I asked the question about what the difference is between the Shiiti groups--in regards to how the USA military knows who to trust and if any of the Shiiti political groups could be trusted?.
After reading several articles on Iraq's military readiness to handle a military crisis--- I am finding that military leaders do no find that Iraq has the infrastructure to handle a crisis internally or externally. One of the articles I read stated that it was believed that the USA military did the lack of equipment (like fighter jets for an Iraqi air force) and more advance weaponary arms for the Iraqi army to be an intentional decision on the part of our USA military. One reason given is the lack of trust on the part of our military in the Iraqi's different militias or political parties. The reasoning behind this is that our military believes that the Iraqi's could use advance weapons upon our military, if we supplied these weapons. However, the other side of this is... The Iraqi government's military is equiped the same as the militias that they are going up against. The Iraqi military may even be out gunned due to the weapons that Iran is supplying. This makes the war with disarming the militas not one that the Iraqi government can do and therefore, the USA has placed itself in the position that we must be the ones to remove the militias military--- if this has to be done.
The other part of this is that Sadr stands for wanting to institute an Islamic government--- instead of the parliament that the USA backs. However, Sadr's militias must survive militarily in order to bring this to past. Sadr, I believe is playing a waiting game. He knows that the USA must withdraw our combat teams for rest soon. I think April was suppose to be the troop routation.
What I am thinking is that the other Shiiti's supposely more educated and these other groups have businesses--- appear to be more accepting of a secular government than Sadr, despite all of there ties to Iran. Maybe they are thinking that the Iraqi government can be like some of the other governments like Europe's or Jordan, or Equpt.
Despite what the news said about the job of Maliki to take out all militas, Maliki was after the Mahdi militias. The Iraqi army took up positions in other neighborhoods that were run by other militias (but the army was unopposed) due to the militia's ties to the government officials (who are Shiiti's with other political militias parties).
Laura, you asked, "I am wanting to know what makes the other Shiiti political parties different from Sadr?".. and further stated that, "Reed made it plain that he believed the USA military was being set up in this fight between Shiiti parties."
Obviously, there are factions within the Shiite party which do not agree with one another on every issue. The trick appears to be figuring out which ones are acting in the best interests of the country. I agree with you that there appears to be a lot of groups under the government umbrella who call themselves Shiites. Sadr's military machine is not one of them. As for the ones "setting up" the US (or attempting to) that appears to be IRAN, because this is a proxy war. Note in the article they state that Iran is trying to get its hand into every place it can and have influence. If Iran had NO influence and stopped arming, training and helping the opposition, it would take no time for there to be a LOT more peace in Iraq.
Rob said that he would not be suprised if "both Al-Malaki and Al-Sadr coordinated the events in Basra to bolster the position of Al-Malaki." But because Maliki has been weakened by the events, if it was planned to bolster Maliki, it did not work. Indeed, Rob, you posted that some wish to assassinate Sadr.. not a good turn of events if this was orchestrated by Sadr along with Maliki. However, if it was IRAN (just fresh off a new "election" and now seeking to get working on the most pressing "business" they see in the region.. getting rid of the Americans and others and taking over or having a puppet government in Iraq), it makes perfect sense.
You see, Iran would sacrifice Maliki AND Sadr to have their aims accomplished whether either of them were sympathetic to Iranian goals and dreams or not. Early on in our board discussions, Carl said that he thought both of them were working closely with Iran and for their aims. I am not certain they are willing participants in this event on the behalf of Iran.. but they easily can be seen to have been manipulated into it for Iran's benefits by those who played on their desires for control. I believe it is called being "the cat's paw" in warfare. Iran has used these "cat's paws" (Maliki and Sadr) to do damage (inciting people to violence) and now the paws which did the harm (Sadr and Maliki) are also getting backlash.. whereas the Iranians come out smelling like a rose, and their aims are furthered. It is war strategy and works very fine.. historically as well as today. We also call it getting someone else to do the dirty work for you. In the strategy, only those who actually DID the dirty work (killing - like Sadr and Maliki's armies) appear to have done all the wrong.. and those who orchestrated it ("set it up" in Reed's words), don't even look complicit and can condemn everyone involved and look like the peacemakers.
By encouraging (and arming) discontent, Iran has caused this unrest, then sits back and plays the "peace maker" between the warring parties it has created. Would the insurgency within Sadr's group continue without arms and training from Iran.. and their encouragement? Very unlikely. It truly is a proxy war, and that is why the only way the peace was brought about was when the Iranians got into the action. So long as the "cat" is not happy, the claws continue to be out there causing wreckage in people's lives. When they negotiate with the "cat", then its "paw" is stopped from harming. The fact that the "cat" is seen as a peacemaker is an amazing feat of ingenuity.. a smart war strategy. What, by the way, got Sadr to pull back? His army sounds fit to be tied with anger over it, fuming they will kill Sadr for stopping their uprising. So whose persuasion is Sadr under? They obviously think it is the work of an enemy of Iraq.. certainly Iran fits that bill, if the wars of the past are anything to judge by (remember the Iran/Iraq war?).
Going into this, the Iranians were counting on the US to back down due to political pressure from back home. THAT is why they made their move now. Remember, Iran is playing for long-term goals and manipulating things on their timetable, using the US elections to try and get military advantage. Their stated goals are things like - the world dominated by their religious sect, the subjugation of the human race to their radical Islamic ideal, the destruction of the US and Israel.. among others. These goals take longer term planning than the few months time.. they are playing this game for keeps and with concentrated intent. Those who think this comes out of left field and is spur of the moment are missing something. They used Maliki's position to make him promise to get the Sadrists, then played on the US reluctance to engage in full warfare in order to motivate Maliki's weaker forces to back down.
Look at it this way.. Did Iran know how strong Sadrists were? Well, they were arming them.. of course they knew! Have you seen any footage of how well armed these people are? Whose arms.. whose training? (Think about it.) Did they know that Maliki could be moved to see it as a rebellion against his authority? They knew their man and his vulnerabilities, what areas they could play on, so, yes they knew. Did they know that the US would be reluctant to back them up with fullscale warfare as they are fighting a political campaign back home? You bet they knew it. So they chose the time and place and they knew all the strengths and weaknesses of the players, then they just moved them into play and stood back. Then they moved in and brokered for themselves concessions which go their way and toward their goals for Iraq.. sweet. I can see how it is that they were the ones who gave the world chess. They appear to have mastered some of its arts in warfare - to Maliki's embarrassment and Sadr's chagrin.
I was searching the net..
and found on CNN that what they said fits with a lot of what I was saying here before...
===
Observers interpret Iraq cease-fire, Iran's role
March 31, 2008
(CNN) -- The violence subsided only after Shiite lawmakers traveled to Iran Friday to negotiate with Iranian officials and with al-Sadr, who later called on his followers to end violent battles in the country and to cooperate with the Iraqi security forces.
"This is all about power," one of the senior U.S. military officials said.
Mahmoud Othman, an Iraqi parliament member and a Kurd, said what happened "is another victory for Iran," which he says has "the upper hand" in Iraq.
Speaking from London, England, Othman said Iran has created problems by fostering close relations with Shiite groups, including the Mehdi Army and the government. When Iran realized the situation was getting out of hand -- threatening a wider war and America's participation in it -- it got involved in the recent talks to stop the violence.
"They make problems," Othman said. "Then they end it the way they like."
Ali al-Dabbagh, an Iraqi government spokesman, Monday complimented the lawmakers for their efforts to end the violence, but he said the government itself wasn't involved in the effort. But Othman said the government was clearly involved, with al-Maliki sending a delegation to Qom in Iran.
For months, Mehdi Army militia fighters have been battling security forces largely controlled by the Badr Organization, considered an ally of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. In Basra, these two groups have been jockeying for power with a third movement, the Fadhila party. Al-Maliki's Dawa party and ISCI are allies.
George Joulwan, a retired U.S. Army general and former NATO supreme allied commander for Europe, said British troops that were in control in Basra have reduced their troop levels in the country and have receded to the outskirts of the city at Basra's airport.
"So this is a wide open area for factions to try to gain dominance," Joulwan said. "Maliki is one Shiite faction trying to get al-Sadr, which is another, and both trying to get influence in this region. And Iran, by the way, is supporting both factions."
Mirembe Nantongo, a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman, said the United States is "not aware of what involvement Iran may or may not have had in brokering the cease-fire."
"So far Iran has played a negative and unhelpful role in Iraq by financing and training extremist groups and we need to see a change in that behavior," she said.
Christopher Pang, head of the Middle East and North Africa program at the British-based Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies in London, said al-Sadr and al-Maliki have credibility problems that explain their stances and both are positioning themselves ahead of the provincial elections scheduled for later this year.
Al-Maliki, he said, hasn't been successful in his political reconciliation efforts, but this military "debut" can showcase a capable military force that he can deliver independently.
Al-Sadr, whose father was a famous ayatollah, has been trying to boost his credibility by undergoing more religious training. It is not in his movement's interest to allow the violence to fracture his movement and unravel the progress he has made since August, when he temporarily suspended the Mehdi Army's operations, Pang said.
But the Shiite power struggles continue, he said, among different security forces and in different locales, and Iran has spread its influence around to all factions, even though it is more inclined to support radicals.
Abdul Jabbar Ahmad -- an assistant political science professor at Baghdad University -- said the latest cease-fire agreement is hardly the last word in the intra-Shiite conflict, and he said the United States must be creative and realistic in its dealings with Iran if it wants to foster its own influence.
It should not reject everything about Iranian influence, he said -- it should accept what's reasonable and reject what it thinks is bad. He believes Iranian influence, which he says is basically religious, can be countered if patient efforts are taken to build a secular society.
When it says that both Sadr and Maliki are positioning themselves ahead of the elections.. that would have been a motivation the Iranians would have realized they both had.. and a way to manipulate the situation by playing on them, too.
Do FedEx on your own risk, I have never sent them FedEx, and I don't like it, wire the money, and you're safe.
