's neighbors have everything at stake here."

On Thursday, senior officials from 60 governments and organizations, including 30 foreign ministers from the Middle East, Europe and Asia, will meet to approve an Iraq compact, under which Iraq is to pledge to undertake specific economic reforms over the next five years in exchange for debt relief and foreign aid.

While some countries have balked at requests to cancel all of Iraq's foreign debt, U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert M. Kimmitt, who is attending the meeting, said it was "fair to say there will be billions of dollars, both in new assistance and in debt relief," pledged at the meeting.

The administration insists it is pushing Maliki to move faster toward national unity across sectarian lines, pressing for faster progress on constitutional reform and a legal framework to equitably divide Iraq's oil revenue. But it argues that the Arabs, led by Saudi Arabia, are risking the very outcome they fear -- all-out civil war in Iraq and increased Iranian influence -- by failing to credit Maliki for some progress and withholding full backing for his government.

The Iraqis, the senior official said, need "basic legitimization, validation from their Arab neighbors that there is a new Iraq, a post-Saddamist, post-Baathist Iraq, whatever its problems, challenges and difficulties."

The administration also has grown exasperated with the Arabs, and would like them to use their influence to persuade Sunnis who have taken up arms against the government and U.S. military forces to instead join the political process.
__________________

Maliki using Saddam-era law to block corruption probes
The office of Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has used a Saddam Hussein-era law to halt dozens of corruption-related probes of government ministries, a US auditor's report said Monday.

The report by the special inspector general for Iraq Stuart Bowen, said Iraq's Commission on Public Integrity (CPI) estimates the cost of corruption at around five billion dollars a year.

"The Prime Minister's Office has ordered CPI not to refer to any investigative court any case involving a minister or former minister without prior approval of the Prime Minister," Bowen's quarterly report to Congress said.

In doing so, the prime minister has invoked a law originally enacted in 1971 that requires that the minister of an affected agency's give permission for a corruption case to go to trial.

The law was originally intended to be applied after an investigation by an investigative judge, but is now being used to stop investigations before an investigative judge has decided whether to bring a case to trial, the report said.

A review of corruption-related cases by the Iraq Reconstruction Management Office "showed that ministers have stopped prosecution and investigations on 48 cases involving 102 individuals under Article 136B."

The report added that some observers believe that the law was "a necessary check to an anticorruption effort that has become politicized."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070430...n_070430200721

i thought I had gone back far enough, but on another site i read that a robbery had occured in Iraq. stolen 184 million dinar. fact or crap

Originally Posted by neno

Aslong as the debt relief is added up. I believe it Spells

R.V.

Why else for those other currency's to the Banks.

but i read where some of the countries have told them they gotta do something to recover economically on their own before they will grant the debt relief. so, they might not get all the debt relief UNLESS they do somethin to recover economically and we all know they have raised interest rates enough that it hasnt helped enough. only one option at this point, painted into the corner. they want debt relief and wont rv til they get it but countries wont give it until they rv. standoff? i think not!!

Originally Posted by buddyboy

i thought I had gone back far enough, but on another site i read that a robbery had occured in Iraq. stolen 184 million dinar. fact or crap

It's fact...

The theft of 184 million dinars in the armed robbery downtown Baghdad
Baghdad - (Voices of Iraq)
Iraqi Police said that unknown gunmen stole Sunday amount (184) million dinars, in the armed robbery at a bus transporting the salaries of a government circles downtown Baghdad.

A security source stated that unknown armed men "attacked noon bus was carrying the salaries of a service of the Ministry of Culture, having received from the Bank Street (Al) downtown Baghdad." He added : "The gunmen stole amount, and the ability of (184) million dinars ($ 138 thousand), and fled to an unknown destination."

The region (Al) regions task commercial center of the capital, where many checkpoints .. Terms of sensitive government departments, as well as hotels mission in Baghdad, which is often frequented by Arab and foreign journalists. This incident was the first in that region since the Iraqi government to implement its security plan called (a law) mid last February, in Baghdad and a number of Iraqi cities

Legislative debate on the possibility and feasibility of re-work service

(صوت العراق) - 06-05-2007

(Voice of Iraq) - 06-05-2007

ارسل هذا الموضوع لصديق

Send this topic to a friend

Legislative debate on the possibility and feasibility of reintroducing compulsory military service


Baghdad / long
Arena has been since the days of legislative debates on the ongoing viability and feasibility of reintroducing compulsory military service and inclusion in the Constitution paragraph in this regard.
In this context, spokesman for the Iraqi Accord Front Dr. Salim Abdullah Jabouri, yesterday, Saturday, : that the House was discussing the compulsory service and included in the Iraqi constitution, denied one of the members of the committee for reconsidering the constitution in parliament this.
He added that the target of a number of members of the House suggested the mandatory military service in Iraq and included in the Constitution in the context of the paragraph on building the Iraqi armed forces.

He said it was necessary legislation includes compulsory service law, even if a few of this service, explaining that the criteria ages and birth do not discriminate between national and religious affiliations.
He pointed out that the target of this call reflects the citizenship real contribution to everyone in the armed forces.
On his part, MP Abbas Al-Bayati of the coalition consolidated and member of the Committee to reconsider the constitution in the Parliament that the Constitutional Commission has not yet received an invitation or request contains the compulsory service, and that the constitutional article in the Iraqi constitution confirms that the service of science must be included in the law.
Bayati added that these invitations need to enact a law in the House, and there are several views in this regard; but that no national consensus around it.
He explained Bayati We want to give our young people a "Code" and "reliable" to be built not to carry weapons, and we want a professional army and a strong professional protects Iraq's borders ..

".

And this is the nature of democracy and advanced to where no conscription, because conscription broke three generations of young people in the "deadly warfare."
He pointed out that the national consensus on this issue must be politically and legally crystallized in the House of Representatives.
The compulsory service has begun the first time in Iraq in 1936 and was required by the total of eighteen years of age the so-called duty of serving the flag for a period of four months during which charged service receive basic training in one of the units of the Iraqi army. This service has seen an increase in a period of 18 months until the increasing According to the conditions of war and peace in Iraq.
The canceled this service with the American forces entered Iraq on the 9th of April 2003 dissolution of the Iraqi army before.

Translated version of http://www.sotaliraq.com/