Thread: Iraq/Dinar News until 5/23/07 Midnight CST

Within the closed circuit television with President Bush, Maliki confirms its determination to achieve national reconciliation and the settlement of pending files
Date : Wednesday, May 09
Topic : the first page
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of the American President George W. Bush's determination to achieve national reconciliation as a basis for progress in the peace process, announced White House spokesman Tony Snow that President Bush and Prime Minister Maliki search files in the wake of the Iraqi political outcome of the Sharm el-Sheikh.


Snow refused to reveal details are interchanged Bush and the Prime Minister about the telephone, but he said that al-Maliki explained that the project intends to achieve. And added that Al-Maliki said he intended to collect the executive, which includes members from all the main groups, and sat with them in a very practical way to try to reach settlements on all the files. He pointed out that Snow Maliki expressed satisfaction at the outcome of the Sharm El-Sheikh conference saying that it encouraged him to proceed with the political project. He added that after the results of the Sharm el-Sheikh will be on the ground and stronger economic footing. Several participants had submitted pledges and commitments for the success of Iraq, and now we must work more closely together on projects such as the oil and constitutional reform and the like.

Debate ends with a slap in Iraq parliament

Body's speaker strikes another lawmaker who had ridiculed his use of guards. Chamber is under pressure to cancel long vacation plans.

By Tina Susman, Times Staff Writer
7:32 PM PDT, May 10, 2007

As Washington pressures Iraq's parliament to cancel its two-month summer break and focus on passing laws, Thursday's session indicated that many lawmakers need a long break.

The governing body's Sunni Arab speaker, Mahmoud Mashadani, slapped another lawmaker after being accused of not paying sufficient heed to the plight of Shiite Muslims displaced by sectarian violence.

"Damn you!" Mashadani said before hitting Hussein Falluji, a lawmaker from a rival Sunni party.

The altercation began when Shadha Mousawi, a Shiite lawmaker, complained that the government was ignoring the plight of several hundred Shiites who have been in the southern city of Karbala since mid-April after having fled their homes in Diyala province. Diyala is a stronghold of Sunni Muslim insurgents.

At one point as Mousawi was speaking, Mashadani smiled.

"How can you smile during such a time?" Mousawi said.

Other lawmakers began joining her in calls for action to assist the displaced people, infuriating Mashadani. He declared the meeting adjourned and headed for the door.

Falluji chided him for leaving and for surrounding himself with bodyguards, suggesting Mashadani was not important enough to warrant such security. Mashadani then lunged at Falluji and slapped him.

Bodyguards separated the two men.

It was only last month that Mashadani led calls for greater unity among lawmakers after a bombing in the parliament building that killed one lawmaker.

In his visit to Iraq on Wednesday, U.S. Vice President xxxx Cheney reminded Prime Minister Nouri Maliki of the White House's concern over lawmakers' plans to take a summer break while important laws are awaiting approval. Parliamentary infighting has delayed movement on several pieces of major legislation that Washington considers crucial to national reconciliation.

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A special correspondent in Baghdad contributed to this report.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...la-home-center
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May God avenge the blood of the oppressed martyrs. 1991 forever.

Oil reserves could be almost double current estimates
10 May 2007 (Monday Morning)

According to the business daily, the report, which it said was the most comprehensive independent survey of Iraq’s resources since the American invasion of the country in March 2003, noted that such developments were dependent on an improving security situation in the country.

“Obviously the security situation is very bad, but when you look at the sub-surface opportunity, there isn’t anywhere like this”, Ron Mobed, head of IHS’s energy division, was quoted as saying by the FT. “Geologically, it’s right up there, a gold star opportunity”.

Doubling Iraq’s oil reserves would mean an increase of 100 billion barrels of oil, which would make it the second-biggest source of oil reserves in the world, after Saudi Arabia and ahead of Iran, the FT said. Iraq is currently third on that list with 116 billion barrels of reserves.

IHS also said that Iraq could double its current rate of production in five years to four million barrels of oil a day, if international investment into Iraq increases.

The consultancy’s study of Iraq’s oil reserves is based on data collected before and after the 2003 invasion, and its prediction of an additional 100 billion barrels of oil there is based on an analysis of geological surveys.

