US deaths in Iraq hit all-time low
Article from: Agence France-Presse
From correspondents in Baghdad
June 02, 2008 05:39am
US forces recorded their lowest monthly death toll in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, officials said today as Baghdad also reported a big drop in Iraqi deaths.
Nineteen American soldiers were killed in May, the lowest death toll since the US-led invasion, the US military said as the government reported an almost 50 percent reduction in the number of Iraqi fatalities.
Visiting French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner commented on the "improving security" situation in Iraq and said he was pleased that local military and civilian authorities were taking charge of their own affairs.
The US military said last week that the overall level of violence across the country had hit a four-year low.
"The efforts of the Iraqi security forces and coalition forces are bringing stability to Iraq," the Office of the Secretary of Defence, a US military spokesman said.
On Thursday, the US military announced the withdrawal of another 4000 of the extra troops who were deployed to Iraq last year after reporting a sharp decline in the levels of violence.
It said the latest drawdown would be completed by June. It is the fourth brigade to withdraw from Iraq out of five that deployed under the surge in US troop numbers that was ordered in February 2007.
Washington has said it wants to complete the withdrawal of the 30,000 surge troops by July and have a 45-day evaluation period before considering overall force levels.
There had been a decline in attacks in the south of Iraq after heavy fighting in Basra in March when security forces clashed with Shiite militiamen.
The number of insurgents or militiamen said to have been killed by security forces also showed a marked drop, totalling 170 in May as against 355 in April.
According to figures made available by security officials, the number of Iraqis wounded in May was less than half the April figure at 1003 compared with 2008.
Seven weeks of street fighting in the Baghdad Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City died down by May 14 when a truce between the Mahdi Army militia of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and government forces came into effect.
However, Iraqi soldiers announced a new offensive against insurgents in the main northern city of Mosul, which is considered by US commanders to be Al-Qaeda's last urban bastion in Iraq.
The US military has warned that although al-Qaeda is on the run, the group still has the ability to stage spectacular bomb attacks against security forces and civilians in Iraq.
Iraq oil output, exports hit post-war high
Sun Jun 1, 2008 9:02pm BST
By Ahmed Rasheed
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq has raised oil exports to a post-war high, earning billions of dollars to fund reconstruction after Baghdad cracked down on sabotage of its strategic pipelines, the oil minister said on Sunday.
In an interview with Reuters, Hussein al-Shahristani said he expects oil revenue to reach $70 billion this year if crude prices stay high and output flows remain stable.
"In May, we have exceeded for the first time 2 million barrels-per-day (bpd) as an export rate," Shahristani said.
"This is mainly because of the improved security along northern pipelines from Kirkuk (oilfields) to the Turkish border and also from increased production from our southern and northern fields."
Iraqi oilfields are pumping more than 2.5 million bpd, he said, the highest since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Iraq will produce up to 2.9 million bpd by the end of 2008, he said.
He was optimistic Iraqi forces would keep security tight at oil facilities and raise the confidence of foreign investors discouraged by sectarian violence, al Qaeda and Shi'ite militants who had a grip on Basra, home to Iraq's biggest oilfields.
"We are going to make steady progress on security and the reconstruction front," he said.
Sky-high oil prices have raised the prospects of a quicker recovery. Oil is still within sight of a record $135 a barrel hit last month, supported by concern supplies will struggle to match demand in the longer term and a weak U.S. dollar.
Strong prices could also improve Iraq's chances of meeting goals set out in a 10-year plan to raise production and exports.
The U.S. military says violence in Iraq is at a four-year low following crackdowns by U.S. and Iraqi forces on Shi'ite militias in southern Basra and Baghdad and on al Qaeda in the northern city of Mosul, its last major urban stronghold.
"Iraq has improved the overall security situation in the country through its military operations in the south against the militias and in Mosul area against al Qaeda and in Baghdad itself," said Shahristani.
"I believe the improvement in the security is real and is going to last. Al Qaeda has basically been defeated in Iraq."
FOREIGN INVESTMENT
Starved of access to oil and gas prospects by governments who increasingly favor development by their state oil companies, Western oil companies are eager to invest in Iraq, home to the world's third biggest oil reserves.
But Baghdad expects to see activity this summer.
Major oil companies have all turned in their proposals for oil service deals and some will be signed this month.
Iraq is negotiating six short-term service contracts with international oil companies, each aimed at boosting production by 100,000 barrels per day.
I thought I'd share with the board, my own story, of how I got interested in the Iraq Dinar.
I was living in Vancouver, British Columbia, during the first half of the 1990s. I had an interesting hobby, at the time, collecting stories about what I like to call "human oddities"
I have a collection of many thousands of odd and unusual stories, culled from newspapers around the world. I collected them, over a ten year period.
Whether it's a story about how scientists took the gene that causes fireflies to glow in the dark, and put it into tobacco plants, and produced tobacco plants that glow in the dark, or a story about a baby moose adopting a horse as it's surrogate mother, or a story about a man who couldn't pay his hotel bill for a 10 week stay, and left his mother behind as collateral, or several hundred other categories, I'm likely to have it in my collection. In other words, I've always been fascinated by Ripley's Believe it or Not type of stuff.
So, anyway, I was sitting in a coffee shop, in Vancouver, in the early 1990s, reading the newpaper, having a coffee at a Tim Hortons Coffee Shop, which incidently sells Tim Bitts, which are tasty sugary little donuts.
And I spot a story about a guy who bought the Kuwaiiti Dinar, when it was nearly worthless, after Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwaiit. Now, I'm quoting from memory, so my figures are not exact, only roughly accurate, but he bought something like 20 thousand American dollars worth of the Dinars, and cashed them in, a few years later, when the economy got back on line, in Kuwaiit, for something like 3 million. Smart move.
I always remembered that story. It stuck in my mind, like glue. And then, when Saddam was getting kicked out, again, and the Iraqi Dinar, this time, was nearly worthless, I made my move, and now have a tidy pile of millions of Dinars, sitting in a safety deposit box, in a bank vault.
Will it happen again? I think so. It's a little more complicated this time, and is taking a bit longer, but I think it will happen again.
And that, fellow board members, is how I ended up, pecking away, occasionally, at my keyboard, on this site.
Very interesting story. We can all probably rememeber where, when and how we first came in contact with the infamous Dinar.
I had just been introduced to my daughters multi-millionaire Real Estate friend. While talking about a RE transaction we were in the middle of, he made a slight mention of the Kwait currency and how he "missed the boat" on that one, but was certainly going to catch the Dinar issue. In the weeks that followed my daughters and their families and friends got Dinar fever.
I was the last to jump on board, and the biggest attraction for me was #1- I hated being out of the loop with my family, since Dinars were all they could talk about, #2 I have 2 daughters whom are divorced and struggle financially, as well as a few very good friends that are very poor and I thought that for very little money, I could maybe provide them with an opporotunity for wealth. So I bought several thousand Dinars for my husband and I and equal amount to be divided by the 5 people who couldn't. And you know the rest!
Soooooo, while I am a very big skeptic with the whole thing, I surely still hold out for a good results.
Maliki to raise Iran's role in Iraq in Tehran talks
Mon Jun 2, 2008 11:58am BST
By Wisam Mohammed
BAGHDAD, June 2 (Reuters) - Iraq wants to discuss evidence of Iranian intervention in Iraq and the two countries' overall relationship during a visit to Tehran this week by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a government spokesman said on Monday.
It will be Maliki's second visit to Tehran after he travelled to Iran in August last year and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a visit to Baghdad in March.
Government officials would not confirm the date of the visit, but local media in Iraq and Iran said it would be on Saturday.
Maliki's government treads a fine line in its relations with Iran, accused by the United States of supporting Shi'ite militias in Iraq while at the same time seeking support from its neighbour.
"Part of the talks will discuss the subject of the evidence of Iranian intervention in Iraq. We will also talk about the entire relationship with Iran," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told Reuters. "All the issues will be on the table."
Dabbagh would not say which ministers would travel with Maliki but described it as "a political/security delegation".
Iraq's Addustour newspaper said Maliki would be accompanied by Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani, Electricity Minister Karim Waheed and Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari.
The report said Maliki would ask for Iranian help with electricity, which is in short supply in Iraq.
Ties between Iran and Iraq have improved since Sunni Arab strongman Saddam Hussein, who led Iraq into an eight-year war against Iran in the 1980s, was ousted in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and a Shi'ite-led government came to power in Baghdad.
But relations are dogged by repeated accusations from Washington and Baghdad that Tehran is fomenting violence in Iraq by backing Shi'ite militias. Tehran denies meddling in Iraq and blames the violence on the presence of U.S. forces.
Dabbagh said last month Maliki had ordered the formation of a committee to compile evidence of Iranian "interference" in Iraq that would then be presented to Tehran. It is not clear if that evidence will be handed over this week.
A delegation from Iraq's ruling Shi'ite alliance went to Tehran at the start of May to show Iranian officials evidence of the Islamic Republic's backing for Shi'ite militias in Iraq.
Washington accuses Iran of funding, arming and training Shi'ite militias to attack U.S.-led troops and Iraqi government forces, despite its public commitment to stabilising Iraq.
Dabbagh said last month that Iranian missiles had been found in the southern city of Basra during a recent crackdown by government forces on militias there.
The Iraqis have repeatedly said they do not want their territory to become a battleground for a proxy war between the United States and Iran, which are also at loggerheads over Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, told a conference on Iraq in Sweden last week that Tehran was keen to play a major role in rebuilding Iraq and lambasted the United States and its allies for "mistaken policies" in its neighbour. (Writing by Adrian Croft; Editing by Sami Aboudi)
Ministry of Electricity to sign contracts with Siemens and Hitachi for generators
The Ministry of Electricity has announced that it is currently in the process of negotiating multi-million dollar contracts with engineering giants Siemens and Hitachi for electricity generating units to boost output across the national grid.
(www.noozz.com)
4 Iranian training camps exist on Iraqi soil, says MP 02/06/2008 14:50:00
Baghdad (NINA)- MP Muhammad al-Dayni from the Arab Bloc of National Dialogue -19 seats- announced that there are four Iranian camps in Iraq for training Iraqi militiamen.
(www.ninanews.com)
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner
IRBIL, June 2 (KUNA) -- Visiting French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner on Monday expressed optimism about Iraq's future as he opened a diplomatic mission office in Iraq's Kurdistan.
Kouchner said in a joint statement with the Governor of the northern Iraqi semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan, Massoud Barazani, that Iraq "is heading toward a brighter future." The French minister said he was pleased with the Kurds' warmth welcome, and that he conveyed to the local leaders French President Nicolas Sarkozy's greetings, while Barazani said that "major positive changes have altered the French policy" toward his country.
Kouchner said the Iraqi constitutional article No. 140 must be applied, that the United Nations (UN) would submit its proposals in this regard and that "this issue should not exaggerated." On his part, Barazani said Kouchner's visit to Kurdistan was of special importance with regard of establishing distinguished bilateral relations at all levels.
Barazani said he and his French guest discussed the situation in Kirkuk, adding that he had shown noticeable flexibility and cooperative stance toward the UN to solve the dilemma.
Kouchner opened the diplomatic office in Irbil, to be France's first representative bureau in Kurdistan, noting that Paris would spare no effort to strengthen the political, economic, cultural and diplomatic relations with Kurdistan.
Kouchner said he would encourage French investors to establish businesses in that region.
Prime Minister of Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Nejervan Barazani welcomed the French gesture, inviting the European countries to stretch their hand to reconstruct Kurdistan.
The opening ceremony was attended by Kurdistan Regional Assembly Speaker Adnan al-Mufti and the Iraqi Foreign Ministry Undersecretary, Abdulkarim Hashim.(end) sbr.sab KUNA 021128 Jun 08NNNN
(www.kuna.net.kw)
Milestones in Iraq: Fewer Troop Deaths, More Oil
12:16 pm, 02 Jun 2008
U.S. troop deaths in Iraq hit an all-time low last month as oil production hit a post-war high, officials said.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, along with Iraq's oil minister, credited better overall security for the two milestones.
"We've still got a distance to go but I think lower casualty rates are a reflection of some real progress," Gates told reporters in Singapore.
In an interview with Reuters, meanwhile, Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani said improved security help Iraq - with the world's third-largest oil reserves - boost production to 2.5 million barrels per day.
France expresses renewed commitment in Iraq
02/06/2008 French foreign minister arrived in Iraq on Saturday on an unannounced visit to underline renewed political commitment in the war-ravaged nation.
BAGHDAD - French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner arrived in Iraq on Saturday on an unannounced visit to underline the "renewed political commitment of France" to the war-ravaged nation, diplomats said.
Kouchner arrived in Nasiriyah in southern Iraq at the start of a two-day trip during which he held talks with Vice President Adel Abdel Mahdi and later travelled to the capital Baghdad, diplomats said.
He arrived in Baghdad later Saturday and opened talks with President Jalal Talabani, who had invited him to Iraq.
"This visit reflects the renewed political commitment of France with regard to Iraq and the Iraqi people," the foreign ministry said in Paris.
During his stay, Kouchner will also meet Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.
On Sunday, the French minister is also expected to travel to Arbil, capital of the autonomous Kurdish region 350 kilometres north of Baghdad to open a French representative office.
France has an embassy in Baghdad, but had announced it would also open two more diplomatic offices in Iraq - one in Arbil and the other in the oil-rich port of Basra, 550 kilometres south of the capital.
The visit will be "an opportunity to express the availability of France to work to promote national reconciliation in Iraq," the foreign ministry said.
His trip comes two days after the International Compact with Iraq conference in Stockholm where the international community hailed the Baghdad government's progress in security and reconstruction.
A French diplomat said in Paris, "It is important that the international community, particularly the European Union, rise to the occasion to help Iraqis," noting that Paris will have the rotating EU presidency in the second half of this year.
Kouchner arrived in the country from Jordan where he said on Friday that France was ready to receive 500 refugees from Iraq "as a first step".
It looks like the US is finally getting a little credit for how well they treat detainees..
even if it is here in a left-handed way.
Let's face it, the US isn't into torturing, as even the critics now admit:
==
Critics see progress at US jails in Iraq Detainee turnover to Iraqi prisons puts gains at risk
By Alissa J. Rubin
New York Times News Service
June 2, 2008
BAGHDAD - Once a byword for torture and disgrace, the American-run detention system in Iraq has improved, even its critics say, as the military has incorporated it into a larger counterinsurgency strategy that seeks to avoid mistreatment that could create new enemies.
But these gains may soon be at risk. Thousands of detainees are to be turned over to the Iraqi government, some perhaps as early as the end of the year, a further step toward Iraqi sovereignty. Yet however tarnished America's reputation may be for its treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the reputation of many Iraqi prisons is worse.
"The Americans are better than Ministry of Interior prisons," said Mahmoud Abu Dumour, a former detainee from Fallujah, the Sunni stronghold west of Baghdad. "They will torture you. Maybe you will die. With the Americans, if you enter Abu Ghraib, they will only wage psychological war on you."
While nearly all of the more than 21,000 detainees in Iraq are in US custody, Major General Douglas M. Stone, who runs detainee operations countrywide, is proceeding with a broad experiment to restructure it. His goal is to use the system of detention centers as another front in the counterinsurgency war, trying to reduce the likelihood that they become a recruiting ground for militants.
Stone's goal now is to isolate those he believes are extremists, who are the minority of detainees, and convince the other detainees that they will have better lives if they keep away from those who preach jihad. It is part of the effort to bring detention policy in line with US military strategy that seeks to separate insurgents from civilians, mentally and physically.
Stone's goal is to move detainees, particularly more moderate ones, through the system faster by instituting review boards to hear each detainee's case. So far, these boards have released at least 8,400 people. He has also pushed to expand paid work programs, like carpentry shops, brick factories, and laundries, as well as educational programs, especially for juvenile detainees and for the many illiterate adults.
Recidivism is down: Since Stone's arrival last year, just 28 of those released have been jailed again. That number, less than 1 percent of the total released, reflects considerably fewer repeat detentions than before the administrative hearings and other reforms, when recapture rates ran at 5 percent to 10 percent, according to military lawyers.
“But regardless of what you think about how we got where we are, it is terribly important not to get the end game wrong in Iraq, because the consequences for the whole Middle East, and frankly, I think, for the world, are quite dire if we do..
===
End game the main focus in Iraq, says Gates
Uzbekistan News.Net
Sunday 1st June, 2008
With progress being made in Iraq, the United States must focus on getting the “end game” right, while being patient enough to refrain from making “a tactical decision that has strategic consequences,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Sunday.
Gates, addressing questions after his keynote address at the Asia Security Summit, conceded that the war in Iraq war has been controversial.
“But regardless of what you think about how we got where we are, it is terribly important not to get the end game wrong in Iraq, because the consequences for the whole Middle East, and frankly, I think, for the world, are quite dire if we do,” he said.
Gates cited “broad, if often grudging, admission” that progress has been made in the past year since the strategy supported by the troop surge took hold.
“My hope is that the situation in Iraq will continue to improve,” he said. He said she shares Army Gen. David H. Petreaus’ goal, stated during his confirmation hearings for the top U.S. Central Command post, that the United States will be in a position to continue troop drawdowns this fall. Over time, he said, the United States expects to see a “transition of mission,” with the Iraqis assuming more roles currently carried out by the U.S. military.
The growing concerns in the world energy market about the risks of a supply crunch have been a critical factor behind the recent surge in oil prices to a new record of US$135/barrel. Speculators are betting huge sums on the assumption that the oil market (and other primary energy markets) will remain tight for many years to come, owing to the inelasticity of demand and to the constraints on long-term supply. Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, is doing its bit to allay these concerns, but has acknowledged that once its current crop of oilfield projects is complete in around 2013, there will be little scope for further capacity increases. Similar strains are evident in most of the other major oil-producing countries. One significant exception is Iraq, which holds (at least) 10% of the world's proven reserves, but accounts for only 2.5% of total production. Iraq has the potential to furnish a long-term solution to the oil market's long-term supply problem, but it will need to improve dramatically on its recent performance before buyers of oil futures will be convinced that it can deliver.
All about oil
If history had been kinder, Iraq could now be producing at a comparable level to Saudi Arabia. Instead, three wars, 13 years of sanctions and five years of internal conflict have eroded Iraq's oil infrastructure and human capital. However, Iraq also has a history of recovery. Production peaked at over 3.5m barrels/day (b/d) in 1980 on the eve of the Iran-Iraq war, but then averaged less than half that level during the eight-year war. It had nearly recovered to 3.5m b/d in 1990, after which the invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent UN sanctions severely limited exports, and hence production. In the five years before the US-led invasion of 2003, the sanctions regime gradually permitted greater exports, and production was often above 2.5m b/d. However, it fluctuated considerably due to the impact of years of underinvestment, restrictions on the import of spare parts and isolation from the international oil industry.
This volatility in production has continued in post-Saddam Iraq, although the average level has usually been below 2m b/d, and only exceeded the immediate pre-war level of 2.3m b/d for the first time at the end of 2007. Operations have been frequently disrupted by events ranging from the bombing of pipelines to the murder of oil workers. Moreover, the competition between political factions for influence at every level in the industry—as well as widespread corruption—has not provided suitable conditions for a revival of the industry. There is even concern that damage may have been caused to some fields in order to maintain production at modest levels.
Things may be changing. Iraq's deputy prime minister, Barham Salih, said in April that Iraq's total reserves, could be as high as 350bn barrels, triple the 115bn that has been its officially stated level for many years. The figure is aspirational and should be treated carefully but, given that there has been barely any new exploration of Iraq's promising geology in 30 years, an upward revision of the official reserves figure seems long overdue. This underlines Iraq's uniquely large reserves-to-production (RP) ratio, which was already the world's highest and, based on Mr Salih's estimate and at the expected production level of 2.3m b/d in 2008, would stand at a remarkable 415 years (compared with a world average of about 40 years). If Iraq were able to achieve the average Middle East RP-ratio of 80 years then it would be pumping 4m b/d based on the current reserves, and 12m b/d based on Salih's aspirational estimate. Getting there would take some time, around five years for 4m b/d and probably more than 20 years for the most optimistic level. It would also require Iraq to achieve a sufficient degree of stability. However, if there are promising signs of progress over the next 18 months, then it might be enough to mitigate fears of shortages next decade and dampen the futures market.
Fair share
The issue on which everything hinges is the basis on which Iraq's oil will be developed. Although at its height in the 1970s, Iraq's national oil industry would have had the capacity to implement a significant part of the exploration and development needed, it has been severely eroded since then. Therefore, it is widely recognised that foreign expertise will be needed, but Iraqis are split on two important issues which have so far held back progress. The first is whether the development and operation of the oil sector will be managed entirely from Baghdad or also at a regional level, particularly in the Kurdish region. The second is the terms under which international oil companies (IOCs) will be invited to participate. In particular, the idea of production-sharing contracts (PSCs) has aroused such considerable opposition—from parliamentarians and oil workers' unions who believe that Iraq should fund the development itself (particularly now that there is a large budget surplus)—that the government has apparently backtracked. These controversies have blocked the ratification in parliament of a national hydrocarbons law which was first approved by the cabinet in February 2007. Although no draft has so far emerged that elicits a majority of support, it may yet pass this summer as part of a bundle of laws.
Stop-gaps
In the meantime, the oil minister, Hussein Shahristani, announced plans in January for a series of two-year technical service agreements to upgrade five existing fields by 100,000 b/d each. This is a relatively uncontroversial first step, simply paying IOCs for their services without granting them any claims on revenues or reserves—but none of the contracts have yet been finalised. Then, in mid-April, Iraq released a long-delayed list of 35 IOCs initially approved to bid for more substantial long-term contracts covering exploration, development and production. Theoretically, bidding on the first round of contracts could be complete by the end of the year, and if Iraq—or at least the regions containing the respective oil fields—is sufficiently stable, then work could begin soon afterwards. However, there is a significant risk that this timeline could slip due to bureaucracy and possibly to political shifts following the provincial elections in October.
Kurdish exception
In contrast to delays at the national level, there has been a great deal of activity in the Iraqi Kurdistan region. The Iraqi Kurds had long felt that their region had been deliberately deprived of an oil industry by successive governments in Baghdad, and therefore pressed ahead with development in their essentially autonomous region. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) began drawing in IOCs both because it had little capacity itself and also to provide some international leverage in the inevitable confrontation with Baghdad. Given their weak position and limited finances, the KRG has been happy to sign PSCs, and the first oil well was drilled by Norwegian company DNO in 2006 and now produces about 7,000 b/d. It has signed PSCs with other IOCs including Canada's Western Oil Sands, the UK's Sterling Energy and most recently with Niko Resources of Canada in May. Also, in frustration at the failure to agree a national hydrocarbons law, the KRG passed its own in August 2007. Until now most oil majors have avoided the KRG because of the potential backlash from Baghdad, demonstrated by the fact that companies such as the Korea National Oil Corp that have signed contracts with the Kurds were explicitly excluded from the list of 35 approved IOCs.
Hurdles
Although there is some way to go, 2008 may be seen as the year in which Iraq's oil industry began to recover and, when the markets recognise this, it may take some of the edge off the oil price. However, given Iraq's history of dashed expectations, it would be unwise to factor major production increases into oil supply projections until Iraq has passed a series of important tests. One of these is whether the Iraqi army will be able to maintain security as the US draws down its troops. Another is whether the rival Shia movements led by Muqtada al-Sadr and Abdel-Aziz al Hakim can make the transition from street fighting to purely political competition—an issue that will probably not be resolved until the next general election in December 2009. Finally, the KRG and the rest of Iraq will need to conclude that it is worth reaching a compromise on Kirkuk (the disputed northern province that contains Iraq's largest oilfield) and regional autonomy in order to share in the benefits that a major expansion in the oil industry will bring.
The US military, unappreciated but STILL.. doing a great job:
==
Iraq: US military captures roadside bomb suspect north of Baghdad
Monday, June 02, 2008
BAGHDAD - The U.S. military says a criminal suspected of manufacturing and planting roadside bombs has been captured northwest of Baghdad.
A statement issued Monday says the suspect is responsible for the bombing deaths of several Iraqi soldiers and civilians. He's also allegedly connected to the bombing of a bridge north of the capital that killed several Iraqis last year.
The military says soldiers with the 25th Infantry Division captured the man Saturday in Tarmiyah, 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Baghdad.
Thanks for the stories, timbitts and Carole.
For you two and the board...
About putting your Dinar into a safety deposit box..
I know you are Canadian, timbitts, but I know some people in Canada who also had theirs seized..
so this article is applicable to you as well.
Think about it.. wouldn't suddenly MILLIONS in assets be very... tempting?
When I read something this eye opening.. it is worth sharing.
Also when the Dinar hits.. where will you put your valuables you collect?
(Carole, note the references to California..)
Not-So-Safe-Deposit Boxes: States Seize Citizens' Property to Balance Their Budgets
Resources to Search for Unclaimed Property in Your Name
By ELISABETH LEAMY
May 12, 2008
The 50 U.S. states are holding more than $32 billion worth of unclaimed property that they're supposed to safeguard for their citizens. But a "Good Morning America" investigation found some states aggressively seize property that isn't really unclaimed and then use the money -- your money -- to balance their budgets.
Unclaimed property consists of things like forgotten apartment security deposits, uncashed dividend checks and safe-deposit boxes abandoned when an elderly relative dies.
Banks and other businesses are required to turn that property over to the state for safekeeping. The problem is that the states return less than a quarter of unclaimed property to the rightful owners.
Not-So-Safe-Deposit Boxes
San Francisco resident Carla Ruff's safe-deposit box was drilled, seized, and turned over to the state of California, marked "owner unknown."
"I was appalled," Ruff said. "I felt violated."
Unknown? Carla's name was right on documents in the box at the Noe Valley Bank of America location. So was her address -- a house about six blocks from the bank. Carla had a checking account at the bank, too -- still does -- and receives regular statements. Plus, she has receipts showing she's the kind of person who paid her box rental fee. And yet, she says nobody ever notified her.
