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

Originally Posted by snottynose

I wonder if tomorrows auction will bring us too 1260..i know it's been tossed around a bit that something may happen with that number,what are some thoughts on it guy's?What do you all think about it?I would love to wake up tm and see a new and improved rate..like maybe 1 or more!!!!!
Sarah!!

how about 1.26??

Originally Posted by rvalreadydang

Yes, because without that those numbers look pitifull!

Iraq makes progress on crucial constitution plan
By Mariam Karouny
Reuters
BAGHDAD


An Iraqi committee agreed on Tuesday to send to parliament a plan to reform the constitution, an important step towards implementing national reconciliation laws that Washington says are critical to ending violence.

Once-dominant Sunni Arabs, who make up the backbone of the insurgency, have long demanded changes to a constitution they say concedes too much power to majority Shi'ites and ethnic Kurds, who were persecuted under Saddam Hussein.

U.S. President George W. Bush, under pressure to show tangible progress in the four-year-old war, has piled pressure on Iraqi leaders to agree power-sharing legislation.

Such laws, which include sharing Iraq's vast oil wealth and ending a ban on former members of Saddam's party from public office, are particularly aimed at assuaging Sunnis Arabs and bringing them firmly into the U.S.-backed political process.

Saleem al-Jubouri, from the Sunni Accordance Front, said the constitutional reform committee had agreed to pass its draft to parliament next Tuesday -- albeit with some passages unresolved.

He said this would allow it technically to meet a May 15 deadline set by the constitution.

"There is a preliminary report that has been approved by committee members," he told Reuters. "Members now have to consult their political parties on the proposals."

SOME ISSUES LEFT OPEN

But he said some thorny issues had been left open, for parliament to resolve. These included a Shi'ite-backed law that allows provinces to form federal regions, and wording on the Arab identity of Iraq, opposed by Kurds.

In another sign of political progress, Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi said the presidential council would soon send to parliament a draft proposal to allow thousands of ex-Baath party members to return to public jobs, another Sunni demand.

The council comprises Hashemi, President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and Shi'ite Vice President Adel Abdul al-Mahdi.

Hashemi's Accordance Front had warned it might quit Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government if Sunni grievances were ignored, but a visit by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney to Iraq last week appears to have softened the Sunnis' stance.

The bills are likely to face fierce debate in parliament.

Some lawmakers from the ruling Shi'ite community, who were oppressed during Saddam's rule, have expressed virulent opposition to seeing former Baathists take up government jobs.

Meanwhile non-Arab Kurds, also persecuted under Saddam's pan-Arab policies, have resisted wording on the Arab identity of Iraq.

But Sunni Arabs fear federalism will allow Kurds in the north and Shi'ites in the south, where Iraq's oil reserves lie, to break away into their own states. Sunni Arabs live mostly in central and western Iraq, which is poor in oil.

Pressure is growing in the United States to pull troops out of a war in which more than 3,300 U.S. soldiers have been killed. Some Republicans have suggested they will desert Bush unless he shows political and military progress by September.

What are Iraq’s Benchmarks?
Author: Lionel Beehner, Staff Writer


May 15, 2007

Introduction
What exactly is meant by ‘benchmarks’?
How does one define progress?
What are the specific benchmarks laid out?
What happens if Baghdad fails to meet these benchmarks?

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Introduction
Thus far Iraqi leaders have rejected calls from Washington for a timetable to achieve certain benchmarks as a precondition for U.S. military and financial support. President Bush, too, had shied away from attaching strings—or political benchmarks in Baghdad—to the U.S. funding of his surge plan to secure central Iraq. But earlier this month, the president admitted “it makes sense to have benchmarks as a part of our discussion on how to go forward.” These benchmarks include national reconciliation in Iraq, a reversal of a de-Baathification plan, and the passage of an oil law that equitably distributes revenues among the country’s warring factions. A progress report is expected by September from General David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, at which point lawmakers in Washington will reassess whether to curb additional emergency war funding or push for phased troop withdrawals.