RobN, Go to your bank, or to any financial insitution that are able to wire your money, and do that only. do the whole thing in one shot, and it will be cheapest for you. Send the stuff with FedEx, and I would send a little at a time to make sure you have a good spread on the risk. That will in itself financially motivate to send the money once with wire.
Wire = Safe. Do it all once.
FedEx = Risk, spread it, and it may be costly by that fact.
Sara,
Cults, well some may be less liked, and in many instances cults that were true cults or sects was surviving because they eventually was reacing out to the society, and became part of it.
If early Christianity was a sect or cult in the beginning, well it is called so by many, but in reality not really, it has always been a missionary activity, and the underground activity that took place in it's early stages was not of the groups choosing, but of outside pressure.
The Jones Sect , that did all a suicide, was a cult or sect. The inner middling of the group was hardcore, but as in a motorcycle gang, there are for each member that wears the color, a bunch of others that are riding with them, that are not, but are aspiring to become a member of the gang.
The Jones sect could perhaps have developed into a good organization, and as you say, they did a lot of good work, but then they did the act that made them per definition being a sect, they withdrew from society, and went to central America, any and all aspiration to continue to do good work was then by all practical means gone.
Up to that point they could hardly be a cult or sect, but after that point the withdrawal was the benchmark.
The Japanese cult or sect that gassed the Tokyo subway system, was a withdrawn group, same with the guys that all made suicide when a comet passed overhead. As the Jones group after they had moved out from the perople they belonged to, and separated themselves.
There are groups that are detestable, run by idiots, bigots, and morons, you mentioned a group that didn't like Hillary, and Obama had some activity with that Church.
A KKK meeting may be cultish, in that they only alwe whites in their ranks, as well as this Church that alowes only black in their Church. But that is another thing.
The whole US was a country of segregation up until late 50's early 60's, and the institutions, and the whole state apparatus was a white mans world. That didnt make the US a cult, or sect, but only ads to the fact that if you let smart people run a Nazi regime, you get very intelligent Nazism, if you let chimpansees run a Communist country, you will get chimpansee communism, and if you let racists run a Church, you will get a racist Church.
You can swap around the participants in any form, let chimpansee s run the Church, smart people run the Communist country, and racist run the the Nazi country, and you will get just that. Chimpansee Church, smart Communistic country, and a racist Nazi country.
That doesnt make Nazism, Communism or the Chruch a cult or a sect.
You can make anything you like of what you have.
National Socialist Workers party, is basically a workers party, that favours the nation they are with, and are socialistic in it's nature. Put a racist Hitler there and you get something that is completely different.
This church that only will admit black in it's membership rooster, is along the line of putting a Hitler running a workers party.
Every damn country has a workers party, and that doesn't make a workers party a sect or a cult.
Lot of illwilling people are using religion, as their platform, and that is what it is, idiots on a soap box.
I understand the reasoning about what you are saying on the Shiiti factions; however, what I am thinking about is an article I read about Sadr's reluctance to engage the USA military due to what happened in Falluja. It would appear that Sadr lost a lot of his Mahdi fighters in this direct confrontation with the USA military.
It would seem more prudent to wait out the military withdraw of combat troops in April - June than to have a direct confrontation with the USA. At least, this is what I would be thinking dispite the USA elections. After the troop withdrawal, then it would be an ideal time to start a military situation to affect USA elections.
For Iran, what did they gain in this temporary engagement of militia and government troops?. If I were them, fighting is what you would want before the USA election.
However, I am having a time believing that Sadr and Maliki co-planned this military engagement. Why would Sadr want to have his militia attacked by the government, knowing that the militia would have bodies to show for this engagement?.
Sadr would certainly know that the USA military would back Maliki. I think the USA military would have leveled Basra to get control of this port from Sadr. Now, the government is faced with disarming the Madhi milita and without disarming this militia, Sadr threat lifting the cease fire is nothing but political black mail.
Long-term investors are keen to pick up Iraqi debt, looking beyond the day-to-day violence to a perhaps more promising future for the oil-rich country a decade from now.
(www.noozz.com)
Sadrists-Government agreement apt to collapse, says MP 01/04/2008 14:56:00
Baghdad (NINA)- The Sadrist MP Naseer al-Esawi has stated that the arrangements made between the government and the Sadrist Trend over the recent incidents in several province, "is liable to collapse." In a statement to the National Iraqi News Agency.
(www.ninanews.com)
Sadrists-Government agreement apt to collapse, says MP 01/04/2008 14:56:00
Baghdad (NINA)- The Sadrist MP Naseer al-Esawi has stated that the arrangements made between the government and the Sadrist Trend over the recent incidents in several province, "is liable to collapse." In a statement to the National Iraqi News Age
(www.ninanews.com)
Give honor to whom honor is due:
____________________________________________________________
SEAL to Get Medal of Honor
April 01, 2008
Associated Press
SAN DIEGO - A Navy SEAL who threw himself on top of a grenade in Iraq to save his comrades in 2006 will be posthumously awarded the nation's highest military tribute, a White House spokeswoman announced March 31.
The Medal of Honor will be awarded to Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael A. Monsoor. His family will receive the medal during a White House ceremony April 8.
Monsoor is the fourth person to receive the medal since the beginning of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
"Petty Officer Monsoor distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism on Sept. 29, 2006," press secretary Dana Perino told reporters during a briefing aboard Air Force One as President Bush headed to Europe for a NATO summit.
Monsoor was part of a sniper security team in Ramadi with three other SEALs and eight Iraqi soldiers, according to a Navy account. An insurgent fighter threw the grenade, which struck Monsoor in the chest before falling in front of him.
Monsoor then threw himself on the grenade, according to a SEAL who spoke to The Associated Press in 2006 on condition of anonymity because his work requires his identity to remain secret.
"He never took his eye off the grenade, his only movement was down toward it," said a 28-year-old lieutenant, who suffered shrapnel wounds to both legs that day. "He undoubtedly saved mine and the other SEALs' lives, and we owe him."
Two SEALs next to Monsoor were injured; another who was 10 feet to 15 feet from the blast was unhurt. Monsoor, from Garden Grove, Calif., was 25 at the time.
Monsoor, a platoon machine gunner, had received the Silver Star, the third-highest award for combat valor, for his actions pulling a wounded SEAL to safety during a May 9, 2006, firefight in Ramadi.
He was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star for his sacrfice in Ramadi.
Sixteen SEALs have been killed in Afghanistan. Eleven of them died in June 2005 when a helicopter was shot down near the Pakistan border while ferrying reinforcements for troops pursuing al-Qaida militants.
There are about 2,300 of the elite fighters, based in Coronado and Little Creek, Va.
The Navy is trying to boost the number by 500 - a challenge considering more than 75 percent of candidates drop out of training, notorious for "Hell Week," five days of continual drills by the ocean broken by only four hours sleep total.
Monsoor made it through training on his second attempt.
(www.military.com)
COPENHAGEN, 01 April 2008 (Middle East Online)
Print article Send to friend
Source: Middle East Online
Gates on Iraqi forces: 'they seem to have done a pretty good job'
Iraqi forces appear to have done "a pretty good job" in an offensive to regain control of Basra from Shiite militias, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Monday.
"We're obviously hopeful that he will achieve most of his objectives, and see calm return as well," Gates told reporters enroute here from Brussels, referring to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
His comments came as Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called off his fighters, signalling an end to six days of clashes in Basra, Baghdad and other cities that left 461 people dead.
"I think we've all known at some point that the situation in Basra was going to have to be dealt with. It is the economic lifeline of the country. To have it under control of gangs and militias over the long term is not acceptable," Gates said.
"So I think all of us in the government were pleased to see Prime Minister Maliki take this on, take the initiative and go down there himself with Iraqi forces and try to resolve the issue."
Asked how the Iraqi army performed, he said first hand information was limited because the Iraqis were directing the campaign.
But based on that, he said, "they seem to have done a pretty good job."
US plans to reduce the size of its 156,000-member force in Iraq in the coming months hinges on the performance of the Iraqi army and whether it is capable of filling the void left by departing US troops.
Gates said he had seen nothing to indicate that the violence in the south would prompt changes in Washington's plans to drawdown US "surge" forces from Iraq by July.
So far, two of five combat brigades sent to Iraq last year to put a lid on spiralling sectarian violence have gone home. But some 156,000 US troops remain in Iraq.
Rockets fell on the Green Zone and random machine gun fire rang out Monday in the southern city of Basra as Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr sought to rein in his militia after a week of battles that claimed about 400 lives.
The peace deal between al-Sadr and Iraqi government forces — said to have been brokered in Iran — calmed the violence but left the cleric's Mahdi Army intact and Iraq's US-backed prime minister politically battered and humbled within his own Shiite power base.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had promised to crush the militias that have effectively ruled Basra for nearly three years. The US military launched air strikes in the city to back the Iraqi effort.
But the ferocious response by the Mahdi Army, including rocket fire on the US-controlled Green Zone and attacks throughout the Shiite south, caught the government by surprise and sent officials scrambling for a way out of the crisis.
The confrontation enabled al-Sadr to show that he remains a powerful force capable of challenging the Iraqi government, the Americans and mainstream Shiite parties that have sought for years to marginalize him. And the outcome cast doubt on President Bush's assessment that the Basra battle was "a defining moment" in the history "of a free Iraq."
With gunmen again off the streets, a round-the-clock curfew imposed in Baghdad last week was lifted at 6 a.m. Monday, except in Sadr City and two other Shiite neighborhoods. Streets of the capital buzzed with traffic and commerce.
Several rockets or mortars slammed Monday into the Green Zone, the nerve center of the American mission in Iraq. But the US Embassy said there no reports of serious injuries. At least two Americans working for the US government were killed in Green Zone attacks last week.
An American soldier was killed Monday by a roadside bomb in northeastern Baghdad, the US military said without specifying whether the attack occurred in a Shiite or Sunni area. The military also said a US soldier wounded south of Baghdad on March 23 died Sunday in Germany.