"They are zealously uncovering accounts that are not unclaimed," Ruff said.
To make matters worse, Ruff discovered the loss when she went to her box to retrieve important paperwork she needed because her husband was dying. Those papers had been shredded.
And that's not all. Her great-grandmother's precious natural pearls and other jewelry had been auctioned off. They were sold for just $1,800, even though they were appraised for $82,500.
"These things were things that she gave to me," Ruff said. "I valued them because I loved her."
Bank of America told ABC News it deeply regrets the situation and appreciates the difficulty of what Mrs. Ruff was going through. The bank has reached a settlement with Ruff and continues to update its unclaimed property procedures as laws change.
California's Class Action Lawsuit
Ruff is not alone. Attorney Bill Palmer represents her and countless other citizens in a class action lawsuit against the state of California.
"They figured the safety-deposit box was safer than keeping it under the mattress," Palmer said. "In the case of a lot of citizens, they were wrong, weren't they?"
California law used to say property was unclaimed if the rightful owner had had no contact with the business for 15 years. But during various state budget crises, the waiting period was reduced to seven years, and then five, and then three. Legislators even tried for one year. Why? Because the state wanted to use that free money.
"That's absolutely correct," said California State Controller John Chiang, who inherited the situation when he came into office. "What we've done here over the last two decades has been dead wrong. We've kept the property and not provided owners with the opportunities -- the best opportunities -- to get their property back."
Chiang now faces the daunting task of returning $5.1 billion worth of unclaimed property to people. Some states keep their unclaimed property in a special trust fund and only tap into the interest they earn on it. But California dumps the money into the general fund -- and spends it.
"It's supposed to be segregated and protected," Palmer said. "California has taken all of that $5.1 billion and has used it as a massive loan."
California became so addicted to spending people's money, that, for years, it simply stopped sending notices to the rightful owners. ABC News obtained a 1996 internal memo in which the lawyer for the Bureau of Unclaimed Property argued against expanding programs to notify rightful owners. He wrote, "It could well result in additional claims of monies that would otherwise flow into the general fund."
Seizing More Than Safe-Deposit Boxes
It's not just safe-deposit boxes. A British man went to retire and discovered the $4 million in U.S. stock he had been counting on had been seized and sold for $200,000 years earlier -- even though he was in touch with the company about other matters.
A Sacramento family lost out on railroad land rights their ancestors had owned for generations -- also sold off as unclaimed property.
"If I had hung onto it, I would be a millionaire, multimillionaire," said John Whitley. "But that didn't happen because we didn't get to hold it."
State Reforms
California's unclaimed property program was so out of control that, last year, the courts issued injunctions barring the state from seizing any more property until it made reforms. Since then, Chiang has taken several steps to try to clean up the program.
For example, the state now sends notices alerting citizens about unclaimed property before it is handed over to the state -- the only state to do so. Once unclaimed property is delivered to the state, it is now held for several months while the state tries to contact the owners, rather than it being immediately sold off or destroyed.
Which raises the question, in the Internet era, is anybody really lost anymore? California and other states are just beginning to make use of modern databases that can find most anyone in minutes. Unfortunately, California only uses those databases to search after it has already seized a citizen's property.
If California does get better at locating people, that could present another challenge. Remember, right now, the state spends the money.
"It's like the last guy in line at a pizza parlor," Palmer criticized. "There is only so much pizza. At the end, when I get up to the counter to claim my pizza, there may be no pizza for me."
California's fiscal problems are legendary and once again in the news, so it's reasonable to question whether the state can afford to repay its citizens if a bunch of them surface at once.
"There is always going to be money to give the owners when they make their claim, " Chiang insisted. "I don't want my legacy to say I continued a broken program. I want my legacy to be 'this guy was the guy who truly cared about the people and returned their money.'"
California is not the only state to come under fire for its handling of unclaimed property. In Delaware, unclaimed property is the third largest source of state revenue. Idaho recently passed an unprecedented law that says the state gets to keep unclaimed property permanently if the rightful owners don't claim it within 10 short years. And all 50 states pay private contractors 10 to 12 percent commissions to locate and seize accounts for them. It's an inherent conflict of interest: the more rightful owners are found, the less money the contractors make.
Of course, there are some states who handle their people's property with respect. Oregon never takes title to unclaimed property. Instead, it holds it in a perpetual trust fund.
Colorado uses the interest on its unclaimed property fund to pay for some state programs, but leaves the principal untouched.
Missouri, Iowa and Kansas make extra efforts to reunite people with their property –even setting up booths at state fairs to get the word out. The State of Maryland actively compares the names on unclaimed accounts with state income tax records. If it finds a match, the state simply cuts a check and sends it to the citizen.
Protecting Your Property
So, the question for citizens is, how do you protect yourself?
Make contact with your bank, your brokerage firm, etc. at least once a year, in a way that creates a paper trail. Make sure they have your current address.
If you own stock, occasionally vote your proxies or take other steps to keep your stock ownership active. Stay in touch with your broker.
Write a list of all your accounts and keep it with your will, so your heirs will know where to look.
Consider insuring valuables even if you keep them in your safe-deposit box. That way, you're covered financially if the bank or state makes a mistake and empties your box. Plus, safe-deposit contents have been known to be destroyed by fire or flooding.
If you want to search for unclaimed property in your name, you do not need to pay other people to do it for you. Check out the following links for more information:
National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators
www.missingmoney.com
Comments:
1) The same thing happened to my grandfather about 25 years ago in Oklahoma. He went to his safety deposit box to check on some bonds that he had put in there several years before. To his surprise they were gone. His safety deposit box was empty. He never did find out what happened to his bonds. We still don't know. He had been paying the rent on his box every year.
Posted by:
carlyonsue 1:28 AM
2) Unclaimed property going to the state due to no activity? How about finding the box missing 3 or so months after you last accessed your box? No one at * could help nor did they know where the box was. Told to come back on Monday only to be told that the manager is on the phone, can you return on Tuesday. The manager amazing found the tin in another bin (of course the cash and jewelry were gone) a few days after the incident. Filing a police report (nothing they can do, a bank matter), talking to the FBI (nothing they can do unless it was a bank account), talking to an attorney (an uphill battle, how can you prove what you had in there). Only after writing the CEO; the regional manager who "investigated" the matter said they were not liable, the customer must have placed the tin in the wrong location, but offered $500. Subpoena for employees (one allegedly was no longer there, how convenient) and bank documents to show up for small claims court brought on delay tactics by their lawyers which postponed court dates but generated another offer for $6500 (they said they weren't liable, right?) which victim refused. The battle pursued to the date of court, but the bank's legal rep said they wouldn’t fight it & would pay the $7500 max for small claims; therefore the case wouldn't go before the judge since they were willing to pay the max. The judge never got to hear what happened (perhaps a mistake on the victim's part) but he didn't feel he had any other recourse at that point. $7500 didn't cover the total lost but he would not have gotten that if he had given up. Apparently banks can do whatever they please and get away with it. Valuables buried in the ground in New Orleans before Katrina flood water is safer than safe deposit boxes at *.
Posted by:
savethewetlands May-12
3) My mother just experienced the same in April of this year with *. She is a retiree and she spends the winters in Alabama. When she came back to NY and went into the bank to get a piece of jewlery she was told that her safe deposit box had been drilled and all of her belongings (40years) had been removed. Visibly upset the bank told her that she had signed over the contents in Jan of 07 when she told them that it was a lie and repeatedly asked for proof they called the police to have her from the bank because she was causing a disturbance and interfering with their ability to conduct business. After getting my mother to calm down a bit (not have a stroke or heart attack) I called the bank and was told that that the branch manager was out of the office and they could not start an investigation until she came back . I left several messages with 7 on your side to try to get help and still have not gotten a call back. We got a lawyer and my mother was able to get the contents of her box back, but we are still are trying to track down her annuities and she lost her life insurance all because no one changed her address in the system. Can you imagine the look on a 73 year olds face when they go into the bank to check their box and are casualy told that it was drilled and the contents which is their entire life savings has been removed. My mother has a support system, but what about other seniors are out there that has happned to and have no family to hold the banks accountable for their actions. I hope this investigation continues and the banks are forced to stop taking advantage of retirees. Its not right!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! People work a lifetime and put their trust in the banks only to be betrayed by them.
Posted by:
nybeauty18 May-12
4) I kids had stock in a bank in California affiliated with Bank Of America and now I can't find anyone to help me locate it. We have the stock paper work but no one seems to know what happen to it. How can we find out?
Posted by:
evaerlich May-12
5) My recently deceased father left over $42,000 in Savings & other accounts at * with my brother named as Trustee. An unauthorized family member with NO legal standing, not named on the account or was not a check signer was able to get Bank of America to empty/raid my deceased fathers accounts. Now I am holding thousands of dollars of my dad's final medical expenses with no funds to pay for them. My dad took pride in paying his bills on time and had a perfect credit record. He stated my times prior to his death that his final expenses were to be paid and them the balance of any monies to be split among children. * took it upon themselves to disperse his money how they saw fit, disregard the names on the account and totally abuse the trust my dad had put in them to safekeep his hard earned money. Now we have to pay thousands in legal fees we don't have to get the money back, seek criminal prosecution against that family member and all because * is a giant in the banking industry and we are just "the little people". In searching for legal aid I found a Class Action Lawsuit against * filed in October 2004 for the very same thing they did to us. What can we do to stop this from happening to others...Their arrogance is amazing. They are so big and have endless resources they can cheat and steal from anyone not paying attention or violate all forms of trust. Can someone help us?
Posted by:
lrrios May-12
6) We also lost - albeit temporarily - the contents of our B of A safe deposit box a couple years ago. When I went to access our box at the branch where we hold mulitple accounts, key in hand, I was told we didn't have a box. The manager told me to be quiet and he would check, which he did later that day and found the contents of our box ready to be shipped off to the state. Occupant Unknown was written on the outside of the envelope which contained stock certificates and the deed to our house - obviously with our names readily observable. The lock had been changed because it showed no one was paying on the account - and we weren't because years before we had been given the free box because we held accounts with the branch, so I was never surprised when I didn't get a bil - because we never had. I was relieved to retrieve the papers, that also included my husband's discharge papers. A close call that could have been a disaster, especially if something unforseen had happend to us and our kids had needed to access all the papers.
Posted by:
Raywood Housewife May-12
7) g4girl - I feel you. I used a Virginia state site & found that my mom had some unclaimed property. After a few exchanges back & forth I filled out the necessary form online & got a standard reply stating that there was a backlog. Well of course over time I forgot about it and it was only after cleaning out old email files a year later that I remembered that my claim was never addressed. So after a few more emails back & forth they finally sent my mom her money. They definitely don't make it easy and you have to ride them in order to get the property.
Posted by:
tmoney22193 May-12
8) Shame on them for stealing peoples things. Yes, people should keep up with their goods but in the case of the woman who lived 6 blocks away from the bank, paid her safety deposit box rent and all of the papers had her name and address on them, that was just flat-out stealing. You can't go into a bank and pick-up someone's laptop from their desk while they are on vacation and say it's unclaimed, that's stealing! They stole that land and these peoples valuables. Shame on all involved, you knew better.
Posted by:
TJusteace May-12
9) Bank of America. Been there. Done that. Never again.
Posted by:
monicahais May-12
10) garryowen777: Maybe you should reread the article. People are being rob by states like California due that the states want money that they're going so far to said property is unclaimed when in fact it's clear who are the owners. That woman despite for years have an account in the bank and her name and address in the safety box have her valuables removed and marked as 'unclaimed'. This type of practice has to stop. It's robbery!
Posted by:
jupmod May-12
Thanks for your comments, Carole. I'm generally a fairly conservative investor, but with the Dinar, I don't think my conservative investment philosophy makes much sense.
Here's why:
The reason I say this, has to do with how I view common sense. Most of the time when people say that something is too good to be true, they're right. That's because for most situations in life, what tends to happen is not all that exciting. Most people are quite ordinary and lead ordinary lives. Most situations are humdrum. Most people who are reasonably intelligent will be presented with very ordinary investment opportunities, the vast majority of the time.
Extraordinary things don't happen, most of the time. Most people can't run a 4 minute mile. Most people can't jump, pivot and shoot, in a basketball game, like Michael Jordon. I used to play ice hockey, as a kid. I was pretty ordinary. Most hockey players are quite average, in ability. I read once that only about 1 hockey player, in 100,000 ever make the National Hockey League. I suspect the same averages apply to basketball, and other sports.
Extraordinary investment opportunities are just like that. They don't come up, all that often. They really don't. But the thing is, occassionally they really do. And if a person is clever enough to recognize opportunity, and take advantage at the right time, you can benefit.
Let me tell you a story, to illustrate this:
My friend, Mitch, is an example of that. Mitch was born into a very poor family. His father died young, leaving the mother destitute. She was forced to live off public welfare. Now Mitch left home, quite young. He didn't even finish high school. But Mitch is quite clever. He moved to Alberta about twenty-five years ago, and worked as a plumber. At the time, oil-rich Alberta was having a hard time, financially. Due to the Liberal government in Ottawa that had an exccessive taxation policy, confiscating much of Alberta's wealth, Alberta entered a severe economic crash, and recession, during the early 1990s. The value of real estate plummetted. A house that formerly cost $150,000, suddenly cost $50,000. Quite a bargain. Mitch had a steady job, and bought a cheap and modest house. Prices recovered a few years later, and Mitch was benefitting from his investment. Twenty years later, Mitch had nearly paid off his house. Keeping up with economic news, over the years, he sensed another boom was headed Alberta's way. So he took his initial investment equity, and flipped up houses three times, each time to a larger and larger house. This was possible, of course, because Mitch was hardworking, and reasonably shrewd, as a self-employed plumber, and probably made the same income level as a chartered general accountant.
So, the recent boom hit Alberta, due to the development of oil resources in northern Alberta. Calgary, being the business centre, benefitted. Mitch chose his real estate carefully, and bought some nice property, on two acres, on the outskirts of the city, with a view of the Rocky Mountains. And that's how my friend Mitch, with a grade 10 education, raised on public welfare, ended up living in a $2.1 million dollar house, with a beautiful view of the mountains.
Which is extraordinary, if you think about it. How many high school dropouts, raised on welfare, end up living in multi-million dollar houses?
Now, Mitch's wife is from Nova Scotia. She misses her family some times. Most of them, including her parents, are back in Halifax. Mitch and Sarah have one daughter, who's grown up, and going to university, back east. So Mitch and Sara decided to sell their house, at the height of the real estate boom, which was a little over a year ago here in Alberta. They are now living in Nova Scotia, and are quite happy about the move.
Tax laws being what they are, in Canada, homeowners don't have to pay capital gains tax, on the sale of a principle residence. So what that meant was, for that couple, they ended up with about $2 million in equity. As it turns out, compared to Alberta, real estate is quite cheap in Nova Scotia. For $150,000 and careful shopping, you can buy a nice house to live in, in a rural location. Since Mitch and Sara both love the country side, are now retired, at around age 50, that is what they decided to do. They bought a lovely farmhouse.
And Mitch, the high school dropout, who never went to university, and was raised on welfare, by a single mother with a grade 8 education, is a retired multi-millionaire before age 50.
Now, this is the sort of thing that does not happen every day, but it does, in fact, happen. In Mitch's case, the keys were buying at the right time, when prices were low, sensing future economic opportunity, and planning to take advantage of it, with good timing.
All of which we are trying to do here.
So, getting back to common sense, I think it's fair to recognize that extraordinary things do not happen every day. Probably 99% of high school dropouts do not end up, multi-millionaires. But a few do, due mostly to good timing and having the sense to take advantage of a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Now, I would guess, if a person ever did any sort of formal study, and statistical analysis, of a wide variety of investment opportunities, they would find a pattern that went something like this: The vast majority of investment would pay very ordinary returns. This would agree with most people's real world experience. In the pile of investments, there would be a fair number of really poor investments, that paid a low level of return. I'd guess maybe twenty percent would fall into this category. Then there would be maybe 10-20 percent of the investment pile, that paid a fairly high rate of return. And, if the pile of investments were large enough, there would be a few investments that paid off extraordinarily well.
Those are the investments I look for.
There's an old saying, 'if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.' Well, that makes good sense. That's because, statistically, most investments simply do not generate a high rate of return. In other words, common sense tells us that the vast majority of investments do not generate an extremely high rate of return. They don't. We all know that.
But, as I said, in a previous post, I'm interested in "human oddities", which are really, can be thought of as, statistical variations, from the norm. In other words, I've always been interested in looking for situations and occurances that are completely outside of the broad statistical norm.
And I think that the Iraqi Dinar is one of those situations. Due to a set of extraordinary circumstances, their currency is valued far lower than common sense would dictate.
And getting back to my conservative investment philosophy, I will stick to this philosophy, because it has done quite well for me. And since most investments are quite ordinary, a conservative investment philosophy aligns with that statistical truth, that most investments are average. Why take risks, all of the time, when most of the time, it's not worth it, since most investments will pay a humble rate of return? It makes no sense. That's why I, very very seldom buy riskier investments. I work too hard for my money to do that.
And that conservative philosophy makes sense, most of the time. However, variations in human norms being what they are, occasionally there will be an extraordinary investment opportunity come along. And what should common sense tell us, in that situation? First of all, check it out, very carefully, because the old addage really does apply most of the time, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
So, along that line, I have spent several years, part time, checking out this opportunity. For instance, while taking a break from this site, I spent hundreds of hours researching about the oil industry, worlwide, all with a perpective to try to figure out what role Iraq will play, in the future of world energy markets. And I came away from that quest thoroughly convinced that Iraq has an incredibly bright future, will be extremely wealthy. Which means the Dinar will be highly valued.
So, I feel I have done my due diligence, in looking at and analysing an investment opportunity that sounds too good to be true. Most once in a lifetime opportunities sound too good to be true, and they are, in fact. This one sounds too good to be true, but I believe it is, in fact, a once in a lifetime opportunity, that will pay off.
So, common sense tells me to look very carefully, at all investment opportunities that come along. I always do that. It tells me, occasionally something will come along that sounds extraordinary. The Dinar came along. Common sense tells me, most things that sound extraordinary, run the risk of being frauds, so you better check things out, very carefully. I've done that, and the Dinar has passed my skeptical internal fact and reality checker.
And finally, common sense tells me, once they have passed my skepticism internal fact checker, there are some investments that are so extraordinary, that if they are true, and pay off, and if I did not try to take advantage of the opportunity, and if the investment did in fact, pay off, extraordinarily well, and if I "missed the boat", that I would regret it the rest of my life.
That too, is a cost. Most people measure only, what they might lose, if an investment would fail. Many people would not invest in the Dinar, and risk, say, ten thousand dollars, because they would regret losing that money. They'd say, they could have taken a couple of very nice trips, with that money. But what about the risk of losing several million dollars, if the investment succeeds? Many people don't measure that risk, but that risk seems quite real to me. And that, Carole, is a risk I am not willing to take.
That being the case, why not invest in the Dinar? Most of my investments are quite conservative, always have been, always will be. But I can look for extraordinary opportunities, every now and then, because I will never risk the bulk of my capital. I'm not betting the farm, on this investment, Carole. Only the tractor.
That way, if this investment does not turn out, I will have had, a lot of fun, reading and learning about something that interests me, for thousands of hours. Since I get a lot of enjoyment out of it, even if the investment fails, I still feel like it was a success, because I spent a part of my life doing something I quite enjoy.
And if the investment does, in fact, pay off, as I suspect it will, then I will have the time of my life, in other ways. I am extremely curious about the world, and a great many things, and I intend to use a lot of my time travelling the world, learning and reading.
So, on this particular investment, I am throwing caution to the wind, being brave, and hoping for the best, while preparing for the worst.
McCain hits Obama on Iran, Iraq
Posted by Foon Rhee, deputy national political editor
June 2, 2008
John McCain went directly after Barack Obama today before a key pro-Israel group on Middle East policy.
Before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's policy conference, the presumptive Republican nominee hit the likely Democratic nominee for voting against declaring Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. McCain, and Obama's Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, voted for the resolution, which critics said gave the Bush administration too much license to consider military action.
"Over three quarters of the Senate supported this obvious step, but not Senator Obama," McCain said, according to prepared remarks. "He opposed this resolution because its support for countering Iranian influence in Iraq was, he said, a 'wrong message nt only to the world, but also to the region.' But here, too, he is mistaken. Holding Iran’s influence in check, and holding a terrorist organization accountable, sends exactly the right message -- to Iran, to the region and to the world."
"It’s worth recalling that America’s progress in Iraq is the direct result of the new strategy that Senator Obama opposed," McCain said. "It was the strategy he predicted would fail, when he voted cut off funds for our forces in Iraq. He now says he intends to withdraw combat troops from Iraq -- one to two brigades per month until they are all removed. He will do so regardless of the conditions in Iraq, regardless of the consequences for our national security, regardless of Israel’s security, and in disregard of the best advice of our commanders on the ground.
"This course would surely result in a catastrophe," McCain continued. "If our troops are ordered to make a forced retreat, we risk all-out civil war, genocide, and a failed state in the heart of the Middle East. Al Qaeda terrorists would rejoice in the defeat of the United States."
AIPAC is an influential group among Jewish voters, whom McCain is courting and whom Obama has been trying to reassure. In recent polls, Obama has not been faring as well among them as recent Democratic presidential candidates.
Baghdad, KRG to resume oil Talks Baghdad and Kurdistan governments will resume negotiations over the oil law.
01 June 2008 (United Press International)
The Iraqi central and Kurdistan regional governments will resume negotiations over the oil law and key issues in early June.
Falah Mustafa Bakir, the head of the Kurdistan Regional Government's Department of Foreign Relations, told UPI "there is better understanding" after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki launched the incursion into Basra and the Kurdish leadership backed him.
"It created a positive atmosphere in Baghdad," he said.
Kurdistan Regional Government, KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani and Maliki will meet, as will their respective delegations, including KRG Natural Resources Minister Ashti Hawrami and Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani.
The two energy ministers have butted heads over the KRG's signing its own exploration and production deals with foreign companies and a dispute as to what the oil law should look like.
"The KRG is determined to go ahead and contribute positively in order to have a hydrocarbon law, based on our belief that the private sector and foreign investment can be a good impetus and good incentive to enhance the economy," Bakir said. "We believe that our approach, which is a free market oriented, market economy approach, would help Iraq at this stage."
Many outside the semiautonomous Kurdish region favor to some extent the continuation of a more centralized and nationalized oil sector.
Bakir said the two prime ministers agreed that the February 2007 draft of the oil law would be under negotiation, and that all of the oil-related laws and issues would be sent to Parliament as a package.
These are the hydrocarbons law, the revenue sharing law, the laws re-establishing the Iraq National Oil Co. and reorganizing the Ministry of Oil, and a list of oil fields and exploration blocks that determine whether they are controlled by the central or local governments.
Tim,
Very inspiring and well thought out. You are correct about ordinary investments bring ordinary results. Which for stability, is great.
I too have my ears perk up when something seems like a riskier but very possible outcome. The attraction to the Dinar is the low cost.
Of course as well as all the other amenities that could attach itself.
Having said that.....what do you think about the Vietnamese Dong?
Sara,
Thanks for articles on Safe Deposit boxes. I have no confidence in Banks at that and a few other levels.
In 1978, I was awarded a large lawsuit settlement. I put the money in the bank. MY MONEY! A year later, we decided to take advantage of the "gold rush" going on at that time. I went to the bank to withdraw 25k and ws told I would have to order the money and that it would be several days before it would arrive. I WAS DUMBFOUNDED! I had just read the book "How to Survive the Money Crash", where similar predictions of banks controling your money. So I was in a panic! I told the Bank Operations officer I want ed to take all of my money out.
When I got home, I called my lawyer and the LA Times to tell my story. I spoke to the Financial Editor, who snickered and said I had every right to be skeptical and scarred, mostly hecause American Savings was in the process of being acquired by another bank within the next few weeks.
I held my breath for 10 days until I could pick up my cash.....which I had 2 carry out in 2 briefcases ( cause I wanted some small bills too). They were so upset with me and said it looked very suspicious. I was insistant on doing it my way. They wanted to write me a cashiers chec..but knowing what I did about the bank changing hands, I didn't dare.
Since then, the only money transactions Ihave with banks is a household checking account. I have bought several short term( never more than a year) CD's. I have never had more money in the bank than is insured by govt. ( BTW did you know thaat your bank only inusres 100k, even if you have more than one account and it adds up to more than 100k)
The only money or valuables I have in my house are very secured by a vault that would cut your arm off if you ever tried to steal it,,,,lol (remember my husband is a cop!)The rest is in realestate, and tax free municipal bonds.
Banks are dangerous! and Credit unions 100 x's worse!
Of course I was raised by a father that had a 5th grade education, from the old country, that kept his money "under the matress". He was a body and fender man until he saw opporotunity to buy his own body shop......one of those guys Tim was talking about. He died very wealthy leaving his family well taken care of while accomplishing all the things in life he wanted to do. He retired at 53 and him and mom had a lot of fun. I don't remember him taking any financial risks, and I have often said he would turn over in his grave if he knew what we were all dong with the dinar....but who really knows?
The one thing we all really can be sure of is that no mater how smart or dunb we may have been financially in this lifetime....no one gets to leave this planet with a penny.....soooooo with that in mind, I have always tried to make my money count for something more than networth.....like vacation memories with family,, and helping those not so fortunate. My dad was a very generous man, and God rewarded him. But my maternal grandmother was very poor, but gave all she had to help someone in need....she was a remarkable woman and had a funeral procession equvialent to royalty.
She had a lifelong dream to be able to go to a bus stop and give away a million dollars to a poor old lady waiting for a busd to go to work, as well as buy everyone a car at the bus stop.