What exactly is meant by ‘benchmarks’?Sometimes referred to as “milestones,” benchmarks refer to specific objectives—or rather quantifiable measures of progress toward a future goal—for the Iraqi government to meet with regards to national reconciliation, security, economic performance, and governance. The goal of these benchmarks is to pressure Iraq’s leaders to make political progress and start taking over responsibility for security from American troops. “The purpose is to infuse a sense of urgency into the political process in Baghdad,” says Andrew Exum of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. This has been found lacking, he adds, as evidenced by Iraqi lawmakers’ recent push for a two-month summer vacation.

How does one define progress?“I want to see life starting to come back,” Sen. Robert Bennett (R-UT) tells the New York Times. “I want to see people in markets.” But others lawmakers are pressing for more specific metrics to gauge whether or not the surge is working. “The key question is: What have we won?” asks Exum. “Have we set the Iraqi government on a path toward stabilization or reconciliation? Or have we just won the right to stay in the country for another six months?” Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, dismisses specific metrics and points instead to one specific question: “[D]o the people in Baghdad feel more secure today?” he asked reporters last month. “If not, then all the other metrics may be of interest but aren’t as compelling as that one is to me.” One problem, argues W. Patrick Lang, former head of the Middle East section of the Defense Intelligence Agency, is that Iraqi and American lawmakers hold different interpretations of what progress means. “[Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki] thinks he is doing the right thing by consolidating Shiite Arab power in Iraq,” he says.

What are the specific benchmarks laid out?
Experts say benchmarks range in specificity and achievability. They include reaching an agreement on the status of Kirkuk, meeting certain economic criteria like a targeted annual growth of 10 percent (last year growth was just 4 percent), and reducing subsidies on energy and food, which cost Iraq’s economy roughly $11 billion per year, according to the Iraq Study Group. But the most-discussed benchmarks, as outlined in President Bush’s January 2007 speech, include:

Holding provincial elections. Because Sunnis mostly boycotted December 2005 provincial elections, local governments are primarily dominated by Shiites in the south and center and Kurds in the north. The Bush administration is pushing the Shiite-led government to hold fresh elections at the local level to reverse this imbalance, allow a Sunni buy-in, and pave the way toward greater reconciliation. But CFR Adjunct Senior Fellow Vali R. Nasr warns that provincial elections alone will not solve Iraq’s political woes. “The idea that elections will produce leaders you want to work with applies if you are working in a peaceful environment,” he says. “Unless the insurgents are running for office and come to the polls, it doesn’t matter.”
Passage of oil revenue-sharing law. An oil law drafted in February, as this Backgrounder outlines, has left Iraq’s leaders bitterly divided. It has drawn criticisms from Iraq’s Sunnis, who prefer a stronger role for the central government, and from Kurds, who prefer a stronger role for the regional authorities. The majority Shiites have sought to mollify the Sunnis by keeping control of Iraq’s oil sector in Baghdad, not the provinces. Most of Iraq’s oil rests in the Kurdish north or Shiite south, not in the Sunni heartland. The role of outside investors, as well as the classification of old versus new oil fields, also remains unsettled.The oil issue has sparked some disagreement in the U.S. Congress. Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) says the benchmark as stated in the bill before Congress calls primarily for the privatization of Iraq’s oil, not the equal redistribution of revenues. But others say the oil law, despite its flaws, is necessary for Iraqis to develop their untapped oil reserves and reap the profits.
Reversal of de-Baathification laws. White House officials have pressed the Maliki government to reverse laws that bar tens of thousands of low-to-mid-ranking ex-Baath Party officers from government posts. This move is part of a larger effort to make constitutional concessions to minority groups like Sunni Arabs. But it faces intense opposition from more conservative and religious Shiite members of Iraq’s parliament.
Amending Iraq’s constitution. The Sunnis favor an amendment to stanch the formal breakup of Iraq into regional states divided along sectarian lines. They fear the Shiites will seek a federal state in the south modeled along the lines of Iraqi Kurdistan, which would cut into the Sunnis’ share of political power and revenue. But the amendment process is purposefully difficult, says Nathan Brown, an Islamic legal scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. To change the document, the Iraqi parliament must first form a committee, which then proposes a package of amendments. Next, the parliament votes on the amendments as a package, not individually, and this requires a simple majority. If passed, the bloc of amendments must then win approval from the public in a nationwide referendum, requiring two-thirds approval from at least three of Iraq’s eighteen provinces. “[The system’s] structured so that the constitution will not develop significant changes,” Brown says.
Spending of reconstruction funds. One benchmark is the fair distribution across the country’s provinces and various ethnic groups of $10 billion in Iraqi reconstruction funds, as allocated in the Iraqi government’s budget. The monies are aimed at building infrastructure, improving services, and creating jobs for all Iraqis, but parliament cannot agree on how to equitably disperse the funds.
What happens if Baghdad fails to meet these benchmarks?
The consequences of failure remain unclear. Some Democratic lawmakers have pushed for a freezing of aid funds to Iraq, while others have sought a more rapid withdrawal, or redeployment, of troops. White House officials say performance benchmarks should not be linked to troop deployments and reconstruction aid disbursements—that is, the consequences of Iraqi inaction should not include imposing limits on the ability of U.S. military leaders or the president to carry out the war. But as Exum points out, “Having benchmarks is worthless unless you have consequences.” The trouble, says Lang, is that Iraqis do not believe there will be serious consequences if they fail to achieve these benchmarks. “Iraqis are every bit as smart as we are,” he says. “Realistically they can figure out that the chances we would pull the plug and leave is just about zero.” Similar U.S.-imposed benchmarks set for the South Vietnamese government during the Vietnam War achieved little, he adds.

