Thread: Archive Latest News - Think Tank - 16/08/07 - 03/11/07

Iraqis who served U.S. facing a bleak future

BAGHDAD: De****e a stepped-up commitment from the United States to take in Iraqis who are in danger because they worked for the American government and military, very few are signing up to go, resettlement officials said.

The reason, Iraqis say, is that they are not allowed to apply in Iraq, but instead must make a costly and uncertain journey to countries like Syria or Jordan, where they may be turned away by border officials already overwhelmed by fleeing Iraqis.

The United Nations has submitted more than 9,000 Iraqi names to the United States for consideration as refugees since the State Department announced a new resettlement program in February, but only about 5 percent of the applicants are former employees of the U.S. war effort, according to figures provided by the United Nations and the International Organization for Migration, the agencies processing the cases.

This year, U.S. officials began publicly discussing the special dangers faced by Iraqis working with Americans here and acknowledging the need to grant them safe haven in the United States.

To that end, the administration of President George W. Bush has set up a special program for a small number of Iraqis, which gives preferential treatment to full-time employees of the U.S. Embassy, currently about 125 in Baghdad, and to 500 interpreters by allowing them to skip the lengthy United Nations refugee process once they leave Iraq.

But thousands more Iraqis work for the United States through contractors like Titan, DynCorp International, Parsons and Triple Canopy. In all, 69,000 Iraqis work on contracts with the Department of Defense through Iraqi and foreign companies, according to the U.S. military. They are cleaners, construction workers, drivers and security guards, to name a few, and though they face the same reprisals as anyone working more directly with the American government they do not fall into the special category.

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said all Iraqis who had worked for the United States would have their refugee applications speeded up once they have fled Iraq and reached neighboring countries.
"The big question mark is for those who can't reach us here," said Rafiq Tschannen, chief of the Iraq mission for the International Organization for Migration in Amman.

The United States in the past processed large numbers of refugees inside countries they were trying to flee, namely Vietnam in the 1970s and the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, and it could also do it in Iraq, where the embassy is America's largest, Tschannen said.

State Department officials said that they might consider being flexible about processing potential refugees within Iraq but that security concerns had prevented it so far. Beyond that, the United Nations formally recognizes only those who have fled their countries as refugees, though the United States is not bound by that definition.

"It's an issue that is being looked at constantly," Ellen Sauerbrey, an assistant secretary of state, said Tuesday in Jordan while announcing a $30 million pledge to help educate Iraqi refugees in the region.
But she asked "how do we keep them safe for four and five months in Iraq" during processing? There is also the safety of embassy employees to consider, she said.

For many Iraqis, the travel is no longer possible.

Ali Saleh, an interpreter who worked for the military for four years, said he was barely able to leave his neighborhood in western Baghdad, never mind travel with his wife and 2-year-old son to Jordan, where the border authorities turned away one of his friends. He traveled to Syria last year to apply, but gave up, fearing the Syrian police officials knew about his U.S. ties when they questioned him roughly at the border.

In his four years of work, eight colleagues have been killed. He quit this spring, when an interpreter from a different camp was kidnapped and killed in his neighborhood. Yet, he said, "The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is not for us. Nobody can go there."

The risk is no less for Iraqis who work as laborers on military bases. Though they are considered less of a priority by the State Department because they not work directly with soldiers or American officials, the militants hunting them do not make that distinction.

"Many people believe that interpreters are exposed to danger more that us, but they are wrong," said Ali Jasem, a 25-year-old crane operator at the Rustamiya base in southeastern Baghdad. Three of his colleagues were gunned down when they left the base last fall. "Insurgents and militants won't distinguish between us," he said. "We are all spies and traitors."

Cost makes the journey outside Iraq that much harder. Hamid Ali, a crane operator at the U.S. military base in Rustamiya in southeastern Baghdad, burned through most of his savings over four months last year when he tried to apply in Syria, then again in Lebanon. His family sent him money twice, but he could not find a job and eventually moved back to Iraq, forfeiting his application.

Now he is working for the Americans once again, moving drinking water for soldiers around the base for $460 a month.

More than 40,000 Iraqis have registered with the United Nations in Jordan and 90,000 in Syria, out of an estimated two million who have fled Iraq, but not all qualify for refugee status. The United States does not say how many applications are from former employees, but according to the United Nations, only 436 files out of more than 9,000 that had been submitted to the United States by mid-July might have fallen into that category. Additionally, fast-track applications that cut short the UN process add a few hundred, the International Organization for Migration said.