I have fantasized that maybe, just maybe i MIGHT FUFILL PART OF HER DREAM.....we'll see :)
A side note, my dad would always see to it that my grandmother ( his mother-in law) was comfortable...but he never lavished her because he complained "she gives everything away"..........and I'm sure that made God smile!
You asked about the Vietnamese Dong. In my opinion, stay away from it. Currently the country is experiencing 20% inflation. The communist regime in Viet Nam will continue to keep the currency artifically low because of the inherent need to keep exports high.
The dollar showing signs of weekness against other currencies is still strong against the Dong. Stay away! Your skepticism about the Dinar would turn into outright depression if you invested in Dong.
Interesting comments and stories lately. :)
An enjoyable read.
Today I posted the words of John McCain where he said of Obama:
"He now says he intends to withdraw combat troops from Iraq -- one to two brigades per month until they are all removed. He will do so regardless of the conditions in Iraq, regardless of the consequences for our national security, regardless of Israel’s security, and in disregard of the best advice of our commanders on the ground. This course would surely result in a catastrophe," McCain continued, "If our troops are ordered to make a forced retreat, we risk all-out civil war, genocide, and a failed state in the heart of the Middle East. Al Qaeda terrorists would rejoice in the defeat of the United States." (end quote)
Because the consequences of electing this man are so dire for Iraq - an "all-out civil war, genocide, and a failed state" - and this would greatly affect our investment in the Dinar, I felt it worthwhile to note to you that I heard today that Obama has left his church, as it appears politically expedient to do so. Here is the article I found on it.. and a few of the comments on what it shows about him and his style of leadership:
===
Obama resigns from controversial church
May 31, 2008 Sen. Obama resigned from his controversial church, according to his campaign.
(CNN) — Barack Obama resigned Saturday from his Chicago church — where controversial sermons by his former pastor and other ministers had created repeated political headaches for the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination — his campaign confirmed.
The resignation comes days after the Rev. Michael Pfleger, a visiting Catholic priest, mocked Obama's Democratic rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, for crying in New Hampshire during the runup to the primary there.
Previously, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright — former pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ and Obama's minister for about 20 years — drew unwanted attention for the campaign when videos of several of his fiery sermons surfaced.
In them, Wright suggested the U.S. government may be responsible for the spread of AIDS in the black community and equated some American wartime activities to terrorism.
Obama has said he was not present for the controversial sermons by Wright or Pfleger and had condemned both — most recently saying he was "deeply disappointed" by Pfleger's "divisive, backward-looking rhetoric."
I didn't see the speech...I saw that it was coming on and thought oh, good grief, another speech! Can't this guy do anything without a speech!? And I decided that was a good time to go upstairs and vacuum. LOL
Did he really say he was "protecting" the church? From what, bad publicity? So they can continue their racist rants without outsiders looking on?
Oh, right, he's not doing it for his own benefit; it's just one more selfless sacrifice by the Obamessiah.
What a load of hogwash. It's about time he quit; but he should have said he decided that their cultural beliefs weren't his beliefs any more you know, what with wanting to bring people together and all....
If he were really honest, he would have pulled a Clinton and said "to preserve my viability within the system." LOL
2) Campaign of Cutting Losses by Gat New York
I have never seen a presidential candidate engaged in cutting losses as much as Obama has had to.
This guy has already thrown so many people under the bus - from his white grandmother to the entire congregation of his church - that he is going to need a fleet of buses because of how many more he will need to get rid of.
I agree that it will be a matter of time before he unloads his foreign policy advisors and eventually his wife.
The bottomline is that Mr. Hopey Changey lacks good judgement and has zero character. Scott McClellan would fit in perfectly in an Obama Administration.
3) No backbone or loyalty by Scrapiron
Just like McClellan he has proven to be a man without honor. I can see him running the country, something stinks badly in a town (church) so don't try to fix the stink, bury the entire town (church). That is leadership? I've thought since I heard of him that his only concern was the advancement of Islamic law in this country. Now he proves to be a phony Christian as many of us thought.
Old, Retired and glad of it.
4) He said something that will by ckc1227
He said something that will raise even more questions about his choice of this church in the first place. Some folks have tried to defend his choice by saying he only chose this church because of the political connections it would afford him. He categorically denied this when asked about it, stating that if that were his goal, there were bigger, better, more politically connected churches in Chicago he could have chosen. He said(or implied) he took offense to any such implication. So, Obama, if that isn't the reason, why did you choose a racist, hate-preaching church? Maybe some of us just refuse to see the forest for all the trees.
Also interesting is he isn't leaving the church for anything that goes on there, or anything being taught there, he's leaving because of all the media attention they are getting.
5) too late by paulnashtn
By resigning now Obama only draws more attention to why he stayed so close for so long and only NOW separates himself from a very racialy biased church and to the fact that he saw no need to separate himself for 20+ years
HOWEVER, if we now
criticize him for this past association we will be called racists
Carole, if I were you, I'd take Rob N's advice. Stay away from the Vietnamese currency, with a ten foot pole. I haven't looked into it much, but as far as I know, Rob is correct, and they have a communistic system of some kind. I have a very low opinion of communist ideas, so for that reason alone, I wouldn't touch it.
That being said, I have had a number of Vietnamese friends over the years, and I have a very high opinion of the capability of those people. After all, these are the same people who fought toe to toe with America, in the Vietnamese war, a few decades ago. That's no small feat.
I have taken an interest in the plight of the so-called Boat People, who came to America, from Vietnam, a couple of decades ago. Culturally, they have very strong family values, and value education and hard work an awful lot. I've been close to a few of their families, in the past. They really push their kids to excel, in school, and want their kids to go to university.
As a result, you will find many Vietnamese kids, on the honour roll, when they attend high school. You will find a lot of them at university. I remember a friend of mine, who spent some time attending UCLA, and his joke, at the time was, the call letters of that university, really mean "United Caucasians Lost among Asians"
I mean no ill will or disrespect with that joke. The joke just illustrates a real phenomena: different cultures have different values, and lifestyles, and the fact is, the drive for success in that community is very high. Far higher than the overall average in the Caucasian community, in my opinion.
What that means, in the future, is that when the day comes, when a group of bright, Western-educated Vietnamese take over the government of that country, and modernize and educate the people, the vast majority of whom are now uneducated, then Vietnam will have a bright future.
Sometime around that point, if it happens in my lifetime, and an embracing of capitalism happens there, I would definitely invest in the future of that country. Having followed the modernization of countries like South Korea, now mainland China, and Taiwan, and Singapore, it's obvious to even the casual observer that, if these regions get good government, with good ideas, and leaders who embrace modern education and capitalism, the sky is the limit for these countries.
Many economists say mainland China, which is embracing capitalism with a vengeance, will overtake the United States, as the world's leading economic power, in about 20-25 years. I think Vietnam will also be very successful eventually, but certainly not with leadership embracing communistic ideas. That's just a recipe for disaster.
Do you think the below comments of Mr. Ahmadinejad's are just empty words.. or a statement of his intents... what he is working toward?
Quote:
Ahmadinejad: Israel Will Soon Disappear
Monday, June 02, 2008
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad predicted that Muslims would uproot “satanic powers” and reaffirmed his prediction that the Jewish state will soon be wiped off the map, the Agence France-Presse news agency reported Monday.
"Today, the time for the fall of the satanic power of the United States has come and the countdown to the annihilation of the emperor of power and wealth has started," the hard-line president said.
Ahmadinejad is a devotee of the Mahdi, who Shiites believe disappeared more than a thousand years ago and will return to bring a new era of peace and harmony, the AFP reported.
Ahmadinejad has been forecasting the disappearance of Israel since taking office in 2005.
Hey Timbits, where you at!! I put that call out a few times when you left the blog for awhile. I don't post much but today I think I will. I'm a Vancouver Island boy Tim at 52. LOL The questions about the other dinar sites is interesting. Every site I know of is down except this one for me at this time. June 2/08/1445 hrs PST time. Even the secondary sites. Most of which only a hundred or so people were even able to visit to get the address on the original site before it too was ddos's or what ever they call these attacks. Apparently most of the links to Iraq's banking system are not working too well. Make's a person go hmmm... Concerning your opinion about the entertainment value of this investment..I know that I have gotten more than my investment in entertainment out of it. God knows how many hours of observing. I work in the oil patch in northern BC and Alberta and have for the last 15 years. I had two consultants, the guys that run drill and service rigs tell me about their dinar investments long before I actually bought any. Both of these guys had spent a lot of time working overseas in the ME. When I finally researched it over two years ago it was a No Brainer for me. Only if they try to rip off the many many people that have invested time and money in Iraq will we lose. And I am not too worried about that. The money of a country is only worth what the people of the world think it is. JMHO
I remember you. We were talking about Quebec separating from Canada. It didn't happen last time, but I keep hoping!!!lol. It's a running joke in my family, all Western Canadians. We got so sick of the whole debate, I'm sure you remember how it dragged on for years, that all my brothers and sisters, we all went out and got memberships, over the internet, in the Bloc Quebecois!! Imagine that. The kids thought it was quite funny. A bunch of Anglophone Western Canadian rednecks with memberships in the Bloc. We had a family gathering, everyone pulled out their membership, and we called it a Bloc Party. No ill will towards Quebecers, we were just honestly sick of the whole thing, and decided, hey, if you want to leave, I'll open the door, and give you ten bucks. Don't slam your....
Vancouver Island is a great place to be from. I spent a lot of time there. I've travelled the world, and I can tell you, the Island is still one of the top spots in the world, for my money. I've done the West Coast Trail a couple times, when I was a bit younger, and I've been salmon fishing in Tofino a few times.
One of my brothers spent some time in Tumbler, B.C., when there was some kind of mine up there, and I've wanted to get up there. Probably will this year. He keeps raving about what a great place it is, especially for outdoorsmen.
Yeh, you're right. The only way they could rip off the people, who invested in Iraq, is if the Iraqi government decided to rip us off. That's partly why I have always supported a continuing American military presence there. Nothing like a few soldiers around, to make everyone see the benefits of being "reasonable," as Tony Soprano might say.
I read an article in Conde Neste Magazine, last week about Kurdistan, and the oil boom there. They had pictures of Kurds standing in front of open pools of black oil. That's how much oil there is there. As an oilman, I'm sure you can appreciate the value of that. I see a movie in there somewhere? The Bagdhad Hillbillies?lol
"Listen to a story about a man named Ahmed
Poor Kurd barely kept his family fed,
Then one day he was shooting at Abdhul,
And out from the ground, came a bubblin' crude!
Oil that is. Kurdistan tea!"
(banjo music kicks in)
If you run into people from other sites, tell them to drop in here, whenever they want. Some of the best conversations have happened when there were new or different opinions. New voices are always welcome. We're pretty friendly here.
Kudos to the Dinar Admin for keeping this thing up and running.
Mr. A's words are not empty threats. I'm sure Washington takes them very seriously. One of my beefs against liberals is they can't seem to comprehend the evil side of reality. They lack moral imagination, or can only imagine good, not evil. Screwtape might have a thing or two to say about that, to his nephew....They think it couldn't possibly be, that someone would be that crazy, and evil. Perhaps Mr. A is simply misunderstood, or had a rough childhood, they might say. I hope cooler heads prevail eventually, in Iran, and I hope Mr. A gets the hook one way, or another.
I read an English version of Mein Kampf, when I was 21. It was the most disgusting and evil thing I have ever read. Ever since then, I take lunatics in high office, who say they want to murder people on the basis of their ethnicity or religion, very seriously.
I hope the American people have the good sense not to elect Obama. If there are enough good and sensible people, like yourself, expressing your opinion, then Mr. Obama will remain a senator. Keep doing, what you're doing.
I tried to convince my liberal sister the other day, that he was a bad choice. I didn't change her mind, but at least I made her think a bit.
I'd say the same thing, to anyone on this site. Whatever your beliefs, try to engage other people around you, at appropriate times, if the time and context is right, to question beliefs, and support and choices for political office. That's what it's all about.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki head a conference to drop Iraq's debts held on Thursday. The meeting aims to assess progress in implementing a plan approved last year to help rebuild the ailing economy of Iraq after five years of war. The United States is exercising pressure on the Sunni Arab governments to support Al-Maliki government through writing off the debts and open diplomatic missions.
The following are some details on Iraq's debts:
-- Over the last three years, Iraq was exempted from about $ 66.5 billion of the total foreign debts amounting to 120.2 billion dollars. With the participation of all members of the Paris Club, it dropped $ 42.3 billion including debts owed to Russia amounting to $ 12 billion dollars.
-- The Paris Club is an informal group of government creditors whose role is to help debtor countries to manage their debt.
-- A number of non-members of the Paris Club dropped a total of $ 8.2 billion of the debts, according to the Paris Club terms, while commercial creditors dropped $ 16 billion, according to the terms of the Paris Club as well.
-- Other members of the Club agreed to cancel 80 percent of Iraq's debts.
-- Estimates of the remaining debts:
$ 56.6 billion to 79.9 billion dollars include
Paris Club... 7.6 billion dollars.
Gulf Cooperation Council States... $ 32.4 billion to $ 55.4 billion.
Bilateral agreements outside the Paris Club... $ 646 million.
Other debts outside the Paris Club... $ 15.9 billion to $ 16.2 billion.
-- Debts dropped by some States:
United States... $ 4.1 billion
Japan... $ 6.8 billion
Germany... $ 5.6 billion
France... $ 5.1 billion
Russia... $ 12 billion
Italy... $ 2.4 billion
Bulgaria... $ 3.1 billion
Serbia, Slovenia and Bosnia... $ 2.2 billion
Romania... $ 2 billion
-- Saudi Arabia and Kuwait:
-- Last year, Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, said his country will cancel 80 percent of more than $ 15 billion owed them by Iraq.
-- In September last Ixave Musca, President of Paris Club, said that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait had not presented a report of Iraq's debts as done by the Paris Club in 2004.
-- The debt owed to Kuwait is about $ 15 billion.
(www.dinartrade.com)
Iraq Kurd PM says ready for power-sharing in Kirkuk
Tue Jun 3, 2008 7:41am EDT Email | Print | Share| Reprints | Single Page| Recommend (0) [-] Text [+]
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Iraq's Kurds to make Baghdad new offer on oil law
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Kurds, a minority in Iraq as a whole, see Kirkuk as their ancient capital and had led the push for a referendum to establish control. Arabs encouraged to move to Kirkuk under Saddam Hussein want it to stay under Baghdad's control.
The dispute could threaten the relative stability in the largely Kurdish north, spared some of the ravages suffered by the rest of the country, but it also resonates beyond Iraqi borders. Turkey fears extension of Kurdish control to Kirkuk and surrounding oil fields would spawn a wealthy, and hostile, Kurdish state that could foment separatism in its southeast.
Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said the Kurdish regional government that controls the north was pushing for a solution over the status of Kirkuk but that this did not necessarily have to come in the form of referendums proposed so far.
The Kurdish parliament voted in December for a six-month delay in a proposed referendum, partly to give the United Nations time to come up with proposals for settling the issue.
"In Kirkuk, as Kurds, we are ready for power-sharing," Barzani told Reuters in Dubai.
"We are pushing for a solution, not especially a referendum. We have asked the U.N. to be technically involved because the situation is complicated," he said.
A referendum had been due by the end of 2007 to decide the settlement of multi-ethnic Kirkuk's fate. There were fears a referendum could stoke ethnic conflict by delivering power to one side or the other, or lead to disruptive movements of population as groups manoeuvre for influence.
The U.N. special representative to Iraq, Staffan de Mistura, said in April a peaceful settlement must be found through a political formula and not a hastily organized referendum that could trigger violence.
(www.reuters.com)
Iraq's Kurds to make Baghdad new offer on oil law
Tue Jun 3, 2008 7:41am EDT Email | Print | Share| Reprints | Single Page| Recommend (0) [-] Text [+]
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DUBAI (Reuters) - Iraq's Kurdish regional government will make fresh proposals to Baghdad in two weeks to iron out differences over the federal oil law, the region's prime minister said on Tuesday.
Disputes between the largely autonomous northern region of Kurdistan and Baghdad have delayed the law for over a year. Iraq needs billions of dollars to modernize the oil industry and raise output after decades of sanctions and war, but uncertainty over the law has stalled international investment.
"Very soon, about two weeks from now, we will start negotiations to finalize the agreement," Barzani told reporters at a news conference in Dubai.
The two sides will discuss a package of proposals covering the oil law, revenue sharing, the functions of the oil ministry and the national oil company, Barzani added.
"It is important for all of Iraq," he said. "Without that law oil companies cannot come into Iraq."
Earlier, the Kurdish region's top energy official Ashti Hawrami said he hoped Iraq's parliament would pass the law this year.
Barzani said he would also hold talks with the federal government over Baghdad's decision to halt oil exports to Austria's OMV and South Korea's SK Energy after the companies signed oil deals with the Kurdish region. Baghdad claims the deals were illegal.
"We don't think they have the right to stop these deals," Barzani said.
Baghdad controls Iraq's export pipelines, and until the Kurdish region reaches an agreement with the federal government it is unable to produce more oil.
The Kurdish region was ready to pump 150,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil, Barzani said. Actual output is just a few thousand bpd for the local market.
Norwegian producer DNO is producing from wells in the Kurdish region and has built a pipeline to hook up to Iraq's main northern export route to Turkey, but has yet to receive an export license from Baghdad.
Barzani said that the region was not exporting oil without Baghdad's consent. "We are not selling oil to anybody," he said.
The Kurdish region aims to raise output to 1 million bpd in around five years.
Iraq has the world's third largest oil reserves at around 115 billion barrels, although the country's deputy prime minister Barham Salih said in April reserves could be as much as 350 billion barrels.
Little exploration has been carried out in areas such as the Kurdish region. Hawrami estimated potential oil reserves in the region at around 45 billion barrels.
(www.reuters.com)
Shareef calls for national consensus to deal with agreement 03/06/2008 11:45:00
Baghdad (NINA)- MP Basim Shareef, of Fadheela bloc, 15 seats in parliament, has called political factions to reach a national consensus that allows dealing with the issue of the intended Iraqi-American long-term agreement
(www.ninanews.com)
Baghdad, 03 June 2008 (Kuwait News Agency (KUNA))
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US Iraq Envoy David Satterfield said here Monday Washington was very interested in bringing about success to negotiations with Baghdad for a long-term agreement.
Satterfield, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's Special Advisor and Coordinator for Iraq, made the remarks during a meeting with Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari at the latter's office in Baghdad, a government statement said.
Satterfield said the US government was keen on bringing success to the negotiations with Iraq in order to reach an agreement guaranteeing the interests of both countries and helped safeguarding the security and stability of Iraq.
The agreement aimed at giving a legal cover for the US forces' in Iraq beyond 2008.
Satterfield and Zebari discussed the state-of-play of the negotiations and how it was important to clinch the deal, said the statement.
They have also discussed the Iraqi government's efforts to strengthen human rights.
Some Iraqi political parties are opposed to the agreement because they believed it undermined the sovereignty and independence of Iraq.
(www.iraqupdates.com)
03 June 2008 (Iraq Directory)
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The Iraqi Body of Securities determined the controls of writing off listed companies in the stock market. A statement by the body, "the company will be written off when the trading volume of its shares is no more than 5% annually out of the number of issued shares, and for two consecutive years." It added, "another control is that the company should submit to the body and the market its closing accounts for the latest fiscal year, certified by the comptroller, for the purpose of identifying its financial situation, assets, reserves and its performance, for use in making the decision of the write-off."
The statement said, "the request of the company's withdraw from the market must be a substantiated decision by the General Authority of the company, and with the consent of at least 51% of the total number of shares of the company." It also stated that the company's board must commit to find a buyer for the shares offered for sale by shareholders during the period of one month from the date of the declaration; the price is based on the trading price for the last month or the last trading price, whichever is higher. The company must pay its full financial obligations to the Iraqi body and market for securities.
(www.iraqupdates.com)
Baghdad, 03 June 2008 (Voices of Iraq)
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A Baghdad-based newspaper gave prominence in its Tuesday issue to the long-term U.S.-Iraqi agreement, while another described a statement made by an Iraqi politician about linking Iraq's destiny to the future of foreign bodies as "unbalanced."
Al-Ittihad newspaper, the daily mouthpiece of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) led by Iraqi President Jalal al-Talabani, wrote about the controversial agreement between Iraq and the United States. The author of the article, Abdul Hadi Mahdi, said that the agreement has been a point of contention between different parties and will therefore be submitted to the Iraqi parliament for discussion and vote.
The agreement governs the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq after 2008 and will not come into force without the approval of the Iraqi parliament, which has 275 members from five blocs, in addition to the Sadrist movement and al-Fadhila party.
The author said that the Iraqi public should be made aware of the articles of the agreement because it concerns them in the first place, calling on politicians to adopt transparency while revealing the content of the long-term accord to them.
Dar al-Salam, the daily mouthpiece of the Islamic Iraqi Party led by Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, commented in its editorial on a statement made by an Iraqi politician in which he warned against the eruption of sectarian wars if Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama becomes president. The politician claimed that Obama will pull out his country's troops from Iraq as soon as possible, which he said will result in a power vacuum that competitive Iraqi forces will try to fill with the use of force, the editorial wrote, quoting the head of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), Ahmed al-Chalabi, during a public assembly.
The editorial described al-Chalabi's statement as "improper," arguing that it is very insulting to say that Americans are the "safety valve" that prevents the outbreak of a civil war in Iraq.
(www.iraqupdates.com)
Very encouraging news on debt relief. Quite an impressive list of countries releaving Iraq of debt. It shows a vote of confidence in Iraq's future by many governments. That gives me more confidence, as an investor. Just to state the obvious, countries don't forgive debt, unless there is something in it for them. Obviously some wheels are being greased, behind the scenes.
I would like to see the addition of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to that list. As it stands now they may not forgive Iraqi debt. If Iraq truly holds 356 billion barrels oil the position of the Saudis and Kuwaitis may be Iraq can afford to pay their respective debts.
One fact is certain, Iraq's future in the region looks bright. Baghdad and Arbil must find a compromise on the Hydro Carbon Law. In one of the articles I posted it seems the Kurds may bend; we will have to wait and see.
Kurdish region hopes Iraq oil law to pass this year
Tue Jun 3, 2008 10:00am BST
DUBAI, June 3 (Reuters) - The Kurdistan regional government hopes Iraq's federal oil law will be passed this year and is working with Baghdad to iron out disputes that have delayed the legislation, the region's top energy official said on Tuesday.
"Iraq is ready to move on and is seriously trying to resolve these issues," the Kurdistan Regional Government's Minister for Natural Resources Ashti Hawrami told Reuters at an event in Dubai. "The federal law is needed to attract investment in Iraq."
Disputes between the largely autonomous region of Kurdistan and Baghdad have held back the law for over a year.
Hawrami estimated potential oil reserves in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq at around 45 billion barrels.
Current oil output was negligible, but the region aimed to boost production to 1 million barrels per day (bpd) in five year, he said.
hello all i have been following the dinar sence 2004 which i guess you can call me an old pro,can someone tell wht happen to iraqidinar forum can find it email me please johnsonm243ataol.com
Damac Properties plans to begin work on a $15 billion development in Iraq's Kurdistan region this year aimed at Iraqi expatriates returning home, the United Arab Emirates developer said on Tuesday.
The project includes residential, commercial and hospitality buildings over 170 million square feet (15.8 million square metres) in Arbil, Damac said.
Damac Chairman Hussain Sajwani said the first phase of the project would cost $4.5 billion and the total cost of the project would amount to 55 billion dirhams ($14.98 billion).
"There are 5 million people in Kurdistan from different classes and there are many people from the rest of Iraq that would like to take residence or move to Kurdistan because there is more safety," Sajwani told a news conference on Tuesday.
Damac will also market the project in Europe and the Middle East to target Iraqis that left the country during the rule of former president Saddam Hussein, Sajwani said.
"They would like to come back and want luxurious residence to live in," he said.
Nechirvan Barzani, the prime minister of the region, said the project would help the local economy. Continued... "Tarin Hills development ... will also create jobs and support growth in related sectors such as tourism and hospitality," a company statement quoted Barzani as saying.
Work on the the development is due to begin by year-end, Sajwani said.
Damac, with projects in countries including Egypt, Qatar and Jordan, will eventually borrow funds from banks but will launch the project using Damac equity, Sajwani said.
Damac unit Damac Kuwaiti Holding (DAMK.KW: Quote, Profile, Research), which listed in Kuwait in April, has said it would use listing proceeds to finance Iraq projects.
A Damac spokesperson said the Kuwaiti unit would initially not be involved in the Kurdistan project.
Damac has a project portfolio of about $30 billion spread over seven countries, according to the statement.
Iraqi Dinar rose against the dollar by 20% in 16 months, says the Central bank governor 30/5/2008
The Iraqi dinar went up against the U.S. dollar by 20 percent in the past 16 months, said the governor of the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI), attributing the rise to the bank’s policy.
“The improvement in the dinar was the result of the monetary policy adopted by the bank, which appreciated the dinar against the dollar in its daily auction throughout the past 16 months,” the governor, Sinaan al-Shabibi said during a Baghdad-based press conference on Sunday.
The exchange rate cannot be determined because it depends on several factors, mainly inflation, and the supply and demand for the dollar, al-Shabibi noted.
During the past three or four years, Iraq suffered from inflation that reached 65 percent, according to figures announced by the Central Agency for Statistics, he noted.
Al-Shabibi called on the Iraqi government to pay particular attention to economic growth by supporting the industrial and agricultural sectors.
Iraq signs with contracts to build projects worth more than $63 billion 31/5/2008
Iraq has signed contracts worth more than $63 billion dollars with a large number of investment companies to implement reconstruction projects in Iraq.
The most prominent of these projects, according to head the Iraqi National Investment Authority Dr. Ahmed Ridha, are the establishment of the great port of Basra and the reconstruction of Baghdad International Airport in addition to building housing units and a new city with integrated housing which will be one of the largest modern cities in the Middle East.