In ordering his militia to stop fighting, al-Sadr also demanded concessions from the Iraqi government, including an end to the "illegal raids and arrests" of his followers and the release of all detainees who have not been convicted of any offenses.
Sadrists in Basra complained police were still conducting raids in the area Monday night and that their followers might start carrying weapons again for self-defense.
Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh welcomed al-Sadr's decision but told reporters Monday that no political group was above the law. Al-Sadr's supporters believed the security crackdown in Basra was aimed at weakening their movement before provincial elections this fall.
US and Iraqi officials insisted the operation was directed at criminals and rogue militiamen — some allegedly linked to Iran — but not against the Sadrist movement, which controls 30 of the 275 seats in the national parliament.
But well-informed Iraqi political officials said the Iranians played a key role in hammering out the peace deal, boosting the Islamic Republic's influence among the majority Shiite community. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.
According to one Shiite official, the deal was struck after hours of negotiations in the Iranian holy city of Qom involving key figures in Iraq's major Shiite parties and representatives of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
Two of the Iraqis present — Ali Adeeb and Hadi al-Amri — presented documents and photos which they claimed proved that al-Sadr's militia was receiving Iranian weapons, the official said.
Shiite-dominated Iran is believed to supply weapons, money and training to most Iraqi Shiite factions — a charge the Iranians deny.
The Iraqi officials would not elaborate on Iran's role, and efforts to contact Iraqi representatives who took part in the Qom meetings were unsuccessful.
Iran has been eager to maintain unity among Iraq's factious Shiites, believing that is the best way to ensure a pro-Iranian government in Baghdad.
"By all reports, Iran's role is not good," said Michael O'Hanlon, foreign policy expert at the Brookings Institution. "They're arming all groups. ...They want influence with everyone."
A day after al-Sadr's call, Iraqi officials sought to present his decision as a victory for the government, despite the failure of US-backed Iraqi forces to dislodge Mahdi fighters from Basra strongholds.
Al-Dabbagh said security operations in Basra would continue until the city "reaches a secure and acceptable situation" where residents can live "without threats or terrorism from any side."
Nonetheless, the outcome of the Basra crisis dealt a blow to the credibility of al-Maliki, who flew to the city last week to oversee the crackdown personally.
On Saturday, al-Maliki had promised "a decisive and final battle" and gave assurances he would remain in Basra until the militias were crushed. A key adviser to al-Maliki, Sami al-Askari, said the prime minister was expected to return to Baghdad this week.
With tensions easing, Iraqi government television reported that a high-profile official was released Monday evening four days after he was seized by gunmen from his east Baghdad home.
Tahseen al-Shiekhly serves as the civilian spokesman for the Baghdad military command and regularly appears before reporters to tout improvements in security.
In Basra, residents said by telephone that the city, headquarters of Iraq's vital oil industry, was generally calm except for sporadic explosions and machine gun fire.
Some residents, however, estimated that only about a quarter of the shops and businesses opened Monday because any people were apprehensive that the truce would hold.
(www.iraqupdates.com)
01 April 2008 (Azzaman)
Print article Send to friend
Interior Minister Jawad Boulani has ordered the dismissal of thousands of police members and officers who allegedly refused orders to take part in the fight against the militiamen of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
The decision covers most of the police force in the predominantly Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad and also several cities in the southern Iraq including Basra where most of the recent fighting took place.
The government’s crackdown on Mahdi Army, the military arm of the Sadr movement in the country, which started a few days ago, came to a halt yesterday.
Several cities in southern Iraq among them Baghdad and Basra were placed under tight curfews as battles between the militiamen and government troops raged.
U.S. occupation troops backed the government in its bid to disarm the militias.
But the Mahdi Army has once again emerged intact as the ceasefire announced yesterday does not call for the militiamen to surrender their weapons.
Thousands of police officers were reported to have refused fighting the militiamen and at least two army regiments joined them with their weapons in Baghdad.
More troops were said to have sided with the militiamen in Basra.
The move to sack police and army personnel sympathizing with Sadr is a risky step as it might derail the already fragile ceasefire.
The exact numbers of those who are covered by the move are not known but analysts say they should involve thousands of police officers and troops.
The analysts say those sacked will have no choice but to join the ranks of Mahdi Army with their weapons, boosting the militia’s strength and standing.
The recent fighting is said to have claimed more than 240 lives in the country since fighting began on Tuesday.
(www.iraqupdates.com)
Iraq Media Sees Big Victory Over Al Sadr - Iran-Backed “Fake Peaceful Militias” Will Now Be Exposed
Baghdad, Apr 1, (VOI) – Observers believe that Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr’s recent instructions to his Mahdi Army militias to end all armed activities in Baghdad and southern Iraq provinces would disclose the “recalcitrant groups” within his bloc. Researcher Haydar Saeed said Sadr’s decision was very important for the government’s battle against Mahdi Army or the militias acting under this name.
“At least, the decision would draw a clear line between two groups: the one committed to the hierarchical loyalty to Muqtada al-Sadr and the other rebelling against this allegiance,” said Saeed.
Sadr had announced in a statement on Sunday that he would “disown anyone carrying arms and targeting government and service facilities or parties’ offices,” ordering his followers to end all armed activities in Basra and other provinces.
The capital Baghdad and other southern Iraqi cities, including Basra, the country’s second largest city and oil hub, were gripped by fierce clashes a week ago between government forces and cleric Sadr’s Mahdi Army militias, hours after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki declared Operation Saulat al-Forsan (Knights’ Assault), which he said aimed at eliminating armed groups in Basra, 590 km south of Baghdad.
“Lacking its raison d’être, affiliation to the theological establishment, the second group – the rebels – would be the target for the government’s military operation,” Saeed reckons.
Reidar Visser, an expert in southern Iraq affairs, said targeting the Sadrists exclusively apart from other militias raises several question marks, perhaps the first of which had to do with political motives.
“The vague second battle of Basra seems outwardly acceptable to some extent: a port city rich in oil was sliding into a Mafia-like status, which negatively affected citizens’ security as well as oil proceeds, and so the central government had to interfere to clean (of gunmen),” Visser explains.
He viewed the issue from a different angle, believing in a disparity between the description of Basra as a “city ruled by the militias (in the plural form), and the facts about the military operations that targeted a certain one specific militia: Sadr’s Mahdi Army.”
“The objective of the operations – making Basra a safer place – would have made perfect sense if it included other militias rivaling the Sadrists: The (Shiite leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim’s) Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) and the armed groups with links to the Shiite Fadhila (Virtue) Party, which has been in control over the oil protection guard force for a long time,” Visser said.
The Basra incidents, he added, do not have to do with preparations for local elections in October 2008 or with control over the process to build federal entities.
“If the local elections or the federacy question had been the motive, the target would have been the Fadhila, not the Sadrists. The Fadhila and some other secularist leaders in Basra want to realize one federal entity for the city, a counter-plan that comes in defiance of the SIIC’s dream of building a unified Shiite federacy,” said Visser.
Ibrahim al-Samaydaie, a political analyst, said he agrees with Saeed’s conclusion that Sadr’s statement would “help settle many outstanding issues between the Sadrists and the government.”
“The content of Sadr’s statement represents items for an agreement tabled by parties close to the Sadrist bloc on the following day of the crisis, but the government’s refusal caused further complications,” Samaydaie told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI).
The Iraqi government, he added, perhaps put on its thinking cap and was hesitant to accept the items of the agreement. “May be it (the government) relied on a U.S. intervention to settle the conflict after the Iraqi forces commence the operations, he said.
“The U.S. forces avoided direct involvement because they did not want to lose the freeze (on the Mahdi Army militias) declared by Muqtada al-Sadr, particularly during the critical period of local elections,” he added.
Besides, Samaydaie, noted the Americans realized through experience that the Iraqi political parties “clinch, in one way or another, a kind of understanding once a chance for settlement of pending issues via dialogue is in place, which actually happened during this latest crisis.
I needed to break the bolded comments down for you. The Arablish used in the original translation forced me to search out their meaning through another translator. The bolded comments in RED are the NEWER translation I located.
Auction Comments for 04-01-08 from our Friendly Economic Experts
A big increase in the volume of demand to buy the dollar ERA CBE
Baghdad - Iraq votes 01 / 04 / 2008 at 13:30:09
Demand rose significantly to buy the dollar in the central bank auction for the sale and purchase of the dollar in the second trading sessions this week on Tuesday, recording a total volume of demand was 159 million and 170 thousand dollars compared to 35 million and 190 thousand dollars at a meeting on Monday.
The special bulletin ERA Central Bank, received the Independent News Agency (Voices of Iraq) copy of which was distributed to the demand by 17 million and 170 thousand dollars in cash and 142 million dollars in the form of remittances outside the country fully covered bank exchange rate low of $ 1205 dinars compared to 1206 dinars to the dollar at the meeting With Monday did not make any of the 14 banks participating in the auction offers to sell the dollar to the bank.
He said Mr. Ali Yasiri, one dealing with the auction told (Voices of Iraq) Tuesday that the demand has increased significantly because of the improved security situation and enable a greater number of banks to participate in the meeting of the auction.
Yasiri, and added that customers were able to access to banks and banking companies approved by the Central Bank to install applications and remittances purchased view after several days of stoppage, which was born increasing demands on both the cash and purchase orders.
He noted that the demand Yasiri cash during this meeting isthe highest in two months, which reflects the amount of market need for liquidity because foreign security circumstance.
Elsewhere economic expert criticized Abbas Amita steady acceleration in the reduction of the exchange rate, warning of a crisis if the Alkhvz at this pace.
