The call-in program is hugely popular, tackling complaints ranging from high bills to traffic jams. But the newly free media have a ways to go.
By John Johnson Jr.
Los Angeles Times, 31 March 2006
BAQUBAH, Iraq — Oday Kareem knew he had made it in the new Iraq when cabdrivers began refusing to collect his fare.
"One day I took a taxi with my wife to go to Baghdad," said Kareem, a radio talk-show host who uses the on-air name Saif. Recognizing Kareem's soft but assured voice, the cabdriver shouted, "You are Saif!"
Because in the new Iraq, just as in the old, it can be dangerous to be too well-known, Kareem denied it. But the star-struck cabby persisted: "You are Saif. I know it."
As host of the popular radio show "Good Morning, Orange City," Kareem is blazing a trail in the hazardous but increasingly entrepreneurial post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. Under the feared former leader, people could be beaten within an inch or two of their lives for complaining. On his show, Kareem encourages it.
Iraqis tuning in to his show, which station managers boast reaches 1.5 million listeners from Mosul to Baghdad, have taken up the new freedom to bellyache with relish. The call-in show, which airs Sunday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m., is filled with the workaday problems of men and women everywhere: getting along with in-laws, finding money to pay the bills, worries about the education system.
But in Iraq, these problems are overlaid with a near-chaotic security situation in which simple tasks like going to the market entail long delays at military checkpoints.
On top of this is the danger of being caught in the crossfire between Iraqi security forces and insurgents who have infiltrated Diyala province, a mixed area that is 55% Shiite Muslim, 35% Sunni Arab and 10% Kurd.
On Tuesday, Kareem fielded complaints about the fuel shortage ("There is chaos over the gas for cars"), the high cost of telephone service ("They keep increasing the phone list price"), and the lack of a hospital in Wajihiya, a small town east of Baqubah, the provincial capital.
Citizens of the new Iraq also have mastered the time-honored art of telling public officials how to do their jobs. "We need the region chief to observe the distributing of fuel," one caller said.
Sometimes, Kareem says, he goes home to his wife with the complaining voices in his ears.
With no letup in the violence, Kareem's listeners are divided over whether things are getting better.
"Slowly — very, very slowly," said Kareem's friend and colleague, Mohammed Yusuf Mohammed, host of a program called "We Still Have Hope."
"Good Morning, Orange City" (Baqubah's nickname, because of its orchards) airs on Diyala Radio, part of a wider effort to spawn independent media in the provinces.
In the old days, there was one media voice — in Baghdad, said Army Maj. Mike Humphreys, who has taken on the task of kick-starting independent newspapers and radio and television production in the area around Baqubah, about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. Even though the state-controlled media of Hussein's era are gone, local editors and station managers, whose salaries are paid by the Iraqi government, still tend to ask, "What will Baghdad think?" before making decisions.
"I'm trying to break them of that," said Humphreys, a public affairs officer for the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team of the 4th Infantry Division.
Coalition forces have admitted planting positive stories about Iraq in the media to counter the news about the blood spilled in the insurgency. Humphreys says he has no editorial control over the papers or the TV and radio stations.
"Good Morning, Orange City" frequently focuses on complaints against coalition forces, and Kareem says he often questions U.S. military leaders on the air.
With the help of a local lawyer and government advisor Rokaya Allul, Diyala officials have come up with a plan to annex the Diyala Media Center building, which is owned by the state-run and Baghdad-based Al Iraqiya station.
Even so, the media are far from standing on their own feet, at least in a Western sense. The local weekly newspaper, Parlmon, published on Sundays, carries no conventional advertising. Editor Omer Aldilemy, a published poet, said the paper charged the equivalent of about 16 cents for a copy, but "sometimes we give it free."
Aldilemy stays in business only because Humphreys pays for printing and distribution out of coalition funds. To seed the advertising market, Humphreys plans to give Parlmon money to offer free ads to local businesses, such as metal door merchants and brick factories, both major industries in Diyala. After seeing how well the ads work to drum up business, the theory goes, the firms will pay to advertise.
The army is also paying to rehabilitate a 100-year-old building downtown for use by freelance journalists as well as Parlmon's 15 reporters. In addition, it will pay for a printing press so Aldilemy doesn't have to take his pages to Baghdad for printing, exposing him to the dangers of the open highway.
Last year, the coalition spent $261 million in Diyala province. Eventually, the local media will have to sink or swim without help, Humphreys said. "I've told them, in six months they will be on their own," he said.
Kareem — as Saif — doesn't just allow his listeners to complain. He takes pride in being a problem-solver. He often puts a caller on hold as he dials someone for help.
If the bureaucrat, manager or police chief doesn't respond to Kareem's satisfaction, he calls their bosses, working his way right to the top, to Gov. Raed Rashid Jawad.
"It is normal" for Jawad to be on the show, Kareem said.
Kareem sometimes takes his tape recorder out in the streets to solicit the opinions of passersby. People always crowd around. "This guy is famous," Mohammed said proudly.
Kareem, a broad-shouldered man with a gentle manner, dressed in a blue suit and tie, shakes his head, as if to say, not really.
In a society unused to having authority challenged, Kareem's bravado doesn't always go down well. He admits to being afraid for his safety — one reason he hides behind the now-famous moniker Saif. One Parlmon editor and two station managers have died at the hands of insurgents.
The mood of the callers is often sullen. Many break down in tears. "People are unhappy," Kareem said. "Too much conflict and too much problems and too much killing."
A frequent source of anger are the coalition convoys that rumble through town, forcing Iraqis trying to get to work to pull off the road. It's worse when a neighborhood is cordoned off to hunt for an insurgent. Then, traffic grinds to a honking, exhaust-belching mess, as happened last week in the old marketplace, where fruit and vegetable vendors sit elbow-to-elbow with cellphone dealers and mirror sellers along a canal fed by the Diyala River.
"People feel mad about this," said Kareem, who earns $300 a month — enough to get married but not enough to buy a car.
Kareem says one of the saddest calls was from a female university graduate. Her father was killed in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and she was driven from her home in northern Iraq by sectarian violence. In Diyala, she hadn't been able to find work. She was despairing.
"She was crying," Kareem said. He got hold of an aid organization, which agreed to take her in. Outcomes like that make him feel good.
Despite the violence in Diyala, one of Iraq's most troubled provinces, Kareem said he had noticed a slight change for the better recently. Very slight.
"Like a turtle," he said. "No rabbits."
----------------------------
Citation: John Johnson Jr. "Radio Show Helps Iraqis Air Their Grievances," Los Angeles Times, 31 March 2006.
Original URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-iraqdj31mar31,1,2447012.story?coll=la-iraq-complete
----------------------------
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31 March 2006
Home-grown police force takes on Iraq insurgents
By Steve Negus
Financial Times, 31 March 2006
Colonel Shaaban Barzan al-Ubaidi, police chief of the district of Baghdadi, declares how he will destroy the "criminal, terrorist, Saddamist, Zarqawist" insurgents who murdered his kinsmen.
"We will wage jihad upon them,'' he says, his eyes displaying the force of personality that has earned him the confidence of the US marines in their bid to establish Iraqi government control in the middle Euphrates Valley in the province of Anbar.
He and his eight surviving brothers - one was murdered in a car bomb attack last week - are part of the province's small police force, mostly from his home town of Jubba, that is setting itself up to fight insurgents in this stretch of valley. The US says the area is a transit route for foreign volunteers and money moving from the Syrian border to Baghdad.
This overwhelmingly Sunni far-western corner of Iraq is often thought of as a heartland of the insurgency. But in the last year, the Americans say, they have been able to make allies of some of the region's powerful tribes who will assist them to establish police forces.
In the past they have had mixed success - policemen in this region have been assassinated, have quit, and in some cases even arrested for working with the insurgents.
But in Col Ubaidi they hope they have found a leader who has reason to fight. Much of the police force set up after the 2003 war melted away in late 2004, as US forces were withdrawn from the region to blockade and eventually assault Falluja.
Now the marines are redeploying in the valley, and the police are being rebuilt from scratch.
In many cases, they say, they draw support from tribes who suffered from the insurgents. The colonel says he took the job in December at the behest of local sheikhs. "We could not take it any more,'' he said. Forty-two of his relatives had been killed after trying to join the army or police. However, his conflict with the men who run the insurgency goes back further.
The colonel says that Jubba had been persecuted under the former regime, as it was home to several prominent communists who opposed Saddam Hussein. In contrast, many of the local insurgents come from the al-Jawana tribe based around the district capital, "which always boasted of its closeness to Saddam'' and whose members joined the ruling party and security services.
Now, he says, these one-time Ba'athists have turned Islamist. "When the regime collapsed, they grew their beards, donned the robe [favoured by Salafi puritans], and said 'God is great' '' to lead the insurgency and court the support of al-Qaeda.
His statements seem to reflect a political dynamic common in areas such as western Anbar where the central state is weak and tribes are the most powerful institutions, where the ebb and flow of national politics leave some communities winners and others losers in a never-ending struggle to secure enough power to protect their members.
The colonel's men fight mostly with their own weapons and have yet to collect any salary - the result, he says, of bureaucratic "routine".
He claims the support of 41 local tribal sheikhs who he says co-operate with the police and turn over any of their supporters who are wanted, but admits to rocky relations with provincial officials in Ramadi.
Col Ubaidi claims some key arrests since taking over, including a cousin who assisted the insurgents, but he has also suffered casualties, including a brother killed by a car bomb at a checkpoint only last week.
According to the colonel's account, his brother noticed the car moving suspiciously and ordered his fellow officers to fall back before firing and killing the driver.
The passenger however was able to detonate its load. "Thank God it was my brother who was the martyr . . . He gave his life for his brothers,'' Col Ubaidi says.
Unlike many residents of Anbar, who may not endorse the insurgency but are also weary of foreign military occupation, Col Ubaidi praises the marines as his comrades-in-arms.
-------------------------
Citation: Steve Negus. "Home-grown police force takes on Iraq insurgents," Financial Times, 31 March 2006.
Original URL: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/11e8de38-c052-11da-939f-0000779e2340.html
-------------------------
Financial Times, 31 March 2006
Colonel Shaaban Barzan al-Ubaidi, police chief of the district of Baghdadi, declares how he will destroy the "criminal, terrorist, Saddamist, Zarqawist" insurgents who murdered his kinsmen.
"We will wage jihad upon them,'' he says, his eyes displaying the force of personality that has earned him the confidence of the US marines in their bid to establish Iraqi government control in the middle Euphrates Valley in the province of Anbar.
He and his eight surviving brothers - one was murdered in a car bomb attack last week - are part of the province's small police force, mostly from his home town of Jubba, that is setting itself up to fight insurgents in this stretch of valley. The US says the area is a transit route for foreign volunteers and money moving from the Syrian border to Baghdad.
This overwhelmingly Sunni far-western corner of Iraq is often thought of as a heartland of the insurgency. But in the last year, the Americans say, they have been able to make allies of some of the region's powerful tribes who will assist them to establish police forces.
In the past they have had mixed success - policemen in this region have been assassinated, have quit, and in some cases even arrested for working with the insurgents.
But in Col Ubaidi they hope they have found a leader who has reason to fight. Much of the police force set up after the 2003 war melted away in late 2004, as US forces were withdrawn from the region to blockade and eventually assault Falluja.
Now the marines are redeploying in the valley, and the police are being rebuilt from scratch.
In many cases, they say, they draw support from tribes who suffered from the insurgents. The colonel says he took the job in December at the behest of local sheikhs. "We could not take it any more,'' he said. Forty-two of his relatives had been killed after trying to join the army or police. However, his conflict with the men who run the insurgency goes back further.
The colonel says that Jubba had been persecuted under the former regime, as it was home to several prominent communists who opposed Saddam Hussein. In contrast, many of the local insurgents come from the al-Jawana tribe based around the district capital, "which always boasted of its closeness to Saddam'' and whose members joined the ruling party and security services.
Now, he says, these one-time Ba'athists have turned Islamist. "When the regime collapsed, they grew their beards, donned the robe [favoured by Salafi puritans], and said 'God is great' '' to lead the insurgency and court the support of al-Qaeda.
His statements seem to reflect a political dynamic common in areas such as western Anbar where the central state is weak and tribes are the most powerful institutions, where the ebb and flow of national politics leave some communities winners and others losers in a never-ending struggle to secure enough power to protect their members.
The colonel's men fight mostly with their own weapons and have yet to collect any salary - the result, he says, of bureaucratic "routine".
He claims the support of 41 local tribal sheikhs who he says co-operate with the police and turn over any of their supporters who are wanted, but admits to rocky relations with provincial officials in Ramadi.
Col Ubaidi claims some key arrests since taking over, including a cousin who assisted the insurgents, but he has also suffered casualties, including a brother killed by a car bomb at a checkpoint only last week.
According to the colonel's account, his brother noticed the car moving suspiciously and ordered his fellow officers to fall back before firing and killing the driver.
The passenger however was able to detonate its load. "Thank God it was my brother who was the martyr . . . He gave his life for his brothers,'' Col Ubaidi says.
Unlike many residents of Anbar, who may not endorse the insurgency but are also weary of foreign military occupation, Col Ubaidi praises the marines as his comrades-in-arms.
-------------------------
Citation: Steve Negus. "Home-grown police force takes on Iraq insurgents," Financial Times, 31 March 2006.
Original URL: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/11e8de38-c052-11da-939f-0000779e2340.html
-------------------------
Losing Iraq's Kids
By Marie Cocco
The Sacramento Bee, 30 March 2006
WASHINGTON -- Amid the complaints that there are no stories of good news from Iraq, here is a story that brings distant hope that the news might, one day, take a good turn.
The story is told by an Iraq war veteran, a young man of 27 who went to college on an ROTC scholarship, only to find himself, soon after graduation, living in a Baghdad palace that once was a lair for Saddam Hussein's sons. For 14 months he and his fellow soldiers rumbled through their volatile rounds of neighborhood patrols and the nighttime rousting of alleged insurgents from their beds. What made it bearable was a singular joy he achieved by witnessing the unbearable -- visits to orphanages for Iraqi children who have lost parents, or whose parents have, in this war, lost the means of caring for them.
"You could take your gear off, you were in a fairly secure place, you could play soccer," says former Army Capt. Jonathan Powers of Clarence, N.Y. For about eight months, the soldiers of the 1st Armored Division visited St. Hannah's orphanage, bringing toys, clothes and food sent from their families in the United States. They fixed broken generators and tried to mend broken hearts. Then one day, the Iraqis running the orphanage delivered hard truth.
"You can't come back anymore because if you come back, they're gonna kill the kids," Powers recalls them saying.
Powers, who had intended on becoming a schoolteacher after college, returned to the United States and instead educated himself about the condition of Iraq's children. There are, he says, at least 5,000 orphans in Baghdad, though the count is suspect and may not include the children he calls "economic orphans" -- those whose families have lost everything.
Children who've survived are literally starving: Malnutrition rates among those under 5 have doubled since the American invasion, to 8 percent, according to the United Nations. Literacy is declining. More than 3.4 million school-age Iraqis aren't attending school.
During his own deployment in 2003 and 2004, Powers says, the street price for those willing to plant a roadside bomb was $1,000, with another $1,000 paid if the bomb killed Americans. Now it's $20 -- and kids are willing to do it. The Sadr militia has whole units of 15-year-olds. Simultaneously, schools and other spots where kids gather are increasingly the targets of violence.
Decades of war, sanctions and now the bloody civil unrest unleashed by the downfall of Saddam Hussein and the American occupation have created in Iraq precisely what decades of strife between Israel and the Palestinians have created in the West Bank and Gaza: a generation of youth traumatized by violence, besieged by a sense of hopelessness and adrift amid the collapse of civic institutions that would normally provide the framework for an ordered life.
They are growing up in an incubator for terrorists.
"We're starting to lose these kids. They're starting to become civically disengaged," Powers told a small gathering of potential supporters for his project, War Kids Relief. If something isn't done, he warns, "we will have to fight them in the future."
Powers, working with the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, is starting War Kids Relief with little more than his own hope and enthusiasm. Even large, sophisticated relief organizations are pulling out of Iraq because of the danger. The U.S. reconstruction effort has provided substantial funds for rebuilding and restocking schools, but little for development projects aimed at youth, even though half of Iraq's population is under age 18.
Powers, working through the Iraqi Ministry of Youth and Sport, is trying to start vocational education programs that would provide public jobs in reconstruction and cleanup, alternating with weeks spent training for permanent work in various trades. For just $50,000, he says, a youth center can be refurbished, complete with computers and the generators still necessary to supply power. For $200,000, he thinks he can run such a center for two years. It is a sum that Powers calls "a rounding error" compared with more than $250 billion already spent on the war.
The error of our ways in Iraq has shocked the conscience and soured the public mood. Talk of troop reductions will only grow louder as November's congressional elections approach. Powers may be among the few Americans willing to stay and fight a very different war that is urgently necessary to secure something resembling peace.
-------------------------
Citation: Marie Cocco. "Losing Iraq's Kids," The Sacramento Bee, 30 March 2006.
Original URL: http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/14236591p-15057546c.html
-------------------------
The Sacramento Bee, 30 March 2006
WASHINGTON -- Amid the complaints that there are no stories of good news from Iraq, here is a story that brings distant hope that the news might, one day, take a good turn.