“During the current year, we have introduced numerous investment projects, and many contracts were signed with different companies worldwide,” said Ridha pointing out that $12 billion is earmarked for the port of Basra and $17 billion for building the Baghdad international airport, in addition to setting up business and building hotels. He added that the projects also include the construction of 200 thousand housing units and hotels, plus a touristic city on the Corniche of Kufa in the Najaf governorate at a cost of $34 billion, in addition to the establishment of new Kut city at a cost of $650 million.
Ridha added that the second reconstruction conference held recently in Cairo was a turning point at rebuilding Iraq, as it witnessed signing big contracts to be invested in many provinces. The Iraqi delegation participating at conference has presented large investment projects planned in many Iraqi governorates and the feedback of investors and entrepreneurs was overwhelming. For example, C. Krupp has signed investment contracts with four Iraqi provinces (Diwaniyah, Anbar, Karbala and Nasiriyah).
On the other hand, the government of Iraq has agreed on signing with a German company to build five hospitals that cost $700million. On this occasion, Govt.’s spokesman Ali Dabbagh said that the Cabinet has decided giving reconstruction committee’s wide authorities to reduce time and measures at carrying out service projects and building hospitals.
Baghdad's municipality on Tuesday said it has added the finishing touches to al-Umma Park, which will be ready to receive visitors in the coming few days after renovation works that lasted for six months.
"Al-Umma Park is now ready to receive visitors once again. Technical teams from al-Rasafa's department have renovated it and modernized its facilities," according to a statement released by the municipality and received by Aswat al-Iraq-Voices of Iraq- (VOI).
"A number of up-to-the-minute buildings have been set up inside the park, of which one will be allocated for holding cultural events and another used as an art exhibition," the statement noted.
Other renovation works have been carried out in the park and a new lighting system has been installed, it added.
Iraq conducts huge technological project
03 June 2008 (Al-Sabaah)
Senior official and legislative delegation begins a visit to UK at next week to discuss political, economic and security developments with British and American officials as well as executing huge technological project throughout country by cooperation with Intel Company to provide PC set and Internet service for each Iraqi house.
Speaker's advisor, Intisar Alawi, said that the legislative delegation will leave country on June 6th to take part at workshop and holding talks with Intel to carry out this strategic project that named "PC and internet for each Iraqi house".
Alawi added that the project's aim to develop the technology's using at all fields, as the American company will provide all technical issues and selling the PCs and internet service at suitable prices and by installments for the Iraqis as the Iraqi Govt. will provide moral support.
Thanks for advice on the Dong. It is sooooo cheap, that an investment, while probably not a good idea, might just someday be one of those long shots....and another boat missed. I did buy some. It is so cheap that if my 1000.00 investment ever amounted to anything,,,I could practically by my own island! :)
Yes, Tim, Vancover,BC is quite a distinguishable place. Visited there in 1976. We were so impressed with the cleanliness, and orderliness of the people there. At the time it was explained to us that there is essentially no welfare as we now it here., Only the truly sick and elderly fraile get assistance., Others have to work for their entitlements.....like parks and city street cleaners, daycare workers, etc etc...
I still can remember seeing a long single file line of children, in uniforms walking in singh to their school bus stop.
AND OH THE GARDENS!!! Burschart( probably spelled wrong). Should be claimed as a wonder of the world.
We also visited Victoria Island, and took the children to sit in on Parliament. Long black robes and white long wigs worn like our forefathers. Very impressive. Don't know if it is still like that?
Carole, Vancouver Island, it's still a gem, I'm sure. I haven't been to the Island for three years. I visited the sitting legislature in Victoria, 20 years ago. Don't know if they still do the old robes for ceremony. There is a bit of pomp and tradition federally, in Ottawa, a hangover from the British parliamentary procedures, but that's only for special occasions. It's probably the same in Victoria. I visited the Wax Museum near the Legislature in Victoria, which has wax replicas of famous people. I had my picture taken with "Ronald Reagan". Looks quite real, in the photo. The Gulf Island, which are small islands, nearby Vancouver Island, are even better, IMO, if you ever go back. You'll have to make a trip, when the Dinar kicks in....
I visited Ottawa several years ago and found it to be the cleanest and pristine city I have seen. Enjoyed the visit. I would recommend it to anyone visiting Canada.
Obama's Iraq Achilles Heel
By Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
FrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, June 04, 2008
John McCain needs to go on the offensive against Barack Obama over the Iraq war.
Polls tell us that his support for the Iraq invasion is one of voters' chief problems with McCain. Obama's chief credential, on the other hand, is his early, consistent opposition to the war.
Even with recent successes in Iraq, the war remains a heavy negative for McCain. But he can turn that around; here's how.
When it comes to Iraq, Obama is most comfortable living in the past. He wants to endlessly replay the day when he castigated the war as unnecessary and cooked up by White House political types and ideologues. He's far less comfortable talking about Iraq now, and downright antsy when it comes to discussing the future.
It's a lot easier to oppose a policy than to figure out how to replace it.
Countless Americans remain deeply pessimistic about Iraq; recent successes get judged in the light of past, false optimism.
But that also means voters have no problem envisioning disaster should we pull out our troops too soon - the possible slaughter of pro-American Iraqis, plus police and government officials; perhaps a takeover by Iran; a comeback by al Qaeda and other terrorist operatives.
The key is to force Obama to face these dangers - and explain what he'd do.
* He could deny the possibilities - and come off as a naive, wishful thinker; most unsuitable in a president.
* He could waffle - but then McCain would press. If Obama kept it up, voters would see indecision or evasion - evidence he's in over his his head on foreign policy and national security.
* He could say that he'd use diplomacy to handle the situation - but Americans are rightfully skeptical about the chances for a diplomatic resolution, especially if the United States pulls out its troops.
As Frederick the Great said, "diplomacy without force is like music without instruments." McCain could always press and ask, "What do you do if diplomacy fails?"
* Which brings us to the inevitable answer he must give: I will go back into Iraq with troops.
But that begs more questions: Would he keep adequate force in the region? If not, it could take six months of convoys to go back in. And isn't it inevitable that a new invasion would lead to many more casualties than just staying there?
This gambit narrows the real differences between McCain's and Obama's Iraq policies. Obama basically has to say that he'd keep our troops in the region. Voters can be excused for not seeing much difference between keeping them in Iraq and in Kuwait - especially when pulling them even back to Kuwait makes their return to Iraq seem almost inevitable.
You can't run for president looking in the rear-view mirror and reciting what you said six years ago. You have to offer a plan.
McCain has an easily understood position: Stay in and win. As Iraq improves and Obama is forced to admit the possibility - in Americans' view, almost the inevitability - of ongoing involvement, McCain's solution will appear as much the better one.
Influential Shiite clerics in Iraq and neighbouring Iran oppose the deal and have called it a move against their religion. They have vowed to stage protests to force the Maliki government to roll back the deal which is expected to be concluded by the end of July.
Again, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said, ""We need this strategic agreement. It is an Iraqi need.." and it will be in line with the some 80 other pacts the US has with other countries.. but the opposition is truly just IRAN interfering with Iraqi politics.
===
Iraq studying foreign military pacts ahead of US deal
By Herve Bar AFP
Sunday, June 1, 2008
BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraq has sent teams to four countries that have military pacts with the United States ahead of entering a similar deal, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said on Sunday.
"We dispatched four technical teams to Germany, Turkey, South Korea and Japan to see how they did in these countries," Zebari told reporters on the sidelines of a visit by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.
Zebari said they expected a political consensus in Iraq before finalising the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) to legitimise US operations in Iraq beyond 2008 when the UN resolution governing their presence expires.
The government in a separate statement said that it was too early to say when the deal could be finalised.
"It is too early to talk about dates or the terms to be agreed upon," the statement said, adding that Baghdad would not accept any agreement that undermined its sovereignty.
Iraq's national security council has already asked Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to ensure that any deal does not compromise national security.
Zebari said the situation in Iraq was different to other countries with which Washington had military agreements because of continuing military operations.
"There are still ongoing operations by the US army," he said. "We need this strategic agreement. It is an Iraqi need, but it will not be open-ended."
He added that Baghdad had assured its neighbours that the deal will not go against their national interests. "There is no hidden agenda," he added.
Influential Shiite clerics in Iraq and neighbouring Iran oppose the deal and have called it a move against their religion.
They have vowed to stage protests to force the Maliki government to roll back the deal which is expected to be concluded by the end of July.
Zebari said negotiations with Washington were still under way and the protests in Iraq only demonstrated the nature of democracy. He said a final draft will be placed before parliament.
The Bush administration has said that any deal with Iraq would be similar to more than 80 such pacts Washington has with other nations around the world governing the scope of US operations and providing protection for its soldiers.
It says the pact will not specify troop levels, establish permanent bases in Iraq or tie the next president's hands.
Iraq: US military says Shiite 'special groups' leader surrenders in US raid south of Baghdad
AP/June 3, 2008
BAGHDAD: The U.S. military says it has captured a suspected Shiite militia leader south of Baghdad.
A statement says the suspect and five associates were detained Tuesday in Kut, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of the Iraqi capital.
The U.S. military refers to such fighters as members of Iranian-backed "special groups" who are defying a cease-fire order by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Many of them are believed to have fled recent fighting in Baghdad's Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City.
The statement says U.S. troops raided a home in Kut on Tuesday and captured the top suspect, who has allegedly been involved in the murder of Iraqis and U.S. soldiers. He surrendered without incident.
Afghan insurgents 'on brink of defeat'
By Thomas Harding in Lashkar Gah
02/06/2008 Missions by special forces and air strikes by unmanned drones have "decapitated" the Taliban and brought the war in Afghanistan to a "tipping point", the commander of British forces has said.
CHRISTOPHER PLEDGER
The new "precise, surgical" tactics have killed scores of insurgent leaders and made it extremely difficult for Pakistan-based Taliban leaders to prosecute the campaign, according to Brig Mark Carleton-Smith.
In the past two years an estimated 7,000 Taliban have been killed, the majority in southern and eastern Afghanistan. But it is the "very effective targeted decapitation operations" that have removed "several echelons of commanders".
This in turn has left the insurgents on the brink of defeat, the head of Task Force Helmand said.
"The Taliban are much weaker," he said from 16 Air Assault Brigade headquarters in Lashkar Gah.
"The tide is clearly ebbing not flowing for them. Their chain of command is disrupted and they are short of weapons and ammunition."
Last year's killing of Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban chief, most likely by the Special Boat Service, was "a seminal moment in dislocating" their operation in southern Afghanistan, said Brig Carleton-Smith, 44, who has extensive operational experience in Afghanistan and Iraq and has commanded elite Army troops.
Taliban fighters are apparently becoming increasingly unpopular in Helmand, where they are reliant on the local population for food and water.
They have also been subjected to strikes by the RAF's American-made Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle and the guided Royal Artillery missile system, which have both proved a major battlefield success.
"I can therefore judge the Taliban insurgency a failure at the moment," said Brig Carleton-Smith. "We have reached the tipping point."
The number of Afghans involved in the insurgency has also fallen, with increasing numbers of Pakistanis, Chechens, Uzbeks and Arabs found dead on the battlefield.
However, with the shortage of helicopters still a problem, most movement is by road and Brig Carleton-Smith warned that British forces must prepare for an increasingly Iraq-style insurgency as the Taliban modified its tactics from pitched battles to ambushes and roadside bombs.
The war in Afghanistan hit home to me the other day, in a personal way. My wife and I were driving, in a neighborhood we hadn't been in, much. It's a quiet, typical suburban neighborhood, with mothers pushing strollers along, I noticed there were bunch of yellow ribbons, tied to trees in the neighborhood. I thought, it must be, a local boy was over there, in Afghanistan.
Then, later that day, we went to a high school grad ceremony, for my neice. As part of the formal dinner, there was a video montage, on a big movie screen at the front of the auditorium, that the kids put together, about the school year. The video was mostly about the kids and the teachers, and what they had done during the year. Then a soldier's image came up, on the screen. He looked familiar. I remembered, his picture had been in the local paper. He was a local boy. He was killed in a roadside bomb. I guess he had been a grad of the same school, about 30 years ago.
What lay ahead for the fresh faced kids, just graduated?
As we left the grad, and drove home, I noticed a magnetic sticker, shaped like a ribbon, that someone had put on the back of his truck. "Support the troops" it said. Good idea. They're popular in Calgary.
Let's not forget that everytime you see something on the news, with soldiers in harm's way, that there is a family somewhere, who's thinking about someone, they hope will return safely.
Iraq pays Russian company $110m to resume work Yousfiyya Electrical Station
Iraq's ministerial council has agreed to pay $110m to the Russian company that was working on the Yousfiyya Electrical Station to cover losses the company incurred after the abandoned site was looted when its workers left in 2003.
(www.noozz.com)
Baghdad, 04 June 2008 (Gulf News)
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The United States on Tuesday denied reports that a proposed Iraqi-American security pact would give American forces the right to use Iraqi territory to strike other countries.
The long-term Status of Forces Agreement appears to have led to a rare discord between Baghdad and Washington over several controversial articles, senior Iraqi military sources have told Gulf News on Tuesday.
Among them two that would "give the US the right to strike from within Iraqi territory, any country it considers a threat to its national security," and allow American forces to set up several permanent military bases in Iraq, the sources said.
The proposed pact would also place Iraqi security institutions such as Defence, Interior and National Security ministries, as well as armament contracts, under American supervision for ten years, added the sources.
However, a US spokesperson in Baghdad said the agreement was still being negotiated. "Texts are very much in flux week by week, negotiating session by negotiating session, and relative positions will continue to evolve over coming sessions," said Mirembe Nantongo, spokesperson and Deputy Public Affairs Counsellor at the US Embassy in Baghdad in a statement sent to Gulf News on Tuesday night.
The statement denied any US plan to set up "permanent bases in Iraq" or to seek the right to use Iraqi territory to attack other countries.
"The agreement currently under negotiation between the US and Iraq will explicitly state (1) that the US does not desire and will not seek permanent bases in Iraq and (2) that US forces in Iraq are focused on supporting the Iraqi government and will not be used for offensive operations against any of Iraq's neighbours," Nantongo told Gulf News.
Iraqi military sources nevertheless confirmed that the American army is in the process of completing the building of the military facilities and runways for the permanent bases.
Those points, among other disputed articles, the sources added, have raised eyebrows within the government of Nouri Al Maliki and the military establishment.
Government spokesman Ali Al Dabbagh said the cabinet discussed the proposed agreement, which is scheduled to be concluded by next month and insisted that Iraq's national interests must be protected.
"A joint vision on this issue is yet to be achieved between the two sides, and ... the Iraqi side has a different vision, and it will not undercut or be negligent towards Iraqis' rights and sovereignty," he was quoted by AFP as saying.
Iraqi analysts say the second item of the agreement, which permits American forces on Iraqi territories to launch military attacks against any country the US considers a threat is "addressed primarily to Iran and Syria."
Al Maliki and US President George W. Bush signed a non-binding statement of principles in November for the negotiations, with the aim of concluding a pact by the end of July.
The proposed agreement is aimed at giving a legal basis the 150,000 US troops deployed in Iraq after the December 31 expiry of a UN mandate defining their current status.
The proposed pact has already come under fire from religious and political leaders both in Iraq and in neighbouring Iran with anti-American cleric Moqtada Al Sadr vowing to keeping up protests until the deal is scrapped.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Iraq "needs this strategic agreement, but it will not be open-ended."
He added that Baghdad had assured its neighbours that the deal will not go against their national interests. "There is no hidden agenda," he said.
Other main points of the pact
According to London-based Al Hayat newspaper:
The US would get
- Control Iraq space up to 29,000 feet.
- Open-ended concessions on land, skies and waters of Iraq.
- The right to define terrorist activities.
- The right to arrest and detain an Iraq considered a threat to the American troops.
- The right to launch anti-terror operations without a pre-approval from the Iraqi government.
- Legal protection from prosecution to US forces and security companies.
The Iraqi Government insists on:
- Its total sovereignty over Iraqi territory.
- Giving no concessions to US forces with prior approval by Iraqi authorities.
- Setting up temporary bases the status of which to be review annually.
- Prior Iraqi approval of any US military operation.
- Iraqi authorisation for the arrest and detention of Iraqi citizens.
- Legal protection for US forces during military operations only.
- Limited rights for the US in the Iraqi skies.
(www.iraqupdates.com)
Fallon Breaks Silence on His Dissent
June 04, 2008
International Herald Tribune
His friends call him Fox, and for years William Fallon was considered one of America's most successful four-star admirals, serving most recently as the commander of military operations in the territory stretching from the Horn of Africa across Central Asia.
Now, the 63-year-old former aviator is struggling with reinvention, nudged into early retirement in March after a 40-year naval career because of frank talk that left the perception that he was disloyal to his commander in chief.
Breaking his silence since his departure in an hourlong interview, Fallon said he had felt the pressure building for several months.
He had, after all, taken public positions favoring diplomacy over force in Iran, greater troop withdrawals from Iraq than officially planned and more high-level attention to Afghanistan.
But the catalyst for his departure was not a policy disagreement with the White House, he said, but an article in Esquire magazine earlier this year that portrayed him as the man standing between President George W. Bush and war against Iran.
If the admiral's comments had been kept behind the closed doors of the White House and the Pentagon, he might have survived. The problem was that in the highly hierarchical world of the military, in which the cardinal rule is to salute - not break ranks with - the president, his dissent simply was too public.
The admiral claims not to have been misquoted, but rather misunderstood.
"There was a huge perception that I was publicly at odds with the president, which was not true," he said. "I had serious concerns that my subordinates - my Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines - had that perception.
"It put me in a difficult position. I felt very uncomfortable."
But he conceded that he had shaken the Central Command, which is based in Tampa, Florida, after he arrived in March 2007, both by making crystal clear that he, and not the battlefield commanders, was in charge and by making changes that rankled people, both in and out of the military.
His management style was criticized; his on-the-record comments about policy raised eyebrows.
Some of the issues were petty. Others were more substantive, like an ambitious job-reduction effort aimed at slashing the command's 3,400 personnel and assigning his own people to review others' decisions.
"I wanted us to get focused on Iraq and Afghanistan at a high level, not just rubber-stamping every request, or whatever that was coming out of Baghdad," he said. Acknowledging an impatient streak, he added, "this was not the time to be sitting around clinking teacups."
He was not helped by the fact that he was a navy man with overall responsibility over two wars involving American ground troops, and a commander with a reputation for liberal leanings in a hawkish administration.
As commander of the Pacific Command between 2005 and 2007, he was criticized by conservatives for cozying up to China at a time when that country was rapidly modernizing its armed forces. During his one-year tenure as head of the Central Command, he proposed a navy- to-navy relationship with Iran as a way to begin a sustained dialogue with the country after nearly three decades without diplomatic relations, Bush administration officials said, speaking anonymously according to normal diplomatic rules.
The proposal was not revolutionary; other commanders had floated such an idea before. But it was quickly rejected by the White House as rewarding Tehran, the officials said.
Fallon declined to discuss the initiative, although he acknowledges that he favors dialogue and patience, not war, with Iran, and that the navy could provide a way to begin the process.
"In the conduct of daily business we routinely have excellent communications with the Iranian Navy," he said. "When the conditions are right it might be a reasonable way of interaction - to build on existing maritime communications."
Even now, he defends his public statements on Iran that stress diplomacy over the use of force. "People tend to look at things in black and white - we're going to love Iran or attack Iran," he said. "That is a very simplistic way to approach a complex problem."
He said he found it impossible to convince people that stories about disputes with David Petraeus, the four-star U.S. Army general who was commander in Iraq and replaced him at the Central Command when he retired, were overblown. "He's a smart guy," Fallon said.
But then, he acknowledged that there had been differences, and did not contradict reports that at one point Petraeus had wanted as many troops on the ground in Iraq as possible, while he had favored substantial troop reductions.
"Did we agree on everything? No," he said of their relationship. "Did he want everything? Yes. And that's just the way it is. But we talked just about every day." Fallon added, "He's an army guy, a bit more rigid, less risk."
As the operational commander with day-to-day responsibilities for Iraq, Petraeus enjoyed a direct line of communication with the White House, which Fallon, the strategic overseer, did not. So there was also the pecking-order problem. Fallon's departure from the military was so abrupt that he veers between the present and past in discussing his old job.
"I was Petraeus's boss," he said. "I asked a lot of questions, which is my nature. And the answers better match up with what I have seen."
Asked about a Washington newspaper column that said he was squeezed out because he was "rigid" and "overbearing," he replied, "I don't tolerate fools. I challenge every briefing and pitch. If people present me with only one solution to the problem, I'm the type to reject it immediately."
This is, he said, "a no-nonsense business. I'm not getting paid to be a nice guy."
Fallon began his military career through the navy's Reserve Officer Training Program, which he joined to pay his way through Villanova University in Philadelphia. He flew combat missions during the Vietnam War, commanded a carrier air wing in the 1991 Gulf war and later led the naval battle group supporting NATO operations in Bosnia. Along the way he developed diplomatic skills, taking the unusual step in 2001, for example, of apologizing to Japan and to the relatives of those killed in the accidental sinking of a Japanese fishing trawler by a U.S. submarine.
The rawness of his transition to private life was revealed in his public coming out as the keynote speaker at a terrorism conference at New York University's Center on Law and Security in Florence in May.
"I have to confess to - how should I put this - a bit of uncertainty in my own future, because until a few weeks ago I had things pretty orderly in front of me," he said. But those in the audience who said they were expecting insider-tells-all revelations about the terrorist threat came away disappointed.
In the interview, he declined to criticize directly current policies, although he urged the next administration to focus more on strategic planning.
"We need to have a well thought-out game plan for engagement in the world that we adjust regularly and that has some system of checks and balances built into it," he said. He is thinking about writing a book, but jokes that such a project could pose a challenge. In his Catholic high school in Camden, New Jersey, he wanted to take third-year-Latin. So he never learned how to type.
(www.military.com)
Where Eagles Dare
June 02, 2008
Army News Service|by Spc. Michael Howard
TIKRIT, Iraq - After months of training, American and Iraqi Special Forces, and American CH-47 Chinook and AH-64 Apache crews all participated in a recent mission here to capture high-value targets in northern Iraq as part of Operation Santa Monica.
The Combat Aviation Brigade, 1st Infantry Division's air assault went off seamlessly, according to pilots, who say that any mission involving a Chinook is especially risky given the number of people on the aircraft.
The air assault began at 5 p.m, April 6. The Chinook pilots, after leaving their final brief, turned around and updated their crew chiefs, who were busy preflighting the bird.
Less than 10 percent of the brigade's aircraft are Chinooks, which is the only helicopter trhat can provide massive combat power. It has 30 troops to a Black Hawk's 10. So with few birds and a lot of requests, air assaults are pretty routine for the pilots of the 2nd General Support Aviation Battalion, 1st Aviation Regiment, said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Joshua Locke, one of the CH-47 pilots who participated in the mission.
At 7:30 p.m., pilots received the word and lifted into the air, test-firing their weapons at a nearby range before heading to Forward Operating Base Warrior to refuel with the aid of fuelers equipped with night-vision goggles.
Night is a Chinook's best friend, according to pilots.
If insurgents hit a Chinook it would be catastrophic, so to minimize the risk to pilots and passengers alike, "we use every available asset. Number one, we use the cloak of darkness. Number two, we do extensive route planning to ensure we avoid any areas where (the enemy) may have an advantage," said Locke. "We also use escorts to defend us from attacks. We have the Longbows who stay with us for these deep infiltrations, or any scout-weapons teams that might be there. So we have quite a few factors working in our favor."
Flying in darkness requires the use of NVGs, which in turn requires a highly trained and skilled pilot. According to Locke, pilots' depth perceptions are off with the goggles, and they have no peripheral vision so their apparent rate of closure and ground speed are in error.
Just before 11 p.m., the Chinooks arrived at remote FOB Gabe to find U.S. Special Forces Soldiers and Iraqi Special Operation Forces soldiers waiting in the darkness.
The Americans spent months training with the Iraqi SFO. First, the troops practice rushing on and off the aircraft, first with lights, then without. The American SF were equipped with NVGs, the Iraqis only with head-mounted flashlights, which left them dependent on illumination rounds from the Apaches overhead.
As the Chinooks approached the landing zone in an Iraqi village, the tension in the air was palpable among Americans and Iraqis alike. The ramp at the rear closed partway to minimize the dust the rotors kick up. The Chinook touched the ground lightly, the ramp fell and the SF Soldiers rushed out. Within 30 seconds, the aircraft was airborne again, returning to FOB Warrior until they were needed for extraction.
Long before the infantry-laden Chinooks arrived with their gun-toting payloads, Apaches, 2-man attack and reconnaissance helicopters with state-of-the-art surveillance equipment, were hovering above the village, so high the Iraqis couldn't see or hear them at all. They provided real-time data to mission control in the rear, who fed information to the Chinook pilots as they approached.
The Apaches also remained overhead for the rest of the mission, providing a feed for the CABs tactical operations center, and standing by in case the ground forces needed direct air support.
Downtime at FOB Warrior was cut short when the Chinook pilots received the call from the ground commander: The SF finished early, the mission was complete, and they were ready for extraction. Ten minutes later, the rotors were turning and the lights were off as the crew lifted off the helipad and sped toward the extraction point.
When the Chinook arrived, the Apaches fired the illumination rockets and the it touched down, a little harder this time. The SF rushed aboard the Chinook, their high-value targets alive and in-hand.
"I think it went very smoothly," said Spc. Jonathan M. Gieser, a CH-47 crew chief who participated in the mission. "We had a perfect takeoff, perfect landing, we made it to the pickup zone, we rehearsed the infiltration and exfiltration. We were able to take off from there, make it to the landing zone without incident. Everything went smoothly, no problems with the aircraft, no problems with people getting off. I understand that they moved through the town ahead of schedule, captured their targets, and reboarded the aircraft without incident. It was a perfect night."