It is all dependent on improved security in the country, and that has been slow in coming.

‘Draft law keeps oil in Iraqi hands’

Iraqi officials insisted Wednesday that a controversial bill due to be submitted to Parliament will keep the country’s oil wealth in Iraqi hands and benefit all of its warring communities.

“Under no circumstances would Iraq relinquish its authority, its responsibility and its control over Iraq’s natural resources”, Oil Minister Hussein Shahristani told reporters in the United Arab Emirates.

The bill, approved by the Shiite-led government in February after months of wrangling, opens Iraq’s oil sector to foreign investors.

But Shahristani said incentives to international oil companies to invest in the industry would be through the profit margins they will achieve, “not by control of Iraq’s wealth.”
Some Iraqi oil experts and politicians have voiced concern that production sharing contracts envisaged by the bill will deliver the country’s oil riches to foreign firms on a platter.

Others have objected to powers given to regional authorities to negotiate contracts.

Iraq has proven reserves of some 115 billion barrels, and could produce 10 million barrels per day (BPD) for several decades, according to analysts.

But current output reaches barely two million BPD as a result of the combined effects of decades of under-investment in infrastructure and rampant insecurity since the invasion.

The draft law, which would create a federal oil and gas council, aims to distribute oil revenues equitably among Iraq’s 18 provinces on the basis of their populations through a federal account.

The proposed central fund shows that the law “is in the interest of all Iraq, not [just] the producing regions”, Planning Minister Ali Baban told the conference.

Most oil production is in the Shiite South, with the best prospects for new finds centred on the mainly-Kurdish North, which has its own regional government.

The Kurds also claim the existing northern oilfields around the city of Kirkuk, despite opposition from Arab and Turkmen residents.

The Sunnite Arab former elite, which lives mainly in areas of Central Iraq without oil reserves, has voiced concern that under a fully federal system it might lose out on its share of oil income.

But the Kurdish regional government’s oil minister, Ashti Hawrami, said the bill agreed by the government already went too far in trying to assuage Sunnite fears and did not square with the federal provisions of the constitution.

Hawrami complained that annexes to the bill envisage putting 82 percent of Iraq’s oil reserves under the control of a “centralized and inefficient institution”, an allusion to the state Iraqi National Oil Company, which would be revived under the legislation.

Should Parliament fail to pass the law by the agreed end-of-May deadline, the Kurdistan government would award its own contracts, Hawrami said.

He said the regional government wanted to “directly manage” its share of oil revenues and not be told by the federal government how to spend its money.

What Cheney Needs to Tell the Saudis
Thursday, May. 10, 2007
What Cheney Needs to Tell the Saudis

By Robert Baer
Vice President Cheney was in the Middle East Wednesday trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together. As part of that effort, Baghdad is the first but definitely not the most important stop. Cheney knows as well as anyone that it is a waste of time badgering Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki to stop the chaos — either American troops are going to do that or no one will.
The real work must be done in Saudi Arabia, where Cheney needs to calm Saudi nerves over Iran. U.S. officials who visit the Gulf tell me that their Saudi interlocutors all ask the same questions: When the United States is forced to cede Iraq to Iran, what happens next? Or, more fatefully, what happens to the Arabs when one day the U.S. reconciles with Iran?
And it's not as if the Iranians have been helping ease Saudi nerves. On Tuesday the Iranian deputy foreign minister offered to give the United States a "face saving withdrawal." When the Iranians talk like this, the Saudis draw on their worst nightmares, like an Iranian helicopter evacuating the last American troops off the roof of our embassy in Baghdad. The nightmare ends with an isolationist U.S. handing the Gulf over to a "pragmatic" Iran.
It's only a nightmare of course, but Cheney can count on a frigid reception in the hot Saudi desert nonetheless. The signs of deep Saudi anger and panic over how Washington has bungled Iraq have been surfacing for the last two months. In March King Abdallah hosted Iranian President Ahmadinejad, who in normal times is a man whose head Abdallah would prefer to lop off than talk to. Two weeks later, at an Arab summit, King Abdallah called the American presence in Iraq an "illegal occupation," the same description the Iranians use. In April, King Abdallah reportedly cancelled a visit to Washington and a dinner with Bush out of sheer anger over Iraq.
Cheney is going to need all of his vast political skills to convince the Saudis things in Iraq are not as bad as they look. One argument that would serve Cheney well is persuading the Saudis that a Shi'a Iraq is not necessarily the same thing as an Iranian Shi'a Iraq. He should point out that U.S. forces have started working alongside the Mahdi Army of radical Shi'a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad, a sign that the United States has the sense and ability to try to help and stand Sad'r up on his own, and in so doing, help cut the Shi'a umbilical cord to Iran.
But much more crucially, Cheney has to hammer home the message that only the U.S. can stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb. A meeting of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members on Wednesday in Berlin to discuss a new resolution against Iran should help.
If, on the other hand, Cheney tells the Saudis that our only plan is to stay the course, leave Maliki in place, hold off a rising Republican revolt againt the war, and run out the clock for the last eighteen months of the Bush Administration, he can only expect the Saudis to continue making plans of their own.