Another translation of the above comment:
On the other side the economic expert Abbas Aliwi criticized the acceleration Al Mdtrd (
He added Ahuja told () 2010 and this is what causes accelerate the reduction by the Bank in a week to two weeks compensation that forced the auction to stabilize the exchange rate during the crisis undergone by the market first months of the current year. "
Another translation of the above comment:
And Aliwi in a statement added to ( Iraq sounds ) that " the bank apparently has put a plan they include a time limit for the exchange rate's raising of the dinar so that he comes to a price equals One thousand dinars of the single dollar at the beginning of year 2010 and this what causes the hastiness of bank in the reduction as much as two sessions weekly for the compensation of weeks that was forced in them
The expert said the economic and industrial Sadiq Abdul Razzaq told (Voices of Iraq) that "the market situation deprive live in the large vegetables and fruits imported because of the urban areas, which continued for a long time." He added that traders dealt with the situation Altattiyc trying to fill the shortage of such materials in addition to a number of other food items and even goods needed by the market, especially given that the border with Iran had been closed due to military operations before the Noruz holidays, creating a growing need in the market for products and imported goods.
For his part, Uday Shabib said Rustam's Office banking activity returned to the bourse's main street fight witnessed high levels of circulation in addition to the Stock Exchange in Harthiya remained stalled because of Stock Exchange Kazimiya attended curfew.
Shabib said that the commercial rate for the dollar hit 1221 dinars to the dollar for sale compared with 1215 for the purchase stabilized the exchange rate of the offices of the banking transactions of small 1225 dinars sale and purchase of 1215.
Here is the Arabic for the original translation of the 2010 comment if someone wants to run it through another translator...
واضاف عليوي في تصريح لـ ( أصوات العراق) ان " البنك على ما يبدو قد وضع خطة تتضمن سقفا زمنيا لرفع سعر الصرف الدينار ليصل الى سعر صرف يساوي
الف دينار للدولار الواحد في بداية عام 2010 وهذا ما يسبب تعجل البنك في الخفض بواقع جلستين اسبوعيا لتعويض الاسابيع التي اضطر فيها المزاد لتثبيت سعر الصرف اثناء فترة الازمة التي مر بها السوق الاشهر الاولى من العام الحالي."
Sounds like in your last article that it is saying that the dollar is in larger demand due to its value going up due to Iraq's security issues and that of the global economy as another factor. The Iraqi dinar went down in value and therefore, the USA dollar bought more dinars on the exchange.
That's what I make of it. However, the dinar will be adjusted with the increased security is my guess.
Baghdad, 02 April 2008 (Gulf News)
Print article Send to friend
Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki on Tuesday claimed a week-old operation against Shiite militias in the southern city of Basra has been a "success," despite a ceasefire that stopped short of disarming the gunmen and left him politically battered.
The battle between the government and Moqtada Al Sadr's Mahdi Army gunmen has calmed down on the surface, but the resulting quiet has raised many questions among Iraqi political sources.
Most important among them is that is Al Maliki, the most powerful man in Iraq?
"Surely Al Maliki has lost the support of Al Sadr who has a significant following in Shiite cities," said Tahseen Al Tamimi, an Iraqi political researcher.
"I do not exaggerate if I say that the followers consider Al Maliki as their mortal enemy after the US occupation. In turn, Al Maliki won the trust of a large number of Shiite intellectuals and elites who complained repeatedly that the militants' behaviour did not respect laws or education," Al Tamimi told Gulf News.
Al Maliki stopped short of declaring an end to the offensive that began a week ago in Basra which sparked retaliatory clashes in Baghdad and other southern cities, and criticism that his government was unprepared for the fierce backlash.
Al Sadr, meanwhile, thanked his fighters for "defending your people, your land and your honour."
Sporadic fighting continued in Baghdad and Basra, but the cities otherwise were calm two days after the radical Shiite cleric called on his fighters to stand down in a bid to end the widening conflict.
(www.iraqupdates.com)
Obama, McCain Criticize Each Other on Iraq
Tuesday, 1 April 2008
Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama had pointed exchanges over the Iraq war, each U.S. senator questioning the other's credentials.
Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., Obama's rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, meanwhile criticized Obama's supporters for urging her to leave the race, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday.
McCain spoke out against Obama, saying the Illinois senator's position of withdrawing troops from Iraq soon showed a lack of understanding about U.S. troops stationed in countries after wars ended.
(It) displays a fundamental misunderstanding of history ... and what we need to do in the future to maintain our security in the face of the transcendent challenge of radical Islamic extremism, McCain said.
Campaigning in Allentown, Pa., Obama questioned both McCain's and Clinton's judgment in voting to authorize the war in Iraq.
John McCain and Hillary Clinton, they had a chance to make a good decision on the most important foreign-policy issue of a generation, and they got it wrong, Obama said.
Clinton, meanwhile, accused the Obama campaign of trying to pressure her to withdraw.
A lot of Senator Obama's supporters want to end this race because they don't want people to keep voting, Clinton said.
Oh.. a mistake.. they got it wrong?
What about that report they just released, of which it is said,
QUOTE:
The Pentagon report is important, least because it shows Iraq, far from being a distraction in the war on Islamist terrorists, was central to it. The captured Iraqi documents show that Hussein was a key supporter of jihadists precisely because he saw them as a tool against the United States.
More important, the report is less hindsight, however, than headlight. It illuminates the reality that al-Qaida isn't an isolated actor but is part of a whole - born into a constellation of jihadists cohesive enough in its hostility to the U.S. that Hussein saw fit to track it, train it and fund it. (end quote, url below)
If the US had been so foolish as to allow Saddam to continue to track, train and fund Jihadists, you would not see people in America today glibly going about their business without having experienced a new attack on US soil. The "pie-in-the-sky" castle building that Obama would have preferred would have left the terrorists alone - to arm, train and then go after the US. With the success of the WTC's destruction bringing Jihadism to prominence in the terrorist regions of the world, surely America is not so foolish as to believe they would have left it at that? Does America forget the words of Saddam given on that tape from ABC?
Quote:
In the "Nightline" version of the 1996 recording, Saddam predicts that Washington, D.C., would be hit by terrorists. But he adds that Iraq would have nothing to do with the attack. Tierney says, however, that what Saddam actually said was much more sinister. "He was discussing his intent to use chemical weapons against the United States and use proxies so it could not be traced back to Iraq," he told Hannity. In a passage not used by "Nightline," Tierney says Saddam declares: "Terrorism is coming. ... In the future there will be terrorism with weapons of mass destruction. What if we consider this technique, with smuggling?" [61]
This "Technique" would have been done by smugglers that Saddam equipped and trained and funded, as documented in this current report they just released. And remember as you read a bit more about this report (below), that this is a "technique" that Obama (who proudly did not connect these dots, and continues to refuse to do so) would have allowed to happen on US soil by NOT attempting to remove Saddam from his position of power and influence with the terrorists,
QUOTE:
Jihadists and their sugar daddy
Posted: March 22, 2008
Patrick McIlheran
The Iraq war finished its fifth year last week. Thanks to a Pentagon paper quietly released the week before, we are clearer about who the enemy is.
The paper detailed just how deep into terrorism Saddam Hussein was. The headline was made by an early leak that the report "found no 'smoking gun' " linking him to al-Qaida.
In the report, however, that line came right after one that said the Pentagon's Iraq Perspectives Project, which reviewed 600,000 captured documents, "uncovered strong evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism."
The paper also says, "Saddam supported groups that either associated directly with al-Qaida . . . or that generally shared al-Qaida's stated goals."
Smoking gun? More like smoking wallet. Hussein was sugar daddy to terrorists of any stripe.
For instance, Iraq trained men for suicide bombings and assassinations worldwide. One document lists weapons - missile launchers, plastic explosive, booby-trapped suitcases - stashed at Iraqi embassies for these grads to use. The regime recruited so heavily it had to set up a summer vacation training schedule.
Iraq also trained and supplied freelance groups. One 1993 memo briefs Hussein on his allies, chiefly Palestinian and Egyptian terror groups. It details who got money and help from Iraq and who did missions on Iraq's behalf, many against "American interests."
As of 1993, several memos show, Hussein decided to "form a group to start hunting Americans present on Arab soil, especially Somalia" - site of the humanitarian mission that went disastrously wrong. Now we know who taught the bad guys to shoot.
Among those on the Iraqi payroll was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the Afghani warlord who hosted Osama bin Laden's training camp during the 1990s. An Iraqi memo notes that Hekmatyar's outfit is an "extreme religious movement against the West," one that Iraq had "good relations" with since 1989. Exactly in the time that bin Laden was incubating al-Qaida, he was under the wing of this "extreme religious" client of Iraq.
Iraq also supported the Egyptian group led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, the fellow who matched up manpower and ideology with bin Laden's money and will. Iraqi agents met with Zawahiri's people in Sudan at just the time Zawahiri was merging his Islamic Jihad into al-Qaida. The Iraqis "agreed to renew our relations."
The report is careful to note that Hussein and bin Laden had different ends. But pursuing separate but parallel visions, the two men "often found a common enemy in the United States."
The Pentagon report is important, least because it shows Iraq, far from being a distraction in the war on Islamist terrorists, was central to it. The captured Iraqi documents show that Hussein was a key supporter of jihadists precisely because he saw them as a tool against the United States.
More important, the report is less hindsight, however, than headlight. It illuminates the reality that al-Qaida isn't an isolated actor but is part of a whole - born into a constellation of jihadists cohesive enough in its hostility to the U.S. that Hussein saw fit to track it, train it and fund it.
This contrasts to the view, current among those who think the Iraq war was a massive fraud, that al-Qaida alone was the problem. That presumes that nations handle sneak attacks the way police handle a bank robbery - by finding the suspects and bringing them to justice, with no delusions of rooting out the idea of robbery overall.
This view would lead us back to the whack-a-mole that we saw through the 1980s and 1990s - hijackings, kidnappings, bombs here, blown-up embassies there, all of them pursued and the next never deterred by criminal justice.
What the uncovered Iraqi documents make plain is exactly how these were connected. The incontrovertible fact is that they were, by a common hostility to the west. Hussein could see that, so the secular pan-Arabist funded people wanting to set up a caliphate.