(Spc. Michael Howard serves with the Combat Aviation Brigade, 1st Infantry Division Public Affairs Office.)
(www.military.com)
Now the gloves start coming off.
Iran's interest is purely for its own sake, and against Iraq:
Supporters believe the deal would help assure Iraq's Arab neighbors, notably Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, that Iraq's Shiite-led government would not become a satellite of Shiite-dominated Iran as American military role here fades.
But Iran WANTS a satellite.. and is now strenuously objecting, and even threatening Iraq that this "will not be allowed." Isn't it up to IRAQ and their people to decide, not IRAN? Threatening that "the Islamic nation" (which, of course, includes IRAN) will NOT allow this.. you get the impression that sovereign Iraqi politics are being dictated TO by Iran in this article.
==
Iran: U.S. security deal will enslave Iraqis Former president says "Islamic world" will stop proposal as 'danger' to region
AP/ June. 4, 2008
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - One of Iran's most powerful politicians vowed Wednesday that "the Islamic world" will stop a long-term security agreement that is being negotiated by the U.S. and Iraq.
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani told a gathering of Muslim figures in Mecca that the United States is trying to "enslave" Iraqis through the deal. This comments were the strongest and most high-level public condemnations of the potential security deal by an Iranian official.
"This will not happen," the former president of Iran said, "The Iraqi people, the Iraqi government and the Islamic nation will not allow it."
Rafsanjani said the U.S. "occupation of Iraq represents a danger to all nations of the region" and warned that the security deal would create a "permanent occupation." Rafsanjani heads two of the country's most powerful clerical governing bodies, the Expediency Council and the Assembly of Experts.
Iran's previous criticism of the security agreement has largely been in private talks with Iraqi officials.
The deal, which the Iraqis and Americans hope to finish in midsummer, would establish a long-term security relationship between Iraq and the United States, and a parallel agreement would provide a legal basis to keep U.S. troops in Iraq after the U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year.
Supporters believe the deal would help assure Iraq's Arab neighbors, notably Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, that Iraq's Shiite-led government would not become a satellite of Shiite-dominated Iran as American military role here fades.
But public critics in Iraq worry the deal will lock in American military, economic and political domination of the country. Some Iraqi politicians have attacked the deal, especially those loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr, the anti-American cleric whose militiamen fought U.S. and Iraqi troops in Baghdad until a May truce ended seven weeks of fighting.
The agreement is likely to be among the issues discussed this weekend when Iraq's Shiite prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is due to visit Iran — his second trip there in a year. Ahead of the visit, his party sought to calm worries by insisting that the deal would not allow foreign troops to use Iraq as a ground to invade another country — a reference to Iranian fears of a U.S. attack.
Rafsanjani was speaking at a Saudi-sponsored conference aimed at unifying Muslim voices before an interfaith dialogue that Saudi King Abdullah wants to launch with Christian and Jewish religious figures.
All,
For a lot of good info from the, US Army Corps of Engineers, Gulf Region Division http://www.grd.org.usace.army.mil Lots of info from the rebuilding projets in 2007 and 2008 plus there is a few on Utube as well and a lot of good pictures, all the gear that should be on the TV news but never is, I have sent some to my local paper and they do not want to know, Iraq is that still going on,well yea dum dum.
Steve.
Baghdad - Voices of Iraq
Thursday , 05 /06 /2008 Time 5:59:48
Baghdad, Jun 5, (VOI) – United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed al-Nahyan on Thursday revealed his country's plans to reopen its embassy in Iraq and to name an ambassador in the coming few days.
"Talks are underway between the United Arab Emirates and the Iraqi government to name its ambassador to Iraq and reopen its embassy…," Sheikh al-Nahyan said during a joint press conference with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zibari in the Iraqi capital Baghdad.
"We look forward to having Iraq as an active member in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)," Sheikh al-Nahyan added, praising the Iraqi government for what he described as its national reconciliation and security efforts.
Reiterating his country's willingness to maintain sound relations with Iraq, the minister said that the issue of Iraqi debts will be dealt with in a timely, efficient and effective manner.
On Thursday morning, Sheikh al-Nahyan arrived in an unannounced visited to the Iraqi capital and discussed with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki means of boosting diplomatic relations between the two countries.
The visit is the first by a United Arab Emirates minister to Iraq since the collapse of the former regime in 2003.
(www.aswataliraq.info)
While oil is important to the economic development of Iraq both the industrial and agriculture sectors must come on line. It looks as though Iraq is beginning to recognize agriculture is also important.
__________________________________________________________
Economy
100 million Euros for agricultural equipment- ministry
Baghdad - Voices of Iraq
Thursday , 05 /06 /2008 Time 3:31:09
Baghdad, Jun 4, (VOI) – The Iraqi Ministry of Finance will allocate the first part of an Italian loan to the purchase of agricultural equipment and machinery for Iraqi farmers and peasants, an official statement said on Wednesday.
The decision was taken during talks between the minister of finance, Baqer Jabr al-Zubeidi and the Italian ambassador to Iraq, Maurizio Milani, according to a statement released by the Iraqi cabinet's national media center and received by Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq - (VOI), quoting the Iraqi minister.
The Iraqi government reiterated its keenness to develop mutual relations in all fields with Italy, which will help boost its infrastructure and industry, the statement noted.
"The Iraqi minister said it is important to benefit from the Italian sophisticated agricultural system, which he said will help steer the Iraqi agricultural sector," the statement added.
"The first part of the loan, 100 million euros, will be allocated for the purchase of agricultural machinery and equipment, as part of the Iraqi prime minister's initiative to develop the agricultural situation in the country and achieve a high level of self-sufficiency," it said.
Italy has given Iraq a €400-million loan for investment in agricultural projects.
(www.aswataliraq.info)
Gradual Appreciation Expected As Anti-Inflationary Tool
Economy
We expect the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) to maintain its strategy of allowing gradual appreciation of the dinar, while keeping interest rates generally stable.
(www.memonitor.com)
Making sense of the netherworld of Big Oil
BY MATEIN KHALID (At Home)
4 June 2008
THE late Texan oil billionaire J. Paul Getty once observed that while the meek may inherit the earth, they rarely inherit its mineral rights. As an investor in emerging markets oil and gas deals, I have often been stunned by the sheer power and influence wielded by a handful of the world's oil traders on governments, financial markets and international banks.
From the futures exchange pits of New York and London to the spot markets of Rotterdam and Singapore, oil traders are the real culprits behind $135 crude and the oil bubble. While they are obsessively secretive for obvious reasons, I am convinced a handful of oil traders in London, Geneva, Moscow and the Gulf are the real powerbrokers of black gold, the priesthood of history's most fabulous geological lottery, not the governments who own oil reserves, not the refineries and utilities in the planets industrial constellation, not the corporate super majors like Exxon, Total, BP, Chevron, Shell and Conoco the fabled Seven Sisters of Big Oil.
It is impossible to understand the world of international oil, gas and metal trading without a knowledge of the extraordinary career and continuing influence of the legendary Marc Rich, quite possibly the most powerful and oil trader of all time. Rich was born a Belgian Jew in prewar Antwerp until his family escaped the Nazis and settled in New York, where he joined the commodities firm Phibro as a Lehrling (apprentice).
Marc Rich, known as the Matador in the trade for his killer instinct, is a character straight out of a James Bond movie. He made billions of dollars in the esoteric area of "combat zone trading", cutting oil deals with odious regimes such as Khomeini's Iran, Saddam's Iraq, Gaddafi's Libya, Castro's Cuba and apartheid South Africa that major oil companies or refiners dared not touch at the time.
Operating from a lakeside villa on Lake Lucerne, with his offices in the Swiss canton of Zug reputedly protected by ex-SAS commandos, with his palaces in Marbella and St Moritz filled with Chagall, Picasso and Matisse masterpieces, ghost companies in Lichtenstein, Panama and Gibraltar, his billion dollar oil concessions from African dictators and insider contacts in the inner sanctums of both the Kremlin and the White House, both the Israeli Knesset and the Shia theocracy of Qom, Marc Rich is one of world finance's authentic masters of the universe, an ultra-secretive eminence grise of black gold and the metals business who also happens to be one of Switzerland's leading tax payers and philanthropists. At Phibro, Rich's first coup came during the 1974 Arab oil embargo, when he managed to lift Iranian crude cargoes from the terminal at Kharg Island and spot charter tankers to Britain and Holland, both countries boycotted by Saudi Arabia's King Faisal and the Gulf countries for their open support for Israel during the October 1973 Yom Kippur War.
Rich's 'wasta' in Iran allegedly reached right into the Shah's Niavaran palace in Teheran and his associates in oil deals included the sons of the head of SAVAK, the Pahlavi dynasty's notoriously brutal secret police.
But ideology was irrelevant to Marc Rich. When the Shah lost his Peacock Throne, the Matador and the Admiral (Rich's sidekick Pincus Green, whose specialty was complex tanker chartering and logistics deals) ingratiated themselves with Ayatollah Khomeini's entourage even while US diplomats were held hostage during the embassy seizure in Iran.
In 1983, Marc Rich and Pinky Green fled to Switzerland to avoid facing a 300-year jail sentence for tax evasion and sanctions busting order the Trading With the Enemy Act. They settled in the Swiss canton of Zug where they remained until President Clinton pardoned Rich on his last day in office. In the oil trading game money not only talks, it positively screams at a decibel count that rattles even the Oval Office.
Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent UN oil for Food Programme, the discovery of oil and gas in Washington's pariah states as Sudan and Burma, the collapse of the USSR and the emergence of local KGB/Communist Party apparatchiks as the masters of new energy kingdoms in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, the extraterritorial application of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act created an invaluable niche for a handful of billionaire oil traders in London, Geneva and Houston since the 1990's.
Geopolitics, UN sanctions, payoffs into secret Swiss bank accounts, complex oil tanker charters where title to the cargo changed twelve time from a loading terminal in the Gulf or the Black Sea to a refiner in Japan or the Caribbean, made billions of dollars for the oil traders in Geneva, Zug and Lugano.
In the 1990s, Barzan Al Takriti, Saddam's cousin and the Iraqi ambassador to (irony of irones) the UN Palais de Nations in Geneva, handled the sweetheat deals from SOMO (Iraqi's state oil marketing organisation) that enabled the President of Iraq to sell oil destinated to buy milk for the children of Baghdad under the UN sanctions regime to traders like the Matador or Bayoil in Texas, while skimming $10 billion to keep his Baathist dictatorship afloat. Iraqi oil was also smuggled via tankers from the oilfields of Kirkuk across Kurdistan and eastern Anatolia to the loading terminals of Ceyhan, where crude cargos were laundered into legitimate oil supply deals with East coast refiners.
International oil trading scandals even changed the course of history. France's Elf Aquitaine was implicated in a massive payoff scandal in Gabon whose shock waves reached the Chirac Elysee Palace. In Russia, the oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky's overtures to sell a stake in Yukos to Exxon, his attempt to invite Henry Kissinger and the Rothschild banking clan into the high stakes but lethal netherworld of West Siberian gas deals, outraged Vladimir Putin.
Putin finally moved against Khodorkovsky, Russia's richest oil and banking oligarch in 2003, the Kremlin emerged as the most powerful player in the international oil and gas trade with the possible exception of the senior princes of the House of Saud. Russian oil and gas is the most fascinating and complex theme in high finance that I have encountered as a fund manager/deal hunter sniffing out opportunities in the provinces of black gold in the planet's darkest allies.
International oil trading is now dominated by a handful of firms such as Glencore (founded by Marc Rich and part owner of the Footsie 100 copper and nickel mining giant Xtrata) and Gunvor (whose bosses include a German speaking ex KGB judo black belt oligarchs with an old relationship with Putin from his St. Petersburg mayor office trade). Gunvor and Glencore are among the world's largest oil trading companies, with revenues in the $70-80 billion ranges, arguably the biggest private businesses on earth. They own no refineries, no gas fields, no oil wells, no fleet of supertankers, and no petrol stations. Yet they lift the vast majority of the world's oil and gas, sell the black gold treasures of Gazprom, Rosneft, Sibnet and the Opec state oil companies in nebulous, opaque deals no government can really police, though the CIA, M16, Mossad, the FSB and their Third World peers routinely conduct vigilant surveillance on oil tanker movements
While the US invaded Saddam Hussein when he tried to sell his Kirkuk Light black market crude in Euros and tightened the Treasury's sanctions noose around Iran when the Ayatollahs tried to create an oil exchange in Kish island, the endgame for the next generation of oil trading Matadors and Admirals lies in Russia. The Kremlin has created an oil exchange in Vasilevsky Island in St. Petersburg to trade a ruble denominated Urals Blends market contract.
President Dimitri Medvedev, a former Gazprom chairman (Gazprom produces one fourth of the EU's gas imports, making it the single most valuable business on earth), wants to create the Petrorouble, a symbol of Russia's resurgence as an energy superpower, to challenge the dollar's status as a reserve currency. Meanwhile, quasi-governments from Iraqi Kurdistan to the Columbian narcotrafficantes and West African tribal warlords award oil concessions to intrepid wildcatters who drill in places Shell, BP and Exxon cannot remotely access. Oil traders literally write the secret drafts of history in the planet's darkest allies.
Matein Khalid is a Dubai-based investment banker and economic analyst
(www.khaleejtimes.com)
Why should Iraq repay its past debts?
By Mayada Al Askari, Staff Writer
Published: June 04, 2008, 00:11
Iraq is not a poor country, everyone knows that. Back during the "sanction days" as Iraqis called them, referring to the 1990-2003 UN-US economic sanctions imposed on the country, affecting and degrading us Iraqis, we used to wonder: Is it possible that we were actually on the abyss of poverty, while at the very same time, we were walking on ponds upon ponds of black gold?
Today, five years after the downfall of the Baathist regime, a full fledged war, an invasion, swinging back and fourth on the brinks of a civil war, insurgency, Al Qaida, illegal armed militias, and heaven knows what else, the Iraqi government is trying its very best to enforce the status of law.
But, Iraq is still burdened with debts. To be precise, Iraq has to pay back the Paris Club Group of developed countries around $13 billion, and another $50-70 billion to different Arab countries. Most, if not all these debts occurred during the eight year Iran-Iraq war.
Related issues
A number of related issues were addressed recently at the International Compact with Iraq (ICI) conference which was held in Stockholm last week.
"This isn't a donor conference. The Iraqis don't need large sums of money," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said. "They do need large infusions of technical assistance, project support, etc..." she added.
Swedish officials also played down the possibility of new initiatives at the meeting, and Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said debt was not its subject.
But how is it that Iraq does not need large sums of money, when it has to re-construct its basic infrastructure from scratch?
And is Iraq truly able to pay back these debts, and re-build a devastated country which will need tremendous efforts? Lastly and most importantly, are these debts fair?
Going back to 1991, the official amount of all Iraq's debts was $42 billion. This figure was stated in an official document submitted to the UN Security Council at that time, and as a result, Resolution 687 was issued and a ceasefire was carried out.
Most of the loans offered by major industrial countries around the world at the time were tied to Iraq's purchase of weapons to be used in the war against Iran. Those loans were given to the Iraqi leadership for political considerations.
So, it is not enough that Iraq today has to pay the debts of the regime which the international community decided to first weaken by imposing sanctions against it, then started a war to topple it and finishing off with all that was left of the country's infrastructure, not mentioning the deaths, diseases and misery. Iraq has to also pay the accumulated interest on the major loans.
All this seems very unfair. The loans interest took place during the 13 years of UN sanctions against Iraq, when Iraq had no inflow of foreign currency. Even the revenue of $21 billion generated during the UN oil-for-food programme went unaccounted for at the time of Paul Bremer, the US head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.
It was stashed away in French and American banks like lame ducks! No interest was added to Iraq's frozen assets in foreign banks for 13 years, so why should Iraq pay interest now?
Only country
Russia was the only country that dropped all of Iraq's debts. Needless to say, the loans given to Iraq were unethical in the first place, as they were given to step up a destructive war.
James S. Henry is a successful American entrepreneur, attorney, economist, and investigative journalist with outstanding record of professional accomplishment.
On his blog which he has called "Submerging Markets" he wrote: "Indeed, as I've argued before, if Iraq's foreign debt had been restructured in the late 1980s, when (James) Baker was secretary of state, many of our difficulties with Iraq - including Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, the prolonged embargo, and our most recent invasion of Iraq - might well have been avoided entirely."
So isn't it time to take Iraq seriously for a change, and treat its people like human beings?
The region's stability and wellbeing is interwoven with Iraq's security, and stability. Relieving debts that were given to Saddam Hussain for political interests of countries that gave them must be considered before it is too late.
(www.gulfnews.com)
BY STEVE HUNTLEY
With the economy skating close to recession and gas prices bleeding pocketbooks, you'd think those would be the issues dominating presidential politics. No, it's Iraq and foreign policy that have John McCain and Barack Obama trading salvos.
National security, nearly everyone agrees, is McCain's strength, so the presumptive Republican nominee naturally rallies to it. National security, nearly everyone acknowledges, is Obama's vulnerability, so the Democrat has to address it forcefully.
The more experienced McCain likes to highlight the success of the military surge in Iraq, which he had advocated for years before President Bush finally embraced it after the old strategy had brought the Iraq enterprise to the threshold of defeat. The young Obama prefers to focus on what he calls the flawed rationale for the invasion and his early opposition to it.
Stoking this issue is the publication of What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception by former Bush spokesman Scott McClellan. McClellan's use of the word "deception" in the title and the term "propaganda" in describing the run-up to the war have been seized by Obama and anti-war critics as fresh evidence of Bush's duplicity. But McClellan adds, "I do not believe [Bush] or his White House deliberately or consciously sought to deceive the American people."
The reality of the WMD issue is that it is a story of colossal intelligence failure. The spy agencies not only in America but in Europe and Israel believed Saddam Hussein had chemical and/or biological weapons and sought nuclear capability. A few clicks on the Internet will turn up example after example of President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and other Clinton administration officials issuing dire warnings about Iraq's arsenal. Saddam encouraged such beliefs. Add to that the history: his use of chemical weapons and his atomic program being bombed by Israel in 1981.
McClellan complains Bush "began falling into the trap of believing his own spin." Another way of looking at it was that Bush painted a worst-case scenario for Iraq under Saddam. Given the context of the times -- just months after a handful of men armed with box cutters had brought down the twin towers in New York -- worst-case scenarios carried a lot more weight than now, with nearly seven years having passed without a terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
While McClellan echoes Obama's criticism of Bush and McCain's judgment on Iraq, it is Obama's judgment on ending the war on which voters will increasingly focus if the Iraq news continues to be positive. Mostly it's been good for months. A year ago chaos and violence ruled, coalition forces were on the defensive, U.S. troops led all combat operations. Now violence is down dramatically. Iraqi security forces are on the offensive and take the lead, with Americans in supporting roles, in hard fighting in Baghdad's Sadr City and in Basra, achieving surprising success against fierce militias.
Obama's problem is that his Iraq strategy -- withdraw one or two brigades a month until all combat troops are out in 16 months -- was formulated when Iraq looked like a lost cause. If Obama were elected and stuck to his position, he would implement a policy based on conditions existing 1½ years before, not on current realities.
Obama, a University of Chicago intellectual, is in the unlikely position of seeming to have a closed, uninquisitive mind when it comes to Iraq. As McCain points out, the Democrat has visited Iraq just once and that was before the surge. McCain's criticism struck home as Obama now says he may visit Iraq this summer.
Obama also is busy trying to find some wiggle room in his declaration several months ago that he was willing to grant a presidential meeting without precondition in the first year of his term with leaders of rogue states like Iran. He now talks of extensive "preparations" for any summits and says no one is guaranteed a meeting.
Obama no doubt will be happier when the campaign moves on to the economy and gasoline prices.
(www.suntimes.com)
Iraqi prime minister says national reconciliation nearly completed
The Associated PressPublished: May 30, 2008
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STOCKHOLM, Sweden: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Friday that the country's economic and security progress shows reconciliation between the nation's feuding factions is almost completed.
"I'm not saying that Iraq is paradise; absolutely not," al-Maliki told reporters in Stockholm. "There are great challenges. But I still would like to say that violent acts have decreased by 80 percent in Iraq."
His Shiite-dominated government is under pressure to show progress in reconciliation among the country's Sunni Arabs, Shiites and Kurds. Iraq's Sunni Arab minority has long felt it is being sidelined by the majority Shiites and the Kurds.
"We have come nearly to the end of the long process," al-Maliki said through an interpreter at a joint news conference with Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. "It doesn't mean that everyone gets an equal piece of the pie, but it means that one must show a commitment for a unified, democratic Iraq."
The largest Sunni Arab political bloc pulled its members out of the Cabinet in August, saying it was not getting enough say in decision-making. Sunni politicians have been negotiating a possible return, but suspended talks this week due to a dispute over ministry posts.
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The Iraqi prime minister met Swedish government and industry officials Friday, a day after presenting his country's security and economic progress in the past year to a U.N. conference.
Al-Maliki said the Iraqi government has earmarked funds to facilitate the "voluntary returns" of Iraqi refugees who have fled to neighboring countries and Europe since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
That was welcome news to Sweden, which has admitted more than 40,000 Iraqis in five years and is looking for cooperation from Iraqi authorities to send back rejected asylum-seekers.
"This will take place if we prepare for it, especially when security improves and when work opportunities increase," al-Maliki said. "We hope that this is a matter that will have an impact on the development of our relations with European countries and also with neighboring countries."
Fewer than 1 percent of the 5.1 million Iraqis uprooted from their homes had returned by March 31, according to the International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental humanitarian group based in Switzerland.
Up to half the displaced are in neighboring countries, chiefly Jordan and Syria. But these countries, feeling overwhelmed, have tightened visa restrictions. Iraqis who are refugees in their own country are feeling the pinch of high rents, lost jobs and the disruption of their children's education.
"We have statistics that say that tens of thousands of refugees wish to return," al-Maliki said. "We welcome them and we will give them privileges."
(www.iht.com)
The Democrat's Magical Thinking
By Nancy Morgan
MichNews.com
Jun 3, 2008
Something very strange is happening in the hallowed halls of the old media. From the Washington Post to the New York Times, articles are starting to appear actually acknowledging that the Iraq war may be, gasp, winnable. Even the United Nations went on record (url), with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon saying Iraq has made "notable progress" in the security, political and economic fields.
This recent acknowledgment of the obvious has yet to extend to the Democrat Party. Despite the recent CIA assessment (url) that portrayed al-Qaeda as essentially defeated in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, the Democrats continue to cling to the notion that the Iraq war is unwinnable, a quagmire, and a lost cause.
Despite the fact that the he commander of British forces in Iraq announced yesterday (url) that missions by special forces and air strikes by unmanned drones have "decapitated" the Taliban and brought the war in Afghanistan to a "tipping point", Democrats continue their time-worn mantra of U.S defeat, hoping that non stop repetition will continue to let them get away with defining their own reality. A reality totally at odds with the facts. In psychological circles, this is called cognitive dissonance.
Obama's presidential platform continues to rely heavily on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, as he vows to immediately withdraw American troops from Iraq the second he is elected president. Democrat Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, continues to spin any vestige of positive news from Iraq into either an indictment of the U.S military or a boost to our enemies.
In the face of the unprecedented and unwelcome success of the surge in Iraq, Nancy Pelosi claimed the U.S. troop surge has failed to accomplish its goal. Apparently, Democrats have redefined the word 'goal', kinda like Charlie Brown. She then partially credited the success (url) of the troop surge to "the goodwill of the Iranians." Riiiiiiiiight.
For forty years or so, the left has been able to get away with calling a rose a weed. With the backing of the liberal media, their tried and true tactics of repeating a lie often enough until it is accepted as truth has worked. Essentially, Democrats have been able to define reality to their own liking, dismissing any inconvenient truths as the delusions of a vast right-wing conspiracy.
By suppressing inconvenient facts, large portions of the left have been able to keep alive the fiction that Alger Hiss was innocent, despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary - that Reagan was stupid, despite the fact that his position of peace through strength won the Cold War - that Che Geuvera was a hero of the people instead of a murdering thug, and that Castro is living proof that socialism works. Tammy Bruce calls this 'magical thinking.' I call it denial.
Ignoring and/or denying reality is the easiest way to cope - for alcoholics, drug addicts, and the mentally challenged. For these poor souls, the first step toward recovery is acknowledging that they are powerless. For liberal politicians like Pelosi however, to admit that any of her premises are faulty would be catastrophic. To admit powerlessness, to admit her worldview is not valid, would be a complete refutation of a lifetime spent seeking and using power. This is not an option.
The good news is, it appears the liberal Democrats might be losing their willing allies in the media, where market forces demand adherence to reality in order to survive. Just as the media has turned against their recent darlings, the Clintons, it now appears likely they will soon question the Democrat version of reality they have followed and supported for so long.
Whether or not the left actually believes their own rhetoric is a question beyond my pay grade. The real issue remains, what are the consequences for America if fully half of our elected officials continue to insist on adhering to an alternate reality of their own making? I have an inquiring mind. I'd like to know.
Another Haditha Marine Acquitted
By Matthew Sheffield
June 5, 2008
Another day and another Marine acquitted of charges from the so-called "Haditha massacre" that left-leaning journalists (doing the bidding of Democrat Jack Murtha) insisted actually happened.
Bob Owens has the story you won't be seeing on tonight's ABCNNBCBSMSNBC shows
QUOTE:
A military jury has acquitted 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson of all charges that he helped cover up the killing of 24 Iraqis in Haditha following the IED ambush of a Marine patrol.
Grayson, a Marine intelligence officer, had been accused of having a military photographer erase digital photos of the dead Iraqis. Grayson had turned down a plea deal to face charges on five counts that could have led to a maximum of 20 years in prison. An obstruction-of-justice charge against Grayson had been dismissed by the judge earlier in the week. [...]