And you know why we hate you!!!!We don't need Apache/Black Hawk/Humvee Democracy

Protesters burn effigies of U.S. Vice President Cheney during a rally in Kerbala, 110 km (70 miles) south of Baghdad, May 9, 2007. Hundreds of supporters of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr attended the demonstration denouncing Cheney's visit to Iraq. The Arabic inscriptions on the banner reads: "We demand the Iraqi government not to welcome the messenger of terror Cheney".

And you wonder why you're paying more at the pump?
Chevron to make record settlement in Iraq oil scandal

10 May 2007 (Xinhua News Agency)

Chevron, the second-largest American oil company, is preparing to acknowledge that it should have known kickbacks were being paid to Saddam Hussein on oil it bought from Iraq as part of a defunct United Nations program, New York Times reported Tuesday.

The admission is part of a settlement being negotiated with United States prosecutors and includes fines totaling 25 million to 30 million U.S. dollars, the report quoted the investigators assaying.

The penalty, which is still being negotiated, would be the largest so far in the U.S. in connection with investigations of companies involved in the oil-for-food scandal.

The 64-billion-dollar program was set up in 1996 by the UN Security Council to help ease the effects of UN sanctions on Iraqi civilians after the first gulf war.

Until the American invasion in 2003, the program allowed Saddam's government to export oil to pay for food, medicine and humanitarian goods.

However, the Iraqi government received at least 1.8 billion dollars in kickbacks from companies in the program, according to an investigation completed in 2005 by Paul A. Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Meeting May Lessen Threat of a Sunni Boycott in Iraq