Wesleyan U. mulls Iraq divestment

Published: May 15, 2007 at 4:02 PM
MIDDLETOWN, Conn., May 15 (UPI) -- Wesleyan University in Middleton, Conn., has become the latest U.S. university hearing calls for divestiture of investments related to the war in Iraq.
Junior Erik Rosenberg is a member of Students For Ending the War in Iraq, told the Hartford (Conn.) Courant his group successfully lobbied the Student Assembly to adopt a resolution for divestiture.

"Can we really be comfortable with educating ourselves with money that was made through violence?" he asked.

The school's portfolio includes holdings in Raytheon and General Dynamics, both of which have major U.S. contracts in Iraq.

Rosenberg said he's confident he'll find support from incoming President Michael Roth, as a student at Wesleyan himself in 1977, reportedly staged a sleep-in protest in the president's office over school investments linked to apartheid in South Africa, the report said.

Anti-war students at the University of Michigan, Columbia University and Wayne State University are also demanding the institutions sell off shares in corporations that contract with the U.S. military to supply the war effort, the Courant said.

Muslim Peacekeeping Force For Iraq?
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, May 15, 2007

(CBS) This story was written by Farhan Bokhari, reporting for CBS News in Pakistan.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday proposed sending a Muslim peacekeeping force to Iraq. Musharraf has suggested his own country would send thousands of troops to join the effort, should such a plan come together.

He made the proposal at a conference of foreign ministers from Islamic countries Tuesday, following months of reports that Pakistan was lobbying for an Islamic military force to ease the burden of the U.S. military fighting against a deadly Iraqi insurgency.

Arab diplomats familiar with the Pakistani proposal tell CBS News that Pakistan is keen to build up a role for itself in the Iraq effort, by way of contributing largely to such a man-power effort. The diplomats suggest Musharraf sees the force as a way to forge closer relations with the U.S.

Musharraf and President Bush are already close allies in the U.S.-led war on terror. But Gen. Musharraf faces mounting protests at home from Pakistan's opposition political parties, while the Democrats who control Congress have increasingly questioned America's huge economical support to the south Asian country.