The November 19, 2005 killings of 24 Iraqi civilians was once a key talking point for anti-war activists and politicians, who likened the event to a modern day My Lai.
The original Marine account issued the next day claimed that 15 civilians had been killed by an enemy improvised explosive device (IED) that also killed Marine Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas, and that eight insurgents were killed in the ensuing firefight. Exactly four months after events took place, Time Magazine posted an article Collateral Damage or Civilian Massacre in Haditha? which claimed, based upon interviews with locals, that the 24 civilian dead were the result of Marines “who went on a rampage” after Terrazas was killed.
There is interesting speculation out there that Hillary won't be conceding the nomination, and may have some new information to add to the nomination process. This article says they think they know what that new information is. Worth reading.
===
Democrat Presidential Contest NOT Over
By Michael J. Gaynor
MichNews.com
Jun 5, 2008
Rookie United States Senator Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. is the presumptive 2008 Democrat presidential nominee.
BUT the rules call for nomination at the convention, not in advance, and neither Obama nor rival Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton won enough pledged delegates to win the nomination and the so-called Superdelegates can change their minds (as one from the Virgin Islands already did twice).
Superdelegates don't want Senator John Sidney McCain to become the next President of the United States.
But they also don't want to offend the faithful black bloc vote supporting Obama as one of them or the youth vote largely mesmerized by Obama.
"Something" has to happen to permit the Superdelegates to shift.
It's fitting that the failed 1972 Democrat presidential candidate, former Senator George McGovern (a war hero during WWII, but perhaps the most liberal major party presidential nominee before no military service Obama) is now supporting Obama.
In 1972, McGovern chose and the Democrat national convention nominated the late Senator Tom Eagleton for vice president.
Then it became public knowledge that Eagleton had received shock therapy treatment.
McGovern said he was 1000% percent behind Eagleton, but Eagleton soon left the ticket.
Now that Obama is the presumptive 2008 Democrat presidential nominee, he will receive more scrutiny and the public will learn that he is not what they had been led to believe he is.
There's no question that Michelle "Black Community first and foremost" is black, but one of my emailers suggested that the headline should be "Arab-American Is Presumptive Presidential Nominee," NOT "African-American Is Presumptive Presidential Nominee."
Emailer:
"I was fascinated by the revelations regarding Obama's heritage ... that he is an Arab, not a black. Knowing that and looking at him, he does appear as a dark Arab rather than a 'black' ... his father was 87.5% Arab, his mother was 0% black. That makes Obama at most 6.125% 'black' American and 43.75% 'Arab' American, the rest being a mixture from his Caucasian mother's side. Hmmmm. So why isn't Obama being heralded as the first 'Arab-American' candidate?"
Answer: It would not be politically helpful to Obama, of course.
This emailer also noted that Obama would not be "the first American president with some small percentage of black blood ... Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Coolidge, and Harding all had some black blood."
Emailer's take is that Black Americans are being "scammed": Obama moved to Chicago's south side to mix with the blacks, marry a black woman and absorb himself into the black community. I doubt if any obviously white person would get away with that ... so he played on his Arab coloring and looks to pass off as a "black" ... once again, the Democrat Party is deceiving the Black American community, big time."
Emailer:
"Wonder if [Obama and the Democrats] WILL get away with it? I suppose if Black America doesn't know it's being scammed, they could hardly be expected to react as if they did know.
"I believe Obama's association with Blacks and 'liberation theology' and other radical black churches is done for two reasons: (1) to create a cover for his masquerading as a 'black' and, (2), because he is a left wing radical.
"Should be interesting to see how this all unfolds."
Hillary needs to have disconcerting truth about Obama made public without alienating Obama's base.
UAE to name ambassador to Iraq
By Ammar Karim
AFP - June 5 2008
BAGHDAD (AFP) - The United Arab Emirates said on Thursday it is to name an ambassador to Iraq within days, the Iraqi government said on Thursday.
The announcement came during a landmark visit to Baghdad by UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan, the first by such a high-ranking official from an Arab country in the Gulf since the US-led invasion of 2003.
The foreign minister told reporters that the UAE would reopen its embassy and name an ambassador soon.
"Consultations are under way between the UAE and the Iraqi government about naming the ambassador to Iraq and reopening the Emirati embassy in the next few days," he told a press conference in Baghdad.
He said he hoped to see "an active and effective Emirati embassy in Baghdad in the coming weeks."
"We view Iraq as an important partner in the region, and we aspire to (Baghdad) being an important partner of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council)," the Emirati news agency WAM quoted the Emirati chief diplomat as saying.
The oil-rich GCC that also includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Jordan, Egypt and Bahrain are also taking steps toward establishing a permanent diplomatic presence in Iraq.
Last Friday, Jordan said it would also appoint a new ambassador "in the coming days."
Is Obama black? Boy, I never thought I'd be saying those words, in a sentence. Yet....he could be, not black, for all I know. Only a geneticist could know for sure. His color shouldn't be an issue. But his honesty should be.
At a time when America is at war with two Muslim countries, I think the voters would be interested in knowing, if one of the major candidates had lied about his heritage, and was, in fact, Arab. I think it would be something that people should know, and then they could make up their own minds, as to whether or not his ethnicity was a relevant issue.
If I were an American, I would easily vote for a black candidate, like Colin Powell. But I would not vote for a known liar. I thought Mr. Powell should have run, but he didn't. Condaleeza Rice has more than enough brainpower and experience to lead America, but she has said on a number of occasions, she doesn't want the job. She doesn't think she is the leader type.
It might make sense, really, if he turned out to be an Arab. It reminds me of the time I spent in Kenya, Barrack's father's home. I spent a lazy week, a couple of decades ago, lazing on the beaches of Mombassa. It's right on the coast, and I thought of it as sort of an African Hawaii.
Plenty of palm trees, tons of tourists in the hotels on the coast. I baked on the beach, for a week. And then I went in, for a tourist jaunt, to the city of Mombassa. I took a tour of an old fort, built by the Portugese, I think. As the tour guide showed us around, he explained a bit of the history of the area.
Mombassa was a slave trading port, he said. He showed us a map of the middle east, and the northeastern tip of Africa, where we were. Paraphrasing what I remember of the conversation, "It was easy and natural for slave routes to develop the way they did. The Arabian peninsula sticks out into the ocean. Just set sail, up the Red Sea, or Persian Gulf, head to the Arabian Sea, and then into the Indian Ocean, along the coast, past what is now Somolia, and you end up here, after a short trip." On a map, it looks like sailing from Boston to Georgia. No big deal, in a decent boat.
When I visited the market in Mombassa, I saw dozens of women, dressed in black. Since it was on the equator, and dreadfully hot, I was amazed anyone could wear such a heat absorbing outfit. Here I was, a skinny white guy, at the time, dressed in white shorts and T-Shirt, and I was way too hot in that outfit, and these women were baking like chickens, in the hot sun, covered head to toe in long black dresses and headcovers. They were Muslim, of course. Unlike the interior, which is mostly Christian, there are a lot of Muslims on the coast of Kenya, because the slavers converted the black people who lived there, but I guess the Arabs didn't make it to the interior of the country.
And, if he is Arab, that could be Obama's roots. The Arab slave traders were notorious for their cruelty toward blacks. The account I read, years ago, of the Arab slave trade, claimed the Muslim Arabs traded more slaves, than did the Christian nations, at the time. And today, in the Sudan, Arab Muslims, who have a reputation for being racist against blacks, and considering them inferior, these Arab Muslims are currently abusing and killing blacks.
This election seems to be, in many people's minds, about putting America's past, in regards to slavery and the historical mistreatment of blacks behind them. Obama, for many people, appears to fulfill some sort of psychological need, in some white voters, for some sort of moral redemption, for America's past injustices, done by people other than themselves. The past injustices were, of course, slavery and the oppression of blacks. Wouldn't it be ironic if the candidate running for President who had the most to hide, because his ancestors were slave owners, and abusers of black people, was Obama?
Kinda makes a mess of the whole liberal rationale for supporting the guy, doesn't it?
So, is Obama black? Unless he tells us, or Republicans hire private detectives to pick up hair samples from hotel rooms, we'll never know. But it's true, a man who looks like Obama could easily be produced, as an offspring, from a white mother, and a black skinned Arab man. Arabs, in Saudi Arabia have very dark skin. Their facial features are not black, so a pure Arab will not look pure black. But a half black, half Arab might just look like Obama. Tiger Woods is thought of as black, but his mother is and Oriental.
So, the American Army, on orders from the President of the United States, and the White House, went all the way, across the world, to the middle east, to wage war against a Muslim nation, and depose of a Muslim Arab man, named Hussein. Now, it appears, another Muslim Arab man, named Hussein, may yet claim the power of the Presidency, and the White House.
Wow, that is a very strange set of circumstances.
Anybody remember the story of the Trojan Horse?
My guess? Obama is a mixture of mostly Arab, some black, and half white.
I am amazed everytime that I hear someone from afar telling about the Klu Klux Klan. I have lived in the South for over 70 years and am about as well travelled as the average person and I have never met a Klu Kluxer and neither have I ever met anyone who admitted to knowing a Klu Kluxer. I have also never seen a Southern Belle.
I have visited a few trailor courts and seen the people who appear on TV whenever the TV media cameras come South to cover some issue.
There are a few red-necks in the South that give the whole region a bad reputation just as there is a small percentage of bad-ass blacks that give all blacks a scary image.
The South gets a raw deal whenever the media covers it, but it appears to me that only the rich and famous have an unfair advantage over blacks. If a black and white kid was graduating from high school and going into the work force in the South, I would rather be the black kid.
We have reached the point in this Country where no constructive discussion can be made of racial issues. You either brag on blacks or you are a racist.
I have probably done more for black people than 90% of the people in this country so think twice before branding me a racist.
Iraq is exporting more oil than it has for years and is on the verge of signing deals with oil majors that could quickly take output higher, oil officials say.
Baghdad expects this month to conclude negotiations for six oilfield service contracts with international companies that could boost output this year.
The deals could provide the extra 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) in exports Iraq wants from the southern Basra terminal by the end of 2008. Basra accounts for most of Iraq's exports, shipping more than 1.5 million bpd.
"Provided they are signed promptly, these deals could give quick progress," said an executive at a western oil company negotiating for one of the contracts.
"They are the first step towards real improvement in a sector that has been under stress for 30 years."
Iraq expects June exports to reach 2.2 million barrels per day, the highest for monthly shipments since the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003. Baghdad sees exports rising further to 2.3 million bpd by the end of 2008.
The oil sector has increased output as security has improved but oil companies remain nervous.
Iraq will contract international oil firms to help manage operations at its largest producing fields such as Rumaila in the south, supplying equipment to refurbish dilapidated infrastructure.
The two-year deals call for a total output boost of 600,000 barrels per day. Once the contracts are signed, Iraq plans to offer the same fields in a bidding round for longer-term development.
The industry needs billions of dollars for renewal and expansion. The service deals are part of stop-gap measures to attract part of that investment in the absence of a vital oil law.
Political disputes have stalled the passage of an oil law through parliament for over a year. The legislation aims to set the terms and extent of foreign investment in developing the world's third largest oil reserves.
"Considerable progress can be made without the law," said Muhammad-Ali Zainy, senior energy analyst at the London-based Centre for Global Energy Studies.
"These contracts are a big step forward and will help bring new methods and technology to these important fields."
BETTER SECURITY
Improved security has yielded gains of nearly 500,000 bpd in northern exports since last summer. Sabotage had kept that line mostly idle since the war.
Baghdad hopes to see Kirkuk oil exports up by another 100,000 bpd by the end of the year.
Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani said this week he was optimistic that Iraqi forces would keep security tight at oil facilities, helping to bolster the confidence of foreign investors discouraged by sectarian violence.
Rising output and exports are allowing Iraq to cash in on record oil prices and have raised the prospect of an accelerated recovery in its shattered economy.
Iraq has a 10-year plan to boost output from 2.5 million bpd this year to 6 million bpd, Shahristani said this week. It aims to hit 4.5 million bpd in five years.
But for those larger long-term gains, Iraq needs the oil law in place for international oil companies to play a bigger role in developing untapped fields.
"We remain very cautious in terms of further capacity expansion," said Alex Munton, analyst at global consultancy Wood Mackenzie.
"Iraq has almost reached the point, simply by repairing the damage of the last few years and adding security around main pipelines, of maximum capacity with the infrastructure in place. But there is little likelihood of being able to add to that without much larger-scale investment and the assistance of international oil companies."
Even with the law, international oil majors have said it would be years before security improves enough for them to be able to send ground staff to Iraq.
They intend to manage the new technical service contracts from outside the country, and will rely on Iraq's state oil companies to execute their plans.
The law is meant to help bridge divides between Iraq's Shi'ites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds. Control of oil reserves is one of the principal disputes.
The Iraqi Kurdish region's prime minister said on Tuesday that it would take fresh proposals to Baghdad on the oil law in the next two weeks. The Kurds' top energy official said he hoped the law would pass this year.
London, 06 June 2008 (Asharq Alawsat)
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Disagreements between Iraqi and US delegations over issues relating to "sovereignty" in a draft strategic agreement organizing relations between the two countries disrupted the negotiations between the two sides. A prominent Iraqi official said that Iraq is discussing "alternatives" to the agreement, including "staying under UN protection."
Official Spokesman for the Iraqi Government Ali al-Dabbagh said, "Currently, there is open talk on the need to look for alternatives to the long-term security agreement between Iraq and the United States."
Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat by phone from his office in Baghdad, Al-Dabbagh said, "At its meeting today [3 June], the Council of Ministers discussed the objections to the provisions of the agreement. There should be agreement between two fully sovereign countries respecting the Iraqi people's rights and sovereignty or no agreement at all." He emphasized, "We do not need an agreement that compromises our sovereignty and harms our people's rights."
Al-Dabbagh said, "The Iraqi Government's vision differs from that of the Americans who think that the agreement will give them almost totally a free hand in Iraq and that, as a military force, they must have absolute powers. This stand contravenes Iraqi sovereignty and our people's rights. No Iraqi political force or party would accept this. The issue of the country's sovereignty and people's rights cannot be compromised at all. It is not subject to discussion or even mere talk." He added, "The agreement must respect Iraq and the Iraqis or there should be no agreement. We are not compelled to sign the agreement or submit to it. The agreement must respect our sovereignty and rights." The official spokesman for the Iraqi Government said, "Currently, there is open talk on the need to look for alternatives, if no plan is agreed upon. These alternatives include signing a cooperation agreement instead of a long-term security agreement and staying under the United Nations protection to protect Iraqi funds, in addition to many other alternatives that are under discussion. "Al-Dabbagh denied that the negotiations between Iraq and the US Administration on the agreement have been suspended. He explained, "The negotiators went back to their higher political authorities for consultation. We do not consider the negotiations as having been suspended. Iraq has not submitted and will not submit to any pressure or influence. As a matter of fact, the Americans did not press for accepting the agreement." Earlier, a leader of the Al-Da'wah Party announced that negotiations between the two sides came to an end.
Negotiations have been held between the United States and Iraq to reach agreement on the "status of the forces" with the aim of imparting a legal status to the presence of the US Army in Iraq after the 31st of December when a mandate under an international resolution organizing the presence of these forces in Iraq expires. The French News Agency quoted MP Abbas al-Bayyati who represents the ruling coalition assaying, "There are three points that need further discussions. They are the right to detain, the right to enter and exit, and the extent of the immunity granted to US soldiers and security contractors." He added that there are questions about "the fight against terrorism and whether the US forces will enjoy an absolute right to detain people or whether the Iraqi side will have a larger role."
The Political Council of the Iraqi National Security that consists of senior officials and political groups recommended that there is a need to continue the negotiations with the United States in order to reach an agreement that will "satisfy the Iraqi people and not harm their interests." Al-Bayyatiadds, "The other issues have to do with the forces' entry and exit. The entry and exit of the forces must be regulated by a clear mechanism, such as imposing entry visas and designating entry and exit points and airports." He continues, "As for the immunity, there is a question as to whether a [US] soldier or an employee of a security firm who commits a crime will stand trial at Iraqi courts or whether the immunity will be limited to the performance of duty."
On the other side, however, the Iraqi demands seem to be absolutely contrary to what the Americans are seeking. A source familiar with the draft agreement says, "The Americans demand to control the airspace, enjoy open facilities on land and at sea, have the right to arrest and imprison any Iraqi who they believe poses a threat, and carry out military operations against terrorism without consulting Baghdad." The source who refused to give his name adds, "The Iraqis demand that they be considered a sovereign government. Also, they assert that the Americans must not be granted facilities without their approval. They want the status of the American bases that will be established to be reviewed as is the case in Turkey." The source says, "The Baghdad government insists that US forces do not move from their temporary bases without its approval and knowledge. Also, it insists that the movement of the US Army funds be subject to the Central Bank and that a written approval by the Iraqi Government be secured for any military operation." The same source adds, "The Iraqis reject the arrest of any Iraqi without their consent. Also, they demand that the US forces be given limited corridors in the Iraqi airspace and that US soldiers' legal immunity be limited to military operations, on the condition that such operations be carried out after securing Baghdad's approval."
In response to Al-Dabbagh's statements that agreement between the two sides might not be reached, Mirembe Natango, spokeswoman for the US Embassy in Baghdad, said, "These are negotiations conducted between two sovereign countries that work together." In a statement to Asharq Al-Awsat, Natango added that the talk about disagreements or failure to reach agreement is premature. She explained, "No final agreement has been reached on any issue to date, and it is premature to say that agreement has been reached." Natango pointed out that negotiations are continuing between Iraqi and US officials at various levels. She said, "Several drafts are currently exchanged between the two sides, and no final draft has been formulated."
(www.iraqupdates.com)
06 June 2008 (The Independent)
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The US is holding hostage some $50bn (£25bn) of Iraq's money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pressure the Iraqi government into signing an agreement seen by many Iraqis as prolonging the US occupation indefinitely, according to information leaked to The Independent.
US negotiators are using the existence of $20bn in outstanding court judgments against Iraq in the US, to pressure their Iraqi counterparts into accepting the terms of the military deal, details of which were reported for the first time in this newspaper yesterday.
Iraq's foreign reserves are currently protected by a presidential order giving them immunity from judicial attachment but the US side in the talks has suggested that if the UN mandate, under which the money is held, lapses and is not replaced by the new agreement, then Iraq's funds would lose this immunity. The cost to Iraq of this happening would be the immediate loss of $20bn. The US is able to threaten Iraq with the loss of 40 per cent of its foreign exchange reserves because Iraq's independence is still limited by the legacy of UN sanctions and restrictions imposed on Iraq since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in the 1990s. This means that Iraq is still considered a threat to international security and stability under Chapter Seven of the UN charter. The US negotiators say the price of Iraq escaping Chapter Seven is to sign up to a new "strategic alliance" with the United States.
The threat by the American side underlines the personal commitment of President George Bush to pushing the new pact through by 31 July. Although it is in reality a treaty between Iraq and the US, Mr Bush is describing it as an alliance so he does not have to submit it for approval to the US Senate.
Iraqi critics of the agreement say that it means Iraq will be a client state in which the US will keep more than 50 military bases. American forces will be able to carry out arrests of Iraqi citizens and conduct military campaigns without consultation with the Iraqi government. American soldiers and contractors will enjoy legal immunity.
The US had previously denied it wanted permanent bases in Iraq, but American negotiators argue that so long as there is an Iraqi perimeter fence, even if it is manned by only one Iraqi soldier, around a US installation, then Iraq and not the US is in charge.
The US has security agreements with many countries, but none are occupied by 151,000 US soldiers as is Iraq. The US is not even willing to tell the government in Baghdad what American forces are entering or leaving Iraq, apparently because it fears the government will inform the Iranians, said an Iraqi source.
The fact that Iraq's financial reserves, increasing rapidly because of the high price of oil, continue to be held in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is another legacy of international sanctions against Saddam Hussein. Under the UN mandate, oil revenues must be placed in the Development Fund for Iraq which is in the bank.
The funds are under the control of the Iraqi government, though the US Treasury has strong influence on the form in which the reserves are held.
Iraqi officials say that, last year, they wanted to diversify their holdings out of the dollar, as it depreciated, into other assets, such as the euro, more likely to hold their value. This was vetoed by the US Treasury because American officials feared it would show lack of confidence in the dollar.
Iraqi officials say the consequence of the American action was to lose Iraq the equivalent of $5bn. Given intense American pressure on a weak Iraqi government very dependent on US support, it is still probable that the agreement will go through with only cosmetic changes. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the immensely influential Shia cleric, could prevent the pact by issuing a fatwa against it but has so far failed to do so.
The Grand Ayatollah met Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), which is the main supporter of the Iraqi government, earlier this week and did not condemn the agreement or call for a referendum. He said, according to Mr Hakim, that it must guarantee Iraqi national sovereignty, be transparent, command a national consensus and be approved by the Iraqi parliament. Critics of the deal fear that the government will sign the agreement, and parliament approve it, in return for marginal concessions.
(www.iraqupdates.com)
Tracking down this rumor about Obama is interesting.. I used Wikipedia.
It says of Obama's father:
Barack Obama, Sr., was born in 1936 in Nyangoma-Kogelo, Siaya District (now in Bondo District), Kenya. His father, Hussein Onyango Obama (c. 1895-1979),[1] belonged to the Luo tribe.
The Luo probably originated at Wau in southern Sudan, near the confluence of the Meride and Sue Rivers. The Kenya Luo migrated into western Kenya via today's eastern Uganda, the first wave arriving sometime around 1500 AD. Arrivals came in at least five waves arriving at different times: (1) the Joka-Jok (who migrated from Acholiland, the first and largest migration); (2) those migrating from Alur; (3) the Owiny (who migrated from Padhola); (4) the Jok’Omolo (perhaps from Pawir); and (5) The Abasuba (a heterogeneous group in southern Nyanza, with Bantu elements).
There is no further information on each of these migratory waves (the Joka-Kok, Alur, Owiny, Jok'Omolo or Abasuba) on wikipedia.
However, this is interesting on Wau:
Wau, Sudan
Wau (Arabic: واو Wāw; also Wow or Waw) is a town in southern Sudan on the western bank of the Jur River, and is the capital of the West Bahr al Ghazal state.
Overview
Initially established as a zariba (fortified base) by slave-traders in the 19th century, it became an administrative center during the time of Anglo-Egyptian condominium rule in Sudan. Wau is a culturally, ethnically, and linguistically mixed town. Its residents include peoples of Fertit, Dinka, Luo, and Arab origin.
So, from this, we can see that the claim Barack is Arab in origin could be so.
His father could have been from the Wau Arabic residents.
It is interesting and this claim could bear up under scrutiny.
Like everything else in Iraq it seems U.S. desire and Iraqi will are at odds. It looks as though we were all wrong; we thought the HCL as the key to release from article VII. Instead, it turns out that the restoration of soverignty rests on the Iraqi Parliment passing the SOFA agreement.
There is no doubt the SOFA agreement as it now stands is in serious trouble. On the other hand, I am sure negotiations are going on and a compromise reached. I am very confident that both the HCL and SOFA will fail to pass parliment before the July recess. If I am right, we as investors have a longer wait ahead of us.
A delay in the HCL and SOFA means the status quo of a gradual appreciation of the Dinar will be the continued policy of the CBI.
timbitts, Thank you, your post on Mombassa and the Arab slave traders was very interesting. You said,"if he is Arab, that could be Obama's roots" and the wikipedia information I just posted appears to support that possibility.
Thanks, Neil, for your post, too. I agree, stereotypes about the South are far from reality. It is only that Hollywood has created a false viewpoint now perpetuated by the MSM. People ought to know better.
The racist post (and references to it) I removed was from the UK, not the United States. Sara's correct that the Brits only have Hollywood movies and incorrect news views, and not reality, that they judge from.
Flip-flopping ahead.. in order to avoid the devastation of the truth that Iraq is a victory...
==
Obama says ground condition could alter Iraq withdrawal policy
Friday, June 06, 2008
NEW YORK: Presumptive Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama has sought to distance himself from his campaign statements on troop withdrawal from Iraq, apparently under pressure from Republican rival John McCain's repeated questioning of his stand.
In an interview with US news agency after clinching the Presidential nomination, Obama did not rule out the possibility that conditions on the ground could alter his policy of immediately beginning a troop withdrawal.
Obama's likely opponent in presidential race John McCain, a Vietnam war veteran, has been constantly questioning Obama's policy, saying it would not be in best interest of the US or Iraq to withdraw troops before peace has been restored.
McCain has also said that he plans to get most US troops home from Iraq by 2013, if elected.
Confronted with his statements on withdrawal policy, Obama replied, "Well, you know, I'd never say there's 'nothing' or 'never' or 'no way' in which I'd change my mind".
Sounding more cautious on the issue, the 46 year old Illinois senator said the matter will be looked upon from a "broader perspective".
Four Qaida militants killed in U.S. raid in N Iraq
www.chinaview.cn
2008-06-06
BAGHDAD, June 6 (Xinhua) -- U.S. troops killed four suspected al-Qaida militants and detained more than 20 others in a raid targeting al-Qaida network in Iraq's northern province of Ta'mim, the U.S. military said Friday.
The U.S. raid which was based on intelligence information conducted on Wednesday and took place along the Tigris River Valley in the western part of Ta'mim province, a military statement said.
The statement revealed that a suspected cell leader and his top lieutenants were among the dead who were believed to be responsible for carrying out car bomb attacks and weapons smuggling in the province and its nearby areas.
Recently, U.S. and Iraqi security forces captured or killed many al-Qaida leaders for indiscriminate killings and disturbing stability across the country.
On Tuesday, the U.S. military announced in a statement that its troops captured two wanted men of al-Qaida militants and five of their associates in two operations in the cities of Mosul and Tikrit, north of Baghdad.