The story is told by an Iraq war veteran, a young man of 27 who went to college on an ROTC scholarship, only to find himself, soon after graduation, living in a Baghdad palace that once was a lair for Saddam Hussein's sons. For 14 months he and his fellow soldiers rumbled through their volatile rounds of neighborhood patrols and the nighttime rousting of alleged insurgents from their beds. What made it bearable was a singular joy he achieved by witnessing the unbearable -- visits to orphanages for Iraqi children who have lost parents, or whose parents have, in this war, lost the means of caring for them.
"You could take your gear off, you were in a fairly secure place, you could play soccer," says former Army Capt. Jonathan Powers of Clarence, N.Y. For about eight months, the soldiers of the 1st Armored Division visited St. Hannah's orphanage, bringing toys, clothes and food sent from their families in the United States. They fixed broken generators and tried to mend broken hearts. Then one day, the Iraqis running the orphanage delivered hard truth.
"You can't come back anymore because if you come back, they're gonna kill the kids," Powers recalls them saying.
Powers, who had intended on becoming a schoolteacher after college, returned to the United States and instead educated himself about the condition of Iraq's children. There are, he says, at least 5,000 orphans in Baghdad, though the count is suspect and may not include the children he calls "economic orphans" -- those whose families have lost everything.
Children who've survived are literally starving: Malnutrition rates among those under 5 have doubled since the American invasion, to 8 percent, according to the United Nations. Literacy is declining. More than 3.4 million school-age Iraqis aren't attending school.
During his own deployment in 2003 and 2004, Powers says, the street price for those willing to plant a roadside bomb was $1,000, with another $1,000 paid if the bomb killed Americans. Now it's $20 -- and kids are willing to do it. The Sadr militia has whole units of 15-year-olds. Simultaneously, schools and other spots where kids gather are increasingly the targets of violence.
Decades of war, sanctions and now the bloody civil unrest unleashed by the downfall of Saddam Hussein and the American occupation have created in Iraq precisely what decades of strife between Israel and the Palestinians have created in the West Bank and Gaza: a generation of youth traumatized by violence, besieged by a sense of hopelessness and adrift amid the collapse of civic institutions that would normally provide the framework for an ordered life.
They are growing up in an incubator for terrorists.
"We're starting to lose these kids. They're starting to become civically disengaged," Powers told a small gathering of potential supporters for his project, War Kids Relief. If something isn't done, he warns, "we will have to fight them in the future."
Powers, working with the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, is starting War Kids Relief with little more than his own hope and enthusiasm. Even large, sophisticated relief organizations are pulling out of Iraq because of the danger. The U.S. reconstruction effort has provided substantial funds for rebuilding and restocking schools, but little for development projects aimed at youth, even though half of Iraq's population is under age 18.
Powers, working through the Iraqi Ministry of Youth and Sport, is trying to start vocational education programs that would provide public jobs in reconstruction and cleanup, alternating with weeks spent training for permanent work in various trades. For just $50,000, he says, a youth center can be refurbished, complete with computers and the generators still necessary to supply power. For $200,000, he thinks he can run such a center for two years. It is a sum that Powers calls "a rounding error" compared with more than $250 billion already spent on the war.
The error of our ways in Iraq has shocked the conscience and soured the public mood. Talk of troop reductions will only grow louder as November's congressional elections approach. Powers may be among the few Americans willing to stay and fight a very different war that is urgently necessary to secure something resembling peace.
-------------------------
Citation: Marie Cocco. "Losing Iraq's Kids," The Sacramento Bee, 30 March 2006.
Original URL: http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/14236591p-15057546c.html
-------------------------
30 March 2006
Far-flung deployment saps the morale of Iraqi soldiers
By Steve Negus
Financial Times, 29 March 2006
The Iraqi army unit bivouacked in a former chicken coop in Hit is not happy.
One weary veteran says two-thirds of his unit have gone absent without leave since it arrived in this western Iraqi town in September - he too would have left if there were any jobs at home and his meagre pay were not the only way to support his family.
"There is no sense of respect in this army," adds a young sergeant, and the recruits piled into dilapidated bunk beds nod approval. The mostly Shia soldiers in the unit say they are convinced they can take the enemy - whom they describe either as "terrorists'' or Sunni ultra-puritan "takfiris'' - in a stand-up fight, particularly if they had enough weapons and supplies.
Instead they face a gruelling battle of endurance with a largely invisible foe here in the far west of the country, in a Sunni town spread along the Euphrates river with hundreds of kilometres of desert on either side, at the end of a long and often dysfunctional supply train.
This unit's deployment fits in to a larger plan to establish Iraqi government control over Anbar province, considered a key supply route for insurgent volunteers and money heading from the Syrian border south and east to the battlegrounds of Ramadi and Baghdad.
Since the fall of theinsurgent-held town of Falluja in November 2004 the US military has been able to free up enough units to deploy a permanent presence in towns along the Euphrates valley that were all but abandoned to the insurgents.
US units will provide the protective cover to build up the Iraqi army, which in turn will allow local leaders to form police forces to monitor their communities.
As part of this plan the Iraqi army units live and patrol with their US counterparts, a scheme that is supposed to give both tactical skills and confidence.
But while their US trainers say the Iraqis are coming along tactically, the presence of well-equipped, well-paid Americans appears only to highlight the deficiencies of their own leadership.
The Iraqis say they lack the high-tech equipment used by the US military to fight insurgents in the area, - surveillance gear to spot guerrillas laying roadside bombs, the ordnance teams that clear them and the sensors that pinpoint the location of incoming mortar fire.
"All we have are these," says a 20-year veteran of the previous Iraqi army, pointing to a Soviet-made Kalashnikov rifle hanging on his wall - the unit also has some older-generation night-vision equipment but the troops are convinced it is not up to American standards.
By numbers, the Iraqi military is doing well, with 113,000 troops on duty today, up from 68,000 a year ago.
More than half the battalions in the field can plan their own operations; some even deploy tanks and other armoured vehicles. What is lacking, says the coalition, are the "greater complexities of military management" - in particular, procurement and supply - and in Hit, one of the more isolated corners of the country, the deficiency is keenly felt.
By the troops' count, casualties caused by the insurgents are light but the sense of isolation saps morale. The US military must still organise and escort the convoys that keep the troops supplied, and ferry them across the desert for their frequent and extensive leave, without which many would not serve.
Food often runs short, the soldiers say, and the shuffle through various depots to and from their homes is a days-long, humiliating ordeal.
The soldiers also complain of the Iraqi government's disorganisation - "a hundred different parties, each working for their own interest'' - and say they have no faith in its leadership.
"No one enlisted out of nationalism or principles. They signed up for the money," says one young officer. The troops earn just over $300 (€250, £170) a month, a relatively good salary in postwar Iraq but one many feel is not worth their time and the risk.
They say that if they are killed bureaucratic routine will prevent their families from drawing a pension. They are indignant that units based in safer areas receive the same pay.
US officers say the process of building up troop capabilities will be a long one but that ultimately Iraqi soldiers should have an advantage over foreign troops in an intelligence-driven campaign by their ability to interact with the population.
This unit, however, has little trust in the people of Hit - "they fear us and we fear them," one says - and wonder how they can be expected to find an enemy that even the Americans have trouble locating.
US officers in Hit admit there are challenges to creating a motivated military in the midst of a counter-insurgency campaign that taxes even the most professional forces.
In some parts of Baghdad, Iraqi army units are cheered in the street, and can draw motivation from the sense that they are fighting to defend their homes against "terrorists". In Hit, the reason to fight appears to be less clear.
One Iraqi officer says local leaders have suggested US and Iraqi forces withdraw and the community be allowed to police itself - a strategy he endorses.
Barring that, he says, the only way a conventional military force can handle insurgents is by doing what the Iraqi military has done in the past - inflict wholesale collective punishment on the communities that shelter them.
"In Saddam's era, if a shot came from one area, then all that area was laid waste," he says. "The policy of Saddam is better than the current policy if you want to exert control."
Such nostalgia for the previous regime, from a soldier too young to have served in it, is not what the coalition forces had in mind when they talked of the progress being made by Iraqi units.
-------------------
Citation: Steve Negus. "Far-flung deployment saps the morale of Iraqi soldiers," Financial Times, 29 March 2006.
Original URL: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/009d5b74-bec0-11da-b10f-0000779e2340,s01=1.html
-------------------
Financial Times, 29 March 2006
The Iraqi army unit bivouacked in a former chicken coop in Hit is not happy.
One weary veteran says two-thirds of his unit have gone absent without leave since it arrived in this western Iraqi town in September - he too would have left if there were any jobs at home and his meagre pay were not the only way to support his family.
"There is no sense of respect in this army," adds a young sergeant, and the recruits piled into dilapidated bunk beds nod approval. The mostly Shia soldiers in the unit say they are convinced they can take the enemy - whom they describe either as "terrorists'' or Sunni ultra-puritan "takfiris'' - in a stand-up fight, particularly if they had enough weapons and supplies.
Instead they face a gruelling battle of endurance with a largely invisible foe here in the far west of the country, in a Sunni town spread along the Euphrates river with hundreds of kilometres of desert on either side, at the end of a long and often dysfunctional supply train.
This unit's deployment fits in to a larger plan to establish Iraqi government control over Anbar province, considered a key supply route for insurgent volunteers and money heading from the Syrian border south and east to the battlegrounds of Ramadi and Baghdad.
Since the fall of theinsurgent-held town of Falluja in November 2004 the US military has been able to free up enough units to deploy a permanent presence in towns along the Euphrates valley that were all but abandoned to the insurgents.
US units will provide the protective cover to build up the Iraqi army, which in turn will allow local leaders to form police forces to monitor their communities.
As part of this plan the Iraqi army units live and patrol with their US counterparts, a scheme that is supposed to give both tactical skills and confidence.
But while their US trainers say the Iraqis are coming along tactically, the presence of well-equipped, well-paid Americans appears only to highlight the deficiencies of their own leadership.
The Iraqis say they lack the high-tech equipment used by the US military to fight insurgents in the area, - surveillance gear to spot guerrillas laying roadside bombs, the ordnance teams that clear them and the sensors that pinpoint the location of incoming mortar fire.
"All we have are these," says a 20-year veteran of the previous Iraqi army, pointing to a Soviet-made Kalashnikov rifle hanging on his wall - the unit also has some older-generation night-vision equipment but the troops are convinced it is not up to American standards.
By numbers, the Iraqi military is doing well, with 113,000 troops on duty today, up from 68,000 a year ago.
More than half the battalions in the field can plan their own operations; some even deploy tanks and other armoured vehicles. What is lacking, says the coalition, are the "greater complexities of military management" - in particular, procurement and supply - and in Hit, one of the more isolated corners of the country, the deficiency is keenly felt.
By the troops' count, casualties caused by the insurgents are light but the sense of isolation saps morale. The US military must still organise and escort the convoys that keep the troops supplied, and ferry them across the desert for their frequent and extensive leave, without which many would not serve.
Food often runs short, the soldiers say, and the shuffle through various depots to and from their homes is a days-long, humiliating ordeal.
The soldiers also complain of the Iraqi government's disorganisation - "a hundred different parties, each working for their own interest'' - and say they have no faith in its leadership.
"No one enlisted out of nationalism or principles. They signed up for the money," says one young officer. The troops earn just over $300 (€250, £170) a month, a relatively good salary in postwar Iraq but one many feel is not worth their time and the risk.
They say that if they are killed bureaucratic routine will prevent their families from drawing a pension. They are indignant that units based in safer areas receive the same pay.
US officers say the process of building up troop capabilities will be a long one but that ultimately Iraqi soldiers should have an advantage over foreign troops in an intelligence-driven campaign by their ability to interact with the population.
This unit, however, has little trust in the people of Hit - "they fear us and we fear them," one says - and wonder how they can be expected to find an enemy that even the Americans have trouble locating.
US officers in Hit admit there are challenges to creating a motivated military in the midst of a counter-insurgency campaign that taxes even the most professional forces.
In some parts of Baghdad, Iraqi army units are cheered in the street, and can draw motivation from the sense that they are fighting to defend their homes against "terrorists". In Hit, the reason to fight appears to be less clear.
One Iraqi officer says local leaders have suggested US and Iraqi forces withdraw and the community be allowed to police itself - a strategy he endorses.
Barring that, he says, the only way a conventional military force can handle insurgents is by doing what the Iraqi military has done in the past - inflict wholesale collective punishment on the communities that shelter them.
"In Saddam's era, if a shot came from one area, then all that area was laid waste," he says. "The policy of Saddam is better than the current policy if you want to exert control."
Such nostalgia for the previous regime, from a soldier too young to have served in it, is not what the coalition forces had in mind when they talked of the progress being made by Iraqi units.
-------------------
Citation: Steve Negus. "Far-flung deployment saps the morale of Iraqi soldiers," Financial Times, 29 March 2006.
Original URL: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/009d5b74-bec0-11da-b10f-0000779e2340,s01=1.html
-------------------
Unfair, Unbalanced Channels
Despite U.S. efforts to promote journalistic standards in Iraq, sectarian divisions are bleeding over onto a dozen TV stations.
By Louise Roug
Los Angeles Times, 28 March 2006
BAGHDAD — The Bush administration has poured millions of dollars into creating Western-style news media in Iraq, backing at least two television channels as well as training programs for Iraqi journalists on balance and ethics.
The effort has helped launch more than a dozen Iraqi channels. But the result is hardly what the administration set out to accomplish. Most of the channels are increasingly sectarian and often appear to be inflaming the country's tensions, critics say.
The result was highly visible Sunday and Monday as the state-owned Al Iraqiya station interrupted its regular schedule to broadcast nonstop footage of bloodied corpses at what it said was a Baghdad mosque.
U.S. and Iraqi forces had killed at least 16 people Sunday evening in what Americans said was a shootout with militants. On Al Iraqiya, the raid was portrayed as the killing of unarmed worshipers in a Shiite Muslim mosque. Between interviews with Shiite politicians criticizing the Americans, the camera lingered on the dead and the grieving relatives.
The channel was created by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority as an experiment in public broadcasting. It was later turned over to the Iraqi government, but is now widely viewed as sectarian.
"It was supposed to be fair, and address all the people of Iraq, but so far it hasn't succeeded in achieving this unique goal," said Mohammad Shaboot, editor of the state-run Al Sabah daily. "No one has invested in a real, nationwide Iraqi channel for all Iraqis."
Homebound because of violence and curfews, Iraqis watch their world through the kaleidoscope of satellite TV. But channel surfing Iraqi-style often offers views of the country through a sectarian lens.
Click the remote, and on one channel, the anchor refers to the Sunni-led insurgency as the "honorable resistance" as images of wounded Iraqis and aggressive U.S. soldiers flash on screen.
Click the remote again, and the insurgents are described as terrorists and the speakers praise crackdowns by the Shiite-led government.
Click again, and the insurgency might well not exist.
Until the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, the two governmentsanctioned channels offered only presidential propaganda and patriotic tunes.
The toppling of former President Saddam Hussein's regime, however, prompted a TV revolution and the launch of the more than a dozen Iraqi channels. They lure viewers with popular Iraqi-made dramas such as the Sopranos-style gangster show "Departures," the irreverent "Saturday Night Live"-like "Caricature" and a host of reality TV and makeover shows.
But while escapist entertainment flourished, news programming proved more problematic.
The coverage in the aftermath of the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra, an attack that brought the country close to civil war, was particularly incendiary.
Channels with ties to Sunni Arabs such as Baghdad TV — headed by former Baath Party member Saad Bazzaz and run by the Iraqi Islamic Party, the main Sunni political group — highlighted the suffering of Sunnis in reprisal attacks.
Stations run by Shiites, such as Al Furat and the government's Al Iraqiya, focused on the damage to the shrine and the suffering of Shiites under Hussein.
"Al Furat was pouring petrol on the fire, and Baghdad TV was doing the same thing on the other side," said Shaboot, the newspaper editor.
On Baghdad TV, Sunni studio hosts took calls from the audience, with some callers encouraging the audience to form a Sunni militia to counter the so-called Shiite militia.
Al Furat, backed by the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq — the main Shiite political party — meanwhile was airing slogans demanding that Shiites stand up for their rights.
Al Iraqiya initially lacked credibility because of its American origins. Now some Shiites are critical of its Shiite focus and obsequious coverage of the Shiite-led government.
"When something happens in [Shiite-dominated] Karbala or Kadhimiya, we see that there is full coverage," said Ahmed Hussein, a 33-year-old Shiite businessman. "But when something happens in [the largely Sunni city of] Fallouja, there is not that much coverage, so we hear the Sunnis ask, 'Why?' "
Other channels are even more sectarian in their coverage.
On a recent day, amid kids' cartoons, Lebanese pop music videos and reruns of old Egyptian movies, a viewer could watch Al Furat's female news anchor, dressed in black hijab and abaya, introduce a speech by the leader of the largest Shiite party about Shiite families displaced by sectarian violence.
After the news, a montage showed worshipers kissing the walls of the Shiite holy shrines in Najaf and Karbala as a singer recited religious songs.
Meanwhile, on Baghdad TV, known as "Baathist TV" among some Shiites who criticize its pro-Sunni agenda, an Indonesian singer was wooing his audience from the stage, bathed in disco lights, followed by a corpulent host wearing a suit and a sky blue tie talking with a prominent Sunni cleric by phone. The program, "Under the Shadow of Sharia," dealt with questions about how to live according to religious edicts.
Farther along the spectrum, Al Rafidain showed a series of vox pop interviews. Everyone on the Arab street held the same view:
"The occupiers came to destroy us," said one man.
"The occupation cannot last," said another. "By the will of God, we will get rid of them."
