Thread: Archive Latest News - Think Tank - 01/01/08 - 14/04/08

Update.........

Aides: Al-Sadr to 'Obey' if al-Sistani Orders

Aides to Muqtada al-Sadr called Monday for dialogue to resolve a violent standoff with the Iraqi government, saying that the radical Shiite cleric would disband his militia if senior religious leaders ordered it.

Aide Hassan al-Zarqani said from Iran that al-Sadr will consult Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and other top Shiite clerics if the government continues to pressure al-Sadr to disband the militia or see his candidates banned from upcoming elections.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki warned al-Sadr on Sunday to disband his militia or face a ban from politics.

Al-Zarqani said in a telephone interview that al-Sadr "will obey" if al-Sistani, the highest Shiite authority in Iraq, and the other clerics recommend that he do so.

The Sadrists had said earlier that a move to ban them from elections would be unconstitutional.

Al-Sadr aide Salah al-Obeidi said al-Maliki doesn't have the authority to make such a decision because the issue is up to Iraq's Electoral High Commission and parliament.

"We are calling for dialogue as a way to solve problems among Iraqi groups," al-Obeidi told AP Television News in the holy city of Najaf. "Al-Sadr's office affirms that the door is open to reach an understanding regarding these problems."

PUKmedia :: English - Aides: Al-Sadr to 'Obey' if al-Sistani Orders

U.S. Confirms to Have New Talks with Iran on Iraq Security

The United States confirmed on Monday that it is prepared to resume long-delayed talks with Iran on security in Iraq.

"We have reconfirmed to the Iraqi government our readiness to have these discussions (with Iran) focus on the security situation in Iraq.

There's no date set for them," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

Washington conveyed the message Sunday to the Iraqi government, according to the spokesman.

The United States, which accuses Iran of providing weapons and funds to the insurgents to fight against coalition forces in Iraq, has held with Iran three rounds of talks over Iraq's security issue but failed to reach any agreement.

Iran denies U.S. accusations, saying "the U.S. just wanted to find excuses for its failed policies in Iraq" and it was the existence of U.S. forces made that war-torn country volatile.

PUKmedia :: English - U.S. Confirms to Have New Talks with Iran on Iraq Security

Security conditions impede Iraq investments, says UAB chief

Iraqi bankers are disconnected from international and Arab banking activities, particularly in recent years, due to security conditions that also encumber investment in war-torn Iraq, according to the chairman of the Union of Arab Banks (UAB) on Tuesday.

"The UAB has strong ties with Iraq. There is cooperation in training and experience transfer to Iraqi bankers," Adnan Youssif told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI) on the sidelines of his participation in the annual UAB conference, which wrapped up meetings in the Egyptian capital Cairo on Monday.

"Some banks work in a limited activity in Iraq. Some Gulf banks started to have presence and investments there but security conditions still impinge on large investments in the Iraq," said Youssif.

He said Iraq's circumstances during the past three years negatively affected the Iraqi bankers' participation in training courses abroad and the follow-up on activities on the international market.

"The private sector is now active in Iraq, namely the Kurdistan region," he said, noting "it is high time Arab banks should pump liquidity on the markets, particularly in the Gulf markets, into those available for investment."

The two-day annual banking conference, organized by the UAB, had wound up on Monday in Conrad Hotel, downtown Cairo, under the motto "the role of banks in financing Arab investments" with participation of Arab and Iraqi experts to discuss means of cooperation among Arab banks.

Set up in 1974, the Beirut-based UAB, one of the Arab League organizations, is a banking institution focusing on beefing up financial cooperation.

Aswat Aliraq

Demand for dollar down at daily auction

Demand for the dollar was down in the Iraqi Central Bank's auction on Tuesday, registering at $149.035 million compared to $174.520 million on Monday.

"The demand hit $27.455 million in cash and $121.580 million in money transfers outside the country, all covered by the bank at a rate of 1,204 Iraqi dinars per dollar, stable for the second session in a row," according to the central bank's daily bulletin and received by Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq - (VOI).

The 17 banks that participated in the auction offered to sell one million dollars, which the bank bought all at a rate of 1,202 dinars per dollar.

Speaking to VOI, Ali al-Yasseri, a trader, said that though the bids in today’s session was lower than yesterday’s, it relatively was high compared with the average demand of a session in mid of the week.
On Monday, demand for the dollar was so far the highest in 2008 registering at $174.520 million.

The Iraqi Central Bank runs a daily auction from Sunday to Thursday.

Aswat Aliraq

Lawmaker accuses govt. of "administrative liquidation" of Sadrists

A Basra legislator from the Sadrist bloc, or Iraqis loyal to Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, accused the Iraqi government on Tuesday of banishing the Sadrists from important posts in Basra and other provinces.

"There is political liquidation of the Sadrists, particularly those who occupy important administrative positions," Aqeel Abdul-Hussein told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI).

"A number of officials who belong to the Sadrist bloc were sacked from their posts like the assistant manager of the Basra ports, the advisor for the transport minister and the director of the southern zone electricity department," said Abdul-Hussein.