Recruitment of suicide bombers down - official
By Basil Adas, Correspondent
Published: June 06, 2008, 00:12
Baghdad: About 6,000 Al Qaida fighters have been killed since the beginning of the Iraq war five years ago, half of whom died in suicide operations, according to a top official in the Iraqi army.
The official said the killings took place between 2003 and April 2008.
The high number of Al Qaida deaths was "a result of cooperation between Iraqi security forces and US forces," Gen Anwar Ameen, Inspector General at the Iraqi Defence Ministry, told Gulf News.
He said Al Qaida members were killed either by US or Iraqi forces, or killed themselves in suicide bombings.
"This is a defeat for the organisation, not only in Iraq but also worldwide. I am certain Al Qaida will need decades to be able to again recruit the number [of fighters] it lost in Iraq," he added.
Anwar said Al Qaida no longer had the ability to recruit as many suicide bombers as it did between 2003 and 2005, which explains the decline in the number of suicide operations in Baghdad, from twenty per week a couple of years ago to the present three or four every one to two weeks, according to him.
BAGHDAD (AP) - Two suspected Shiite militia leaders surrendered Friday during American raids on their homes south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.
One of the men is suspected of ordering attacks on U.S. troops, directing the kidnapping of Iraqis and smuggling Iranian weapons and Katyusha rockets into Iraq, according to a statement from the military. The other suspect tried to flee by wading through an irrigation canal, before surrendering.
The U.S. said the men were members of Iranian-backed "special groups" language the American military uses to describe Shiite fighters defying a cease-fire order by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Such arrests have become an almost daily occurrence in Iraq, where U.S. forces are seeking to thwart the movement of Iranian weapons into Iraq. Washington accuses Iran of arming and training Shiite militiamen, but Tehran denies that.
The U.S. military issued three additional statements Friday saying its soldiers killed four suspects and captured more than 57 others in raids earlier in the week in Baghdad and across northern Iraq.
Israel attack on Iran 'unavoidable'-Olmert deputy
06/06/2008
JERUSALEM, (Reuters) - An Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites looks "unavoidable" given the apparent failure of sanctions to deny Tehran technology with bomb-making potential, one of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's deputies said on Friday.
"If Iran continues with its programme for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The sanctions are ineffective," Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz told the mass-circulation Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.
"Attacking Iran, in order to stop its nuclear plans, will be unavoidable," said the former army chief who has also been defence minister.
It was the most explicit threat yet against Iran from a member of Olmert's government, which, like the Bush administration, has preferred to hint at force as a last resort should U.N. Security Council sanctions be deemed a dead end.
Iran, which denies seeking nuclear weapons, has defied Western pressure to abandon its uranium enrichment projects. The leadership in Tehran has also threatened to retaliate against Israel -- believed to have the Middle East's only atomic arsenal -- and U.S. targets in the Gulf for any attack on Iranian turf.
Mofaz also said in the interview that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for Israel to be wiped off the map, "would disappear before Israel does."
Mofaz's remarks came as he and several other senior members of Olmert's Kadima Party prepare for a possible run for top office should a corruption scandal force the Israeli prime minister to step down.
Iranian-born Mofaz has been a main party rival of the Israeli prime minister, particularly following the 2006 elections when Olmert was forced to hand the defence portfolio to Labour, his main coalition partner, at Mofaz's expense.
Mofaz, who is also designated as a deputy prime minister, has remained privy to Israel's defence planning. He is a member of Olmert's security cabinet and leads regular strategic coordination talks with the U.S. State Department.
Israel sent warplanes to destroy Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981.
A similar Israeli sortie over Syria last September razed what the U.S. administration said was a nascent nuclear reactor built with North Korean help. Syria denied having any such facility.
Independent analysts have questioned, however, whether Israel's armed forces can take on Iran alone, as its nuclear sites are numerous, distant and well-fortified.
Independent analysts have questioned, however, whether Israel's armed forces can take on Iran alone, as its nuclear sites are numerous, distant and well-fortified.
Hmm.. then who do you think might be placed into the position of having to help them?
Possibly.. the US?
I'm in a dilemna! Obama infuriates me and McCain nauseates me.
We usually make a large donation to the Repub. party right after the convention. Our conscience is not clear this year. My husband read bio on Mc cain.......cheated on his wife Carol Shepp who waited for him while POW, had car accident, became crippled, gained weight, and he dumped her for Cindy!
60% of policies that need to be his platform, he will have a hard time stating as his voting record shows that he voted against the conservatives in Congress. So in order to take a stand on issues that make him
diametrically different from Obama, he will have to change his mind from his past convictions.
He will not support a Constituional ammendment to confirm marriage remains one man one woman, AND he opposes late term abortion, but that's it!
What CRAP has the Republican Party dealt us??????
The claim that he will deal with our noational security, is weak, in that he wants to close gittmo, refuses to allow our intelligence and military to use effective interrogating methods AND has no worry about terrorists getting into this country based on his opposing any form of truly effective immigration reform........
So, why should we expect that internationally he will put up a good fight against evil confrontations from terrorist nations? Excuse my langauge....but the man is a piece of shit! trying to pass himself off as filet mignon!
This country is in deep...you what!
I guess I will have to wait to see who he picks as a running mate......cause milignant melanoma's exacerbate with stress and exhaustion....so his life line is questionable, at best.
If he picks another old guy with failing health, too much of a risk that nancy pelosi will end up president.
AND , I beleive , as many, if Obama picks Hilary as running mate, he will end up on that long suspicious list of people they had problems with who had untimely mysterious deaths.....so she could end up president.
Disect Mc Cain, and be opened minded and see if you aren't in a dilemna too!
I realize our options are disasterous.....but we have to answer to a higher calling.....at this point my conscience is in deadlock!
Have any of you noticed how lopsided the coverage on the Iraq-US agreement is? They only give the interests of the Iraqis and not any interests of the US. It is IRAQ'S INDEPENDENCE which counts.. and not any interests of the US??? I am not saying to stop caring about the Iraqis or their sovereignty, but just hold on a second here. The US has put a lot of BLOOD, sweat and tears into this.. is the world proposing that the US is supposed to walk away empty-handed? I don't think that makes any business sense. In any transaction, BOTH sides have to feel they win in order for the agreement to work and be useful. The coverage given portrays the US as the big bully trying to take away from Iraq.. but they don't show ANY of the LEGITIMATE needs of the US within the agreement as having any weight. This lopsided, myopic viewpoint wishes nothing but concessions from the US, and I think it should not be given into. The agreement should be forged in such a way that BOTH sides are in agreement and protect their interests in the region. The US side ought to be given fair play and if the Iraqis are so reluctant to give that they must be FORCED by threats over their money (see article above), then that speaks to such a sorry state of affairs that the negotiators cannot get anything done with these recalcitrant Iraqis without the use of discipline. I had hoped they were mature and disciplined already... without the need of threats to gain any traction for US interests.
One more thing....this great stand he takes on the environment..........Cindy's beer "factories" emit massive amounts of Carbon toxins on a daily basis,,,,,,
chit!jda'rfpepfef[dsojasfrofjwfpdlsojasdifhwrfhwijf[wk[paskfojafiswjfsFSF[FORIHPFKsD;w !!!!!! (You don't want an interpretation)
AND SHE IS A RECENTLY RECOVERED ADDICT!
If I were a drinking person, I'd be looking to get drunk right about now!
As I told you, the Lord said to me that He was putting a Democrat into the Whitehouse, but not Hillary or Obama. I believe McCain is a Democrat and noted to you that Kerry asked him to run with him on the Democrat ticket to be his Vice President. You also see that he is a Democrat and find it hard as a Republican to support what is not the GOP platform. Understandable.
And as for being Commander-in-chief - who would you rather to be in that role? Even Hillary saw what a weakling Obama is on defense, offense and foreign affairs in her ad about "who do you want to be on the other end of the phone?"
I cannot endorse McCain as I do President Bush. But McCain is the will of God for the nation. Once he is in, America will have to take her lumps as he helms the ship.. far better than Obama would have, but far less than President Bush. You see, they rejected what you and I and President Bush believe. The key questions you are concerned about.. does President Bush support your view? Look carefully.. what are your objections?
Personal relationships? President Bush has never been in a scandal and is married to one original wife. Changing of his positions and voting against party lines? President Bush is reliable, as one man said, "all you need is to talk to him once and you know where he stands". Marriage between one man and one woman? President Bush would support that and sign it into law, as you well know. National security, Gitmo, intelligence gathering? President Bush's policies mirror your own concerns. Iran? President Bush would not let them get nuclear weapons.. See? All you care about.. President Bush embodied. And the American people rejected him, and so rejected his policies. NOW they get to reap that.. in being given someone who is closer to what they say they want. And they will get to see what they have chosen.
What do you suggest? We force them to admit they are wrong and Bush's policies are right? That our views are the most rational and sane to keep the country safe from terrorist attack? We cannot do so. So the majority opinion (which the media gloats they have no approval of President Bush) will prevail. They will get someone not like President Bush.. so that they will see what policies which are not like his will bring them. God will give them what they want. But in mercy, He won't give them fully what they deserve (the most radical left politician now in office - Obama). God will have a bit of mercy.. as McCain is not as bad as the disaster we would be in for if Obama got in (the Lord told me the terrorists would work from WITHIN the government to bring about nuclear destruction on America if he got into power - which fits with Obama being friends with terrorists, doesn't it?). But all the same, I think we are about to be given "a lesson" which we are not going to forget.
Remember that the Bible says that "the world" (the world system) is an enemy of God. As the people of America choose to listen to this enemy of their souls, they will find that those who oppose them are given the upper hand. It is my belief that then they will see the error of their ways and turn back to God and receive discernment in what they should do.
For now.. I agree. It is a dire situation. But from my view, McCain must win the Whitehouse. What other choice is there?
Each of the items on this list have urls to them with substantiation:
===
A List of Things About Obama That Are Not Rumor
Posted on June 5, 2008
His wife going off on a rant about how evil “whitey” is, and conspiracies that he is a covert Muslim trying to infiltrate our democracy are nothing more than rumors…at least at this point. However, there are plenty of things the media don’t put enough focus on that are true about the Obamas. Instead they would rather focus on things like his playful fist-bump. They have to keep their priorities on the important issues.
- His connection and close friendship with a corrupt crook and convicted felon.
- Obama supports sex education for Kindergarten!
- Obama sought the endorsement of the Marxist Party in 1996!
- Obama’s embracement of appeasement.
- Obama has a huge anti-gun record.
- Obama may not be a Muslim, but every association with religion he has made seems to be outrageously radical!
- Obama has a very bad habit of re-writing history.
- Obama refuses to cut his friendship with unrepentant anti-American terrorists!
- A history of terrorist fundraisers for Obama.
- Obama’s ties to Kenya and his cousin Odinga.
- Obama has many, many radical friends!
- Many Obama lies the media will ignore.
Quote:
"The racist post (and references to it) I removed was from the UK, not the United States. Sara's correct that the Brits only have Hollywood movies and incorrect news views, and not reality, that they judge from."
By DinarAdmin
Is that so? I'm English and I don't share Sara's views, Reuters is probably the most factual news media in the world, unlike most of the USA ones, and that happens to be British.
AS for the racist remarks, they were bang out of order and have no place on this blog, and were rightly removed promptly.
I wasn't saying what I posted against the British people (or any people group) in particular. It was a general observation that the news media tend to be left in viewpoint and so biased against our viewpoint on the right (and it reinforces Hollywood stereotypes). DA made the application to the one errant poster whose views reflected a biased (and MSM) viewpoint against the US South. But in that one case, I think that person (posting as Steve, but maybe not the same Steve as from before) did have a rather "twisted" viewpoint of what the US South is like, and he likely has not been to the US in person (being a Brit), so the point is valid concerning that one poster. But not, of course, concerning all British people. There are some who are not taken in by whatever they hear spoken on the MSM.. there are people with discernment in every culture and nation. I count you among those, mattuk, and hope you will not take offense, as none was intended on my part.
But the point I was making is that Hollywood and the MSM have a bias and run with or make up that which agrees with their viewpoint. The media interview people who are great exceptions to the rule and then portray them like they are the majority or normative for the south, as Neil posted. This causes people to practically think the South is still clannish and under the KKK. This stereotype or perception is wrong and does not come from fact. Why does it continue? Someone feeds that perception.. so who do you think it is, mattuk?
As for reuters.. they are leftist in slant as was evidenced in the fact that they were strongly among the ones who touted and published a great deal on the false numbers report for casualties out of Iraq. They lost my respect when they did that, as they did so without fact checking. They could just as easily go with the two headed man from Mars, if they don't check their stories and sources for bias. At that time, I couldn't get through the news (at reuters) without their constantly, nauseatingly continuing to say millions.. no BILLIONS.. of people had died (I exaggerate for effect, but not much). This is only the most prominent among their gross exaggerations and inaccuracies which have stood out over time. So they may have some good reports, but to totally trust any leftist biased source as being completely accurate is not wise, as that and other examples which come to mind (like the fake Iraqi who kept on "reporting" from Iraq, whose word the media took as gospel and as "eyewitness" without checking the facts, etc) have shown.
QUOTE:
Shocker: Soros Funded Fake Iraq Body Count From the UK’s Times:
Anti-war Soros funded Iraq study
Brendan Montague
Sunday, January 13, 2008
A study that claimed 650,000 people were killed as a result of the invasion of Iraq was partly funded by the antiwar billionaire George Soros.
Soros, 77, provided almost half the nearly $100,000 cost of the research, which appeared in The Lancet, the medical journal. Its claim was 10 times higher than consensus estimates of the number of war dead.
The study, published in 2006, was hailed by antiwar campaigners as evidence of the scale of the disaster caused by the invasion, but Downing Street and President George Bush challenged its methodology…
“The authors should have disclosed the [Soros] donation and for many people that would have been a disqualifying factor in terms of publishing the research,” said Michael Spagat, economics professor at Royal Holloway, University of London.
The Lancet study was commissioned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and led by Les Roberts, an associate professor and epidemiologist at Columbia University. He reportedly opposed the war from the outset…
Professor John Tirman of MIT said this weekend that $46,000 of the approximate $100,000 cost of the study had come from Soros’s Open Society Institute.
Roberts said this weekend: “In retrospect, it was probably unwise to have taken money that could have looked like it would result in a political slant. I am adamant this could not have affected the outcome of the research.”
The Lancet did not break any rules by failing to disclose Soros’s sponsorship.
===
Surprise, surprise, eh?
This finding will now run at the top of every news cast and on the front page of every newspaper, just like the original bogus study did.
UAE looks to Iraq to be an active partner in the Gulf Cooperation Council
The Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan during a press conference held at the headquarters of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry and the presence of Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari that "Iraq currently needs to be encouraged by the brothers must compensate his death and the region as well." He added, "We must Recognition that some countries in the region had to take some time to understand the new Iraq, especially after it has seen many changes. "Pointing out that Bahrain looks forward to Iraq to be an active partner in the Gulf Cooperation Council.
He commended the Foreign Minister of United Arab Emirates Iraqi government role in the process of national reconciliation "and work hard for security and development of the domestic economy of Iraq."
He explained that the debt issue of concern to the Iraqi government, saying the UAE has sought to address these matters as quickly as necessary to serve the two countries.
Bashers Beware
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
May 19, 2008
The Presidency: It takes little courage — or brains — to join the mob vilifying President Bush. But the Democrats (and Republicans, too) depicting him as villain will one day regret it.
In the eyes of members of both parties, George W. Bush seems to be the cause of everything from the recent GOP special election losses to a flagging economy to today's bad weather.
Barack Obama plans to reach the White House by claiming the presidency of Sen. John McCain would amount to a third Bush term. McCain, meanwhile, seems to think it a wise campaign strategy to highlight his differences with the president, such as outgreening the greens on global warming.
Rep. Tom Davis, former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, reflected the panic engulfing many Republicans in Congress last week when he called President Bush "absolutely radioactive" and warned, "They've got to get some separation from the president" if they want to win this November.
How about a dose of reality?
On the economy, there are indications the sun is coming out after a fairly mild economic storm. More data are showing a recession will be avoided, and it looks like a new bull market in stocks began in March after a short and shallow bear.
The report earlier this month of 20,000 jobs lost in April was far better than had been expected, and unemployment remains low at 5%.
There is undeniably a lot of gloom and doom out there, with the Reuters/University of Michigan sentiment index at a 26-year low. But the National Association for Business Economics announced Monday that it expects the current downturn to be mild and brief.
NABE "anticipates a significant pickup in the second half" with real GDP for 2009 projected to be 2.9%. It may not even classify this downturn as a recession at all.
For the resilience of this economy, we can thank the president. He pushed substantial tax cuts on income and investment through Congress, which were followed by four years of growth, generating over 8 million jobs.
The president also can be thanked for appointing Ben Bernanke, chairman of his Council of Economic Advisers, to succeed Alan Greenspan as Federal Reserve chief. Bernanke has moved on several fronts to keep the economy afloat — including creatively making more credit available to combat the subprime mortgage crisis.
As for national security, Obama keeps saying the war in Iraq and the rest of the administration's foreign and defense policy have, as he put it last week in South Dakota, "prevented us from making this country safe." But the country is safer than anyone expected after 9/11.
There has not been a single terrorist attack on the homeland, and we have instead foiled multiple terrorist plots to kill innocent Americans. America has succeeded in foiling these plots because Bush gave the National Security Agency the authority to monitor any and all communications of suspected terrorists, by telephone, e-mail or other means.
The president also gave authorization for the CIA to employ tough interrogation methods on terrorists in custody, to the extent of transporting those detainees to secret locations abroad.
As we have prevented the terrorists from taking their jihad to the U.S., we have taken the global war on terror to the terrorists' home soil. We have given Muslims in the Middle East the opportunity for freedom in Iraq, proving that we are willing to spill our blood and expend our own resources to defend our interests as we promote their liberty.
When faced with the entire Washington establishment demanding an end to the war — including his own father's secretary of state, James Baker — President Bush stuck to his guns, placed a new general in charge and employed a surge strategy that is now winning the war in Iraq in resounding fashion.
This is the supposed albatross Republicans are so intent on distancing themselves from and which Democrats believe to be the key to victory in November. The facts of the last seven years tell a different story.
When I think of all the insults and baseless accusations that have been thrown at GWB, and reflect on the dignified way that he has conducted himself through all the bds-bashing he has endured, I marvel at his character. Contrast this with the way Bill Clinton has reacted as recently as three days ago, and then tell me again, who is the better man.
While I often find myself disagreeing with the president, I feel he has done a remarkable job maintaining his focus through all the adversity. None of the three remaining candidates measure up. Obama claims to be a Christian, Hillary speaks of her deep abiding faith (where is it?), and McCain scarcely references Christianity at all. Not only does George W. profess it–he lives it publicly, displaying the courage of his convictions. Few could do better.
2) texaspsue
JohnMG, The worst part of it all is the MSM has been successful at distorting and propagandizing President Bush’s message to a point where many Republicans/Conservatives have ended up believing the MSM. So very many issues were wrongly assessed and explained. I guess I’m so defensive because I followed President Bush closely on his stand on the issues while he was Texas Governor and understood what he went to Washington to accomplish. What most Americans ended up hearing was totally different than his actual stand. Pure and simple, the MSM and the Democrats messed up his message so that Conservative legislation would not be passed. Granted, 9/11 sidedtracked and stalled Legislative progress, but, maybe if the Republicans in Congress had stood by his side a little more, a lot more could have been accomplished. (They seemed to run around like “chickens with their head cut off” in fear of the Democrats and it became impossible for them to get their message out on the MSM. It’s why they lost in 2006.)
It makes me wonder if McCain has the strength to withstand this abuse? I’m just saying……………..
3) JohnMG
texaspsue; …..”It makes me wonder if McCain has the strength to withstand this abuse?…..”
I have no doubt that McCain COULD stand the abuse. His determination and stamina in the “Hanoi Hilton” give testimony to that. What bothers me is that he likely won’t HAVE to stand it. While Mr Bush was/is not as conservative as I would liked to have seen, his motives were/are well-intentioned, and he made sincere efforts at compromise and bi-partisan governance without caving in to the pressure. McCain’s propensity to throw his own party members, especially its conservative base, under the bus is troubling in the least. He will maintain a cordial relationship with the MSM because of this tendency, and they will go easy on him so long as his views and policies more closely appproximate those of the democrats. This won’t be much of a chore for him, because his views and policies already ARE closer to those of the democrats than they are to those of the party of which he is purportedly the leader. The only two areas where McCain might approximate Bush is in his determination to prosecute the war on terror, and the liklihood that he would appoint conservative justices to the judiciary–especially the supreme court. Maybe tax cuts too, but we’ll have to see about that, should he get elected. (For these reasons, I will vote for him, but for few others.) Beyond that, the democrats will not have to fight real hard to get the things they want, and the press will give him a pass.
Did we not predict that the country would go into financial chaos when the Dems won Congress 18 months ago?
Conservatives COULD HAVE CHANGED THAT......but they chose to stay home on election day!
Doesn't anybody know how to do the 2+2=4 thing anymore?????
You and my husband chant the same song......"there gonna get what they asked for....."
I think the inevitable will prove you both very right.
While, I have not been totally sold out to Bush during his reign, I am amazed as to why Republicans would want their candidate to distance himself! If Mc Cain would hold to the values of the Bush campaign,( although he would be faking it!) it woud draw out the VALUE VOTERS, as it did against John Kerry.
The Dems did not see it coming, and were in shock when Kerry lost. They put their faith in the polls!
They underestimated the power of the solid right base. While the electoral count was close.....the popular vote was unprecedented.
Mc Cain and main stream Republicans are nauseatingly blindsighted! The proof is that Mc Cain is the candidate! What in God's name were they thinking??????
I have to agree with Carole and Sara that Mr. McCain almost makes me vomit but he is all we have. We rejected Mitt Romney who was a Statesman with stellar character who would have enhanced the prestiege of this country troughout the world.
Mr. Bush has done an honorable job in running this country but he had played hell with the economy. Sure, we are doing O.K. right now but it is with borrowed money. In his 8 years we have gone from 5 trillian in debt to 9 trillian. Even Bill Clinton, as screwed up as he was, was operating on a paying basis when he left the white house. You can ask any old-timer in the South when the economy looks gloomy and he will tell you that all we need is another good war. What he remembers that in 1940 that he was on the verge of starving when WWII began and the economy immediately picked up and jobs were available everywhere, but this happened because the U.S. Govt began borrowing money and pumping it into the economy. You can take the most down-and-out, destitute family in this Country and let them borrow $100,000. and they will immediately perk up
and be in good shape again. I contend that we are on a slippery-slope when our prosperity depends on how much money we borrow. Someone is going to have to pay this money back. Every cent that is owed is in the form of a treasury note or equivalent and someone fully expects to get their money back at some point. Who is going to pay this money back?
This stimulus that everyone is receiving is borrowed money and if there is no consequence to continueing to borrow money, then lets borrow enough to let everyone get $10,000.00 so that it will be a more significant stimulus.
I know that the general thinking is that we don't have to pay back anything for a while yet, so lets don't worry about it. There is a day of reckoning coming that we need to be concerned about.
I know what you mean. I spent my economic stimulus on new kitchen cabinets to stimilate the economy. But I too am concerned about the USA borrowed monies. The USA is in a mess in this economy and the bill will become due. That is a concern to me too.
I agree with you, that it is foolish, to live, too much, on borrowed money. That's one of the reasons I think it is absolutely imperative, that America finish, and win, the war, in Iraq. The entire American economy depends completely on oil, and cheap oil is hard to come by.
If America wins the war, in Iraq, the Iraqis will become wealthy, and American companies will be over there, making an awful lot of money. This will be a huge boost, to the American economy, and ensure a reliable source of energy, for America, for decades to come. With victory in Iraq, there will be so much money to be made, that the national debt and the cost of the war, could be paid off, fairly easily.
If America loses, or runs, with it's tail between it's legs, it will be left with a huge national debt, which you mention, and it will be at the mercy of the Iraqi government, as to whether or not the supply of oil for America, is secure. The oil laws being contemplated, in Iraq, right now, would ensure that both America, and Iraq, become much more prosperous, by developing Iraq's resources, together.
If America loses, it will have to pay off it's huge national debt, and the huge cost of the war, without the bump of a secure energy supply. That will be very difficult. If Iraq's oil supply is developed, I expect the price of oil to drop, and that will be a tremendous long term boost, to the American economy.
Frankly, I think the Democrats are incredibly reckless, in their position on the war. They are painting a picture, to the public, that America could simply exit the stage, in Iraq, and their would be no dire or unintended consequences. I think that is a lie. I think the consequences of America leaving, with the job undone, would be enormous, and negative.
War is a terrible thing. But if it is handled properly, it can lead to a better future, for people. It was certainly beneficial to get rid of Adolf Hitler. This war is no different. It has brought much destruction, and if handled properly, can lead to a better world, for our children, and grandchildren. To have the benefits the war will bring: prosperity, and democracy to the middle east, a secure supply of energy, for America, into the future, will require sacrifice. That means staying in Iraq. There's no free lunch in life.
There are many other reasons, to stay, and win, but the economic reasons should not be underestimated. Leaving Iraq, with the job half done, would be a financial disaster, for the United States.
Well it is not a nice picture, but the ordinary way of living here in the US is "Buy now, pay later".
A CC is a convenient way of handling money, as is debit card , warehouse cards, gas cards, you name it.
It is an almost cashless society.
The up side is that money is almost always injected into the economy, and it keeps the wheels rolling, but the down side is that the car is driven with borrowed money.
The universal law of the lender being the Master and the Borrower being the Slave holds true.
The set up will be very vulnerable for ups and downs in the economy.
Lenders are also borrowing, in an endless cycle, and when a credit crunch comes along, well, as they say, shit flows downwards.