On Baghdadia, a moderate Sunni channel, the anchor was delivering the top news of the day: "President Bush confesses that occupying Iraq is a very difficult task."
News directors across the political spectrum defend their own coverage while deriding their competitors as sectarian. Ahmed Rushdi, the news director of Baghdad TV, said that unlike state-controlled Al Iraqiya, his channel had no sectarian bias — even though it's backed by a major Sunni political group.
"We are always showing the facts as they are," he said.
Baghdad TV has no correspondents in either of the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, which Rushdi chalked up to Baghdad TV's being "new in the business" and still recruiting journalists around the country.
Even sports coverage has a political bent.
"We concentrate on sport stars who were oppressed during Saddam's time," said Muhsin Fasani of Al Furat, which is aimed at religiously conservative Shiites.
On the U.S.-backed channel Al Hurra, or "the Free One," a television host in a crisp blue suit profiled a Syrian dissident. "An eye on democracy opens the eye on freedom," one guest said. The channel carries most speeches by Bush in addition to a youth-oriented mix of entertainment and news.
Despite U.S. efforts, many educated Iraqis now prefer the slick, well-funded Persian Gulf-based stations such as Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera, often criticized by the U.S. government for being anti-American and pro-insurgency, because they focus on regional economic and environmental issues instead of just daily violence.
Hussein, the Shiite businessman, said he even preferred the Arabic-language version of the Discovery Channel to the Iraqi networks. "They like to analyze problems and find solutions."
While the Bush administration has been touting the proliferation of media outlets in the country as an example of newfound freedoms, some Iraqis are tuning out, exercising democracy by remote control.
"It's a luxury now to have different channels," Shaboot said. Iraqis "are hungry for it, but I'm not sure they are happy with it."
Times staff writers Borzou Daragahi, Shamil Aziz and Zainab Hussein contributed to this report.
--------------------------
Citation: Louise Roug. "Unfair, Unbalanced Channels," Los Angeles Times, 28 March 2006.
Original URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-media28mar28,1,7133399.story?coll=la-iraq-complete
--------------------------
By Louise Roug
Los Angeles Times, 28 March 2006
BAGHDAD — The Bush administration has poured millions of dollars into creating Western-style news media in Iraq, backing at least two television channels as well as training programs for Iraqi journalists on balance and ethics.
The effort has helped launch more than a dozen Iraqi channels. But the result is hardly what the administration set out to accomplish. Most of the channels are increasingly sectarian and often appear to be inflaming the country's tensions, critics say.
The result was highly visible Sunday and Monday as the state-owned Al Iraqiya station interrupted its regular schedule to broadcast nonstop footage of bloodied corpses at what it said was a Baghdad mosque.
U.S. and Iraqi forces had killed at least 16 people Sunday evening in what Americans said was a shootout with militants. On Al Iraqiya, the raid was portrayed as the killing of unarmed worshipers in a Shiite Muslim mosque. Between interviews with Shiite politicians criticizing the Americans, the camera lingered on the dead and the grieving relatives.
The channel was created by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority as an experiment in public broadcasting. It was later turned over to the Iraqi government, but is now widely viewed as sectarian.
"It was supposed to be fair, and address all the people of Iraq, but so far it hasn't succeeded in achieving this unique goal," said Mohammad Shaboot, editor of the state-run Al Sabah daily. "No one has invested in a real, nationwide Iraqi channel for all Iraqis."
Homebound because of violence and curfews, Iraqis watch their world through the kaleidoscope of satellite TV. But channel surfing Iraqi-style often offers views of the country through a sectarian lens.
Click the remote, and on one channel, the anchor refers to the Sunni-led insurgency as the "honorable resistance" as images of wounded Iraqis and aggressive U.S. soldiers flash on screen.
Click the remote again, and the insurgents are described as terrorists and the speakers praise crackdowns by the Shiite-led government.
Click again, and the insurgency might well not exist.
Until the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, the two governmentsanctioned channels offered only presidential propaganda and patriotic tunes.
The toppling of former President Saddam Hussein's regime, however, prompted a TV revolution and the launch of the more than a dozen Iraqi channels. They lure viewers with popular Iraqi-made dramas such as the Sopranos-style gangster show "Departures," the irreverent "Saturday Night Live"-like "Caricature" and a host of reality TV and makeover shows.
But while escapist entertainment flourished, news programming proved more problematic.
The coverage in the aftermath of the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra, an attack that brought the country close to civil war, was particularly incendiary.
Channels with ties to Sunni Arabs such as Baghdad TV — headed by former Baath Party member Saad Bazzaz and run by the Iraqi Islamic Party, the main Sunni political group — highlighted the suffering of Sunnis in reprisal attacks.
Stations run by Shiites, such as Al Furat and the government's Al Iraqiya, focused on the damage to the shrine and the suffering of Shiites under Hussein.
"Al Furat was pouring petrol on the fire, and Baghdad TV was doing the same thing on the other side," said Shaboot, the newspaper editor.
On Baghdad TV, Sunni studio hosts took calls from the audience, with some callers encouraging the audience to form a Sunni militia to counter the so-called Shiite militia.
Al Furat, backed by the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq — the main Shiite political party — meanwhile was airing slogans demanding that Shiites stand up for their rights.
Al Iraqiya initially lacked credibility because of its American origins. Now some Shiites are critical of its Shiite focus and obsequious coverage of the Shiite-led government.
"When something happens in [Shiite-dominated] Karbala or Kadhimiya, we see that there is full coverage," said Ahmed Hussein, a 33-year-old Shiite businessman. "But when something happens in [the largely Sunni city of] Fallouja, there is not that much coverage, so we hear the Sunnis ask, 'Why?' "
Other channels are even more sectarian in their coverage.
On a recent day, amid kids' cartoons, Lebanese pop music videos and reruns of old Egyptian movies, a viewer could watch Al Furat's female news anchor, dressed in black hijab and abaya, introduce a speech by the leader of the largest Shiite party about Shiite families displaced by sectarian violence.
After the news, a montage showed worshipers kissing the walls of the Shiite holy shrines in Najaf and Karbala as a singer recited religious songs.
Meanwhile, on Baghdad TV, known as "Baathist TV" among some Shiites who criticize its pro-Sunni agenda, an Indonesian singer was wooing his audience from the stage, bathed in disco lights, followed by a corpulent host wearing a suit and a sky blue tie talking with a prominent Sunni cleric by phone. The program, "Under the Shadow of Sharia," dealt with questions about how to live according to religious edicts.
Farther along the spectrum, Al Rafidain showed a series of vox pop interviews. Everyone on the Arab street held the same view:
"The occupiers came to destroy us," said one man.
"The occupation cannot last," said another. "By the will of God, we will get rid of them."
On Baghdadia, a moderate Sunni channel, the anchor was delivering the top news of the day: "President Bush confesses that occupying Iraq is a very difficult task."
News directors across the political spectrum defend their own coverage while deriding their competitors as sectarian. Ahmed Rushdi, the news director of Baghdad TV, said that unlike state-controlled Al Iraqiya, his channel had no sectarian bias — even though it's backed by a major Sunni political group.
"We are always showing the facts as they are," he said.
Baghdad TV has no correspondents in either of the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, which Rushdi chalked up to Baghdad TV's being "new in the business" and still recruiting journalists around the country.
Even sports coverage has a political bent.
"We concentrate on sport stars who were oppressed during Saddam's time," said Muhsin Fasani of Al Furat, which is aimed at religiously conservative Shiites.
On the U.S.-backed channel Al Hurra, or "the Free One," a television host in a crisp blue suit profiled a Syrian dissident. "An eye on democracy opens the eye on freedom," one guest said. The channel carries most speeches by Bush in addition to a youth-oriented mix of entertainment and news.
Despite U.S. efforts, many educated Iraqis now prefer the slick, well-funded Persian Gulf-based stations such as Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera, often criticized by the U.S. government for being anti-American and pro-insurgency, because they focus on regional economic and environmental issues instead of just daily violence.
Hussein, the Shiite businessman, said he even preferred the Arabic-language version of the Discovery Channel to the Iraqi networks. "They like to analyze problems and find solutions."
While the Bush administration has been touting the proliferation of media outlets in the country as an example of newfound freedoms, some Iraqis are tuning out, exercising democracy by remote control.
"It's a luxury now to have different channels," Shaboot said. Iraqis "are hungry for it, but I'm not sure they are happy with it."
Times staff writers Borzou Daragahi, Shamil Aziz and Zainab Hussein contributed to this report.
--------------------------
Citation: Louise Roug. "Unfair, Unbalanced Channels," Los Angeles Times, 28 March 2006.
Original URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-media28mar28,1,7133399.story?coll=la-iraq-complete
--------------------------
Influence in Iraq Emerges as Key Issue as Arab Conference Opens
By Abeer Allam
The New York Times, 29 March 2006
KHARTOUM, Sudan, March 28 — Concerns over growing Iranian influence in Iraq, and the lack of Arab involvement there, dominated the opening of the annual Arab League summit here on Tuesday.
"Any solution for the Iraqi problem cannot be reached without Arabs and Arab participation," Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League, said in his opening speech. "Any consultations conducted without Arab participation will be considered unsatisfactory and will yield no solutions."
Arab countries have been fuming over an Iranian-American agreement this month to hold direct talks about sectarian violence in Iraq.
"They fear Iraq is drifting from the Arabs, being divorced from the Arab world, and the increased influence of another neighboring country," said Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi foreign minister. "This time, we are seeing some positive moves by the Arab League toward more realization of the situation on Iraq."
In a draft resolution likely to be approved tomorrow, the group's 22 Arab nations have pledged to reopen diplomatic missions in Iraq. In November, the Arab League also started an effort to reconcile differences among Iraq's religious sects in hopes of ending the sectarian fighting there, as well as increasing the Arab presence. Still, many Arab governments said they felt powerless in the face of Iran's growing influence.
"Arabs have no cards to play with, while Iran has many," said Abdel Wahab Badrakhan, editor of Al Hayat, a newspaper based in London. "Iran can influence the situation in Iraq, Lebanon, world oil prices, and now can play the nuclear card."
Analysts in the region feel that Iran is being rewarded for adopting a confrontational approach. Even though Iran has supported terrorist groups and defied the West's admonition to abandon its nuclear program, Arab countries fear that the United States may cut a deal with Iran that further weakens Arab influence in Iraq.
On the other hand, said Mohammed el-Sayed Said, deputy director of the Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, the Arab countries have complied with international obligations and received nothing from the American government in return.
A declaration expected to be approved by the Arab League on Wednesday pointedly called for "respecting the Iraqi sovereignty, territorial integrity, freedom and independence and noninterference in domestic affairs."
-----------------------
Citation: Abeer Allam. "Influence in Iraq Emerges as Key Issue as Arab Conference Opens," The New York Times, 29 March 2006.
Original URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/29/international/middleeast/29arab.html
-----------------------
The New York Times, 29 March 2006
KHARTOUM, Sudan, March 28 — Concerns over growing Iranian influence in Iraq, and the lack of Arab involvement there, dominated the opening of the annual Arab League summit here on Tuesday.
"Any solution for the Iraqi problem cannot be reached without Arabs and Arab participation," Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League, said in his opening speech. "Any consultations conducted without Arab participation will be considered unsatisfactory and will yield no solutions."
Arab countries have been fuming over an Iranian-American agreement this month to hold direct talks about sectarian violence in Iraq.
"They fear Iraq is drifting from the Arabs, being divorced from the Arab world, and the increased influence of another neighboring country," said Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi foreign minister. "This time, we are seeing some positive moves by the Arab League toward more realization of the situation on Iraq."
In a draft resolution likely to be approved tomorrow, the group's 22 Arab nations have pledged to reopen diplomatic missions in Iraq. In November, the Arab League also started an effort to reconcile differences among Iraq's religious sects in hopes of ending the sectarian fighting there, as well as increasing the Arab presence. Still, many Arab governments said they felt powerless in the face of Iran's growing influence.
"Arabs have no cards to play with, while Iran has many," said Abdel Wahab Badrakhan, editor of Al Hayat, a newspaper based in London. "Iran can influence the situation in Iraq, Lebanon, world oil prices, and now can play the nuclear card."
Analysts in the region feel that Iran is being rewarded for adopting a confrontational approach. Even though Iran has supported terrorist groups and defied the West's admonition to abandon its nuclear program, Arab countries fear that the United States may cut a deal with Iran that further weakens Arab influence in Iraq.
On the other hand, said Mohammed el-Sayed Said, deputy director of the Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, the Arab countries have complied with international obligations and received nothing from the American government in return.
A declaration expected to be approved by the Arab League on Wednesday pointedly called for "respecting the Iraqi sovereignty, territorial integrity, freedom and independence and noninterference in domestic affairs."
-----------------------
Citation: Abeer Allam. "Influence in Iraq Emerges as Key Issue as Arab Conference Opens," The New York Times, 29 March 2006.
Original URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/29/international/middleeast/29arab.html
-----------------------
Dinar traders bet on Iraq’s future
By Alan Rappeport
Financial Times, 29 March 2006
Chris Papatheofanous was a medical lab technologist with a prized collection of old coins from the Middle East, when she realised that owning some of Iraq’s new currency, the dinar, might be a better investment than the relics she was selling on the side.
Now, nearly three years later, Ms Papatheofanous no longer works in the medical industry and her salary has quadrupled. She deals Iraqi dinar full-time from her home in Quebec, Canada, and sells millions of them each week.
“It’s very speculative, it’s very risky,” Ms Papatheofanous, who runs PortalIraq.com, says.
It also can be very lucrative. Since the new Iraqi dinar began printing in 2003 to replace the old Saddam Hussein-clad currency, people have been betting that the value of the new money will appreciate. Many of those who found ways to acquire the dinar from the Central Bank of Iraq began re-selling them on Ebay and then started their own exchange services. Most have no background in finance or currency exchange.
“I used to run a company that promoted web sites, and now I run a site of my own,” said Jeff Pasquarella, of Connecticut, who sells between 40 million and 50 million Iraqi dinar each week through BetOnIraq.com.
The Iraqi dinar is a managed currency and has been relatively stable since it was first introduced in October 2003. The official exchange rate has remained around 1,450 Iraqi dinar to the US dollar, with moderate fluctuation. It operates on a managed float so that the central bank can maintain control over inflation. The bank holds daily currency auctions to determine the demand on the dinar.
“The security situation sometimes leads to stagnation of demand,” says Muzher Kasim, general director for research at the Central Bank of Iraq in Baghdad. “At this moment things are stable. There’s no problem because the turnover of dollars is high because of the export of oil.”
Since Iraqi dinar can only be bought in Iraq, people selling them privately over the internet must have a direct connection there or with a trader often in Jordan or Kuwait. In many cases the currency passes through layers of investment, as people buy from suppliers and then resell it, usually at a mark-up of about 30 per cent.
Dinar dealers talk in terms of millions, and 1m Iraqi dinar generally costs a buyer about $1,000 (€828.14, £571.47) Since the currency is not yet convertible on the international market, the money is shipped as cash, in boxes, by courier services. Banks outside of Iraq will not deposit the currency, so those who purchase it must keep it in deposit boxes or other secure places.
“We’re just holding dinars and hoping that this currency will hit the world market and that we’ll be able to exchange it at our local banks,” says Ms Papatheofanous, whose trading company now has 14 employees.
If not, investors will be holding expensive memorabilia. The fate of the currency depends on Iraq’s future stability. If the country is divided or if the dinar somehow ceases to be the national currency, then dinar buyers will suffer great losses.
“I’m not as optimistic as some other sellers that will tell you it’s going to go up to its pre-war rate,” says Sanjay Madhavji, who runs InvestInDinar.co.uk in Ipswich, England. “But in five to ten years, we should start seeing some changes.”
Less optimistic is Harvard economist Jeffrey Frankel. He attributes some of the Iraqi dinar’s apparent stability to a global economic cycle that is supporting currencies in emerging markets that have commodity-based economies. The influx of foreign capital brought in with the reconstruction is also propping the Iraqi currency, he adds.
“People should not be gambling on a currency like this that has a reasonable possibility of complete chaos and hyper-inflation,” Professor Frankel said. “It’s not something I would advise servicemen on a limited budget to invest in. I don’t see a tremendous upside to the currency.”
Despite pessimism about Iraq, the numbers of Iraqi dinar dealers is increasing. Marshall Donnerbauer sells dinar out of his home in Boston through InvestInDinar.com and said that when he started in 2003 there were only two or three other people doing it. Now he has more than 300 competitors, including some who buy their dinar from him.
“It’s made a real good living for me,” said Mr Donnerbauer, who has earned $300,000 (€248,486.84, £171,457.94) in the last two years through dinar sales. “I’ve sold over a billion dinar in the last year.”
------------------------------------
Citation: Alan Rappeport. "Dinar traders bet on Iraq’s future," Financial Times, 29 March 2006.
Original URL: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/e8da54b0-bf05-11da-9de7-0000779e2340,dwp_uuid=c1a5b968-e1ed-11d7-81c6-0820abe49a01.html
------------------------------------
Financial Times, 29 March 2006
Chris Papatheofanous was a medical lab technologist with a prized collection of old coins from the Middle East, when she realised that owning some of Iraq’s new currency, the dinar, might be a better investment than the relics she was selling on the side.
Now, nearly three years later, Ms Papatheofanous no longer works in the medical industry and her salary has quadrupled. She deals Iraqi dinar full-time from her home in Quebec, Canada, and sells millions of them each week.
“It’s very speculative, it’s very risky,” Ms Papatheofanous, who runs PortalIraq.com, says.