This is useful to know. It illuminates our enemy. It is the jihad overall, not merely one practitioner, that threatens us. It is a war we are in, not a series of inexplicable and unlinked crimes.
So Obama would not have taken care of this Jihadist threat to America and ridicules those who did.
Is it coincidence, then, that Obama's church bulletin in July of LAST YEAR published THIS:
QUOTE:
Obama church published Hamas terror manifesto Compares charter calling for murder of Jews to Declaration of Independence
Posted: March 20, 2008
By Aaron Klein
JERUSALEM – Sen. Barack Obama's Chicago church reprinted a manifesto by Hamas that defended terrorism as legitimate resistance, refused to recognize the right of Israel to exist and compared the terror group's official charter – which calls for the murder of Jews – to America's Declaration of Independence.
The Hamas piece was published on the "Pastor's Page" of the Trinity United Church of Christ newsletter reserved for Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., whose anti-American, anti-Israel remarks landed Obama in hot water, prompting the presidential candidate to deliver a major race speech earlier this week.
Hamas, responsible for scores of shootings, suicide bombings and rocket launchings against civilian population centers, is listed as a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department.
The revelation follows a recent article quoting Israeli security officials who expressed "concern" about Robert Malley, an adviser to Obama who has advocated negotiations with Hamas and providing international assistance to the terrorist group.
In his July 22, 2007, church newsletter, Wright reprinted an article by Mousa Abu Marzook, identified in the publication as a "deputy of the political bureau of Hamas." A photo image of the piece was captured and posted today by the business blog BizzyBlog, which first brought attention to it. The Hamas article was first published by the Los Angeles Times, garnering the newspaper much criticism.
According to senior Israeli security officials, Marzook, who resides in Syria alongside Hamas chieftain Khaled Meshaal, is considered the "brains" behind Hamas, designing much of the terror group's policies and ideology. Israel possesses what it says is a large volume of specific evidence that Marzook has been directly involved in calling for or planning scores of Hamas terrorist offensives, including deadly suicide bombings. He was also accused of attempting to set up a Hamas network in the U.S.
Marzook's original piece was titled, "Hamas' stand" but was re-titled "A Fresh View of the Palestinian Struggle" by Obama's church newsletter. The newsletter also referred to Hamas as the "Islamic Resistance Movement," and added in its introduction that Marzook was addressing Hamas' goals for "all of Palestine."
In the manifesto, Marzook refers to Hamas' "resistance" – the group's perpetuation of anti-Israel terrorism targeting civilians – as "legal resistance," which, he argues, is "explicitly supported by the Fourth Geneva Convention."
The Convention, which refers to the rights of people living under occupation, does not support suicide bombings or rocket attacks against civilian population centers, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America noted.
Marzook refers to Hamas' official charter as "an essentially revolutionary document" and compares the violent creed to the Declaration of Independence, which, Marzook states, "simply did not countenance any such status for the 700,000 African slaves at that time."
Hamas' charter calls for the murder of Jews. Among its platforms is a statement that the "[resurrection] will not take place until the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims kill them, and the rock and the tree will say: 'Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, kill him!'"
In his piece, Marzook says Hamas only targets Israel and denies that Hamas' war is meant to be waged against the U.S., even though Hamas officials have threatened America, and Hamas' charter calls for Muslims to "pursue the cause of the Movement (Hamas), all over the globe."
Trinity Church did not respond to a phone message requesting comment.
Obama's campaign also did not reply to phone and e-mail requests today for comment.
Obama aide wants talks with terrorists
Malley, an Obama foreign policy adviser, has penned numerous opinion articles, many of them co-written with a former adviser to the late Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, petitioning for dialogue with Hamas and blasting Israel for policies he says harm the Palestinian cause.
He further petitioned Israel to hold talks with Hamas.
"An arrangement between Israel and Hamas could advance both sides' interests," Malley wrote.
In numerous other op-eds, Malley advocated a policy of engagement with Hamas.
Is it any wonder that a man who is joined to a terrorist sympathizing church and very obviously is personally a terrorist sympathizer decries the policies the US has pursued to protect its own Homeland?
When Obama smugly says of John McCain and Hillary Clinton that they had a chance to make a good decision on the most important foreign-policy issue of a generation, and "they got it wrong"... that smacks of arrogancy (he thinks he knows better, but the Homeland has had no second 911 attack which is what that policy move sought to accomplish) and it also shows a deep sympathy for the aims of the terrorists. Is that really what America wants on its own soil.. ??
If America were to elect this young man - give him a chance to show them what the world would have been like if the US had not pursued Saddam by pulling out and giving over Iraq to other enemies of America such as those Saddam equipped, supported and funded - will it make America safer?
Will any Jihadist enemies of the US - which the group to which Obama belongs to advocates in writing as being supportive of such terrorist aims - be allowed to support their aims within the country of America if the US were to elect Obama? It is unconscionable that the United States Republic would consider handing over the reigns of power to a terrorist sympathizer, unless America has a death wish, having turned from all wisdom.
Wisdom is personified as a person in the Bible (America is also depicted as a lady when we refer to America as "she") and wisdom says:
Pro 8:36 But he that sins against me (wisdom) wrongs his own soul: all they that hate me (wisdom) love death.
All those who hate wisdom love death. Surely the path Obama leads on is unwise to the point of embracing those who love death (suicide bombers). Will America turn from wisdom to her own death? Is she so foolish as to listen to terrorist sympathizers?
What if our ancestors had listened sympathetically to the Nazis and published pro-Nazi propaganda in their church bulletins? What if they had sought to put into the Whitehouse a man whose aims lined up with Hitler's viewpoints? Would America have been safer not to have engaged the Nazi threat?
History repeats itself.. but the pall of death hanging over that which permeates the dialog here in America is unparalleled in history. It isn't "fresh", "new" or a good "change of direction", nor any of those other adjectives the MSM so glibly drum up in their speaking.. it is death which is offered to the people of America, shrouded carefully in media and political spin.
Thank God there is a God over America who can guide her.. and will not leave her to the fate of her less discerning citizen's inclinations. In the song which says "God bless America, Land that I love" it is not lipservice given when it says, "guide her with the light from above".. it is a petition for wisdom, guidance and help. And America today stands in great peril and desperate need of that guidance... because she is entertaining the thought of a terrorist sympathizer for her highest office.... to the destruction of the foundation of her Republic.
Iraq makes its case for WTO membership
The Associated Press
Published: April 2, 2008
GENEVA: The Iraqi government made its case Wednesday for why Iraq should be put on the fast track for World Trade Organization membership, citing its plentiful oil resources and strategic position in the Middle East as great opportunities for the global expansion of commerce.
Iraq applied for membership in 2004, at which point it was given observer status in the body.
Al-Sudani said Iraq's membership would "represent a significant addition to the world community's effort toward the expansion of trade and investment."
CSPAN is on and the congress is discussing turning off funding to the war. The intended consequence is to force the military to withdraw from Iraq. This could be a real possibility. Just a heads up.
Iran inflation keeps pressure on Ahmadinejad
Mon Mar 24, 2008 9:45am EDT Email | Print | Share| Reprints | Single Page| Recommend (0) [-] Text [+]
1 of 1Full Size
Related News
Iran leader encourages MPs, government to cooperate
20 Mar 2008
powered by Sphere
Featured Broker sponsored link
By Alistair Lyon, Special Correspondent
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Ali Daryani is embarrassed at the inflationary pain he is passing on to his customers.
"Sometimes we have to change the price stickers three times a day because of inflation," the 42-year-old Tehran grocer said.
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad survived this month's parliamentary election without a big blow to his prestige, even if his core support base among a broad conservative camp shrank.
Now the president's opponents in the Islamic Republic, both from the reformist minority and the victorious conservatives, could force him to rein in populist spending policies seen as partly to blame for inflation hovering around 19 percent.
Since Ahmadinejad swept to power in 2005 promising to spread Iran's oil wealth to the people, soaring world oil prices have swelled national revenues, but economists say colossal subsidies and presidential handouts have predictably fuelled inflation.
Ahmadinejad is basking in support from Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for his tough nuclear stance, but his economic record may dent his chances of re-election next year.
Iranians are cushioned by a vast array of costly subsidies, but runaway prices still hit the pockets of ordinary consumers.
"The prices of rice, meat, fruit and everything else have gone up," complained Baqer Gabai, a 54-year-old retired teacher, in Tehran's Mohseni Square. "The price of chicken has doubled in six months, but my income has not changed a bit."
Former Central Bank Governor Seyed Mohammad Hossein Adeli, who now heads a think-tank, said Ahmadinejad was aware of the danger and was already reverting to some more orthodox policies.
"He has helped the poor in some way with micro-attention," he said of the president's habit of touring the provinces, receiving petitions and trying to address problems directly.
"But if you go and spend money and have a huge expansionary fiscal policy without limits, it pushes inflationary pressures."
CURBING MONEY SUPPLY
Adeli told Reuters the Central Bank was now pursuing "very contractionary policies" to correct this.
The previous Central Bank governor, Ebrahim Sheibani, quit last year over differences with Ahmadinejad over interest rate policy. The current governor, Tahmasb Mazaheri, has proposed bank loan repayment rates, or "profit-sharing" rates, based on inflation plus a fee -- a move analysts saw reversing a policy backed by Ahmadinejad that had sent rates below inflation.
Iran, the world's fourth-biggest crude producer, has raked in $70 billion in oil revenue in the past year, the government says. But much of the cash flows out in lavish subsidies on everything from fuel and transport to food and medicine.
"The system is buying loyalty to pursue its nuclear program," economist Saeed Laylaz said.
Many of the subsidies are not targeted, which often means the rich benefit more than the poor because they consume more. Adeli put the direct and indirect cost of fuel subsidies alone at $45 billion a year.
Lacking the refining capacity to meet domestic demand, Iran had been importing at least $5 billion worth of petrol a year, which was sold cheaply to the public, encouraging waste and smuggling.