That makes the man on the street the consumer part of the credit line, and that makes the society vulnerable for big swings in the economy, high tide, low tide endlessly.
That particular vulnerability is cured very easy, by educating the public to use sensible economic planning.
Would any house hold in the US have a saving as big as their debt right now, we would be sailing and cruising.
There has though, started a little bit a mission, if you may, by some financial educators on talk radio. I think that the most famous is Dave Ramsey, where he preaches a "Debt free Life".
It's actually economical speaking, a very healthy program he advocates, and would the whole nation adapt to debt free living, there would be no Borrowers = slaves, syndrome.
Most other nations, have a much much higher saving per capita than the US, and in fact, it doesn't really make sense to continuously live on borrowed money that you will pay back with interest when you get payed next months paycheck.
Future money is very expensive money, and living now on future expensive money, will feed the lender.
If the system is ingrained very much, as it is here in the US, in the population, the economy it self will start to circle around borrowers, and lenders, interest rate and Peter paying Paul.
Lending and borrowing classically have revolved around investments, of bigger magnitude, cars, trucks, houses, industrial investments and so on, but a sick strain of lending and borrowing have the last 30 or 40 years or so, made inways in "educating" the public that , it is ok to get what you want, even if it is above your head, and you can't really afford it, and it is above your economic means.
-"No interest for six months", "no credit check", "your job is your credit"," No money down", and so on.
A persons credit rating is based on how much credit a person can have and be able to pay and sustain that credit.
With other words, it is a scale of how much credit pain, a person is able to hold up.
Ad's ( by lenders) are eager to denote very high importance in a persons credit rating, and sure enough, soon enough the population starts to brag about what credit rating they have, like it is status.
It is not, it is a rating on how much of a sucker a person is, that's all.
The lenders have the advantage in ad's, commercials and advertisements, all emphasize the "Importance" of a good credit rating.
Lending and borrowing have it's place, but borrowing have by some mysterious hokus pokus being transferred from a loan, taken to pay for a house or industrial investment, carefully planned into the personal finances into,..... ANY payment.
This is one of the main reasons the US economy is very vulnerable to the smallest swings, and if a creditor in Asia or Europe is tighten it's grips, it will easily do ripples all the way down to the local economy.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, the society ended up with almost no production, and the first years afterwards, the main population had a hard time even surviving.
Still the society didn't collapse.
Most people lives in apartments, and few had cars, unlike here in the US, where you need wheels, without it, you can not even function here.
Before the Soviet collapse, the population had been given a 100 by 100 meter plot, close to their apartment complexes, where they could grow whatever they liked.
It is amazing to conclude in the aftermath, that 90% of Russia's agricultural goods came from those small gardens.
After the collapse, the busses still rolled, and people could travel, no one repaired the apartments, but then again, there was no one there to collect rent either, so it didn't matter.
The first couple of years, after the collapse, you could see a lot of people on the streets, trying to sell anything they had, grandchildren's old toys, whatever.
In one way or the other they manage to survive a complete collapse, and they survived on very little, until some wheels started to roll again a few years later.
Why, well the fundamentals were there for survival, shelter, a means of food and transportation.
US have very little to fall back on in case of a collapse. Cars, homes and land is to a large degree mortgaged, and when the lender / Master, borrowing /slave syndrome kicks in, the Master wins, and the Slave loses.
The 30's depression caused borrowers in droves from their Midwest homes.
The basic means of survival, is not owned right out, and shelter, and transportation is as vulnerable, as it is borrowed against.
And it all starts so innocent, "buy now pay later", "no payments for two months", "cash back when you buy a car", "improve your credit rating".
If on top of it all, is not produced here, we are buying, on credit, a foreign countrys, product, pay them, and borrow some more.
That cycle is not sustainable, and WILL collapse eventually.
It can be a had landing or it can be a soft landing, if measures are taken to soften the fall
However, even if this seem like very simple things to understand, the push for "buy now, pay later" and consumption of foreign goods continues like there is no tomorrow.
Excellent synopsis of our impending credit crisis. So very well out and easy to follow. I think our fathers ( born in the very early 1900's) after survivng the depresssion, learned this lesson well. And so it went on for maybe the nest 50 years.
I can remember when we would get credit cards on the mail and we didn't even apply for them. I think that was in the late 60's or early 70's.
Thank God my husband and I got trapped at that time. We over extended ourselves and had to work multiple jobs to pay off our credit cards. Ripped them up and have never had another one since.
However, buying homes and cars has been quite a different story. yes, we Americans are the credit slaves. In my profession I have been exposed to alot of foreigners trying to make it in the US. Multiple families buy one home and they all work to pay it off and then start to help one of the families get their own home. They repeat the process until everyone has their own home. I have seen them do thiss with cars too. However, over the last 25 years, I have also seen their young become "westernized" and now part of the credit slave industry.
My daughters as well as most people that I now that own Dinars, express the first thig they will do is pay off thier credit cards when the Dinar hits!
There are credit cosultants that charge a great deal of money to give advice to pay off credit cards. they call it debt stacking......funny, back in the 70's when we found ourselves so strapped, it is exactly what we did to grt out from under the trap. And we just figured it out for free!
And you are sooooo right about the credit score being a social symbol of success! I have a son-in-law that makes 350k a year, his credit score is 802 and he can not borrow a dime because his debt to ratio income is incredible. As well as I have a friend who has never charged anything and can't get credit to uy anything,,,,,cause he has no credit score. So now he has applied for all kinds of credit cards, so he can get a good credit rating!!!! HMMMMM conspriacy or not?
You are so right about Mitt! I didn't vote for him because i did ot think he could sustsain his affilation witht eh Mormon Church!
Cheeze! Did I call that werong!
With all the anti american crap that we have ahd to hear about linked to Obama, and all the disgraceful personal informationj about Mc cain that will for sure hit the press here soon, not to mention his political profile looking more like as democrat than most democrats, Mitt would have swept up the conserative vote, for sure in the general election.
Mc Cain can not draw parity to the large crowds that follow Obama, which has created the synergy that surrounds him. This synergy has deafened the ears and soften the brains of his followers, so that they have gotten caught up in the drift of excitement and are not responding to even the most horrendous revelations about him.
I now believe that Mitt would have been able to build that same synergy, so that even though he is linked to LDS, with the spotlight on the radical scandal going on in Texas and Utah.....the synergy would have drowned out the scandal, and people would have taken a deaf ear to it as well.....only Mitt is an undisputed true American, with a resume on financial leadership, family values, AS WELL AS HIS WIFE LOVES AMERICA WITH ALL HER HEART! AND IS A SURVIVOR OF A CATASTROPHIC ILLNESS.......NOT DRUG ADDICTION, LIKE CINDY MC CAIN!
I agree with you, on credit. But a large chunk of the economy depends on people spending foolishly, and living on credit. It's what keeps the system going. If people started acting sensibly, when it comes to money, it would require the biggest restructuring of the economy, ever. I am a big fan of capitalism, myself, but most people equate capitalism, with how people spend their money now, including rampant endless consumerism, as being one and the same. I think that is wrong. I believe we are, as a culture, quite flawed, in how we use capitalism. Greed and bad judgement distort the system. Capitalism, if it is practiced, without a population with a good moral and financial education, will eventually collapse, I believe.
And I don't think that most religious leaders and thinkers, give this much thought, they more or less uncritically go along with the financial status quo and the interests of business and consumerism, for better or for worse. I think this is a big moral mistake. Religion should be there to think critically and morally about the choices made within the capitalist system, and to guide people, morally when it comes to money and education.
I have believed, for a long time, that there are plenty of physical resources around, that each of us can have a safe and economically secure future, and the reason most people have to work as hard as they do, has to do with mismanagement of resources. This mismanagement includes foolish use of resources, whether at a personal, or societal level. Most people know very little about the proper use of money.
Our educational system does very little to teach people about the proper use of money, credit, and other resources. Most Americans watch about 4 hours of TV a day, most of their life, and one of the primaryj jobs of TV, is to promote greed, and feckless use of resources. It encourages people to be foolish with their money. After a lifetime of conditioning and brainwashing, to make people financial suckers, by the media and the neglect of financial education by the school system, most people end up financial suckers, who misuse credit. For example, the entire housing industry is set up, with long term credit, to allow people to buy a home, and work work work, to pay it off, for decades. That's a form of economic slavery, which is quite amusing if you think about it, because most Americans go on and on about "freedom". I'm a big fan of freedom myself, but I think freedom should include as much economic freedom as possible. What's the use of political freedom, if the population is enslaved by their foolish desires, and bad judgement, into being economic slaves? Fnancial freedom could come to whole lot more people, if the economic system, and the educational system, were reformed, around good morals, and a sensible view of money.
It's very hard to escape the system, because it's everywhere, and this credit centred capitalism, that relies on foolish use of resources, has become a good chunk of the economy. And with attutudes toward credit, by the average person, being what they are, is it any wonder, the government, has no problem living far beyond it's means? And as you say, eventually, the whole thing will collapse.
So, I'm all pro capitalism. I am a businessman, myself, and have run businesses for the past 18 years. I think capitalism is the best method ever devised, for creating wealth, and lifting people, out of economic misery. I just think it's often mismanaged, and misused. I think people need sound financial education in school, so they can use the power of capitalism, and credit, sensibly, and for their own benefit, and the benefit of their families, based on prudent finanicial values, and decent moral choices, rather than being slaves to an economic system designed to milk a person, of their life energy, and promote greed, and silly, materialistic choices.
Your comments are appreciated. At a whole societial economic level, I think most Americans have no idea just how vulnerable their economic system really is. It could collapse in a matter of months, if the wrong things happen. Credit and the silly use of money, is a large part of this vulnerability.
This vulnerability also includes energy vulnerability in the equation. The American economy is incredibly dependent on foreign oil. If the average American knew just how vulnerable and dependent the American economy was, on foreign oil, they'd fill their pants.
That's why I am in favour of America staying in Iraq, for a few more decades. America needs time to reform their economy, by developing alternative and new energy sources. That's why I think Barrock Obama would lead America toward a cliff, if he's president, and America withdraws form Iraq.
I think Neil is right to be worried, about the misuse of credit. The chickens will eventually come home to roost.
I have sat in Bible believing and teaching pews of churches for over 40 years. My experience has been one where the pulpit messages have placed at the Hallmark of Christlike behavior to be good stewards of our money and other resources. When we are good stewards of the blessigs God has given us it opens up the door to all other Christ-like attrtibutes, like generosity, sacrifice and love toward our fellowman. When you are strapped financially, at best you can only exhibit "good intentions".
Your perceptions might be well founded but my experience has been gratefully quite the opposite.
I don't know the American statistics, but in Canada, only around 5% of the population ends up, financially independent, upon retirement age. The rest end up depending on mainly government and also company pension plans. In my view, this is abysmal. One of the goals of a capitalist system should be to empower the individual to create and preserve independent wealth, during their lifetimes.
That's one of the motivators, of why we are all investing here, in the Dinar, isn't it? We wish to have an independent source of wealth. Nothing wrong with that. It's a good thing. I think it is something most people desire. That's why lottery tickets are so popular.
Well, shouldn't things be set up to encourage more people to become financially independent? I think so. I think that should be one of the basic goals of a capitalist system: to create independent wealth for people.
It's not that we don't have the resources. We do.
I remember, when I smoked briefly, when I was younger, I was up to 2 packs a day. I was struggling to quit, and I did quit for good. At the time, I was taking a math course. My instructor said if I gave up smoking, took the money I would have used on cigarettes, and invested it, for 30 years, I could be well on my way to being financially independent. I did the math, and he was right.
I invested enough to do reasonably well, but I wish I had done more, when I was younger. Perhaps if I had been taught anything in school about it, I might have. It wouldn't have taken much sacrifice, if I had started earlier, and been more consistent. I only started getting quite serious about it, by the time I was 35, and if I started earlier, I'd be further ahead.
Generally, I learned nothing about money, at school. It seems to me, one of the primary objectives of an education, and the school system, should be to teach and educate a person, so that the average individual has enough knowledge, once they leave school, to become financially independent, if they wish, by their mid-40s. This is more than possible.
I wish for a society where a large chunk of the population is financially independent, and has a house paid for, by the time they are 40. That seems a reasonable goal. I believe there are lots of policy changes that could be put in place, to move us toward that goal. After all, if it doesn't create a lot of wealth, and financial independence, for the majority of people, what else is the point of the capitalist system?
Democrats always emphasize the redistribution of wealth. They do so because they realize, quite rightly, there are enormous inequities, in wealth distribution, in America, and they often emphasize re-distributing that wealth, as the key to a more just society. I disagree with that philosophy. I agree with the Democrats that there are enormous inequities, in wealth. However, I don't want wealth redistributed. I just want more people to have the knowledge, to really benefit from the capitalist system, and be rich themselves. Don't take someone else's pie, just make sure everyone can bake their own, that's my philosophy.
Of course, in the context of the entire world, America is much better than most places. That's why people want to go there, as immigrants. I just think that, as good as America often is, it could be much, much better. I'd like to see that.
So, anyhow, I'm sure most people who go to church try to be good stewards of their resources, given what they know. I just think the vast majority of people, churchgoing or not, have never been educated enough about money, to attain financial independence. I think most people could do much, much better. And I think that is something most people desire. They just have no idea how to go about doing it. It requires knowledge. It's no different than nursing. Your knowledge of that profession didn't just fall from a tree, and hit you on the head one day. It required years of training.
I think the same thing is true of financial knowledge. Some people are born, naturally smart, about money, and interested in it, and do well. Most people are interested in other things, and are never educated in this, enough, to do well.
I've taken an interest in various investments, for over a decade, and learned a lot, and that, of course, is exactly what we are doing here, isn't it? We're investing in something. We're learning about that investment. It's just an unusual investment. We're hoping it works. I think it will. I feel fully confident that it will. We all may have different interests, when coming here.
Roger seems interested in economics.
Sara is very passionate about religion.
You're quite passionate about politics. I'm interested in history.
Rob N. is the most focused on exactly what is happening, in Iraq.
Laura seems interested in terrorism.
Neil seems to look at the big picture, and wondering if there is foolishness going on.
But the common link, and motivator, to all of these, is, one of the primary motivators, revolves around money. We'd all like to make a lot of money out of this. I sure do. I'm here for the conversation, but I'm definitely here for the money. I'm not here to throw away my money.
This forum is about many things. Making money from our investment is surely one of them. All of the other stuff people bring here is incredibly interesting, and important, but without the financial component, I doubt many of us would be here.
timbitts said, "At a whole societial economic level, I think most Americans have no idea just how vulnerable their economic system really is. It could collapse in a matter of months, if the wrong things happen. Credit and the silly use of money, is a large part of this vulnerability. This vulnerability also includes energy vulnerability in the equation. The American economy is incredibly dependent on foreign oil. That's why I am in favour of America staying in Iraq, for a few more decades. America needs time to reform their economy, by developing alternative and new energy sources. That's why I think Barrock Obama would lead America toward a cliff, if he's president, and America withdraws form Iraq."
I agree with the discussion so far and this synopsis of the vulnerability of the economy to credit use and oil. In particular, that statement of yours I highlighted hit me as true. That is because there is another factor, one which I said "maybe we need to compromise on" or give up on in order to get McCain elected.. and it may blindside us all if we are not careful. Carole said she was wrong on Mitt.. maybe I was wrong about not sticking to our guns on this concern. But what can we DO, since the Whitehouse will be won by someone supporting this economy destroying tax increase? Here is my concern. Please read:
GOP Stops $5.6 Trillion Carbon Tax - For Now
From a despondent Associated Press:
Vote on climate bill is blocked in Senate
By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Senate Republicans on Friday blocked a global warming bill that would have required major reductions in greenhouse gases, pushing debate over the world’s biggest environmental concern to next year for a new Congress and president…
The Senate debate focused on bitter disagreement over the expected economic costs of putting a price on carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas that comes from burning fossil fuels. Opponents said it would lead to higher energy costs.
The 48-36 vote fell short of a majority, but Democrats produced letters from six senators — including both presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain — saying they would have voted for the measure had they been there.
“It’s just the beginning for us,” proclaimed Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., a chief sponsor of the bill, noting that 54 senators had expressed support of the legislation, although that’s still short of what would be needed to overcome concerted GOP opposition…
The bill would have capped carbon dioxide coming from power plants, refineries and factories, with a target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 71 percent by mid-century.
“It’s a huge tax increase,” argued Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a prominent coal-producing state. He maintained that the proposed system of allowing widespread trading of carbon emissions allowances would produce “the largest restructuring of the American economy since the New Deal.”
Supporters of the bill accused Republicans of muddying the water with misinformation.
“There is no tax increase,” Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., one of the bill’s chief sponsors said. She said the emissions trading system would provide tax relief to help people pay energy prices. And supporters disputed that it would substantially increase gasoline prices…
Obama and McCain, as well as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who is recovering from cancer surgery, were absent, although they each sent a letter supporting the bill.
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Oh, joy. So no matter what happens this election year, we will get this horrendous monstrosity of a tax increase — the largest in the history of mankind.
QUOTE: "The Senate debate focused on bitter disagreement over the expected economic costs of putting a price on carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas that comes from burning fossil fuels. Opponents said it would lead to higher energy costs." (end quote)
As a reference point, the whole federal budget for next year is expected to reach $3 trillion dollars.
The entire war in Iraq, which the Democrats tell us has been so crippling expensive, the Iraq war has only cost $845 billion.
But of course the opponents will have to buy advertisements to get such minor details out. That is, if Mr. McCain’s “reforms” will even permit such a thing.
The Associated Press certainly isn’t going to make their case for them. That’s not their job.
Their job is to help the Democrats destroy capitalism.
This article was posted by Steve Gilbert on Friday, June 6th, 2008.
Where did Sadr's militia get the "helicopter missiles and an anti-aircraft gun".. and these other armaments (below)?
They certainly didn't manufacture them..
So who supplied the Sadr Militia with these weapons?
The head of the militia (Sadr) is now hiding out in friendly IRAN.. isn't he?
How friendly? Friendly enough so as to arm Sadr's followers, perhaps?
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Seizures in Iraq reveal Sadr militia's arsenal
Saturday June 7, 2008
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi troops sweeping through the Baghdad stronghold of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have found large quantities of weapons, including helicopter missiles and an anti-aircraft gun, the U.S military said on Saturday.
Some 10,000 Iraqi government troops entered the sprawling slum of Sadr City unopposed on May 20 under a truce between Sadr's supporters and ruling Shi'ite political parties that ended weeks of fighting in which hundreds were killed.
A U.S. military statement itemizing the weapons seized in the last three weeks gave the first real glimpse of the formidable arsenal that Sadr's feared Mehdi Army militia has been building up.
The statement said government forces had seized 100 caches of weapons, including 295 mortar rounds, 367 AK-47s, 109 anti-tank mines, 39 rocket-propelled grenade launchers, an anti-aircraft gun, six helicopter rockets, sniper rifles, improvised explosive devices, 123 grenades and artillery shells.
Sadr City, a bastion of Sadr's Mehdi Army, had been off-limits to U.S. and Iraqi forces since the fall of Saddam Hussein in the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
But under the truce agreed earlier in May, the Mehdi Army agreed to lay down their weapons and allow Iraqi forces to enter the slum. The militia, while vowing not to hand over their heavy weapons, has melted away.
U.S. military officials say the Mehdi Army, which staged two uprisings against U.S. forces in 2004, fuelled sectarian violence between majority Shi'ite Muslims and Sunni Arabs in 2006 and 2007 that pushed the country to the brink of civil war.
You're right. Getting economic policy right, is critical. If the wrong policies are brought, in, it would be a disaster. Economics, like life, is all about management, and choices. It's all about making the right decisions, and policy choices.
I haven't followed that tax discussion. Surely, like all taxes, it will have a negative impact, on many industries, and individuals. But where will all that tax money go? What are the Democrats planning on spending that money on?
Thank you for your response. I think a pretty astute and accurate assesment would be to concede that there are very strong concentrated efforts within and without our nation to destroy Capitalism. SOOOOOO, the average guy hoping to attain financial freedom independent of Social Security, Private retirement funds, etc..... is pretty unlikely these days. As it stands now, the more information and education received on finances just produces frustration and hopelessness, in my opinion. A few of us got in under the wire!
The tax structure as well as other economic negative trends ( welfare, and the other multititude of entitlements...to name a very few),
assure that the Capitalism, that we once knew is so mutated that is realistically non -existent.
It is a shame, but it is what it is..
Sara,
Yep! we blew it concerning Romney ( and most of my family and friends feel the same way).
Maybe I could get up enough positive motivation for this election, if Romney gets VP spot.
I must share with you what I did not long ago out of desperation.
I looked into the Libetarian Party. I have always held out for a last ditch effort to change parties, but had never looked into it.
Wellllll.... forget it!
They are mambee pambee about everything. And on social issues, they take a "live and let live" stance.
Isn't it that mentality (started in the 60's or sooner) that got us in the mess we are in now?
Soooooo, short of a write-in ballot, I still am in a quandry as what to do on election day.
I was so entertained today at Hilary's absurd reluctance and resistance to "call it a day". Some of the pundits ( especially by Mike Wallace) had me chuckling all morning.
I still think it is a great possibility that Obama could be on that long list of Clinton associates who ended up in a coroners office with mysterious deaths, by some unexplainable accident or suicide. Don't think Hilary will give up delegates, until she has her day of reckoning.......whatever that heck that just might be.
Yep! you are right....the next 4 years is going to be horrific for this country. Maybe if we hang on and can survive, it will pave the way for an ultra conservative to bring us back 50 years, where we derailed.
OR.......a savior to rescue us from our woes.....and I don't mean Jesus!
Tim is right, it is the dinar that has brought us all together, and if that is all it accomplishes, it presents a Kodak moment, for which I am grateful!
Iraq to sign deals with foreign oil firms this month - MEES
KUWAIT CITY (Thomson Financial) - Iraq intends to sign Technical Support Agreements (TSAs) with foreign oil majors by the end of June to add an eventual 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) in output capacity, a specialist newsletter quoted the oil minister as saying.
Five consortia are in talks with the Iraqi government for the two-year contracts, the Middle East Economic Survey said in its edition to appear on Monday.
The agreements cover Kirkuk field (Shell), Rumaila (BP), Al-Zubair (ExxonMobil), West Qurna Phase I (Chevron and Total), Missan province development (Shell and BHP Billiton) and the Subba and Luhais fields (Anadarko, Vitol and the UAE's Dome), MEES said.
'Four companies have been informed that time is running out,' Oil Minister Hussein Shahristani told the newsletter, as his ministry continues to push hard to fast-track the TSA signings.
Shahristani said the companies have been given the option of being paid in either cash or crude.
The TSAs are a bridging contract designed to fast-track foreign oil involvement in Iraq, while a new hydrocarbons law has yet to be passed by the Iraqi parliament.
Shahristani said Iraq hoped to add 300,000 bpd of output capacity by the end of this year.
Iraq is also working to launch an upstream bidding round this year that, unlike the TSAs, is expected to require the prior passage of the new hydrocarbons law.
'We are working on a development round. We have a draft contract prepared. We are working towards having it ready for July,' the minister said.
Iraq's current output is estimated at around 2.5 million bpd.
I agree with your "Kodak moment" statement, Carole - and timbitts' original statement, too. I was reading a couple of days back an article which says people become friends based on shared proximity, not necessarily shared values or interests and I was thinking how that applied here with the Dinar boards. The article speaks of "group assignments" in a work setting as an example. (smile) I think of this as a kind of "group assignment" for us all - we are investigating the Dinar and everything else that bears on that investment and I think we all have created that "Kodak moment" which comes from that shared collaboration.
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Are People More Likely To Become Friends Based on Proximity Or Shared Values and Interests?
ScienceDaily (Jun. 4, 2008) — The actor Sir Peter Ustinov once famously said “Contrary to general belief, I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best, they are merely the people who get there first.” Psychologists now believe there is some truth to this argument. Rather than picking our friends based on intentional choice and common values and interests, our friendships may be based on more superficial factors like proximity (think neighbors) or group assignments (your department at work).
Mitja Back, Stefan Schmukle, and Boris Egloff of the University of Leipzig sought to test the notion that random proximity and random group assignment at zero acquaintance would foster friendship in the long run. The researchers investigated 54 college freshmen upon encountering one another for the first time at the beginning of a one-off introductory session and randomly assigned them a seat number in a group of chairs organized in rows.
As reported in a recent issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, sitting in neighboring seats as a result of randomly assigned seat numbers when meeting for the first time led to higher ratings of friendship intensity one year later. The same was true even if participants were merely in the same row.
The counterintuitive finding suggests that friendships may not be as deliberate we think. “In a nutshell,” write the authors, “people may become friends simply because they drew the right random number.”
In a way, we Dinarians became associated in this online "friendship" simply due to drawing on the same investment.
A seemingly random event.. but I think God is over it all. :)
I appreciate all of you whom I have come to know through this venture and thank you for the contributions you've made which have enriched our journey together.
Carole and board;
Seriously, you should watch this youtube video by Hannity.
Sobering..
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Will Media Ignore Obama-Khalidi Connection?
By John Stephenson
June 7, 2008
Add another one to the ever-growing list of radical connections and friendships of Obama.
Ed Morrisey:
"Khalidi, a Yasser Arafat toady, got $75,000 through Obama and Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers from the Woods Foundation, and later Khalidi returned the favor by hosting a fundraiser for Obama. Obama “lavished praise” on Khalidi in 2003 when the former PLO functionary took a job at Columbia University, according to an LA Times article last year. It’s hardly ancient history, and Khalidi is hardly an acquaintance." (end quote)
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Instead of reporting on dangerous and questionable connections like this, the media would rather print cotton candy pieces describing Obama as a "lightworker" and enlightened being. Why is Hannity the only media I’ve heard report on this? See Sean Hannity's video report (click on youtube url below) of the connections that the rest of the media is ingoring.
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