It also can be very lucrative. Since the new Iraqi dinar began printing in 2003 to replace the old Saddam Hussein-clad currency, people have been betting that the value of the new money will appreciate. Many of those who found ways to acquire the dinar from the Central Bank of Iraq began re-selling them on Ebay and then started their own exchange services. Most have no background in finance or currency exchange.
“I used to run a company that promoted web sites, and now I run a site of my own,” said Jeff Pasquarella, of Connecticut, who sells between 40 million and 50 million Iraqi dinar each week through BetOnIraq.com.
The Iraqi dinar is a managed currency and has been relatively stable since it was first introduced in October 2003. The official exchange rate has remained around 1,450 Iraqi dinar to the US dollar, with moderate fluctuation. It operates on a managed float so that the central bank can maintain control over inflation. The bank holds daily currency auctions to determine the demand on the dinar.
“The security situation sometimes leads to stagnation of demand,” says Muzher Kasim, general director for research at the Central Bank of Iraq in Baghdad. “At this moment things are stable. There’s no problem because the turnover of dollars is high because of the export of oil.”
Since Iraqi dinar can only be bought in Iraq, people selling them privately over the internet must have a direct connection there or with a trader often in Jordan or Kuwait. In many cases the currency passes through layers of investment, as people buy from suppliers and then resell it, usually at a mark-up of about 30 per cent.
Dinar dealers talk in terms of millions, and 1m Iraqi dinar generally costs a buyer about $1,000 (€828.14, £571.47) Since the currency is not yet convertible on the international market, the money is shipped as cash, in boxes, by courier services. Banks outside of Iraq will not deposit the currency, so those who purchase it must keep it in deposit boxes or other secure places.
“We’re just holding dinars and hoping that this currency will hit the world market and that we’ll be able to exchange it at our local banks,” says Ms Papatheofanous, whose trading company now has 14 employees.
If not, investors will be holding expensive memorabilia. The fate of the currency depends on Iraq’s future stability. If the country is divided or if the dinar somehow ceases to be the national currency, then dinar buyers will suffer great losses.
“I’m not as optimistic as some other sellers that will tell you it’s going to go up to its pre-war rate,” says Sanjay Madhavji, who runs InvestInDinar.co.uk in Ipswich, England. “But in five to ten years, we should start seeing some changes.”
Less optimistic is Harvard economist Jeffrey Frankel. He attributes some of the Iraqi dinar’s apparent stability to a global economic cycle that is supporting currencies in emerging markets that have commodity-based economies. The influx of foreign capital brought in with the reconstruction is also propping the Iraqi currency, he adds.
“People should not be gambling on a currency like this that has a reasonable possibility of complete chaos and hyper-inflation,” Professor Frankel said. “It’s not something I would advise servicemen on a limited budget to invest in. I don’t see a tremendous upside to the currency.”
Despite pessimism about Iraq, the numbers of Iraqi dinar dealers is increasing. Marshall Donnerbauer sells dinar out of his home in Boston through InvestInDinar.com and said that when he started in 2003 there were only two or three other people doing it. Now he has more than 300 competitors, including some who buy their dinar from him.
“It’s made a real good living for me,” said Mr Donnerbauer, who has earned $300,000 (€248,486.84, £171,457.94) in the last two years through dinar sales. “I’ve sold over a billion dinar in the last year.”
------------------------------------
Citation: Alan Rappeport. "Dinar traders bet on Iraq’s future," Financial Times, 29 March 2006.
Original URL: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/e8da54b0-bf05-11da-9de7-0000779e2340,dwp_uuid=c1a5b968-e1ed-11d7-81c6-0820abe49a01.html
------------------------------------
Iraq interior minister says battling gangs in police
By Mariam Karouny
Reuters, 29 March 2006
BAGHDAD - Iraq's interior minister, a focus for complaints about sectarian death squads operating in the police, insisted he was cleaning up the ministry but said there was still some way to go.
Bayan Jabor told Reuters, however, he did not want to stay in the job once a national unity government is formed.
The Shi'ite Islamist has been publicly, if indirectly, accused by the U.S. ambassador of fostering sectarian bias.
In an interview late on Tuesday, he accused U.S. diplomats of trying to discredit him, most recently with a raid on a jail that had echoes of a scandal in November when dozens of abused Sunni detainees were found at a secret ministry bunker. Jabor said the bunker incident was still under investigation.
He said he had been fighting what he called "corruption" in the police since taking up his post 10 months ago in the interim administration. He had fired nearly 4,000 personnel but complained ethnic and sectarian sensitivities made it hard.
"I have suffered over these 10 months, fighting terrorism and cleaning up the ministry," he said in his office in the heavily fortified Adnan Palace, once occupied by Saddam Hussein.
Among successes, he said, was the virtual defeat of al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Jabor said he was "finished" -- an assessment at odds with that of military intelligence sources in U.S.-led forces in Baghdad.
DIFFICULT DECISIONS
A push against insurgents northeast of the capital, where many believe Zarqawi is now based, was planned for April and Jabor said 1,000 key Sunni rebels could "easily" be rounded up.
"We still have to make more efforts to clean up the ministry. Sometimes I hesitate to take difficult decisions due to ethnic and sectarian calculations," he said.
He did not elaborate but seemed to be suggesting local police chiefs in, for example, Sunni areas were hard to remove even when there are suspicions they cooperate with rebels.
Asked when the purge might be complete, he said: "I think by the end of this year -- if we have political stability."
At least 3,000 policemen had been fired for "cooperating with terrorists", he said, as well as 800 who were "criminals".
Highlighting achievements in a week when gunmen dressed as police commandos have raided Baghdad shops and businesses, abducting and killing people and stealing cash, Jabor said the ministry had recently arrested a major general and 17 other policemen for running kidnap and extortion rackets.
He said many of those carrying out killings in police uniform were imposters -- but they operated with inside help.
Accounts are common around Baghdad, particularly among Sunni families, of relatives being taken away in the night by men in police uniform. Bound and executed bodies are then found later.
Jabor rejects accusations that, as a leading member of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim's SCIRI, he has overseen the recruitment of members of the party's armed wing, the formerly Iranian-trained Badr organisation, into the police.
The principle focus of his security operations were now the western, Sunni provinces of Anbar and Diyala, a volatile, mixed area to the northeast of Baghdad, he said.
"Soon we will have a big operation in and around Diyala," he said. "Within a month we will sort it out with a military operation involving defence, interior and multinational forces."
The biggest threats, however, were no longer al Qaeda but Saddam's Baathist followers led by former vice president Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri and senior official Mohammed Younis Ahmed.
"We heard that Zarqawi this week quit the leadership of al Qaeda. What is left is the work of Saddamists," he said.
He gave no details of the intelligence on Zarqawi, whom U.S. and Iraqi officials blamed for last month's Samarra shrine bombing that fuelled an increase in sectarian killings.
A source in U.S.-led military intelligence said a relative lull in al Qaeda attacks may be tactical and said Zarqawi seemed to remain a key figure and a major recruiting draw.
END OF ZARQAWI?
"I'm telling you, Zarqawi is finished," Jabor insisted. "He only has a few supporters in Ramadi" in western Iraq, he said.
"The operation is led by Baathists and Saddamists and it will be easy to eliminate them ... There are maybe 1,000 left and we will start a campaign to round them up."
The dapper, slightly built minister said, however, he may not stay on to supervise, saying his future was in the hands of the Shi'ite Alliance in talks on a coalition.
"I hope I won't be the next interior minister," he said. "It is up to the Alliance but what I would like to do is return to my work as a civil engineer. That is my specialty."
Jabor acknowledged that his relationship with U.S. officials is fraught. He said he had received an apology from the U.S. commander in Iraq, General George Casey, over a military raid on Sunday on a site where several ministry personnel were arrested.
"They were expecting to find tortured people, Iraqis from certain sects and then they use it," he said, recalling the embarrassment of the bunker raid by U.S. troops in November.
In fact, he said, the only prisoners were 17 Sudanese awaiting deportation for visa infringements: "Some in the U.S. embassy want to harm the Interior Ministry and the Alliance.
"But they got nothing."
-------------------------
Citation: Mariam Karouny. "Iraq interior minister says battling gangs in police," Reuters, 29 March 2006.
Original URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAR940917.htm
-------------------------
Reuters, 29 March 2006
BAGHDAD - Iraq's interior minister, a focus for complaints about sectarian death squads operating in the police, insisted he was cleaning up the ministry but said there was still some way to go.
Bayan Jabor told Reuters, however, he did not want to stay in the job once a national unity government is formed.
The Shi'ite Islamist has been publicly, if indirectly, accused by the U.S. ambassador of fostering sectarian bias.
In an interview late on Tuesday, he accused U.S. diplomats of trying to discredit him, most recently with a raid on a jail that had echoes of a scandal in November when dozens of abused Sunni detainees were found at a secret ministry bunker. Jabor said the bunker incident was still under investigation.
He said he had been fighting what he called "corruption" in the police since taking up his post 10 months ago in the interim administration. He had fired nearly 4,000 personnel but complained ethnic and sectarian sensitivities made it hard.
"I have suffered over these 10 months, fighting terrorism and cleaning up the ministry," he said in his office in the heavily fortified Adnan Palace, once occupied by Saddam Hussein.
Among successes, he said, was the virtual defeat of al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Jabor said he was "finished" -- an assessment at odds with that of military intelligence sources in U.S.-led forces in Baghdad.
DIFFICULT DECISIONS
A push against insurgents northeast of the capital, where many believe Zarqawi is now based, was planned for April and Jabor said 1,000 key Sunni rebels could "easily" be rounded up.
"We still have to make more efforts to clean up the ministry. Sometimes I hesitate to take difficult decisions due to ethnic and sectarian calculations," he said.
He did not elaborate but seemed to be suggesting local police chiefs in, for example, Sunni areas were hard to remove even when there are suspicions they cooperate with rebels.
Asked when the purge might be complete, he said: "I think by the end of this year -- if we have political stability."
At least 3,000 policemen had been fired for "cooperating with terrorists", he said, as well as 800 who were "criminals".
Highlighting achievements in a week when gunmen dressed as police commandos have raided Baghdad shops and businesses, abducting and killing people and stealing cash, Jabor said the ministry had recently arrested a major general and 17 other policemen for running kidnap and extortion rackets.
He said many of those carrying out killings in police uniform were imposters -- but they operated with inside help.
Accounts are common around Baghdad, particularly among Sunni families, of relatives being taken away in the night by men in police uniform. Bound and executed bodies are then found later.
Jabor rejects accusations that, as a leading member of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim's SCIRI, he has overseen the recruitment of members of the party's armed wing, the formerly Iranian-trained Badr organisation, into the police.
The principle focus of his security operations were now the western, Sunni provinces of Anbar and Diyala, a volatile, mixed area to the northeast of Baghdad, he said.
"Soon we will have a big operation in and around Diyala," he said. "Within a month we will sort it out with a military operation involving defence, interior and multinational forces."
The biggest threats, however, were no longer al Qaeda but Saddam's Baathist followers led by former vice president Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri and senior official Mohammed Younis Ahmed.
"We heard that Zarqawi this week quit the leadership of al Qaeda. What is left is the work of Saddamists," he said.
He gave no details of the intelligence on Zarqawi, whom U.S. and Iraqi officials blamed for last month's Samarra shrine bombing that fuelled an increase in sectarian killings.
A source in U.S.-led military intelligence said a relative lull in al Qaeda attacks may be tactical and said Zarqawi seemed to remain a key figure and a major recruiting draw.
END OF ZARQAWI?
"I'm telling you, Zarqawi is finished," Jabor insisted. "He only has a few supporters in Ramadi" in western Iraq, he said.
"The operation is led by Baathists and Saddamists and it will be easy to eliminate them ... There are maybe 1,000 left and we will start a campaign to round them up."
The dapper, slightly built minister said, however, he may not stay on to supervise, saying his future was in the hands of the Shi'ite Alliance in talks on a coalition.
"I hope I won't be the next interior minister," he said. "It is up to the Alliance but what I would like to do is return to my work as a civil engineer. That is my specialty."
Jabor acknowledged that his relationship with U.S. officials is fraught. He said he had received an apology from the U.S. commander in Iraq, General George Casey, over a military raid on Sunday on a site where several ministry personnel were arrested.
"They were expecting to find tortured people, Iraqis from certain sects and then they use it," he said, recalling the embarrassment of the bunker raid by U.S. troops in November.
In fact, he said, the only prisoners were 17 Sudanese awaiting deportation for visa infringements: "Some in the U.S. embassy want to harm the Interior Ministry and the Alliance.
"But they got nothing."
-------------------------
Citation: Mariam Karouny. "Iraq interior minister says battling gangs in police," Reuters, 29 March 2006.
Original URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAR940917.htm
-------------------------
Iraq mosque crisis highlights Shi'ite militia role
By Michael Georgy
Reuters, 29 March 2006
BAGHDAD - Champions of the poor or sectarian thugs? A crisis over a U.S.-backed raid on an Iraqi mosque that cost at least 16 lives has again thrust attention on a Shi'ite militia led by fiery young cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
His Mehdi Army fighters were guarding the Baghdad mosque complex at the time of Sunday's assault and shot at Iraqi troops as they approached, witnesses in the neighbourhood said.
"The Iraqi forces tried to enter the mosque and the Mehdi army fired at them. Iraqi forces entered the mosque and killed people," car mechanic Ali Jabber told Reuters.
Sadr's aides denied the Mehdi Army was involved in the violence and said the dead were innocent worshippers.
U.S. commanders have talked only of "terrorists" holding a hostage in the compound and say the bodies of gunmen killed in fighting had been piled in the mosque to simulate a massacre.
The political storm generated by the raid has seen three Shi'ite factions, including Sadr's, unite to denounce the Americans and demand that they hand security control to Iraqis.
All are part of the Shi'ite alliance that won December elections, but has since failed to agree with Sunni Arab and Kurdish parties on the formation of a national unity government.
The bloodshed at the Mustafa mosque has again highlighted Sadr's ambivalence about whether he can wield more power through politics or through paramilitary muscle on the streets.
After leading two revolts against U.S. and Iraqi troops in 2004, Sadr has kept a lower profile, but his fighters control many Shi'ite areas, such as the one around the Mustafa mosque.
Once a building owned by Saddam Hussein's Baath party, the compound also serves as a centre for services for the poor.
Mehdi army fighters run a virtual state-within-a-state for Iraqis plagued by divided leaders, violence and economic hardship since a U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam in 2003.
People like Um Ahmed, whose husband died in a stampede along with about 1,000 Shi'ites during a religious ritual in 2005, have nowhere else to turn.
"I went to the Sadr office and they gave me a compensation document and directed me to the Mustafa mosque," she said.
The Mehdi Army also mans checkpoints to protect people from other militias, Sunni insurgents and thieves, residents said.
GRASSROOTS SUPPORT
Sadr's fighters may be the hardest to tackle if Iraqi leaders heed the U.S. ambassador's recent call for a crackdown on militias accused of running sectarian death squads.
The cleric's network of support for the poor has made him popular and he also derives legitimacy from his father, a revered cleric who was believed killed by Saddam's agents.
"He is a speaker for justice and calls for the rights of the oppressed Iraqi people," said Adel Abul Hassan.
But not all Iraqis are convinced by the Robin Hood image.
"Some of these Mehdi Army people act like criminals. When we see a car with four men in black we know it is them. We just stay away," said a man who only gave his name as Samir.
Some Shi'ite militias, such as one linked to the big SCIRI faction, have their roots in Iran where exiled Iraqis and prisoners of war were recruited in the 1980s to fight Saddam.
Compared to them, the Mehdi Army enjoys more grassroots support, from labourers and shopkeepers and fishermen ready to pick up their rifles, grenades and mortars at short notice.
Sadr's militiamen did just that to counter a major U.S. offensive in Najaf in 2004, although some Iraqis dismissed their Islamist-nationalist rhetoric and accused them of destroying the sacred Shi'ite city south of Baghdad.
Many of Sadr's recruits come from Baghdad's Sadr City, named after his father and home to two million impoverished Shi'ites.
Sadr gained the respect of some Sunni Arabs by fighting the Americans but any cross-communal solidarity may have evaporated in the aftermath of the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine last month.
Sunni Arabs accused the Mehdi Army of burning their mosques and killing Sunni civilians in sectarian reprisals. Sadr's militiamen said they had tried to protect Sunni mosques.
"I used to love Sadr. But now some of his militiamen are just criminals. They kidnap and kill," said Mohammed Adel.
----------------------
Citation: Michael Georgy. "Iraq mosque crisis highlights Shi'ite militia role," Reuters, 29 March 2006.
Original URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L29757672.htm
----------------------
Reuters, 29 March 2006
BAGHDAD - Champions of the poor or sectarian thugs? A crisis over a U.S.-backed raid on an Iraqi mosque that cost at least 16 lives has again thrust attention on a Shi'ite militia led by fiery young cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
His Mehdi Army fighters were guarding the Baghdad mosque complex at the time of Sunday's assault and shot at Iraqi troops as they approached, witnesses in the neighbourhood said.
"The Iraqi forces tried to enter the mosque and the Mehdi army fired at them. Iraqi forces entered the mosque and killed people," car mechanic Ali Jabber told Reuters.
Sadr's aides denied the Mehdi Army was involved in the violence and said the dead were innocent worshippers.
U.S. commanders have talked only of "terrorists" holding a hostage in the compound and say the bodies of gunmen killed in fighting had been piled in the mosque to simulate a massacre.