"We believe that the prime minister and his government are responsible for this course of action applied in a number of Iraqi provinces, including Karbala and Diwaniya," he said, adding "the prime minister is applying the occupation (forces') agenda".

A couple of weeks ago armed clashes broke out in Baghdad and other southern provinces between government forces and groups of Shiite cleric Sadr's Mahdi Army militias hours after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced the commencement of Operation Saulat al-Forsan (Knights' Assault), which he said aimed at eliminating armed groups in the oil-rich port city of Basra, 590 km south of Baghdad.

The clashes ended when Sadr ordered his followers off the streets in Basra and other Iraqi provinces.


Aswat Aliraq

Security authorities urge citizens to observe peace during regime fall march

The Baghdad security operations command urged citizens taking part in a march on the former regime fall anniversary to observe peace, a command spokesman said on Tuesday.

"Security forces will be present in the areas where the march would be staged to protect them against any criminal act," Qassem Atta said during a press conference he held in Baghdad.

Atta, however, did not announce a curfew.

A spokesman for Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr had renewed on Monday calls to all Iraqis to participate in a peaceful march on the anniversary marking the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

"We call on all Iraqis to participate in the demonstration to be staged in Baghdad on Wednesday. We also ask the Iraqi government to provide security and service for the demonstrators," Salah al-Ubaidy said in a press conference in Baghdad.

Aswat Aliraq



Sadrists' million demonstration cancelled – spokesman

A "million" demonstration planned to be staged in Baghdad on Wednesday was cancelled upon orders from Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr without revealing any reasons for the decision, an official spokesman for Sadr said on Tuesday.

"Sayyed Muqtada al-Sadr will later on Tuesday issue a statement in which he would explain why he cancelled the demonstration," Salah al-Ubaidy told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI).

Sadr had renewed calls to all Iraqis to participate in a peaceful march on the anniversary marking the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Ubaidy, in a press conference in Baghdad on Monday said, "We call on all Iraqis to participate in the demonstration to be staged in Baghdad on Wednesday. We also ask the Iraqi government to provide security and service for the demonstrators."

Aswat Aliraq

Oil price reaches $107

Oil prices increased and exceeded $107 per barrel in an ongoing increase since last week and that after OPEC Secretary General reiterated that the Organization deems that it is not necessary to pump more oil.

However, Oil price rose with that of dollar and since actions and securities rose, disregarding statements about weak US employment. To that, Central Bank efforts to embrace International credit crisis encouraged this process.

Oil price reaches $107 | Economics News | Alsumaria Iraqi Satellite TV Network

Trouble looms for Iraq's Kirkuk Oil Province

The question of who will control Iraq's disputed oil province of Kirkuk is looming large as a UN-brokered deadline for a vote on its future approaches amid continuing ethnic and political tensions.

It is five years since US-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein, who had tried to remake the area by driving out its Kurdish residents and bringing in Arabs, and the debate still rages as each side claims the territory belongs to them.

A referendum to decide the fate of the area was enshrined in the constitution adopted after the US-led forces seized control of Iraq. It was to have been held in December but was delayed for six months after rival groups were unable to agree a deal.

"In December, the question of Kirkuk was a ticking time bomb. The United Nations has stopped the clock," UN special envoy to Iraq Staffan de Mistura told AFP.

On paper, the factions are still at loggerheads and the issue threatens to explode into a new battlefield in the war-ravaged country, amid claims the United Nations has only postponed the problem.

"By rights, Kirkuk belongs to us," a foreign affairs official from the Kurdish autonomous regional government, Falah Mustafa Bakir, told AFP.

"If Kirkuk is important to others, it is because of the oil. But for the Kurds, it is first and foremost a question of justice," Bakir said. "Kirkuk is a symbol of the Kurdish oppression of the past."

The city is populated by an ever-growing number of Kurds, as well as by Arabs and Turkmen, many of whom arrived as part of Saddam's policy of forced Arabisation.

Since 2003, the Kurds have pumped huge investment into the city's political institutions and encouraged more ethnic Kurds to move to the region in an attempt to redress the demographic balance.

"It is not going to take three months to resolve this crisis, but years," said Ahmed Amid al-Obeidi, leader of an Arab group, the Kirkuk Iraqi Front.

"There is no solution in the framework of Article 140 (the clause of the constitution which set a December 2007 deadline for a referendum on the city's future). This is no longer valid."

Obeidi added that Arabs would never abandon Kirkuk or allow it to be handed over to autonomous Kurdish rule.

Turkmen community official Kanan Shakir Uzeyragal said that "in any case, none of the preconditions necessary for the establishment for the organisation of this consultation have been completed, nor the judgements over disputed land, or the census.

"Of the 40,000 contested cases of (land) ownership, only 10 percent have been resolved. And as for the census, it has not even been started."

Inclusion of Kirkuk in the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq has been one of the most longstanding demands of Kurdish parties across the political spectrum.

But Hassan Turan, a Turkmen member of the Kirkuk provincial council, said: "In truth, the referendum is a dream. Nobody apart from the Kurds support this referendum, so why are they being so stubborn?