"The mass killing that is taking place (in Iraq), the carnage that is taking place there, has to stop. If all the warring factions — different factions in Iraq — if they accept, then maybe a Muslim peacekeeping force under the United Nations umbrella could be looked at", said Musharraf in his opening speech to the conference.

"We have to stop all outside interference in Iraq. The carnage that is taking place there has to stop, and if outside interference stops, I think internal control would be possible," Musharraf said.

Over the next two days, the foreign ministers who have gathered in Islamabad for the 57-member Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) will discuss ways of revitalizing their group, a senior Arab diplomat attending the conference said. But he agreed that Pakistan, being the host of the event, was well placed to push for a multinational Islamic force for Iraq.

"It's impossible to say how far this idea will go. This is a complex issue," said one Arab diplomat, who spoke to CBS News on condition of anonymity. A key difficulty for such a contingent would be negotiating the deep divide and bitter resentment between Iraq's majority Shiite Muslim population and its minority Sunnis.

Pakistan's majority population is Sunni. Other countries that Pakistan has quietly been in touch with on the subject, including Egypt, Indonesia and Malaysia, are also largely Sunni countries. The world's only predominantly Shiite country, other than Iraq, is Iran.

Diplomats said it was unlikely the U.S. would accept a role for any members of the Iranian military in a future peacekeeping effort, despite recent reports of behind the scenes contacts between U.S. and Iranian officials.

"An Iranian army in Iraq for peacekeeping purposes is not something the U.S. will accept under the circumstances," said one senior western diplomat in Islamabad.

Originally Posted by bigopie

all these laws which need to be passed can't be passed as long as the Iraqi government keeps postponing them....they need to be held accountable...and at the present time they are not....you have to show up for work to be able to vote....and as it seems most of these Iraqi government officials miss going in to work...so no vote....no law passed.....its time we quit sending our money and military over there unless we start to see results.....in my opinion they need to clean sweep the whole government because they all have their own agenda....they seem to care less about their own people who are starving.....Pat

Nothing is going to change until all of the illiterate, corrupt and lazy leadership is purged and replaced with Kurds.

Originally Posted by PAn8tv

Wesleyan U. mulls Iraq divestment

Published: May 15, 2007 at 4:02 PM
MIDDLETOWN, Conn., May 15 (UPI) -- Wesleyan University in Middleton, Conn., has become the latest U.S. university hearing calls for divestiture of investments related to the war in Iraq.
Junior Erik Rosenberg is a member of Students For Ending the War in Iraq, told the Hartford (Conn.) Courant his group successfully lobbied the Student Assembly to adopt a resolution for divestiture.

"Can we really be comfortable with educating ourselves with money that was made through violence?" he asked.

The school's portfolio includes holdings in Raytheon and General Dynamics, both of which have major U.S. contracts in Iraq.

Rosenberg said he's confident he'll find support from incoming President Michael Roth, as a student at Wesleyan himself in 1977, reportedly staged a sleep-in protest in the president's office over school investments linked to apartheid in South Africa, the report said.

Anti-war students at the University of Michigan, Columbia University and Wayne State University are also demanding the institutions sell off shares in corporations that contract with the U.S. military to supply the war effort, the Courant said.

I wonder if they'll also kick out their fellow students involved in this other horrible government war-mongering program:

ROTC/AFROTC. Qualified Wesleyan students may participate in The Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) or The Air Force Reserve Officers Training Corps (AFROTC) programs hosted by the University of Connecticut's detachments. Students who wish to transfer credits for courses they successful complete through these programs may do so if (1) the courses have been approved in advance by the relevant Wesleyan department, and (2) the grades in the courses are C- or better. Student who wish to request the transfer of credit to their Wesleyan degree must do so through the same process and under the same guidelines as transfer credit from any other accredited institution. For details on how to transfer credit please refer to Transfer of Credit from Other Institutions. For further information about University of Connecticut's Programs please contact the appropriate department:

Army ROTC Department of Military Science

[contact info blah blah blah]

Somebody draft those whiney liberal pukes!