The political storm generated by the raid has seen three Shi'ite factions, including Sadr's, unite to denounce the Americans and demand that they hand security control to Iraqis.
All are part of the Shi'ite alliance that won December elections, but has since failed to agree with Sunni Arab and Kurdish parties on the formation of a national unity government.
The bloodshed at the Mustafa mosque has again highlighted Sadr's ambivalence about whether he can wield more power through politics or through paramilitary muscle on the streets.
After leading two revolts against U.S. and Iraqi troops in 2004, Sadr has kept a lower profile, but his fighters control many Shi'ite areas, such as the one around the Mustafa mosque.
Once a building owned by Saddam Hussein's Baath party, the compound also serves as a centre for services for the poor.
Mehdi army fighters run a virtual state-within-a-state for Iraqis plagued by divided leaders, violence and economic hardship since a U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam in 2003.
People like Um Ahmed, whose husband died in a stampede along with about 1,000 Shi'ites during a religious ritual in 2005, have nowhere else to turn.
"I went to the Sadr office and they gave me a compensation document and directed me to the Mustafa mosque," she said.
The Mehdi Army also mans checkpoints to protect people from other militias, Sunni insurgents and thieves, residents said.
GRASSROOTS SUPPORT
Sadr's fighters may be the hardest to tackle if Iraqi leaders heed the U.S. ambassador's recent call for a crackdown on militias accused of running sectarian death squads.
The cleric's network of support for the poor has made him popular and he also derives legitimacy from his father, a revered cleric who was believed killed by Saddam's agents.
"He is a speaker for justice and calls for the rights of the oppressed Iraqi people," said Adel Abul Hassan.
But not all Iraqis are convinced by the Robin Hood image.
"Some of these Mehdi Army people act like criminals. When we see a car with four men in black we know it is them. We just stay away," said a man who only gave his name as Samir.
Some Shi'ite militias, such as one linked to the big SCIRI faction, have their roots in Iran where exiled Iraqis and prisoners of war were recruited in the 1980s to fight Saddam.
Compared to them, the Mehdi Army enjoys more grassroots support, from labourers and shopkeepers and fishermen ready to pick up their rifles, grenades and mortars at short notice.
Sadr's militiamen did just that to counter a major U.S. offensive in Najaf in 2004, although some Iraqis dismissed their Islamist-nationalist rhetoric and accused them of destroying the sacred Shi'ite city south of Baghdad.
Many of Sadr's recruits come from Baghdad's Sadr City, named after his father and home to two million impoverished Shi'ites.
Sadr gained the respect of some Sunni Arabs by fighting the Americans but any cross-communal solidarity may have evaporated in the aftermath of the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine last month.
Sunni Arabs accused the Mehdi Army of burning their mosques and killing Sunni civilians in sectarian reprisals. Sadr's militiamen said they had tried to protect Sunni mosques.
"I used to love Sadr. But now some of his militiamen are just criminals. They kidnap and kill," said Mohammed Adel.
----------------------
Citation: Michael Georgy. "Iraq mosque crisis highlights Shi'ite militia role," Reuters, 29 March 2006.
Original URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L29757672.htm
----------------------
The Cost of Invading Iraq: Imponderables Meet Uncertainties
By Alan B. Krueger
The New York Times, 30 March 2006
THE question of whether it was worth invading Iraq is being asked with increasing frequency and fervency.
A Gallup poll this month found that 60 percent of Americans said they did not think it was worth going to war in Iraq, up from 29 percent at the start of the invasion in March 2003.
Fundamentally, deciding whether war is worth it involves weighing the benefits and costs, both tangible and intangible. The many estimates of the cost of the Iraq war that are available are uninformative absent a comparison with the likely benefits, or a comparison with the costs and benefits of the best alternative to invasion.
Unfortunately, cost-benefit comparisons of such weighty issues are more art than science. One problem is that the counterfactual situation — meaning the outcomes that would have occurred had another policy been pursued — cannot be known for sure. In addition, it is often unclear how to value the outcomes of the policy that is pursued.
One of the earliest cost-benefit comparisons was done by Steven J. Davis, Kevin M. Murphy and Robert H. Topel of the University of Chicago on the eve of the invasion in 2003. They explicitly considered a continued policy of containment — enforcing the no-fly zone and other operations to hem in Saddam Hussein — as an alternative to invasion and regime change. Assuming that containment and invasion would protect the United States equally well, the question of whether invasion is worth it turns on which policy is less costly, after discounting all likely future costs.
Allowing for a 3 percent chance that the Iraqi regime would evolve into a benign government in any future year and a 2 percent real interest rate, the economists reckoned that the cost of pursuing a containment strategy was $258 billion to $380 billion. "This dwarfs any reasonable estimate of U.S. war costs," they wrote at the time. Their anticipated price tag for the war, which they considered conservative, was $125 billion.
Professors Davis, Murphy and Topel have revised their figures in a new National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, "War in Iraq Versus Containment." Their estimated war costs have increased to a range of $410 billion to $630 billion, reflecting reality there.
William D. Nordhaus, an economist at Yale who warned in 2002 that past war cost forecasts had turned out to be too low, said the updated work is "economics at its best and worst — quantifying the almost-unquantifiable."
In the fog of war accounting, one thing is clear: all costs and benefits can be contested as wildly inaccurate — in either direction.
Consider what the cost of containment would have been had the United States not gone to war. The University of Chicago study now says it is in "the range of $350 billion to $700 billion." This range is arguably grossly inflated because it counts virtually all of the American military forces in the Middle East as dedicated to containing Iraq.
While containing Iraq was a central focus, these troops also served many other purposes. They conducted rescue operations in Somalia; performed humanitarian missions in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Jordan; responded to terrorist bombings in Nairobi and Tanzania; and were responsible for military activities in the five Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union.
Additionally, Iran was considered a greater potential long-term threat than Iraq, according to the official command history. It is hard to believe that the United States would not have a substantial military presence in the region even if Iraq was not regarded as a threat.
Ideally, only incremental costs would be counted in deciding whether something was worth it; that is, the extra costs of resources used to achieve an objective.
Another study of Iraq war costs, by Linda J. Bilmes of Harvard and Joseph E. Stiglitz of Columbia, comes up with an eye-catching estimate of $2.2 trillion, assuming the United States is no longer in Iraq in 2015. This is arguably too high for several reasons. First, it counts future interest payments on the debt created by military spending as well as the direct expenditures. (This is analogous to counting both the sale price of a house and the cost of future mortgage payments as the cost of buying the house.)
Second, it counts elevated military recruitment costs that incorporate a premium for higher risk of death or injury because of the war as well as the predicted direct cost of the deaths and injuries; this is double counting if the risk premium is adequate. Finally, it ascribes a big increase in the price of oil to the war, and, as a result, a loss to the American economy of almost half a trillion dollars.
A menu of cost estimates is thus available, depending on the counterfactual situation that one chooses.
"The question of whether the war was worth it hinges not on budget costs or economic costs," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who until recently was director of the Congressional Budget Office, "but on what do we gain in the way of genuine security and international standing." The costs, he said, were manageable.
The benefits, however, are much harder to quantify than the costs. To Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, "the benefits have been, in fact, very few, beyond the obvious one: the removal of Saddam Hussein." Offsetting that, he said the war "undermined our international legitimacy," "destroyed our credibility" and "tarnished our morality with Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo."
The Chicago economists argue that anticipated improvements in Iraq's living standard, once the country stabilizes, tip the balance in favor of invasion over containment, which in their view had costs that were "in the same ballpark." They also argue that the number of Iraqi fatalities since the invasion is probably no greater than would have been the case under Mr. Hussein.
But even if one accepts all of their estimates, their results implicitly raise another question: Why intervene in Iraq and not a country like Sudan, where genocide and oppression are at least as much an affront as they were in Iraq, and where the cost of intervention and prospects for improving lives may offer a better benefit-to-cost ratio than is likely in Iraq?
Credible estimation of counterfactual outcomes of alternative policies for cost-benefit comparisons has been a hallmark of modern economics. When it comes to judging whether war is worth it, however, cost-benefit analysis is little more than educated guessing by other means. But at least it provides a framework for where to put the guesses.
------------------------------
Citation: Alan B. Krueger. "The Cost of Invading Iraq: Imponderables Meet Uncertainties," The New York Times, 30 March 2006.
Original URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/30/business/worldbusiness/30scene.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
------------------------------
The New York Times, 30 March 2006
THE question of whether it was worth invading Iraq is being asked with increasing frequency and fervency.
A Gallup poll this month found that 60 percent of Americans said they did not think it was worth going to war in Iraq, up from 29 percent at the start of the invasion in March 2003.
Fundamentally, deciding whether war is worth it involves weighing the benefits and costs, both tangible and intangible. The many estimates of the cost of the Iraq war that are available are uninformative absent a comparison with the likely benefits, or a comparison with the costs and benefits of the best alternative to invasion.
Unfortunately, cost-benefit comparisons of such weighty issues are more art than science. One problem is that the counterfactual situation — meaning the outcomes that would have occurred had another policy been pursued — cannot be known for sure. In addition, it is often unclear how to value the outcomes of the policy that is pursued.
One of the earliest cost-benefit comparisons was done by Steven J. Davis, Kevin M. Murphy and Robert H. Topel of the University of Chicago on the eve of the invasion in 2003. They explicitly considered a continued policy of containment — enforcing the no-fly zone and other operations to hem in Saddam Hussein — as an alternative to invasion and regime change. Assuming that containment and invasion would protect the United States equally well, the question of whether invasion is worth it turns on which policy is less costly, after discounting all likely future costs.
Allowing for a 3 percent chance that the Iraqi regime would evolve into a benign government in any future year and a 2 percent real interest rate, the economists reckoned that the cost of pursuing a containment strategy was $258 billion to $380 billion. "This dwarfs any reasonable estimate of U.S. war costs," they wrote at the time. Their anticipated price tag for the war, which they considered conservative, was $125 billion.
Professors Davis, Murphy and Topel have revised their figures in a new National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, "War in Iraq Versus Containment." Their estimated war costs have increased to a range of $410 billion to $630 billion, reflecting reality there.
William D. Nordhaus, an economist at Yale who warned in 2002 that past war cost forecasts had turned out to be too low, said the updated work is "economics at its best and worst — quantifying the almost-unquantifiable."
In the fog of war accounting, one thing is clear: all costs and benefits can be contested as wildly inaccurate — in either direction.
Consider what the cost of containment would have been had the United States not gone to war. The University of Chicago study now says it is in "the range of $350 billion to $700 billion." This range is arguably grossly inflated because it counts virtually all of the American military forces in the Middle East as dedicated to containing Iraq.
While containing Iraq was a central focus, these troops also served many other purposes. They conducted rescue operations in Somalia; performed humanitarian missions in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Jordan; responded to terrorist bombings in Nairobi and Tanzania; and were responsible for military activities in the five Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union.
Additionally, Iran was considered a greater potential long-term threat than Iraq, according to the official command history. It is hard to believe that the United States would not have a substantial military presence in the region even if Iraq was not regarded as a threat.
Ideally, only incremental costs would be counted in deciding whether something was worth it; that is, the extra costs of resources used to achieve an objective.
Another study of Iraq war costs, by Linda J. Bilmes of Harvard and Joseph E. Stiglitz of Columbia, comes up with an eye-catching estimate of $2.2 trillion, assuming the United States is no longer in Iraq in 2015. This is arguably too high for several reasons. First, it counts future interest payments on the debt created by military spending as well as the direct expenditures. (This is analogous to counting both the sale price of a house and the cost of future mortgage payments as the cost of buying the house.)
Second, it counts elevated military recruitment costs that incorporate a premium for higher risk of death or injury because of the war as well as the predicted direct cost of the deaths and injuries; this is double counting if the risk premium is adequate. Finally, it ascribes a big increase in the price of oil to the war, and, as a result, a loss to the American economy of almost half a trillion dollars.
A menu of cost estimates is thus available, depending on the counterfactual situation that one chooses.
"The question of whether the war was worth it hinges not on budget costs or economic costs," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who until recently was director of the Congressional Budget Office, "but on what do we gain in the way of genuine security and international standing." The costs, he said, were manageable.
The benefits, however, are much harder to quantify than the costs. To Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, "the benefits have been, in fact, very few, beyond the obvious one: the removal of Saddam Hussein." Offsetting that, he said the war "undermined our international legitimacy," "destroyed our credibility" and "tarnished our morality with Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo."
The Chicago economists argue that anticipated improvements in Iraq's living standard, once the country stabilizes, tip the balance in favor of invasion over containment, which in their view had costs that were "in the same ballpark." They also argue that the number of Iraqi fatalities since the invasion is probably no greater than would have been the case under Mr. Hussein.
But even if one accepts all of their estimates, their results implicitly raise another question: Why intervene in Iraq and not a country like Sudan, where genocide and oppression are at least as much an affront as they were in Iraq, and where the cost of intervention and prospects for improving lives may offer a better benefit-to-cost ratio than is likely in Iraq?
Credible estimation of counterfactual outcomes of alternative policies for cost-benefit comparisons has been a hallmark of modern economics. When it comes to judging whether war is worth it, however, cost-benefit analysis is little more than educated guessing by other means. But at least it provides a framework for where to put the guesses.
------------------------------
Citation: Alan B. Krueger. "The Cost of Invading Iraq: Imponderables Meet Uncertainties," The New York Times, 30 March 2006.
Original URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/30/business/worldbusiness/30scene.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
------------------------------
The US propaganda machine: Oh, what a lovely war
The Lincoln Group was tasked with presenting the US version of events in Iraq to counter adverse media coverage. Here we present examples of its work, and the reality behind its headlines.
By Andrew Buncombe
The Independent, UK, 30 March 2006
This is the news from Iraq according to Donald Rumsfeld and the Bush administration.
A week after the US Defence Secretary criticised the media for " exaggerating" reports of violence in Iraq, The Independent has obtained examples of newspaper reports the Bush administration want Iraqis to read.
They were prepared by specially trained American "psy-ops" troops who paid thousands of dollars to Iraqi newspaper editors to run these unattributed reports in their publications. In order to hide its involvement, the Pentagon hired the Lincoln Group to act as a liaison between troops and journalists. The Lincoln Group was at the centre of controversy last year when it was revealed the company was being paid more than $100m (£58m) for various contracts, including the planting of such stories.
The Pentagon - which recently announced that an internal investigation had cleared the Lincoln Group of breaching military rules by planting these stories - has claimed these new reports did not constitute propaganda because they were factually correct. But a military specialist has questioned some of the information contained within their reports while describing their rhetorical style as "comical". Furthermore, it has been alleged that quotations contained within these reports and others - attributed to anonymous Iraqi officials or citizens - were routinely made up by US troops who never went beyond the perimeter of the Green Zone.
What seems clear is that, taken by themselves, these reports would provide an unbalanced picture of the situation inside Iraq where ongoing violence wreaks daily chaos and horror. Three years since US and UK troops invaded, more than 2,500 coalition troops have been killed. How many Iraqi civilians have died is unclear. The Iraqi Body Count puts the minimum at 33,773, but this figure is based on media reports and the group admits "it is likely that many if not most civilian casualties will go unreported by the media". An extrapolation published in The Lancet 18 months ago said more than 100,000 had been killed.
A former employee of the Lincoln Group, who spent last summer in Baghdad acting as a link between US troops who were part of the Information Operations Task Force and Iraqis contracted by the company to establish contact with Iraqi journalists, said his job was to ensure "there were no finger-prints".
"The Iraqis did not know who was writing the stories and the US troops did not know who the Iraqis were," said the former employee, who declined to be named. It is not known whether the stories included here were ever printed or simply prepared for publication, but he said it was normal for around 10 stories a week to be printed. He said US troops routinely fabricated their quotations.
The former employee said the Lincoln Group paid up to $2,000 for the publication of each article - a sum that had risen from when he started working, suggesting the Iraqi editors realised who was behind the articles and knew there was plenty of money. The Lincoln Group was paid $80,000 a week by the military to plant these stories.
The former employee said the stories - which often feature phrases such as " brave warriors" and "eager troops" - were designed to bolster the image and purported efficiency of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and their involvement in operations. The Bush administration says the ability of Iraqi security forces to deal with insurgents remains the key to a withdrawal of US troops.
In reality, while one article describes the ISF as a "potent fighting force", the training of Iraqi forces has been a slow and troubled process. The Pentagon recently said the only Iraqi battalion judged capable of fighting without US support had been downgraded, requiring it to fight with American troops.
John Pike, the director of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington-based defence think-tank, who reviewed some of the Lincoln Group stories, said he found them unconvincing. "Anybody who knows about propaganda knows the first rule of propaganda is that it should not look like propaganda," he said. "It's embarrassing enough that [the US military] got caught ... but then for their product to be so cheesy ... It's just embarrassing."
He added: "Some of the vignettes are cartoonish. The ISF? Many of them are surely brave. But a potent fighting force? I think that's a little clearer than the truth. It's propaganda."
Another story mentions the Iraqi oil industry and calls it "unique in that it is the only sector in which every dollar invested, either directly or indirectly, provides direct revenue to Iraq for future reconstruction" .
Yet a report published last November by a group of aid agencies and NGOs claimed that production-sharing agreements (PSAs) proposed by the US State Department before the invasion and adopted by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), could see Iraqis lose $200bn in revenue if the plan comes into effect.
Data collated by the Brookings Institution says oil production in Iraq remains below the estimated pre-invasion levels. At the moment, Iraq annually spends $6bn to import oil.