Iraqis are arriving in the United States, but slowly. From October to July, 190 Iraqi refugees arrived, according to a State Department official. But the pace is picking up. Sauerbrey said she expected 2,000 Iraqis to arrive by the end of September, and a substantial increase next year.

One snag in the process has been in Syria, where the government has not granted visas to U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials who need to interview Iraqis there, a resettlement official said. Syria, which has strained with the United States, has the largest population of Iraqis outside Iraq.

In recent interviews, half a dozen American diplomats said that the United States needs to do far more to aid Iraqis associated with the United States.

Oliver Moss, who served as a political officer in Baghdad from 2005 to 2006, said that more than 120 Iraqis who joined American-backed local councils at the provincial, city, district, and neighborhood levels have been killed.

"We have taken the initial steps to help Iraqi interpreters," said Mr. Moss, who now works for the American embassy in London. "But we have done little to nothing to help the brave individuals who have been promoting democratic efforts at the local level."

There is no comprehensive count of Iraqis who have been killed while working for the American war effort. But one company alone, Titan, which provides the military with most of its interpreters, said that 280 of its Iraqi employees had been killed since 2003.

Many Iraqis have left their jobs with the United States with bitter feelings, saying the Americans cared little for their plight once they stepped beyond the walls of bases to go home.

But some American officers have made a point of trying to help Iraqis who worked for them.

Lieutenant Colonel Steven Miska, an infantry officer in western Baghdad with the Dagger Brigade Combat Team, knows exactly how many interpreters his unit employs, and offers housing on his base to every Iraqi who works there.

On Memorial Day, he commemorated two Iraqis - an interpreter-translator and a shop owner on the base - along with fallen Americans.

"Right now, the immigration policy is disconnected from the overall strategy to win," Miska said, adding "It's not just U.S. soldiers who are sacrificing."

Rachel Schneller, a 34-year-old American diplomat, said that of about 10 Iraqi employees who worked at the American Embassy compound in Basra two years ago, two have been killed, five have fled the country and three live in hiding in Basra, begging Schneller for help getting American visas.

"Working with Americans for the last couple of years has more or less become a death sentence in that part of Iraq," said Ms. Schneller, who now works in Washington. "I must get desperate e-mails every other day from one of them."

Several weeks ago, American soldiers searched the broken Baghdad neighborhood of Saleh, the interpreter who has lost eight colleagues. The soldiers entered his house, where he has sequestered himself since quitting his job in March after the translator in his neighborhood was killed. They began to look around, but stopped when he showed his interpreter badge.

"I asked them how can I get outside this country," he said, rocking back and forth, seated in a chair. "I can't live here, that's for sure. They don't have any answer."

Iraqis who served U.S. facing a bleak future - International Herald Tribune

Iraq Mobile phone market is expected to grow

Iraqi Minister of Communications, Mohammed Allawi, said on Thursday that the three mobile phone service company licenses just granted will strengthen the cellular network throughout the country, which relies on mobile because of the war and compromised ground lines.

Iraq auctioned three 15-year licenses on Friday for $3.75 bn. The licenses went to: the Kuwaiti Mobile Telecommunications Company (MTC), Asia Cell Company for Qatar Telecom Company (Q-Tel), and Kork Telecom Company of Irbil in Iraq's Kurdistan region.

Allawi said in an interview in Amman that the most important achievement of all was the opening of Iraq between all mobile phone companies, so that there now will be links between the networks. He added that the limited size of the fixed-line network of 1.2 million lines in a country with a population of 26 million pushed the use of mobile phones to more than 30% of total subscribers, or about eight million in about three years. He said that the new licenses will strengthen coverage even more.

He said the three companies with temporary licenses ( Egyptian Oras-com, MTC and Asia Cell) failed to provide adequate country-wide coverage, but that under the new licenses, the Kuwaiti company MTC could expand its network beyond the regions of central and southern Iraq. Similarly, Kork Telecom Company, operating from the other end of Iraq in Iraqi Kurdistan since 2001 under a local license, could also expand throughout Iraq.

The Iraqi minister said that Kork Telecom was in a suitable position to the acquire Oras-com Telecom operations, which withdrew from the auction because of the high bids; it was the first company with full mobile service after the U.S. occupation in 2003, through subsidiary Iraqna.