By DAMIEN CAVE

Published: May 9, 2007

BAGHDAD, May 8 — The threat of a walkout by Iraq’s leading Sunni bloc in Parliament and the cabinet seemed to subside Tuesday after a meeting between Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a Shiite, and Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni.
But violence in Iraq continued. A suicide car bomber killed at least 16 people near the main mosque in Kufa that Moktada al-Sadr has used to deliver his Friday sermons. It was the third car bombing in a month near a revered Shiite shrine in southern Iraq.
And residents in Baquba said an American helicopter fired on a group of students, killing as many as seven. Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a military spokesman, confirmed that there was helicopter activity in the area and said that the accusations were being investigated.
The United States military also announced that two soldiers died Tuesday when a roadside bomb struck their vehicle southeast of Baghdad.
Mr. Hashimi threatened Monday to lead a Sunni boycott by next week unless there was a clear move to change the Constitution so that the country could not be partitioned into separate Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish states — which the Sunnis fear largely because the country’s oil wealth is concentrated in Shiite and Kurdish areas.
Though he has not formally rescinded the threat, Mr. Hashimi seemed eager to show that he was willing to cooperate. His office released a picture of him with the prime minister sitting side by side and smiling, as well as a statement saying that the meeting had moved the political process forward.
“The vice president appreciated the clear and friendly feelings that filled the meeting,” the statement said.
Reform of the Constitution is one of several benchmarks that American officials are pushing the Iraqi government to meet.
They hope changes in the document would form the foundation for a stable government that more equitably divides resources and responsibilities among the country’s three main factions. The issue of whether to prevent partition — as Mr. Hashimi wants — is just one of many being discussed.
Mr. Hashimi’s threat of a walkout and his meeting with the prime minister suggest that pressure for compromises on the Constitution is mounting, not just in the United States but also here.
A deadline looms: the parliamentary committee dealing with proposed amendments to the Constitution is scheduled to deliver recommendations next Tuesday. Parliament will then debate the proposals and vote.
It remains unclear, however, whether Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish politicians are close to an agreement. Three members of the 31-member constitutional committee said Tuesday that the recommendations would probably not address the most contentious issues, such as how to share water, oil and other resources.
Nicholas Hayson, a constitutional adviser for the United Nations who has worked closely with the constitutional committee, said, “It may well be that the committee will need more time to put together compromises that all communities can live with.”
Punctuality in politics here tends to be rare. Iraqi leaders have missed several deadlines during the constitutional reform process. They have recently complained that the American deadlines for compromise are unrealistic.
The car bomb in Kufa was just the latest illustration of the relentless security challenge that Iraq’s government faces. The blast disintegrated vendor stalls and bloodied shoppers.
Observers said that security in the Shiite-majority south, home to the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, seemed to be deteriorating.
“A lot of people are angry because the government is incapable of preventing such attacks,” said Ahmad Yasir Hussein, 33, the owner of a grocery store near the explosion site.
The driver of the vehicle, a Chevrolet Caprice packed with more than 550 pounds of explosives, moved into the market area around 10 a.m., the police said. Capt. Hadi Najim, the head of the explosives removal bureau in Kufa, said only half of the explosives in the car detonated.
Hussein Abed Matrood, 38, said he had just parked his car near the market when the force of the explosion reached him.
“I was hit with shrapnel and my wife’s leg was broken,” he said. “Thank God, my son was left intact. He stayed in the car.”
After the bombing, cars were banned from downtown Kufa and Najaf, the adjacent city and home to one of Shiite Islam’s holiest shrines, according to Ahmed Duaibil, head of the news media office for the governor of Najaf Province.
Ahmad al-Fatlawi, a member of province’s governing council, said the area has come under attack because it is thriving while Baghdad and other areas struggle.
“The terrorist groups target the stability in Iraq generally, and Najaf specifically, because the reconstruction wheel is still going forward and this doesn’t serve terrorism,” he said. “These groups try to stop this wheel with such acts, and to hinder the process and to create chaos. This will not happen — construction will continue.”
In Baghdad, aides to Mr. Maliki and Mr. Hashimi also tried to sound upbeat. Mariyam al-Rais, an adviser to the prime minister, said the possibility of a Sunni departure from the government had always been “illogical” and unlikely. Ms. Rais said the prime minister’s meeting with Mr. Hashimi covered several points of disagreement.
In a particularly ambitious effort to gild Iraq’s struggles, she also touted the criticism of Mr. Maliki from both Shiites and Sunnis as a sign of the government’s impartiality.
“No side in the political process agrees totally with the government’s performance, which makes the government really fair and not biased to any side,” she said.
Reporting was contributed by Ali Adeeb, Khalid al-Ansary, Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi and Ahmad Fadam from Baghdad, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Kufa.
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Back to 'Saddam without a mustache'
ROVING IN THE RED ZONE
Back to 'Saddam without a mustache'
By Pepe Escobar

BAGHDAD - From secular, well-educated Shi'ites to in-love-with-the-West Kurds, from Christians suffering ethnic cleansing to even some moderate Sunnis, Iraqis terrified by the current carnage are more and more inclined to turn to former premier Iyad Allawi as the only possible solution.

"We need a strongman," said Hamoodi, a young Kurd from Sulaymaniah who got his visa approved and will continue his medicine studies in the US state of Michigan; he does not plan on coming back. There's a virtual consensus among people in Baghdad that security under Allawi's interim premiership was relatively good, deteriorated under Ibrahim al-Jaafari and reached nightmarish levels under the present administration of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Allawi used to be referred to in Baghdad as "Saddam without a mustache". The ex-Ba'athist and former darling of US and British intelligence also became "the butcher of Fallujah" after ordering the massive assault on the Sunni resistance stronghold in November 2004. Not to mention his push against Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's followers in Najaf, also in 2004. But the civil war has enhanced his popular perception as non-sectarian. The true measure of the overwhelming Iraqi tragedy is that people in Baghdad are now yearning for an ersatz Saddam Hussein.