The Lincoln Group is headed by Christian Bailey, a Briton with no experience in PR, and a former US Marine, Paige Craig. The company failed to respond to a call seeking comment yesterday. A spokesman for the US military in Iraq, Lieut-Col Barry Johnson, said last night: "The results of the investigation have not yet been made public while the report undergoes final review by Multinational Force leadership. I am unable to comment on unsubstantiated allegations."
While the Lincoln Group has been cleared by one Pentagon inquiry, it remains the subject of a separate inquiry being conducted by the Pentagon's Office of the Inspector General (OIG). A spokesman, Gary Comerford, said that the OIG had been asked by the Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy to review how the company had won its contract.
Criticising the media last week, Mr Rumsfeld said: "Much of the reporting in the US and abroad has exaggerated the situation... Interestingly, all of the exaggerations seem to be on one side.... The steady stream of errors all seem to be of a nature to inflame the situation and to give heart to the terrorists."
'AL-QA'IDA THREATENS ALL IRAQIS' 24 October 2005
The Lincoln version
The chief murderer of al-Qa'ida in Iraq has declared war against all Iraqis. They have also lamely attempted to justify the murder of civilians. Some websites featured the Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's praise of his heathen deeds. The people of Iraq have had enough.
"These thugs clearly hate us; they do not share in our national pride or our belief in a unified Iraq," said one Iraqi. "They only wish to kill our women, our children, our future. We must not and will not let them."
Horror stories are told in homes and shops of friends and family members casually murdered while going about their daily business. These ... are simple folk trying to make the best of their lives. How many more suicide bombs have to go off before al-Qa'ida realises that there is no room for them in the land of the two rivers? In one particular attack, terrorists murdered a young boy and stuffed his body full of explosives in an attempt to lure security forces into an ambush. Is this the only future terrorism has to offer?
The reality check
At least 20 people were killed and 42 others injured when three suicide bombers targeted Baghdad's Palestine Hotel, used by media and contractors. A dozen construction labourers were killed in an attack on Al-Musayyab, south of Baghdad. Muhammad Ali Nu'aymi, secretary of the director-general of al-Mansur municipality, was killed by gunmen. Bodies of six Iraqi citizens were found in al-Mahmudiyah, southern Baghdad.
'IRAQI ARMY DEFEATS TERRORISM' 26 October 2005
The Lincoln version
With the people's approval of the constitution, Iraq is well on its way to forming a permanent government. Meanwhile, the underhanded forces of al-Qa'ida remain bent on halting progress and inciting civil war. The honest citizens of Iraq, however, need not fear these criminals and terrorists. The brave warriors of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) are hard at work stopping al-Qa'ida's attacks before they occur.
On 24 October, soldiers near Taji received a report that terrorists were stockpiling dangerous weapons. The soldiers found over 150 tank and artillery rounds. These munitions are similar to the ones that al-Qa'ida bomb-makers often use to construct their deadly bombs. The troops destroyed every last round, ensuring they will never be used against the Iraqi people.
Three al-Qa'ida mercenaries in Baqubah were planning to conduct a suicide vest attack. Officers of the Iraqi Police Service (IPS) spotted them as they drove towards their target. But then something happened. The would-be murderer lost his faith and leapt from the moving vehicle. One of the other suicide bombers panicked and detonated his vest while still inside the car, instantly killing himself and another accomplice.
The reality check
At least five Iraqis killed by suicide bomber on bus in Baqubah, north-east of Baghdad. Bodies of nine Iraqi border guards, who were shot dead, found previous day. Joint US-Iraqi convoy targeted by car bomb in al-Ma'mun area of Baghdad.
'QUICK REACTION CAPTURES BOMBER' 12 November 2005
The Lincoln version
In conjunction with operation El-Sitar Elfulathi in Husaybah and Karabilah, Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) are sweeping across Iraq in a series of continuous operations aimed at disrupting insurgent activity. Through diligent patrols, organised raids and searches, vehicle checkpoints and interaction with the Iraqi people, Iraqi Army (IA) units have taken down terror cells and removed dangerous criminals from Iraq's streets.
In Baghdad, a quick response to a terror attack led to the arrest of the culprit. On 10 November, terrorists detonated a car bomb in eastern Baghdad wounding three Iraqi women. Immediately the ISF responded, securing the area and treating and evacuating the injured. The soldiers quickly examined the site of the bombing, discovering evidence that led them to the arrest of the suspected bomber. Because of their quick reaction, there was no loss of innocent life and another terrorist is in prison and awaiting his trial.
The ISF has quickly developed into a viable fighting force capable of defending the people of Iraq against the cowards who launch their attacks on innocent people.
The reality check
Ten people were killed when a car bomb exploded at a market in Baghdad. Bodies of three men tortured to death discovered in Shula. Coalition troops killed four alleged insurgents in "safe house" near Ramadi. On November 10, 7 Iraqis killed 30 wounded by car bomb near Al-Shuruqi Mosque, north of Baghdad.
'TRAINING PREPARES IRAQI MARINES' 13 November 2005
The Lincoln version
Terrorist attacks often result in damage to Iraq's infrastructure, but the Ministry of Defence is determined to keep that from continuing. The brave men of the Iraqi Marines are one step closer to taking charge of the security mission at the Al Basrah and Khawr Al Amaya Oil Terminals.
Recently, soldiers from the 6th Platoon Iraqi Marines completed the oil platform defence training at the Al Basrah Oil Terminal.
Their main focus was to acquire the necessary skills to effectively protect the oil terminals. The students trained up to three to four times a day, working closely with the instructors. The intense training they received included how to stand a proper watch, how to work and fight as a team, and how to defend against terrorist attacks on the terminals. When these soldiers assume control of security on the terminal, they will ensure the safety and stability of the maritime environment.
These operations complement counter-terrorism and security efforts as well as deny international terrorists use of the waterways as an avenue of attack.
The reality check
Deputy health minister, Jalil al-Shammari, and his bodyguards are killed north of Baghdad. Amir Al-Saldi, Baghdad municipal official, is killed in Ghazaliya. Clashes in al-Qadiyah district of Samarra leave three dead. An Iraqi soldier is killed and six others wounded, three seriously, in a roadside bomb explosion in Kirkuk.
------------------------
Citation: Andrew Buncombe. "The US propaganda machine: Oh, what a lovely war," The Independent, UK, 30 March 2006.
Original URL: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article354473.ece
------------------------
By Andrew Buncombe
The Independent, UK, 30 March 2006
This is the news from Iraq according to Donald Rumsfeld and the Bush administration.
A week after the US Defence Secretary criticised the media for " exaggerating" reports of violence in Iraq, The Independent has obtained examples of newspaper reports the Bush administration want Iraqis to read.
They were prepared by specially trained American "psy-ops" troops who paid thousands of dollars to Iraqi newspaper editors to run these unattributed reports in their publications. In order to hide its involvement, the Pentagon hired the Lincoln Group to act as a liaison between troops and journalists. The Lincoln Group was at the centre of controversy last year when it was revealed the company was being paid more than $100m (£58m) for various contracts, including the planting of such stories.
The Pentagon - which recently announced that an internal investigation had cleared the Lincoln Group of breaching military rules by planting these stories - has claimed these new reports did not constitute propaganda because they were factually correct. But a military specialist has questioned some of the information contained within their reports while describing their rhetorical style as "comical". Furthermore, it has been alleged that quotations contained within these reports and others - attributed to anonymous Iraqi officials or citizens - were routinely made up by US troops who never went beyond the perimeter of the Green Zone.
What seems clear is that, taken by themselves, these reports would provide an unbalanced picture of the situation inside Iraq where ongoing violence wreaks daily chaos and horror. Three years since US and UK troops invaded, more than 2,500 coalition troops have been killed. How many Iraqi civilians have died is unclear. The Iraqi Body Count puts the minimum at 33,773, but this figure is based on media reports and the group admits "it is likely that many if not most civilian casualties will go unreported by the media". An extrapolation published in The Lancet 18 months ago said more than 100,000 had been killed.
A former employee of the Lincoln Group, who spent last summer in Baghdad acting as a link between US troops who were part of the Information Operations Task Force and Iraqis contracted by the company to establish contact with Iraqi journalists, said his job was to ensure "there were no finger-prints".
"The Iraqis did not know who was writing the stories and the US troops did not know who the Iraqis were," said the former employee, who declined to be named. It is not known whether the stories included here were ever printed or simply prepared for publication, but he said it was normal for around 10 stories a week to be printed. He said US troops routinely fabricated their quotations.
The former employee said the Lincoln Group paid up to $2,000 for the publication of each article - a sum that had risen from when he started working, suggesting the Iraqi editors realised who was behind the articles and knew there was plenty of money. The Lincoln Group was paid $80,000 a week by the military to plant these stories.
The former employee said the stories - which often feature phrases such as " brave warriors" and "eager troops" - were designed to bolster the image and purported efficiency of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and their involvement in operations. The Bush administration says the ability of Iraqi security forces to deal with insurgents remains the key to a withdrawal of US troops.
In reality, while one article describes the ISF as a "potent fighting force", the training of Iraqi forces has been a slow and troubled process. The Pentagon recently said the only Iraqi battalion judged capable of fighting without US support had been downgraded, requiring it to fight with American troops.
John Pike, the director of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington-based defence think-tank, who reviewed some of the Lincoln Group stories, said he found them unconvincing. "Anybody who knows about propaganda knows the first rule of propaganda is that it should not look like propaganda," he said. "It's embarrassing enough that [the US military] got caught ... but then for their product to be so cheesy ... It's just embarrassing."
He added: "Some of the vignettes are cartoonish. The ISF? Many of them are surely brave. But a potent fighting force? I think that's a little clearer than the truth. It's propaganda."
Another story mentions the Iraqi oil industry and calls it "unique in that it is the only sector in which every dollar invested, either directly or indirectly, provides direct revenue to Iraq for future reconstruction" .
Yet a report published last November by a group of aid agencies and NGOs claimed that production-sharing agreements (PSAs) proposed by the US State Department before the invasion and adopted by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), could see Iraqis lose $200bn in revenue if the plan comes into effect.
Data collated by the Brookings Institution says oil production in Iraq remains below the estimated pre-invasion levels. At the moment, Iraq annually spends $6bn to import oil.
The Lincoln Group is headed by Christian Bailey, a Briton with no experience in PR, and a former US Marine, Paige Craig. The company failed to respond to a call seeking comment yesterday. A spokesman for the US military in Iraq, Lieut-Col Barry Johnson, said last night: "The results of the investigation have not yet been made public while the report undergoes final review by Multinational Force leadership. I am unable to comment on unsubstantiated allegations."
While the Lincoln Group has been cleared by one Pentagon inquiry, it remains the subject of a separate inquiry being conducted by the Pentagon's Office of the Inspector General (OIG). A spokesman, Gary Comerford, said that the OIG had been asked by the Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy to review how the company had won its contract.
Criticising the media last week, Mr Rumsfeld said: "Much of the reporting in the US and abroad has exaggerated the situation... Interestingly, all of the exaggerations seem to be on one side.... The steady stream of errors all seem to be of a nature to inflame the situation and to give heart to the terrorists."
'AL-QA'IDA THREATENS ALL IRAQIS' 24 October 2005
The Lincoln version
The chief murderer of al-Qa'ida in Iraq has declared war against all Iraqis. They have also lamely attempted to justify the murder of civilians. Some websites featured the Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's praise of his heathen deeds. The people of Iraq have had enough.
"These thugs clearly hate us; they do not share in our national pride or our belief in a unified Iraq," said one Iraqi. "They only wish to kill our women, our children, our future. We must not and will not let them."
Horror stories are told in homes and shops of friends and family members casually murdered while going about their daily business. These ... are simple folk trying to make the best of their lives. How many more suicide bombs have to go off before al-Qa'ida realises that there is no room for them in the land of the two rivers? In one particular attack, terrorists murdered a young boy and stuffed his body full of explosives in an attempt to lure security forces into an ambush. Is this the only future terrorism has to offer?
The reality check
At least 20 people were killed and 42 others injured when three suicide bombers targeted Baghdad's Palestine Hotel, used by media and contractors. A dozen construction labourers were killed in an attack on Al-Musayyab, south of Baghdad. Muhammad Ali Nu'aymi, secretary of the director-general of al-Mansur municipality, was killed by gunmen. Bodies of six Iraqi citizens were found in al-Mahmudiyah, southern Baghdad.
'IRAQI ARMY DEFEATS TERRORISM' 26 October 2005
The Lincoln version
With the people's approval of the constitution, Iraq is well on its way to forming a permanent government. Meanwhile, the underhanded forces of al-Qa'ida remain bent on halting progress and inciting civil war. The honest citizens of Iraq, however, need not fear these criminals and terrorists. The brave warriors of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) are hard at work stopping al-Qa'ida's attacks before they occur.
On 24 October, soldiers near Taji received a report that terrorists were stockpiling dangerous weapons. The soldiers found over 150 tank and artillery rounds. These munitions are similar to the ones that al-Qa'ida bomb-makers often use to construct their deadly bombs. The troops destroyed every last round, ensuring they will never be used against the Iraqi people.
Three al-Qa'ida mercenaries in Baqubah were planning to conduct a suicide vest attack. Officers of the Iraqi Police Service (IPS) spotted them as they drove towards their target. But then something happened. The would-be murderer lost his faith and leapt from the moving vehicle. One of the other suicide bombers panicked and detonated his vest while still inside the car, instantly killing himself and another accomplice.
The reality check
At least five Iraqis killed by suicide bomber on bus in Baqubah, north-east of Baghdad. Bodies of nine Iraqi border guards, who were shot dead, found previous day. Joint US-Iraqi convoy targeted by car bomb in al-Ma'mun area of Baghdad.
'QUICK REACTION CAPTURES BOMBER' 12 November 2005
The Lincoln version
In conjunction with operation El-Sitar Elfulathi in Husaybah and Karabilah, Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) are sweeping across Iraq in a series of continuous operations aimed at disrupting insurgent activity. Through diligent patrols, organised raids and searches, vehicle checkpoints and interaction with the Iraqi people, Iraqi Army (IA) units have taken down terror cells and removed dangerous criminals from Iraq's streets.
In Baghdad, a quick response to a terror attack led to the arrest of the culprit. On 10 November, terrorists detonated a car bomb in eastern Baghdad wounding three Iraqi women. Immediately the ISF responded, securing the area and treating and evacuating the injured. The soldiers quickly examined the site of the bombing, discovering evidence that led them to the arrest of the suspected bomber. Because of their quick reaction, there was no loss of innocent life and another terrorist is in prison and awaiting his trial.
The ISF has quickly developed into a viable fighting force capable of defending the people of Iraq against the cowards who launch their attacks on innocent people.
The reality check
Ten people were killed when a car bomb exploded at a market in Baghdad. Bodies of three men tortured to death discovered in Shula. Coalition troops killed four alleged insurgents in "safe house" near Ramadi. On November 10, 7 Iraqis killed 30 wounded by car bomb near Al-Shuruqi Mosque, north of Baghdad.
'TRAINING PREPARES IRAQI MARINES' 13 November 2005
The Lincoln version
Terrorist attacks often result in damage to Iraq's infrastructure, but the Ministry of Defence is determined to keep that from continuing. The brave men of the Iraqi Marines are one step closer to taking charge of the security mission at the Al Basrah and Khawr Al Amaya Oil Terminals.
Recently, soldiers from the 6th Platoon Iraqi Marines completed the oil platform defence training at the Al Basrah Oil Terminal.
Their main focus was to acquire the necessary skills to effectively protect the oil terminals. The students trained up to three to four times a day, working closely with the instructors. The intense training they received included how to stand a proper watch, how to work and fight as a team, and how to defend against terrorist attacks on the terminals. When these soldiers assume control of security on the terminal, they will ensure the safety and stability of the maritime environment.
These operations complement counter-terrorism and security efforts as well as deny international terrorists use of the waterways as an avenue of attack.
The reality check
Deputy health minister, Jalil al-Shammari, and his bodyguards are killed north of Baghdad. Amir Al-Saldi, Baghdad municipal official, is killed in Ghazaliya. Clashes in al-Qadiyah district of Samarra leave three dead. An Iraqi soldier is killed and six others wounded, three seriously, in a roadside bomb explosion in Kirkuk.
------------------------
Citation: Andrew Buncombe. "The US propaganda machine: Oh, what a lovely war," The Independent, UK, 30 March 2006.
Original URL: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article354473.ece
------------------------
24 March 2006
No escape for fearful Palestinians in Iraq
By Maher Nazih
Reuters, 23 March 2006
Reports of kidnappings, murder and persecution of Palestinian refugees in Iraq have forced many to try to flee, but for most there is nowhere else to go.
Jordan's closure of its borders with Iraq on Sunday to prevent the entry of 89 Palestinians seeking sanctuary from Iraq's carnage shows the refugees have few options.
Sheikh Ayman Mustafa, a 33-year-old Palestinian cleric who lives in one of the rundown apartment buildings in Baghdad that are home to thousands of refugees, said an explosion of sectarian violence had made it too risky to stay in Iraq.
"Palestinians have been abducted and later found dead," he told Reuters. "Many families have fled, others have come to me seeking protection."
The Palestinians, who braved bandits and insurgents along the treacherous highway to get to the Jordanian border, may now have to turn around and come back to Baghdad.
The Jordanian authorities, fearful of a large influx of refugees from among the 34,000 Palestinians estimated by U.N. officials to live in Iraq, closed the border on Sunday after a busload arrived earlier in the day.