He added that the strong competition between the five bidders raised auction offers $1.25 billion, exceeding the government's expectations and reflecting the attractiveness of this mobile phone market.

He also believed that the expected investments in fixed lines will raise the number of lines to three million over the next three years.

Allawi added that the new licensing included stricter conditions to be signed formally at the end of this month to encourage more investment in services. He explained that the companies have to strengthen infrastructure now to a high level to provide good service, and competition will provide greater incentive for large investments.

The Iraqi Minister of Communications said that as the old licenses were of limited duration the performance had been weak since the companies did not want to spend money on infrastructure, but this should change now.


http://www.iraqdirectory.com/DisplayNews.aspx?id=4452

It seems for weeks now that any talks about the HCL cease to exist, or have I missed the posts. Anyone Know what the status is?

I haven't seen much or anything really on the hcl - but the GOI is on an 'official break' at the moment. They are back in September - should hear more then.

Iraq : Statistical Appendix - IMF - dated 28th August 2007.

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/...07/cr07294.pdf

The Supreme Committee for the implementation of Article 140 held a lengthy meeting
(Voice of Iraq) - 28-08-2007

The Supreme Committee for the implementation of Article 140 held a lengthy meeting and issued several important decisions
The Supreme Committee for the implementation of Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution yesterday in Baghdad meeting of the 19 chairmanship of Mr. Raed Fahmi, Minister of Science and CST, was discussed at the meeting the resolutions adopted by the Commission earlier. It also took several important decisions and issued a set of instructions.

The Committee decided to approach the Supreme Judicial Council on the possibility to postpone consideration of the cases before the courts and approached the House of Representatives to abolish the Iraqi resolution.
Regarding the changes in the administrative boundaries covered by Article 58 of the State Administration Law and Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution, the Committee decided to form a subcommittee to consider the administrative changes in central and southern Iraq in preparation for the corresponding recommendations. And make a recommendation to the presidency of the Iraqi Council of Ministers to restore some respects, non-disputed districts located within the province of Kirkuk, which had been canceled by the former regime for political reasons.

As a Supreme Committee meeting ways to speed up the application of Resolution No. 4 of the Higher Committee on the abolition of agricultural contracts.

The Committee decided to establish two Supreme Truth Sinjar and Khanaqin to expedite the completion of transactions arrivals and deportees. It was also decided to convene a meeting between the directors office and general manager of nationality, passports and residence to discuss facilitating the completion of transactions arrivals, deportees and transfer records themselves.

http://translate.google.com/translat...language_tools


Or


Islamic Party is with Implementation of Article 140
PUKmedia 2007-08-28 11:15:29

Omer Abdul Star, a prominent member of Islamic party told Kurdistani Nwe that their efforts is persisting on their works in Iraqi political process, representative council, and Iraqi Presidency Council but they won’t rejoin the cabinet.

Concerning the implementation of Article 140, the representative of Islamic Party said that they are with implementation of the Article.

And about their alliance with PUK and KDP he declared that the agreement has nothing to do with Al-Maliki’s government but it is just an agreement between the Iraqi sides for solving political problems and normalizing Kirkuk and other Iraqi cities.

http://pukmedia.com/english/index.ph...06&Item id=52

Is it just my computer? .... (or what?) ...... this forum is so w...i..d..e.

And I mean WIDE.

When I want to read everybodys post I have to scroll wayyyyy over to the right.

Marek - definately not your original forum format - (for me)

anybody?

Originally Posted by ahill

Is it just my computer? .... (or what?) ...... this forum is so w...i..d..e.

And I mean WIDE.

When I want to read everybodys post I have to scroll wayyyyy over to the right.

Marek - definately not your original forum format - (for me)

anybody?

I can read all of the posts and only have to scroll to the right to read the sidebar ads. Sounds to me like you may have your screen resolution set to 800x600. Try changing it to 1024x768 and see if that improves the situation.

Thank you for repporting this. I can see both the posts and the right side ads. Using a 15.4 laptop... Check your screen resolution..

Originally Posted by Cdn Scrooge

I can read all of the posts and only have to scroll to the right to read the sidebar ads. Sounds to me like you may have your screen resolution set to 800x600. Try changing it to 1024x768 and see if that improves the situation.

Like Marek, my one laptop is also a standard 15,4" while another being a 17" widescreen and with the resolution set correctly (calibration) should works just as perfect as Cdn Scrooge suggested!


YB.