To reduce the import bill, the government began rationing petrol last year. Last week, in an apparent bid to streamline the subsidy, rationing was temporarily relaxed to let drivers buy extra petrol for five times more than the subsidized price.
The new system could be extended, although the liberalized petrol price may also have a short-term inflationary effect.
COMPLEX TASK
"Taking away subsidies is no easy matter," said Mohammad Ali Farzin, an Iranian economist who heads a United Nations Development Program poverty reduction unit. "The scale of the problem is just so overwhelming that it will take time."
Ali Reza Cheloyan, a farmer in Ahmadinejad's home town of Aradan, east of Tehran, acknowledged his dependence on state assistance with fertilizer, tractors, petrol, gas oil and bread, as well as the price he gets for his wheat and cotton.
"Inflation has gone up but it's a global problem. We support the government," he said.
Reliance on subsidies is growing, argued the UNDP's Farzin. "Where you have chronic inflation, disproportionate rises in property prices relative to income, serious unemployment and underemployment, it's only natural that low-income households cannot keep up," he said. "So they rely on subsidies."
Iran has reduced absolute poverty over the years, but officials say 7 to 10 percent of the population of 70 million still live below the line set at a minimum daily intake of 2,100 calories.
However, Farzin said, wealth inequalities are widening.
"Iran's economy doesn't produce in such a way as to generate sufficient employment, distribute the income well and alleviate relative poverty," Farzin said. "This is the core problem."
Iran is grappling with economic challenges that are exacerbated by U.N. and unilateral U.S. sanctions that have raised the cost of doing business and deterred badly needed Western investment in its oil and gas industry.
But it would be rash to assume more economic pressure would force Iran's leaders to compromise in their row with the United States and its allies over the nuclear program, which the West suspects has a military purpose. Tehran denies this.
"They're in a crunch, but the reality is they have a very high tolerance for economic hardship," a Western diplomat said.
Adeli, an ex-ambassador who thinks Iran should interact more with the world for economic reasons, called sanctions futile.
"Historically they haven't been able to serve their purpose, especially when it comes to Iranians, with their pride, their resilience, their resistance towards foreigners," he said.
(www.reuters.com)
I read your article entitled "Give honor to whom honor is due". Monsoor got a Silver star for saving someone's life, but only a Bronze for losing his own? I'm assuming Silver is higher than Bronze. Seems like a bit of an insult considering he saved lives by willingly giving up his own.
AGAIN, Laura? They want to try AGAIN to overthrow what the Republicans are doing in Iraq? Pull the troops out so the Dems can be seen to be doing something.. anything, to win votes? It seems to me that the only thing the Democrat party can do is try to overturn what is already in place to win points.. but FOR WHAT? They have become a party of rebellion, of destruction and not construction. They have no vision for the future to make it better.. they have no platform of ideas or ideals to call people to. I am not alone in that opinion, as it says below, they lack a big idea, or an ‘argument’, for how to govern and Most importantly, what has truly undermined the Democrats is not their organisational shortcomings per se but rather their lack of ideas and sense of purpose.
QUOTE:
The hole at the heart of the Democratic Party
by Sean Collins Mar 2008
Billionaire funders demanding cabinet jobs, clueless bloggers advising party bigwigs… the hollowed-out, ill-disciplined Democratic Party looks set to be overrun by opportunistic gatecrashers.
The knock-down, drag-out primary contest for the Democratic presidential nomination between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton has exposed serious divisions within the party. And the longer it has continued, the worse it has got.
In recent weeks, it has become personal: the campaigning has descended into identity-baiting and petty name-calling. People associated with either candidate – from activists to voters – are now more likely to say they won’t vote for the other come November. Not long ago the party establishment appeared to be behind Clinton, but the Washington elite has steadily abandoned her, causing bitter internal rows (1). The battle may run on to the party convention in late August, where it could get even uglier.
The fact that the Democrats won’t walk it to the Whitehouse is itself quite amazing: six months ago, who would have given the Republicans – with President George W Bush’s opinion ratings in the tank, and no evident candidate able to unite the party – any decent shot of winning? This turn of events alone illustrates the Democrats’ ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
All the sound and fury is enough to make you wonder: what the hell is going on inside the Democratic Party? Thankfully we have some help: Matt Bai, a reporter for the New York Times Magazine, has written a useful behind-the-scenes guide to the changing players and dynamics within the party. His book, The Argument, focuses on the new forces that have emerged within the party in recent years – from hands-on billionaire donors to internet-based grassroots activists – and their battles with the party establishment. In the process, he reveals an organisation in deep discord, and thus he anticipates the current infighting. But the bigger problem facing the Democrats, according to Bai, is that they lack a big idea, or an ‘argument’, for how to govern.
If you think the primary shows the Democrats in a bad light, just read this book: it leads to the conclusion that, even if the Democrats were to manage to win, their troubles would be far from over.
The strongest parts of Bai’s book are the profiles of the key people in the newly influential groups, often referred to as ‘progressives’ (to indicate being more radical than typical party liberals). Bai begins his journey with the story of the ‘billionaires’ – financiers, hi-tech entrepreneurs and philanthropists. Forming a group called the Democracy Alliance, they were going to run the party like a business, producing a better ‘product’ for the ‘customers’.
Underlying this move to intervene directly into the operations (something the Republican donors did not do) was a deep elitism and disdain for the public. Bai tells how George Soros, the legendary investor, drew the conclusion from the 2004 result that it was ‘the American people, and not their figurehead, who were misguided’, being fed lies by TV and talk radio.
Many Wall Street and Hollywood celebrities had, bizarrely, come to see themselves as the oppressed: ‘They knew they were right about what was best for the country, and if the voters didn’t see that as clearly as they did, then it could only be explained by some nefarious conservative plot. They imagined themselves to be victimized and powerless, kept down, somehow, by the Man’, writes Bai. At a party, one billionaire announced, to great applause: ‘We are so tired of being disenfranchised!’
At the other end of the income spectrum from the billionaires are the internet-based grassroots activists, or ‘netroots’. Bai profiles MoveOn.org, one of the most influential groups to emerge. MoveOn was founded in 1998 by Wes Boyd, the rich inventor of the once-ubiquitous flying toasters screensaver. Boyd, a political novice at the time (this is a theme), set up a website with a petition for congress to ‘move on’ past the Clinton impeachment hearings, and thousands signed up, providing a valuable list. Later, in 2001, a recent graduate, Eli Pariser, also emailed out a petition following the 9/11 attacks, calling on world leaders to respond with restraint. He too received thousands of names, and Boyd convinced him to join forces.
From its almost accidental origins, MoveOn today boasts over three million members and an annual budget of more than $25 million, mainly based on small donations. Its appeal is not complicated; its website is mainly a call for funds, with little need to waste words on argumentation. Its main theme, as Bai notes, is that Republicans are ‘evil, arrogant and corrupt’ – that seems to be enough.
MoveOn organises house parties to bring together otherwise isolated people whose only connection is via the internet. Bai attended one in 2005, in a well-to-do neighbourhood in Virginia. The party’s host, an ad executive named Chuck Fazio, tells Bai that he decided to get involved to spite a neighbour he refers to as ‘that asshole’, an elderly right-wing ideologue named Brent Bozell – even though Fazio has never even spoken to him.
Fazio tells Bai he contemplated peeing in Bozell’s pool, but decided to host a MoveOn party instead. From Bai we learn that many of the internet-linked activists are not twentysomethings, but rather middle-aged people (the average age of a MoveOn member is 50), often from the largely Republican ‘red states’ of Middle America. We also learn that these netroots are often nutcases.
Despite its disparate and sometimes eccentric membership, MoveOn has, in a short time, effectively become part of the party establishment: Bai tells how Tom Matzzie, MoveOn’s Washington organiser, had become a constant presence in the back rooms: ‘Hardly a day went by now when [Democratic leader Harry] Reid’s Senate staff didn’t confer with Tom about strategy or message, understanding that MoveOn was the best way for them to get their message out and raise money among disaffected liberal voters.’
In a similar vein, Bai traces the rise of the blogger-activists. These first emerged into public recognition in 2004, as supporters of Howard Dean’s meteoric rise-and-fall attempt to obtain the Democratic presidential nomination. Many bloggers entered politics a few years before, say in 1998, during the impeachment hearings, or 2000, when Bush supposedly ‘stole’ the election from Al Gore. Bai writes that ‘one of the hallmarks of the netroots culture was a complete disconnect from history – meaning, basically anything that happened before 1998…. It wasn’t just that bloggers didn’t know much about the political world before impeachment; it was that they didn’t want to know, either.’ Their views are fairly simplistic: they generally believe, according to Bai, ‘that Bush was tilting towards dictatorship’ and that supporters of Clinton-style compromises are ‘Vichy Democrats’.
In particular, Bai spends time with Markos Moulitsas Zuniga (‘Kos’), founder of the most influential blog, the Daily Kos, and Jerome Armstrong, an adviser to politicians on internet strategy (also referred to as ‘Blogfather’). They both come across in Bai’s account as confused lightweights. Kos, who does not seem to have read many books, says he is anti-centrist, but then argues for winning at all costs, which involves finding electable candidates. Armstrong becomes an adviser for Mark Warner’s campaign for president, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Warner, as one-time governor of Virginia, was a centrist linked to the Democratic Leadership Council and a frequent collaborator with Republicans while in office.
The current presidential election campaign has shown the candidates and party apparatus kow-towing to the blogger-activists. All of the main candidates appeared last summer at the ‘Yearly Kos’ convention. Obama, in particular, seems to have garnered their support – even though his main message is bipartisanship, a blogger sin. MoveOn has also endorsed Obama. Hillary Clinton has had a much more rocky relationship, especially since many bloggers associate her and her husband with, in Kos’ words, ‘failed corporatist bullshit’. Hillary has tried at different times to extend peace offerings, but with little success.