With the need for amendments to some of its





إشب نقاشاًLegal consultant : slowdown in the issuance of oil and gas so saturated debate البصرة - عبدالامير الديراويBasra-Abdulamir Alderawi
اكد .The Legal Advisory Nouri Iraqi : that the Iraqi economy depends mainly on oil revenues, where he lives in Iraq since the decades-long single economy aspect of any period since the formation of the reconstruction in 1950, said in an interview with the (morning) : The July 14, 1958 revolution brought about some developments on this side of the issuance of Law No. 80 of 1961 which grants the State control over most of the subsequent establishment of the National Oil Company in 1964, which has many oil operations and direct national investment of the oil wealth.




وفي ..In 1972 the United Iraqi oil under the general situation of the region where the States dominated the oil production of Iraq, thus, manages all phases of the petroleum industry exploration and production, marketing and access to the entire oil revenues .. ة.While the National Oil Company and Iraqi companies in the south, center and north extensive achievements in exploration and development of oil fields in production and drilling, added that this means widening the experience of the oil sector and building Iraqi ones specializing in addition to cooperation with oil companies from the east and west drawing style (service contracts) only and not wars introduced by the former regime of Iraq, which destroyed the possibilities and capabilities of Iraq are in the forefront of countries in the field of petroleum investment relying on oil wealth owners of the national economic capabilities. .He pointed out that Iraqi initiate the development of the national oil industry requires providing the security needed to attract foreign investments have full confidence after risking the future of these investments and to implement their commitments to implement contracts with the State.
تنفذ.With regard to the laws that currently embarking and the possibility of implementing the Iraqi said : I do not think that security conditions currently provide safety for such ambitious plans, which requires time and lack of urgency in enacting laws will not be implemented and have future obligations on the Iraqi side. ية..The oil and gas law passed by the Council of Ministers needs to be extensive discussions through the media and public opinion to come into line with the aspirations of Iraqis in the best possible investment of the oil wealth .. ومن هذا..In this section we say about law is that the law is based on the basic material in the Constitution related to the ownership and management of the distribution of oil wealth, while not completed the procedures for amending the Constitution and achieve national consensus on the controversial aspects of the constitution, and continued : The passage of the law in such circumstances would convey the existing dispute on the constitution to the proposed law for the oil wealth .. ..Also, the Iraq oil-dependent source of income for the people must be the first beneficiary and especially Article (111) of the Constitution indicates that the people are the owner and beneficiary of oil and that the Iraqi national companies are benefiting also with the need to develop and raise the production capacity of existing fields that could be our oil to do all that is necessary to qualify the maximum exploitation of their energies to the interests of the country and citizenship and stressed that the development in the production and manufacturing industries in the oil and gas sector must be accompanied by the establishment of refineries in various forms for refining oil derivatives, filling the large gap seen in the country including especially that the costs of obtaining oil derivatives exhausted 40% of the income of each family, pointing out that the Iraqi experiment proved that the best formula to deal in the field of oil is entrepreneurship (service contracts) in the development of discovered fields and non-developed oil reserves, which have a very thickly as well as expansion in the exploration of new fields and the Iraqi view that the current trend in the formation of a higher council of oil and gas headed by the Prime Minister is in a good direction, which means that the stages are all subject to federal government institutions, including the Central makes planning easier while maintaining the country's unity and national wealth .. لكننا .But we need to allow the Iraqi private sector in the field of distribution, transportation and this will be to revitalize this vital sector and rid the country of bureaucracy that dominates the government.





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Anybody know what this is saying? LOL
Translated version of http://www.alsabaah.com/


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Originally Posted by shotgunsusie

how about 1.26??

It's all good and i am hoping for the best!! We all now they could actually back a higher RV!!!!!!!
Sarah!!