The group has been stuck in a camp in no-man's land between Iraq and Jordan since.
In New York, Riyad Mansour, Palestinian observer to the United Nations, on Thursday appealed for international intervention. He said in a letter to the U.N. Security Council that many of those stranded were children and they had little shelter and food, placing them "in an extremely precarious situation under the harsh desert climate."
Amnesty International said Jordan was obliged to allow the Palestinians over the border.
"Palestinians have been killed in Iraq and they will risk death if they return. We also call on armed groups to stop these killings," Nicole Choueiry, the human rights group's spokeswoman, said by telephone from London.
PALESTINIANS IN THE MORGUE
"This period is very difficult for the Palestinians. They are kidnapped and killed and tortured," said a Palestinian diplomat in Baghdad who asked not to be named.
Sixty Palestinians had been killed since the invasion, he said, before adding: "Now we find about two to three Palestinians in the morgue every week."
Arriving in Iraq in three waves in 1948, 1967 and 1991, Palestinians enjoyed financial support from Saddam Hussein, who considered himself the champion of the Arab cause.
Their schooling and health care were subsidized, generating resentment among Iraqis who paid dearly through three wars in a quarter of a century, crippling sanctions and one of the world's most ruthless police states.
These days, the mostly Sunni Muslim Arab Palestinians sit in the rundown Baladiyaat district of Baghdad hoping they will not get caught up in sectarian violence which has killed hundreds of people since last month's bombing of a Shi'ite Muslim shrine.
Palestinians say Iraqis began attacking them after a deadly car bomb in a nearby area last year. Their anxieties grew after a popular state television show then featured four bruised Palestinians "confessing" to the attack.
"My brother was completely innocent," said Tahir Nooreddine of one of the suspects.
Sheikh Mustafa said gunmen opened fire on the Palestinian compound and wounded some residents after the bombing of the Shi'ite Golden Mosque in Samarra on February 22 sparked sectarian reprisals against Sunnis.
"We are sick of living in fear and anxiety," said a resident of the Baladiyaat compound. "We are all threatened here for no reason except that we are Palestinian."
A police official declined to comment on whether Palestinians were being specifically targeted.
Many of the refugees have close family ties in Jordan, where life would be much safer. But Amman says it cannot absorb any new influx of refugees.
For now, the refugees can only watch violence tear apart the only home they know.
----------------------------------
Citation: Maher Nazih. "No escape for fearful Palestinians in Iraq," Reuters, 23 March 2006.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060323/wl_nm/iraq_palestinians_dc
----------------------------------
Reuters, 23 March 2006
Reports of kidnappings, murder and persecution of Palestinian refugees in Iraq have forced many to try to flee, but for most there is nowhere else to go.
Jordan's closure of its borders with Iraq on Sunday to prevent the entry of 89 Palestinians seeking sanctuary from Iraq's carnage shows the refugees have few options.
Sheikh Ayman Mustafa, a 33-year-old Palestinian cleric who lives in one of the rundown apartment buildings in Baghdad that are home to thousands of refugees, said an explosion of sectarian violence had made it too risky to stay in Iraq.
"Palestinians have been abducted and later found dead," he told Reuters. "Many families have fled, others have come to me seeking protection."
The Palestinians, who braved bandits and insurgents along the treacherous highway to get to the Jordanian border, may now have to turn around and come back to Baghdad.
The Jordanian authorities, fearful of a large influx of refugees from among the 34,000 Palestinians estimated by U.N. officials to live in Iraq, closed the border on Sunday after a busload arrived earlier in the day.
The group has been stuck in a camp in no-man's land between Iraq and Jordan since.
In New York, Riyad Mansour, Palestinian observer to the United Nations, on Thursday appealed for international intervention. He said in a letter to the U.N. Security Council that many of those stranded were children and they had little shelter and food, placing them "in an extremely precarious situation under the harsh desert climate."
Amnesty International said Jordan was obliged to allow the Palestinians over the border.
"Palestinians have been killed in Iraq and they will risk death if they return. We also call on armed groups to stop these killings," Nicole Choueiry, the human rights group's spokeswoman, said by telephone from London.
PALESTINIANS IN THE MORGUE
"This period is very difficult for the Palestinians. They are kidnapped and killed and tortured," said a Palestinian diplomat in Baghdad who asked not to be named.
Sixty Palestinians had been killed since the invasion, he said, before adding: "Now we find about two to three Palestinians in the morgue every week."
Arriving in Iraq in three waves in 1948, 1967 and 1991, Palestinians enjoyed financial support from Saddam Hussein, who considered himself the champion of the Arab cause.
Their schooling and health care were subsidized, generating resentment among Iraqis who paid dearly through three wars in a quarter of a century, crippling sanctions and one of the world's most ruthless police states.
These days, the mostly Sunni Muslim Arab Palestinians sit in the rundown Baladiyaat district of Baghdad hoping they will not get caught up in sectarian violence which has killed hundreds of people since last month's bombing of a Shi'ite Muslim shrine.
Palestinians say Iraqis began attacking them after a deadly car bomb in a nearby area last year. Their anxieties grew after a popular state television show then featured four bruised Palestinians "confessing" to the attack.
"My brother was completely innocent," said Tahir Nooreddine of one of the suspects.
Sheikh Mustafa said gunmen opened fire on the Palestinian compound and wounded some residents after the bombing of the Shi'ite Golden Mosque in Samarra on February 22 sparked sectarian reprisals against Sunnis.
"We are sick of living in fear and anxiety," said a resident of the Baladiyaat compound. "We are all threatened here for no reason except that we are Palestinian."
A police official declined to comment on whether Palestinians were being specifically targeted.
Many of the refugees have close family ties in Jordan, where life would be much safer. But Amman says it cannot absorb any new influx of refugees.
For now, the refugees can only watch violence tear apart the only home they know.
----------------------------------
Citation: Maher Nazih. "No escape for fearful Palestinians in Iraq," Reuters, 23 March 2006.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060323/wl_nm/iraq_palestinians_dc
----------------------------------
U.S. Military Asserts Most of Iraq Peaceful
By Steven R. Hurst
The Associated Press, 23 March 2006
The U.S. military spokesman in Iraq asserted Thursday that major violence is largely confined to just three of the country's 18 provinces, but fighting there raged on with at least 58 people killed in execution-style slayings, bombings and gunbattles.
For the third straight day, Sunni insurgents hit a major police and jail facility — this time with a suicide car bombing that killed 25 in central Baghdad. The attacker detonated his explosives at the entrance to the Interior Ministry Major Crimes unit in the Karradah district, killing 10 civilians and 15 policemen, authorities said.
As insurgent forces raised the stakes with the attacks, the U.S. military announced late Thursday that it was in the second day of an operation with Iraqi soldiers "to disrupt anti-Iraqi forces and to find and destroy terrorist caches in the Abu Ghraib area west of Baghdad."
The military statement said 1,400 personnel were involved in the operation — termed Northern Lights — and had captured "two persons of high-value interest and 16 suspected terrorists." Two large weapons caches also were discovered, the military said.
Abu Ghraib, also the site of the infamous prison, is where U.S. and British forces stormed a house Thursday morning and freed three Christian peace activists held hostage since Nov. 26.
The Interior Ministry unit that was targeted Thursday investigates major crimes, and its jail held about 20 suspected insurgents, police Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammadawi said. The ministry is a predominantly Shiite department and is heavily infiltrated by members of various Shiite militias.
In a rundown of recent military activity, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, the U.S. military spokesman, told reporters Thursday that most Iraqi violence was focused in three central provinces, including Baghdad.
"There is not widespread violence across Iraq. There is not. Seventy-five percent of the attacks still take place in Baghdad, al-Anbar or Salaheddin (provinces). And in the other 15 provinces, they all averaged less than six attacks a day, and 12 of those provinces averaged less than two attacks a day."
He said attacks nationwide were averaging 75 a day, a level that has been generally sustained since last August.
The three provinces he cited, however, are home to about 9 million people, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Planning and Development — a third of the country's population of 27 million.
Lynch's list omitted Diyala province, which stretches north and east of Baghdad to the Iranian border and is home to nearly 1.5 million people. It was the scene Tuesday of the first of the series of attacks on police facilities, when 100 insurgents stormed a jail and freed 33 prisoners, 18 of them their own men captured two days earlier.
That attack killed 20 police and wrecked the jail, police station and courthouse in Muqdadiyah, 60 miles northeast of Baghdad. Ten insurgents were killed.
As Iraqi soldiers and police have begun patrolling more territory, U.S. forces have become less visible in many areas in the country and less easy to target. Also, the nature of the violence in the country has shifted from assaults on American troops to battles rooted in sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.
Well over 1,000 people have died violently in Iraq, mainly in and around Baghdad, in the month since an important Shiite shrine was destroyed by bombers Feb. 22 in Samarra, a city north of Baghdad in Salaheddin province.
The sectarian-rooted deaths since then have been running at dozens a day. The bodies of hundreds of victims have been dumped after being shot execution-style, hands bound and bearing signs of torture.
Lynch acknowledged a spike in "ethnic-sectarian incidents," saying there were 75 percent more civilian casualties during March 11-17 than in the previous week. In Baghdad alone, he said, the U.S. command recorded 58 incidents involving 134 dead during that period.
Besides the attack on the police facility Thursday, 33 other deaths were reported, including 15 more bodies found scattered through Baghdad and Fallujah, a former insurgent stronghold in Anbar province, west of the capital.
A second car bomb hit a market area outside a Shiite mosque in the mixed Shiite-Sunni neighborhood of Shurta in southwest Baghdad. At least six people were killed and more than 20 wounded, many of them children, police said.
Roadside bombs targeting police patrols killed two policemen and two bystanders in Baghdad and at least one policeman in Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of the capital. Police said dozens were wounded.
Another roadside bomb killed a Danish soldier and wounded another just north of Basra in southern Iraq, authorities said.
Two more policemen were killed and two were wounded when gunmen ambushed their convoy in north Baghdad, an attack that police described as an aborted attempt to free detainees who were being transferred to the northern city of Mosul.
Elsewhere in the capital, two police were killed in gunbattles with insurgents, and two civilians — a private contractor and power plant employee — were gunned down in drive-by shootings.
----------------------------
Citation: Steven R. Hurst. "U.S. Military Asserts Most of Iraq Peaceful," The Associated Press, 23 March 2006.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060323/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
----------------------------
The Associated Press, 23 March 2006
The U.S. military spokesman in Iraq asserted Thursday that major violence is largely confined to just three of the country's 18 provinces, but fighting there raged on with at least 58 people killed in execution-style slayings, bombings and gunbattles.
For the third straight day, Sunni insurgents hit a major police and jail facility — this time with a suicide car bombing that killed 25 in central Baghdad. The attacker detonated his explosives at the entrance to the Interior Ministry Major Crimes unit in the Karradah district, killing 10 civilians and 15 policemen, authorities said.
As insurgent forces raised the stakes with the attacks, the U.S. military announced late Thursday that it was in the second day of an operation with Iraqi soldiers "to disrupt anti-Iraqi forces and to find and destroy terrorist caches in the Abu Ghraib area west of Baghdad."
The military statement said 1,400 personnel were involved in the operation — termed Northern Lights — and had captured "two persons of high-value interest and 16 suspected terrorists." Two large weapons caches also were discovered, the military said.
Abu Ghraib, also the site of the infamous prison, is where U.S. and British forces stormed a house Thursday morning and freed three Christian peace activists held hostage since Nov. 26.
The Interior Ministry unit that was targeted Thursday investigates major crimes, and its jail held about 20 suspected insurgents, police Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammadawi said. The ministry is a predominantly Shiite department and is heavily infiltrated by members of various Shiite militias.
In a rundown of recent military activity, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, the U.S. military spokesman, told reporters Thursday that most Iraqi violence was focused in three central provinces, including Baghdad.
"There is not widespread violence across Iraq. There is not. Seventy-five percent of the attacks still take place in Baghdad, al-Anbar or Salaheddin (provinces). And in the other 15 provinces, they all averaged less than six attacks a day, and 12 of those provinces averaged less than two attacks a day."
He said attacks nationwide were averaging 75 a day, a level that has been generally sustained since last August.
The three provinces he cited, however, are home to about 9 million people, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Planning and Development — a third of the country's population of 27 million.
Lynch's list omitted Diyala province, which stretches north and east of Baghdad to the Iranian border and is home to nearly 1.5 million people. It was the scene Tuesday of the first of the series of attacks on police facilities, when 100 insurgents stormed a jail and freed 33 prisoners, 18 of them their own men captured two days earlier.
That attack killed 20 police and wrecked the jail, police station and courthouse in Muqdadiyah, 60 miles northeast of Baghdad. Ten insurgents were killed.
As Iraqi soldiers and police have begun patrolling more territory, U.S. forces have become less visible in many areas in the country and less easy to target. Also, the nature of the violence in the country has shifted from assaults on American troops to battles rooted in sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.
Well over 1,000 people have died violently in Iraq, mainly in and around Baghdad, in the month since an important Shiite shrine was destroyed by bombers Feb. 22 in Samarra, a city north of Baghdad in Salaheddin province.
The sectarian-rooted deaths since then have been running at dozens a day. The bodies of hundreds of victims have been dumped after being shot execution-style, hands bound and bearing signs of torture.
Lynch acknowledged a spike in "ethnic-sectarian incidents," saying there were 75 percent more civilian casualties during March 11-17 than in the previous week. In Baghdad alone, he said, the U.S. command recorded 58 incidents involving 134 dead during that period.
Besides the attack on the police facility Thursday, 33 other deaths were reported, including 15 more bodies found scattered through Baghdad and Fallujah, a former insurgent stronghold in Anbar province, west of the capital.
A second car bomb hit a market area outside a Shiite mosque in the mixed Shiite-Sunni neighborhood of Shurta in southwest Baghdad. At least six people were killed and more than 20 wounded, many of them children, police said.
Roadside bombs targeting police patrols killed two policemen and two bystanders in Baghdad and at least one policeman in Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of the capital. Police said dozens were wounded.
Another roadside bomb killed a Danish soldier and wounded another just north of Basra in southern Iraq, authorities said.
Two more policemen were killed and two were wounded when gunmen ambushed their convoy in north Baghdad, an attack that police described as an aborted attempt to free detainees who were being transferred to the northern city of Mosul.
Elsewhere in the capital, two police were killed in gunbattles with insurgents, and two civilians — a private contractor and power plant employee — were gunned down in drive-by shootings.
----------------------------
Citation: Steven R. Hurst. "U.S. Military Asserts Most of Iraq Peaceful," The Associated Press, 23 March 2006.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060323/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
----------------------------
Bush's Requests for Iraqi Base Funding Make Some Wary of Extended Stay
By Peter Spiegel
Los Angeles Times, 24 March 2006
WASHINGTON — Even as military planners look to withdraw significant numbers of American troops from Iraq in the coming year, the Bush administration continues to request hundreds of millions of dollars for large bases there, raising concerns over whether they are intended as permanent sites for U.S. forces.
Questions on Capitol Hill about the future of the bases have been prompted by the new emergency spending bill for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives last week with $67.6 billion in funding for the war effort, including the base money.
Although the House approved the measure, lawmakers are demanding that the Pentagon explain its plans for the bases, and they unanimously passed a provision blocking the use of funds for base agreements with the Iraqi government.
"It's the kind of thing that incites terrorism," Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) said of long-term or permanent U.S. bases in countries such as Iraq.
Paul, a critic of the war, is co-sponsoring a bipartisan bill that would make it official policy not to maintain such bases in Iraq. He noted that Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden cited U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia as grounds for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The debate in Congress comes as concerns grow over how long the U.S. intends to keep forces in Iraq, a worry amplified when President Bush earlier this week said that a complete withdrawal of troops from Iraq would not occur during his term.
Long-term U.S. bases in Iraq would also be problematic in the Middle East, where they could lend credence to charges that the U.S. motive for the invasion was to seize land and oil. And they could also feed debate about the appropriate U.S. relationship with Iraq after Baghdad's new government fully assumes control.
State Department and Pentagon officials have insisted that the bases being constructed in Iraq will eventually be handed over to the Iraqi government.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to Baghdad, said on Iraqi television last week that the U.S. had "no goal of establishing permanent bases in Iraq."
And Pentagon spokesman Army Lt. Col. Barry Venable said, "We're building permanent bases in Iraq for Iraqis."
But the seemingly definitive administration statements mask a semantic distinction: Although officials say they are not building permanent U.S. bases, they decline to say whether they will seek a deal with the new Iraqi government to allow long-term troop deployments.
Asked at a congressional hearing last week whether he could "make an unequivocal commitment" that the U.S. officials would not seek to establish permanent bases in Iraq, Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, the commander in charge of all U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, replied, "The policy on long-term presence in Iraq hasn't been formulated." Venable, the Pentagon spokesman, said it was "premature and speculative" to discuss long-term base agreements before the permanent Iraqi government had been put in place.
All told, the United States has set up 110 forward operating bases in Iraq, and the Pentagon says about 34 of them already have been turned over to the Iraqi government, part of an ongoing effort to gradually strengthen Iraqi security forces.
Bush is under political pressure to reduce the number of U.S. troops before midterm congressional elections, and the Pentagon is expected to decide soon whether the next major deployment will reflect a significant reduction in forces.
But despite the potential force reductions and the base handovers, the spending has continued.
Dov Zakheim, who oversaw the Pentagon's emergency spending requests as the department's budget chief until 2004, said critics might be reading too much into the costly emergency spending, needed to protect U.S. forces from insurgent attacks and provide better conditions for deployed troops.