How did the Democratic Party leadership allow all these renegade groups to wield influence, to the point of seeming to get pulled into chaotic battles for control? To answer that question, you would need to understand the leadership’s perspective. Unfortunately, Bai’s focus on the newer, outsider groups is at the expense of examining the party insiders in much detail. As a result, it is hard to feel confident that his account tells the whole story.
Nevertheless, it is possible to glean from Bai (and others) roughly what has happened. The Democratic Party has endured a long-term decline in active membership. In electoral terms, this decline arguably began in 1964 when civil rights legislation signed by President Lyndon B Johnson led to the exodus of Southern conservatives from the party’s coalition. The ‘Reagan revolution’ of the 1980s also led to years of Democratic defensiveness and retreat. This was not reversed by the ascendancy of Bill Clinton to the presidency in the 1990s, as his regime did not address the crumbling foundation of the party organisation. In fact, in a number of ways, Clinton accelerated the deactivation of what remained of the party’s base, including by the outsourcing of canvassing to professionals (2). From Bai we learn that there are many parts of the country, especially in the South and West, where there is no Democratic Party that one can join.
As the party has gradually hollowed out, the party hierarchy has lost coherence and control of the apparatus, and has difficulty responding to these latest challenges. As Bai describes, a true sign of a lack of firm hand at the top is evidenced by how Howard Dean, the bloggers’ hero, was able to become chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 2004, to the horror of the Beltway elite. Further, the demise of the traditional machine has led to a lack of discipline, as evidenced this year by Florida and Michigan’s decisions to buck the party’s rules and hold early primaries (it’s still not clear whether their delegates will be seated at the convention). And as the 2008 nomination campaign heads to a deadlocked convention, with the prospect of ‘super delegates’ deciding the outcome, many expect party elders to intervene in a ‘backroom’ deal. However, the problem is, as one observer put it, ‘You don’t have the obvious party elders these days.’ (3)
Most importantly, what has truly undermined the Democrats is not their organisational shortcomings per se but rather their lack of ideas and sense of purpose. And this is a theme that Bai consistently extends through his narrative. The Democratic party leaders of today, he writes, ‘had inherited from their parents and grandparents the vessel of a once dominant political party…and in a few short decades, they had managed to run it aground on the shoals of neglect.’ Rather than face up to today’s challenges, the party harks back to the good old days of the New Deal of the 1930s. Under Bill Clinton, the party claimed to address ‘modernisation’, but his pragmatic (critics would say opportunistic) approach of ‘triangulation’ meant that the Democrats never set out a distinct outlook that could survive beyond the end of his presidency.
One of the best points Bai makes is that all sides of Democratic Party politics are now focused on tactics at the expense of vision and ideas. The gate-crashers from outside – that is, the billionaires, the bloggers, Howard Dean – are obsessed with money and electability, but have no sense of transforming the politics by means of ideas. And in that very important regard, they are one with the party’s insiders, who do not look beyond the next contested seat.
Again, Bai anticipates the lack of political substance in this year’s primary contest. He ridicules Hillary’s ‘I’m in it to win’ slogan (‘as if getting to the White House was a noble goal in itself’), as well as Obama’s call for ‘hope’ (‘whatever that meant’). Both downplay ideas, referring voters to the fine print to be found on their websites. Moreover, the lack of a true political party, with intermediaries that establish ties between party members and candidates, has led to voters being unsure of the candidates, lending the race an unpredictable and unstable character.
In November 2006, the Democrats won back control of both houses of Congress. To many of the party’s leadership, this was a major sign that the country had turned in the Democrats’ direction. However, as Bai notes, this was more of a rejection of Bush than an expression of confidence in the Democrats. And not long after the Democrats took control, their do-little approach led to poor approval ratings. The turn against them seemed to vindicate Bai’s verdict following the 2006 congressional win: ‘What voters had not done was to endorse any Democratic argument – because, of course, there wasn’t one.’
The same will be true if the Democrats capture the White House in November 2008 – it wouldn't be an endorsement of their ideas, because they haven’t put forward any. The only argument they’re left with is that they are not the Republicans, which is not exactly one to get excited about.
That is all the Democrats and their trumpeters the MSM can do.. say that they aren't Republicans.. and they AREN'T for having the troops in Iraq.. but what they stand FOR is not clear. They are not endorsed by the public because of any argument they put forward.. the entire thing is a PROTEST VOTE. People voting against the way things are being run.. but not for any new way. People dislike war.. we ALL do.. and they want it to stop (we ALL do). So they vote against those waging this war, not for someone with any coherent plan WHICH WILL WORK to bring about peace.
It is as though people can see World War Two beginning to form under Hitler and they say, "We want peace." and so they are willing to appease and give power to anyone promising them that vision of peace regardless of the truth and reality of gathering war. Peace at any cost.. even chucking out of power those who have the only plan which makes any rational sense - one which must include a plan where we must fight. As for their knowing what is right for the world where he says quote, ‘They knew they were right about what was best for the country, and if the voters didn’t see that as clearly as they did, then it could only be explained by some nefarious conservative plot.
Exactly HOW could they know what is best for the country (or world) when they have no solid plan with definite ideas and values themselves? He says, if they were to win the election it wouldn't be an endorsement of their ideas, because they haven’t put forward any.
How true.. they have no solid, tangible, working values or ideas.. only big "concepts" like peace or "unity" or "hope".. how do you expect to create these ideals - by appeasing America's enemies? I find it interesting that Obama has said that Iran's president would be welcome at the Whitehouse under him..
QUOTE:
OBAMA FURTHERS ISLAM
By J. Grant Swank, Jr.
MichNews.com
Apr 1, 2008
Barack Obama advocates for Muslim killers in Guantanamo to have access to the US legal system. The Guantanamo lawyers are enthusiastically supporting Obama.
Obama raised funds for Middle East extremist Islamic organizations.
Obama has been given the nod by Daniel Ortega, communist, former chief of the Weather Underground cadre. Also, communist Tom Hayden, Jesse Jackson and Muslim racist and anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan are ardent endorsers of Obama per JTF.org.
Obama has told media that in his first months in the Oval Office, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be a guest at the White House. Why? Under the guise of improving ties with America. Bank on Obama working with this Iranian thug to slip Iran state-of-the-art US technology linked to Iranian nuclear advances.
Obama supports cousin Kenyan Muslim Raila Odinga, the latter having lost in the presidential elections there. This Muslim relative promised to set in place legalistic Islam with sharia nationwide. When Obama was campaigning in New Hampshire, he phoned support to Odinga in the latter’s bid for the presidency there.
Obama’s upbringing includes being mentored by a communist, attending a Muslim Basuki School in Indonesia. He was registered as a religious Muslim in school.
Obama now claims to be ‘Christian’, praying to Jesus daily. It is not the biblical Jesus or Obama would be convicted by the Holy Spirit to denounce abortion and sodomy, two of his chief endorsements. His Jesus is the Islam prophet Jesus, not the incarnate God of the Bible.
Obama was on the board of a non-profit organization that gave funds to a Muslim killer group, Arab American Action Network, the latter boasting on destroying Israel and opposing all US immigration laws.
Appeasement to America's sworn enemies? The Democrats present the world and the American taxpayer with a beautiful box wrapped with lovely shiny paper and a big bow on it.. it sure looks good on the outside. But when you open it, the box is empty, and there is no substance to the party, only decimation of all we have worked so hard to achieve and protect.
The Democrats will allow unfettered immigration, tax and spend strategies like universal "healthcare" where we all get to pay (emulating the Cubans on that one), pulling out of Iraq and allowing the slaughter of the Iraqi people, a continuing lack of discernment in ethical matters (like allowing human embryo research and cloning).. they stand for so much which will destroy all we have achieved. It is far easier to dismantle something.. to destroy, than to build up. A building takes planning and many people putting in time and materials to construct. A plane can destroy it in a few hours.. as we saw on 911. The Democrats are seeking to put such a "plane" into office to destroy very quickly all we have achieved. They have no vision for the future, they can only look to the past. All they say is.. we shouldn't have done that! They never say what they can do NOW to make the world better. They have no vision for the future, and are only seeking to dismantle all the hard won achievements of the past. So it is with this vote.. AGAIN. Can the Democrats not just leave it alone and let there be some stability to the planning and implementation of a work in Iraq which IS WORKING... instead of creating fires to be put out again and again, making us defend the hard fought gains achieved by the US and coalition military for the people of Iraq?
The Democrats have no vision, because they do not know the future. God knows. And when HE makes the people vote the way the country should go and it "disenfranchises" these elite people who distain the common people, they rail at it because they cannot see God's plan, nor do they have one of their own. They just covet the power for themselves.. at any cost. They don't want what is best for the country, and they have no plan or purpose other than to gain power to do whatever they want to do. God forbid they EVER be allowed to force the troops from Iraq. They are a force for subversion and not for the good. The people of America need to know and understand that this is the reality of the party they listen to who are touted daily in the media as demigods and knights in shining armor who will lead away from war and into "peace" and "hope" and "unity"..
Pro 29:18 Where there is no vision, the people perish.
Whenever such visionless people parroting empty ideals are heeded by a people, it leads to an inevitable decline and ends up where the people of America do not wish to go. When radical Islam takes over a country by force the country has peace.. there is a peace which is ahieveable for America.. one without the freedom we have fought hard to achieve and protect. Is THAT where Americans wish to go?
Former Saddam Officer, Now NYT Reporter, Apparently Involved in Over 300 Stories
By Tom Blumer
April 1, 2008
To refresh from what I posted on earlier this morning -- here's the admission from New York Times reporter Qais Mizher, in his report from Basra in yesterday's Times,
QUOTE:
"Early last week, when the assault started, I happened to be in Diwaniya, another southern city, as part of my work as a reporter and translator for The New York Times.
Calling on my experience as a captain in the Iraqi Army before the 2003 invasion and essentially a war correspondent since then, I headed to Basra to see if I could make my way into the city and see what was happening there."
(end quote)
Yesterday, Richard Miniter at Pajamas Media pointed out that Mizher's self-professed "experience" means that he "was an officer in Saddam’s army."