"The only solution is a political agreement involving a fair division of power between the communities at the heart of the local institutions," he said.

After ignoring the problem for some time, the Americans "seem to have now got the measure of the problem," a local analyst, who did not want to be named for security reasons, told AFP.

US Vice President Dick Cheney's recent visit to the seat of the Kurdish regional government in Arbil suggests it is likely the United States is "increasing pressure for a political agreement on the referendum," he added.

Turkish pressure on northern Iraq has also increased, with Turkish troops again crossing the border at the end of February to attack Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels.

In a sign of a shift in the Kurdish position, Bakir said recently that Kurds were ready to accept "a fair political solution" other than a referendum.
"A political agreement is possible, but we must get rid of this countdown to a referendum," Turan said.

In a bid to find a solution to the conflict, the United Nations has spoken to the various factions and promised a set of "new propositions."

"They have listened to us. Now everyone is waiting for their ideas," Obeidi said.

"Kirkuk is like a piece of meat from an old cow," he added. "It needs a long time to cook, and the UN have not even lit the fire under the stove."

Trouble looms for Iraq's Kirkuk oil province - Yahoo!Xtra News

Report: Indefinite US Role in Iraq

Under a draft agreement between the United States and Iraq there would be no timetable for the U.S. to leave the Middle Eastern country, and American troops would be authorized to “conduct military operations [there] and to detain individuals when necessary for imperative reasons of security,” the British newspaper The Guardian is reporting.

But at the same time the agreement, which the paper says is marked “secret” and “sensitive,” is also described as temporary and states that the U.S. “does not desire permanent bases or a permanent military presence in Iraq.”

The Guardian said the draft agreement, dated March 7, is intended to succeed the current United Nation’s mandate under which the U.S. is currently in Iraq and which expires at the end of the year.But the agreement is headed for conflict in Iraq and the United States, according to the paper, at least in part because it contains no limits on numbers of American forces, the weapons they may deploy, their legal status or what powers they would have over Iraqi citizens. These go beyond the long-term security agreements the U.S. has with other countries, critics say.

The Guardian reports that both Shiite and Sunni members of the Iraqi parliament are expected to oppose the currently still-secret agreement. The U.S. wants it finalized by the end of July, according to the paper.

"The feeling in Baghdad is that this agreement is going to be rejected in its current form, particularly after the events of the last couple of weeks,” the paper quoted one “well-placed” Iraqi Sunni political source as saying, referring to the recent clashes between Iraqi government forces and the Shiite militias. “The government is more or less happy with it as it is, but parliament is a different matter."

There is also expected to be opposition in the U.S., where Democrats are determined that President Bush not tie the hands of his successor by locking the country’s armed forces into an arrangement with the Iraqi government.

PUKmedia :: English - Report: Indefinite US Role in Iraq

This is a long article. I am just posting part of it because it gives and indication of Iraq's financials reserves

Congress To Hear Of Gains In Iraq
Petraeus, Crocker To Face Impatient Lawmakers

In a reprise of their testimony last September, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker plan to tell Congress today and tomorrow that security has improved in Iraq and that the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has taken steps toward political reconciliation and economic stability.

But unlike in September, when that news was fresh and the administration said a corner had been turned, even some of the war's strongest supporters in Congress have grown impatient and frustrated. Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, and Crocker will face many lawmakers who had expected more by now and who are wondering whether any real change will occur before the clock runs out on the Bush administration.

"I think all of us realize we're disappointed at where we are," Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said at a hearing last week. Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) asked, "How do we get out of this mess?" While the cost in U.S. lives and money increases, said another senior GOP senator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity: "We cannot . . . just say we're coasting through and waiting for the next president."

Among the questions these and other lawmakers said they plan to ask Petraeus and Crocker is why the United States is still paying for Iraqi domestic needs ranging from military training to garbage pickup when the Maliki government has $30 billion in reserves -- held in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland -- as well as $10 billion in a development fund, significant budgetary surpluses from previous years and a projected 7 percent economic growth rate for 2008.

Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Sen. John W. Warner (Va.), the panel's ranking Republican, who projected that Iraqi oil income would reach $56.4 billion this year, asked the Government Accountability Office last month to investigate how much money the Iraqi government has.

"I think it's a very significant issue that has not had sufficient exposure," Levin said in an interview. "They're perfectly content to watch us spend our money while they build up these huge cash reserves from oil windfalls. It's a real stick in our eye, as far as I'm concerned."

Charles P. Ries, Crocker's deputy for economic policy in Baghdad, said in an e-mail that both the Iraqi constitution and Iraq's arrangement with the International Monetary Fund prohibit spending the nation's reserves. The amount in Iraq's accounts, he said, is not "abnormally high to back up the dinar, given the size of the economy and their dependence on a single commodity for most of export revenues."

Although the United States has spent nearly all of the approximately $21 billion appropriated for Iraqi reconstruction since 2003, $500 million has been budgeted annually for the past three years for the Commander's Emergency Response Program, distributed by U.S. officers on the ground for local development efforts.

washingtonpost.com