There have been insistent rumors in Baghdad of a US-inspired "white coup" in Parliament to finish off Maliki's ineffective government and install Allawi as the new prime minister. To this end Allawi is even talking to the Sadrists. Ibtisan al-Awadi, a former member of Parliament for the Iraqi List, which has four ministers, is the negotiator in charge.

The development is quite surprising, considering the extremely strained relationship between Allawi and Muqtada because of the attack on Najaf. But the fact is nobody at the moment - except for the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the Da'wa Party - seems to be supporting Maliki. Popular perception in Baghdad among educated urban Shi'ites also rules that politicians from Da'wa are generally well educated, but those from SCIRI are mostly appalling.

Azat al-Shabander is Allawi's spokesman. He told Asia Times Online, "We have good relations with all the political parties against the government. There are also a great deal of armed groups who have abandoned their weapons and prefer peace. We are in favor of no loyalty to Iran. This is the big difference between us and the governments of Jaafari and Maliki."

As things stand, Shabander likes to emphasize that "the US supports Maliki. [President George W] Bush has said it many times. This is clear." But Shabander also made a point that "the US did not privilege anybody during these four years, nor interfered". What would make Allawi a better prime minister than Maliki? "He is known as the director of a national, and not confessional, project. This puts him in a very comfortable position."

Allawi, said Shabander, "Strongly condemns the Shi'ite political parties who suffer interference from Iran. True Iraqi Shi'ites don't accept this intervention." He said Allawi has "good relations" with Saudi Arabia, although is always vigilant because "sometimes they [Saudis] support religious parties here with a lot of money". This an oblique reference to Wahhabi support for the Sunni Arab resistance.

Allawi has been to Saudi Arabia building alliances - unlike Maliki, who has been snubbed by King Abdullah. Allawi travels as much as most Iraqi politicians, who spend most of their time in Cairo, Amman, Damascus or, for that matter, London. Not bad for a hefty US$15,000-a-month salary. During recent festivities, members of Parliament received "gifts" to the tune of almost $60,000 each.

Shabander sounded like an Israeli politician when he argued Allawi's point for defending the Adhamiyah wall that is being built by US forces to separate Sunnis and Shi'ites. "This is not a wall; it's a partition barrier that the security forces find useful for controlling who enters and who exits a dangerous zone. It's not an isolated wall. People who are against the wall are just blowing it out of proportion." This "against the wall" crowd happens to include the population of Adhamiyah itself.

Shabander stressed that Allawi "hopes the US establishes good relations with all other countries in the region to the benefit of Iraq" - a message that obviously concerns US-Iran relations.

A new non-sectarian coalition may be emerging in Iraq against the current Shi'ite/Kurd majority government, and that coalition might be led by Allawi. As Shabander never tires to point out, "We have cooperation with all national groups."

"Saddam without a mustache" is convinced he's the right man for the intractable job. So is Washington.

FINCANTIERI TO BUILD FOUR PATROL VESSELS FOR THE IRAQI NAVY

Fincantieri has won an order worth over 80 million euros for the construction of four patrol vessels for the Iraqi Navy. The ships will be delivered within the first six months of 2009, phased at three months intervals one from the other. Fincantieri was successful in winning the contract, which includes the provision of logistical support and training, also thanks to the valuable cooperation of the Italian Ministries of the Defence and Foreign Affairs, through the Embassy in Baghdad.The vessels, which will occupy a pivotal position in the patrol fleet of the Iraqi Navy, will play a similar role to that of the Italian Coastguard. They will be tasked with carrying out surveillance of the Exclusive Economic Zone, search and rescue operations, control of maritime traffic, including inspections on board ships in transit, as well as firefighting.The Iraqi ships are based on the project Fincantieri developed for the Italian Coastguard (five “Diciotti” class vessels) and for the Armed Forces of Malta (one vessel).The vessels will be built under the supervision of the Italian Classification Society, Registro Italiano Navale (Rina), in accordance with high international standards for safety and the environment.Fincantieri will also supply the systems and components, for propulsion (Isotta Fraschini V1716T2MSD 2,360 kW engines, shaft lines and variable pitch propellers), power generation (Isotta Fraschini L1306T3ME 220 kW generators) and stabilisers.