A search on Mizher's full name in quotes at the Times shows that it comes up in 313 stories, going all the way back to September 2004. Mizher's regular reportorial contributions appear to have begun in late August 2005. He has rarely, if ever, had his byline alone on a story; the one excerpted above is either the first instance, or a rare exception.
Points/questions:
- Someone with more time than I have ought to go through the reports to which Mizher has contributed to see how a former Saddam officer might have colored them.
- How many other former Saddam officers are in Old Media's employ over in Iraq?
- Those skeptical of the need for folks like Yon, Totten, Ardolino, Dollard, et al need to remind me again -- Why should Old Media's wire services and "newspapers of record" deserve the presumption of greater credibility than the milbloggers?
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
—Tom Blumer is a CPA based in Mason, Ohio and a contributing editor to NewsBusters
What are each of the Presidential candidates promising to do about this?
Do they articulate a clear agenda which will address this problem?
What if the Iranians one day suddenly announce they are nuclear armed?
How will each respond?
U.S. Diplomats Forecast Nuclear Arms Race in Middle East if Iran Gets the Bomb
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia most likely would develop nuclear weapons if Iran acquires them, according to a report to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
High-level American diplomats in Riyadh with excellent access to Saudi decision-makers said an Iranian nuclear weapon frightens the Saudis "to their core" and would compel the Saudis to seek nuclear weapons, the report said. The American diplomats were not identified.
Turkey also would come under pressure to follow suit if Iran builds nuclear weapons, said the report prepared by a committee staff member after interviewing hundreds of individuals in Washington and the Middle East last July through December.
While Turkey and Iran do not see themselves as adversaries, Turkey believes a power balance between them is the primary reason for a peaceful relationship, the report said.
A U.S. intelligence estimate late last year said Iran worked on nuclear weapons programs until 2003 before abandoning them. However, the intelligence analysts also reported Iran was continuing to enrich uranium, a key weapons component, and possessed the capacity to produce nuclear weapons if it decided to do so.
The spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East could reduce regional security and endanger U.S. interests, the report said.
In the next two or three years, the United States must take steps to restore Arab and Turkish confidence in U.S. security guarantees, the report concluded.
Otherwise, it said, "the future Middle East landscape may include a number of nuclear-armed or nuclear weapons-capable states vying for influence in a notoriously unstable region."
As for all that talk about it all being "blood for oil" in Iraq...
AP Says Military In Iraq Also Gouged By Big Oil
From a (perpetually) outraged Associated Press:
Military feels fuel-cost gouge in Iraq
By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Think you’re being gouged by Big Oil? U.S. troops in Iraq are paying almost as much as Americans back home, despite burning fuel at staggering rates in a war to stabilize a country known for its oil reserves.
Military units pay an average of $3.23 a gallon for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, some $88 a day per service member in Iraq, according to an Associated Press review and interviews with defense officials. A penny or two increase in the price of fuel can add millions of dollars to U.S. costs.
Critics in Congress are fuming. The U.S., they say, is getting suckered as the cost of the war exceeds half a trillion dollars — $10.3 billion a month, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Some lawmakers say oil-rich allies in the Middle East should be doing more to subsidize fuel costs because of the stake they have in a secure Iraq. Others point to Iraq’s own burgeoning surplus as crude oil prices top $100 a barrel. Baghdad subsidies let Iraqis pay only about $1.36 a gallon.
The U.S. military, through its Defense Energy Support Center, buys fuel on the open market, paying from $1.99 a gallon to as much as $5.30 a gallon under contracts with private and government-owned oil companies. The center then sets a fixed rate for troops, currently $3.51 a gallon for diesel, $3.15 for gasoline, $3.04 for jet fuel and $13.61 for avgas, a high-octane fuel used mostly in unmanned aerial vehicles.
Kuwait does grant substantial subsidies, but they cover only about half the fuel used by the U.S. in Iraq. And the discount is eaten up by the Energy Support Center’s administrative costs and fluctuations in the market.
Overall, the military consumes about 1.2 million barrels, or more than 50 million gallons of fuel, each month in Iraq at an average $127.68 a barrel. That works out to about $153 million a month.
Historically, these figures are astounding. In World War II, the average fuel consumption per soldier or Marine was about 1.67 gallons a day; in Iraq, it’s 27.3 gallons, according to briefing slides prepared by a Pentagon task force established to review consumption…
[S]ome lawmakers say the U.S. is paying too much to secure an oil-rich nation that resides in a neighborhood swimming in the natural resource…
It’s unlikely the U.S. has pressed Saudi Arabia, Qatar or other oil-rich allies recently to help subsidize the cost of fuel in Iraq. The Defense Department referred questions about such negotiations to the State Department, where a spokesman said the agency was not aware of any.
Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., also a member of the Armed Services Committee and a vocal advocate pushing the military to pursue alternative energy solutions, said he doubts such talks would be fruitful anyway because of the impression by many in the Middle East that the U.S. invaded Iraq for its oil to begin with.
"I’m not sure they’re as convinced we’re fighting for them, as they were in the first Gulf war," Bartlett said…
In the meantime, other lawmakers say they want to see the high costs of the war defrayed by Iraq dipping into its own oil revenues, which are projected to be substantial. Independent auditors estimate that Iraq is headed this year toward a massive surplus because of as much as $60 billion in oil revenues — a consequence of increased production paired with the sharp rise in prices.
"It’s totally unacceptable to me that we are spending tens of billions of dollars on rebuilding Iraq while they are putting tens of billions of dollars in banks around the world from oil revenues," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Armed Services Committee. "It doesn’t compute as far as I’m concerned." …
(end quote)
How is this possible when we were assured by our media masters that this was was simply "blood for oil"?
Hell, even some (idiot) Republicans seem to believe that:
Quote:
Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., also a member of the Armed Services Committee and a vocal advocate pushing the military to pursue alternative energy solutions, said he doubts such talks would be fruitful anyway because of the impression by many in the Middle East that the U.S. invaded Iraq for its oil to begin with. (end quote)
It looks like we have been lied to.
This article was posted by Steve Gilbert on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008.
Analysis: Iraq moves on oil, graft laws
Published: April 3, 2008
By BEN LANDO
UPI Energy Editor
WASHINGTON, April 3 (UPI) -- Negotiators are hammering out a new draft Iraq oil law after previous versions stalled, and as Parliament is moving forward on two new laws, one reconstituting the state oil company and another cracking down on oil and fuel smuggling.
"Shortly, we'll see a new draft which there is more common ground," said Abdul-Hadi al-Hasani, deputy chair of the Iraqi Parliament's Oil, Gas and Natural Resources Committee, which has already seen four versions of a draft oil law. The latest draft is based on "good dialogue" between the central and Kurdistan region governments, he said, and the Council of Ministers will soon approve it and send it to his committee.
A new oil law has officially been in the works for two years, and sources United Press International spoke to both echoed Hasani's optimism as well as said a divide over the law remains too large.
The law is one piece in a four-part package of legislation aimed at modernizing Iraq's oil sector.
Another is a law re-establishing the Iraqi National Oil Co., the state company dissolved as Saddam Hussein consolidated power over Iraq's oil via the Oil Ministry. Hasani told UPI in a telephone interview from Baghdad that the INOC law has been passed from the Council to his committee.
"We are going to discuss it next week," he said, calling it "one step in the right direction."
Iraq cleared for next steps to WTO accession
Author: Moussa Ahmad
Source: BI-ME
Published: 03 April 2008
IRAQ. Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) working party in Iraq on 2 April 2008, supported Iraq's rapid accession to the WTO and argued it would contribute to the country's integration into the world economy.
Iraq's Trade Minister, HE Dr Al-Sudani, stated that Iraq was determined to overcome the country's difficult circumstances to move forward on the accession process and added that Iraq's membership would represent a significant addition to the international community.
At this stage of the accession, members examine all aspects of Iraq's trade and economic policies to assess their conformity with WTO principles.
In the next steps, Iraq will update its legislative action plan, as appropriate, and will continue providing information to members. No date was decided or the next meeting.
A working party to examine the application of Iraq was established at the General Council meeting of 13 December 2004. Iraq submitted a Memorandum on the Foreign Trade Regime in September 2005, Foreign Trade Regime in September 2005, followed by Replies to Questions raised by WTO Members in November 2006.
Insider: Iraq Attack Was Preemptive Pentagon Insider Tells 60 Minutes U.S. Attack On Iraq Was Anticipatory Self-Defense; Not so much 9/11 Retaliation
April 3, 2008
Douglas Feith, former undersecretary of defense for policy (CBS/60 Minutes)
(CBS) The first Pentagon insider to give his account of the run-up to war says the attack on Iraq was more a defensive move against possible future threats from Saddam Hussein than a retaliation for the 9/11 attacks. Douglas Feith, the former undersecretary of defense for policy, also tells Steve Kroft that the Pentagon failed to foresee the insurgency or the need for more troops to prevent the post-war chaos that included looting. Feith’s interview will be broadcast on 60 Minutes Sunday, April 6 (7-8 p.m., ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.
"What we did after 9/11 was look broadly at the international terrorist network from which the next attack on the United States would come," says Feith, the No. 3 person in the Pentagon’s hierarchy from 2001 to 2005. "Our main goal was not merely retaliation for the 9/11 attack, it was preventing the next attack," he says. Pressed by Kroft on the importance of getting the 9/11 plotters, Feith responds that getting them was important, but "it was also important to go after the broader network … and prevent whatever plans there were for following attacks," Feith tells Kroft.
Feith concedes this line of thought could rationalize attacks on other countries, including North Korea, Syria and Iran. But he says Saddam’s attacks on his Middle Eastern neighbors, use of chemical weapons on his own people and his interest in building a nuclear weapon made Iraq a special case. "In an era where weapons of mass destruction can put countries in a position to do an enormous amount of harm, the old idea of having to wait until you actually see the country mobilizing for war doesn'
Comments