The spending "doesn't necessarily connote permanence," Zakheim said. "God knows it's a tough enough environment anyway."
The bulk of the Pentagon's emergency spending for military construction over the last three years in Iraq has focused on three or four large-scale air and logistics bases that dot the center of the country.
The administration is seeking $348 million for base construction as part of its 2006 emergency war funding bill. The Senate has not yet acted on the request.
By far the most funding has gone to a mammoth facility north of Baghdad in Balad, which includes an air base and a logistics center. The U.S. Central Command said it intended to use the base as the military's primary hub in the region as it gradually hands off Baghdad airport to civilian authorities.
Through the end last year, the administration spent about $230 million in emergency funds on the Balad base, and its new request includes $17.8 million for new roads that can accommodate hulking military vehicles and a 12.4-mile-long, 13-foot-high security fence.
The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service noted in a report last year that many of the funds already spent, including for the facilities at Balad, suggested a longer-term U.S. presence.
Projects at the base include an $18-million aircraft parking ramp and a $15-million airfield lighting system that has allowed commanders to make Balad a strategic air center for the region; a $2.9-million Special Operations compound, isolated from the rest of the base and complete with landing pads for helicopters and airplanes, where classified payloads can be delivered; and a $7-million mail distribution building.
Other bases also are being developed in ways that could lend them to permanent use.
This year's request also includes $110 million for Tallil air base outside the southeastern city of Nasiriya, a sprawling facility in the shadow of the ruins of the biblical city of Ur. Only $11 million has been spent so far, but the administration's new request appears to envision Tallil as another major transportation hub, with new roads, a new dining hall for 6,000 troops — about two Army brigades — and a new center to organize and support large supply convoys.
The administration also has spent $50 million for Camp Taji, an Army base north of Baghdad, and $46.3 million on Al Asad air base in the western desert.
These large bases are being built at the same time that hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent on separate bases for the growing Iraqi military. According to the U.S. Central Command and data obtained from the Army Corps of Engineers, for example, about $165 million has been spent to build an Iraqi base near the southern town of Numaniya and more than $150 million for a northern base at the old Iraqi army's Al Kasik facility.
The big numbers have begun to cause consternation in congressional appropriations committees, which are demanding more accountability from Pentagon officials on military construction in the region.
The House Appropriations Committee approved the president's newest funding bill this month with a strongly worded warning. In a report accompanying the legislation, the committee noted that it had already approved about $1.3 billion in emergency spending for war-related construction, but that the recently declared "long war" on terrorism should allow more oversight of plans for bases in the region.
It "has become clear in recent years that these expeditionary operations can result in substantial military construction expenditures of a magnitude normally associated with permanent bases," the committee reported.
Rep. James T. Walsh (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees military construction, said his panel was concerned that money the Pentagon was ostensibly seeking for short-term emergency needs actually was going to projects that were not urgent but long-term in nature.
Walsh pointed to a $167-million request to build a series of roads in Iraq that bypass major cities, a proposal the administration said was needed to decrease the convoys' exposure to roadside bombs, known as improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. Walsh's subcommittee cut the budget for the project to $60 million. He said the project sounded "more like road construction" than it did a strategy to protect troops from IEDs.
The Appropriations Committee also inserted a ban on spending any of the new money on facilities in Iraq until the U.S. Central Command submitted a master plan for bases in the region. Abizaid, in congressional testimony last week, said such a plan was in the process of getting final Pentagon approval for release to the committee. But he noted: "The master plan is fairly clear on everything except for Iraq and Afghanistan, which I don't have policy guidance for long term."
Without such detail, it might prove impossible for congressional appropriators to get a firm idea of how the administration views the future of the U.S. presence on big bases in Iraq.
In any event, said Zakheim, the former Pentagon budget officer, projects that expand bases' ability to handle American cargo and warplanes will eventually be of use to the Iraqi government.
"Just because the Iraqis don't have an air force now doesn't mean they won't have it several years down the road," he said.
But critics said it was all the more reason for the administration to stop being vague about the future.
"The Iraqis believe we came for their oil and we're going to put bases on top of their oil," said Rep. Tom Allen (D-Maine), a critic of the administration's approach. "As long as the vast majority of Iraqis believe we want to be there indefinitely, those who are opposed to us are going to fight harder and those who are with us are going to be less enthusiastic."
Times staff writer Doug Smith contributed to this report.
*
(INFOBOX BELOW)
On the rise
Here are four of the bases in Iraq for which the Bush administration has planned upgrades. Money spent through 2005 was granted through emergency spending bills since 2003:
1. Al Asad air base
By some accounts the second largest military air center in Iraq and the main supply base for troops in Al Anbar Province, which includes the insurgent strongholds of Fallouja and Ramadi. It houses about 17,000 troops, including a large contingent of Marines.
Spending: Unknown*
Bush 2006 request: $46.3 million
2. Balad air base
The U.S. military's main air transportation and supply hub in Iraq, with two giant runways. Also known as Camp Anaconda, it is the largest support base in the country, with about 22,500 troops and several thousand contractors.
Spending: $228.7 million*
Bush 2006 request: $17.8 million.
3. Camp Taji
One of the largest facilities for U.S. ground forces in Iraq, the base also serves as home to about 15,000 Iraqi security forces. It has the largest military shopping center (PX) in the country.
Spending: $49.6 million*
Bush 2006 request: None
4. Tallil air base
An increasingly important air and transportation hub, with a growing population of coalition troops and contractors. It has become a key stopping point for supply convoys moving north from Kuwait and is close to one of the Iraqi army's main training facilities.
Spending: $10.8 million*
Bush 2006 request: $110.3 million
*Through 2005
--
Sources: U.S. Central Command, Congressional Research Service, Global Security.org
---------------------------
Citation: Peter Spiegel. "Bush's Requests for Iraqi Base Funding Make Some Wary of Extended Stay," Los Angeles Times, 24 March 2006.
Original URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-na-usiraq24mar24,1,1056985.story?coll=la-iraq-complete
---------------------------
Los Angeles Times, 24 March 2006
WASHINGTON — Even as military planners look to withdraw significant numbers of American troops from Iraq in the coming year, the Bush administration continues to request hundreds of millions of dollars for large bases there, raising concerns over whether they are intended as permanent sites for U.S. forces.
Questions on Capitol Hill about the future of the bases have been prompted by the new emergency spending bill for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives last week with $67.6 billion in funding for the war effort, including the base money.
Although the House approved the measure, lawmakers are demanding that the Pentagon explain its plans for the bases, and they unanimously passed a provision blocking the use of funds for base agreements with the Iraqi government.
"It's the kind of thing that incites terrorism," Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) said of long-term or permanent U.S. bases in countries such as Iraq.
Paul, a critic of the war, is co-sponsoring a bipartisan bill that would make it official policy not to maintain such bases in Iraq. He noted that Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden cited U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia as grounds for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The debate in Congress comes as concerns grow over how long the U.S. intends to keep forces in Iraq, a worry amplified when President Bush earlier this week said that a complete withdrawal of troops from Iraq would not occur during his term.
Long-term U.S. bases in Iraq would also be problematic in the Middle East, where they could lend credence to charges that the U.S. motive for the invasion was to seize land and oil. And they could also feed debate about the appropriate U.S. relationship with Iraq after Baghdad's new government fully assumes control.
State Department and Pentagon officials have insisted that the bases being constructed in Iraq will eventually be handed over to the Iraqi government.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to Baghdad, said on Iraqi television last week that the U.S. had "no goal of establishing permanent bases in Iraq."
And Pentagon spokesman Army Lt. Col. Barry Venable said, "We're building permanent bases in Iraq for Iraqis."
But the seemingly definitive administration statements mask a semantic distinction: Although officials say they are not building permanent U.S. bases, they decline to say whether they will seek a deal with the new Iraqi government to allow long-term troop deployments.
Asked at a congressional hearing last week whether he could "make an unequivocal commitment" that the U.S. officials would not seek to establish permanent bases in Iraq, Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, the commander in charge of all U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, replied, "The policy on long-term presence in Iraq hasn't been formulated." Venable, the Pentagon spokesman, said it was "premature and speculative" to discuss long-term base agreements before the permanent Iraqi government had been put in place.
All told, the United States has set up 110 forward operating bases in Iraq, and the Pentagon says about 34 of them already have been turned over to the Iraqi government, part of an ongoing effort to gradually strengthen Iraqi security forces.
Bush is under political pressure to reduce the number of U.S. troops before midterm congressional elections, and the Pentagon is expected to decide soon whether the next major deployment will reflect a significant reduction in forces.
But despite the potential force reductions and the base handovers, the spending has continued.
Dov Zakheim, who oversaw the Pentagon's emergency spending requests as the department's budget chief until 2004, said critics might be reading too much into the costly emergency spending, needed to protect U.S. forces from insurgent attacks and provide better conditions for deployed troops.
The spending "doesn't necessarily connote permanence," Zakheim said. "God knows it's a tough enough environment anyway."
The bulk of the Pentagon's emergency spending for military construction over the last three years in Iraq has focused on three or four large-scale air and logistics bases that dot the center of the country.
The administration is seeking $348 million for base construction as part of its 2006 emergency war funding bill. The Senate has not yet acted on the request.
By far the most funding has gone to a mammoth facility north of Baghdad in Balad, which includes an air base and a logistics center. The U.S. Central Command said it intended to use the base as the military's primary hub in the region as it gradually hands off Baghdad airport to civilian authorities.
Through the end last year, the administration spent about $230 million in emergency funds on the Balad base, and its new request includes $17.8 million for new roads that can accommodate hulking military vehicles and a 12.4-mile-long, 13-foot-high security fence.
The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service noted in a report last year that many of the funds already spent, including for the facilities at Balad, suggested a longer-term U.S. presence.
Projects at the base include an $18-million aircraft parking ramp and a $15-million airfield lighting system that has allowed commanders to make Balad a strategic air center for the region; a $2.9-million Special Operations compound, isolated from the rest of the base and complete with landing pads for helicopters and airplanes, where classified payloads can be delivered; and a $7-million mail distribution building.
Other bases also are being developed in ways that could lend them to permanent use.
This year's request also includes $110 million for Tallil air base outside the southeastern city of Nasiriya, a sprawling facility in the shadow of the ruins of the biblical city of Ur. Only $11 million has been spent so far, but the administration's new request appears to envision Tallil as another major transportation hub, with new roads, a new dining hall for 6,000 troops — about two Army brigades — and a new center to organize and support large supply convoys.
The administration also has spent $50 million for Camp Taji, an Army base north of Baghdad, and $46.3 million on Al Asad air base in the western desert.
These large bases are being built at the same time that hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent on separate bases for the growing Iraqi military. According to the U.S. Central Command and data obtained from the Army Corps of Engineers, for example, about $165 million has been spent to build an Iraqi base near the southern town of Numaniya and more than $150 million for a northern base at the old Iraqi army's Al Kasik facility.
The big numbers have begun to cause consternation in congressional appropriations committees, which are demanding more accountability from Pentagon officials on military construction in the region.
The House Appropriations Committee approved the president's newest funding bill this month with a strongly worded warning. In a report accompanying the legislation, the committee noted that it had already approved about $1.3 billion in emergency spending for war-related construction, but that the recently declared "long war" on terrorism should allow more oversight of plans for bases in the region.
It "has become clear in recent years that these expeditionary operations can result in substantial military construction expenditures of a magnitude normally associated with permanent bases," the committee reported.
Rep. James T. Walsh (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees military construction, said his panel was concerned that money the Pentagon was ostensibly seeking for short-term emergency needs actually was going to projects that were not urgent but long-term in nature.
Walsh pointed to a $167-million request to build a series of roads in Iraq that bypass major cities, a proposal the administration said was needed to decrease the convoys' exposure to roadside bombs, known as improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. Walsh's subcommittee cut the budget for the project to $60 million. He said the project sounded "more like road construction" than it did a strategy to protect troops from IEDs.
The Appropriations Committee also inserted a ban on spending any of the new money on facilities in Iraq until the U.S. Central Command submitted a master plan for bases in the region. Abizaid, in congressional testimony last week, said such a plan was in the process of getting final Pentagon approval for release to the committee. But he noted: "The master plan is fairly clear on everything except for Iraq and Afghanistan, which I don't have policy guidance for long term."
Without such detail, it might prove impossible for congressional appropriators to get a firm idea of how the administration views the future of the U.S. presence on big bases in Iraq.
In any event, said Zakheim, the former Pentagon budget officer, projects that expand bases' ability to handle American cargo and warplanes will eventually be of use to the Iraqi government.
"Just because the Iraqis don't have an air force now doesn't mean they won't have it several years down the road," he said.
But critics said it was all the more reason for the administration to stop being vague about the future.
"The Iraqis believe we came for their oil and we're going to put bases on top of their oil," said Rep. Tom Allen (D-Maine), a critic of the administration's approach. "As long as the vast majority of Iraqis believe we want to be there indefinitely, those who are opposed to us are going to fight harder and those who are with us are going to be less enthusiastic."
Times staff writer Doug Smith contributed to this report.
*
(INFOBOX BELOW)
On the rise
Here are four of the bases in Iraq for which the Bush administration has planned upgrades. Money spent through 2005 was granted through emergency spending bills since 2003:
1. Al Asad air base
By some accounts the second largest military air center in Iraq and the main supply base for troops in Al Anbar Province, which includes the insurgent strongholds of Fallouja and Ramadi. It houses about 17,000 troops, including a large contingent of Marines.
Spending: Unknown*
Bush 2006 request: $46.3 million
2. Balad air base
The U.S. military's main air transportation and supply hub in Iraq, with two giant runways. Also known as Camp Anaconda, it is the largest support base in the country, with about 22,500 troops and several thousand contractors.
Spending: $228.7 million*
Bush 2006 request: $17.8 million.
3. Camp Taji
One of the largest facilities for U.S. ground forces in Iraq, the base also serves as home to about 15,000 Iraqi security forces. It has the largest military shopping center (PX) in the country.
Spending: $49.6 million*
Bush 2006 request: None
4. Tallil air base
An increasingly important air and transportation hub, with a growing population of coalition troops and contractors. It has become a key stopping point for supply convoys moving north from Kuwait and is close to one of the Iraqi army's main training facilities.
Spending: $10.8 million*
Bush 2006 request: $110.3 million
*Through 2005
--
Sources: U.S. Central Command, Congressional Research Service, Global Security.org
---------------------------
Citation: Peter Spiegel. "Bush's Requests for Iraqi Base Funding Make Some Wary of Extended Stay," Los Angeles Times, 24 March 2006.
Original URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-na-usiraq24mar24,1,1056985.story?coll=la-iraq-complete
---------------------------
23 March 2006
Iraqis tired of US-run show at criminal court
By Michael Georgy
Reuters, 22 March 2006
Baghdad's new courthouse is held up by U.S. officials as a symbol of the independent legal system three years of U.S. occupation has brought, but defense lawyers are angry at what they say is summary American justice.
"During Saddam's time we couldn't say a word. Now we scream and scream and nobody listens," defense attorney Thabit Zubeidi told Reuters as he waited on standby for officials to appoint him to defend those accused who had no other representation.
On Wednesday, an apparently typical day at the Central Criminal Court of Iraq (CCCI), Iraqi lawyers stood aside as U.S. troops escorted shackled prisoners, who were being made to carry heavy cases of bottled water into the building.
Armed American soldiers are a visible presence throughout the low rise building, once Saddam Hussein's treasure store for official gifts he received. They are also on guard inside the courtrooms, where trials on "terrorism" charges are held.
U.S. military lawyers insisted the court is an Iraqi operation and their only role is to help gather evidence and observe sessions: "The Iraqi judges are the ones making the decisions," said Lieutenant Colonel John Carroll, who is a judge back home in the United States. "This is an Iraqi process."
It is a central part of a strategy to defeat an insurgency that has killed thousands of Iraqis since 2003.
But defense lawyers involved in the process, in which a typical trial may consist of a single, hour-long hearing, complained they had little practical access to clients who are swept up by U.S. troops and detained for months at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib jail or the remote Camp Bucca in the south.
"We only learn what the charges are when they arrive here," said attorney Amer al-Kinnassy, who was in court to defend five men from one family accused of possessing weapons. "Even then, the Americans do not let us talk to our clients ... If I try to walk over there and talk to my clients they won't let me."
CONVICTIONS
U.S. officials present at the court, most of them wearing security badges turned inward to conceal their identities, declined comment on the procedures. In principle, detainees are entitled to visits but lawyers say it is difficult in practice.
More than 40,000 Iraqis have been detained as suspected rebels over the past three years, most from the Sunni Arab minority dominant under Saddam. Over 14,000 are now in U.S. custody, a process that can last many months or even years.
The CCCI has condemned 879 people to sentences up to 30 years in 964 trials, according to data published this week by Task Force 134, the U.S. military unit overseeing detentions.
Lawyers said about 20 suspected insurgents are brought to trial every day from the Abu Ghraib prison, formerly the site of prisoner abuse under Saddam and more recently by U.S. guards.
In principle the heavily guarded courthouse, next to the Green Zone government compound where Saddam himself is on trial in a special court, is open to the public. Few attend, however.
Clutching M-16 rifles, U.S. soldiers escorted prisoners in bright yellow uniforms, chained hand and foot, into the building. Prisoners included a woman -- a rarity in the system -- who unlike the other detainees wore a helmet and body armor.
Though Iraqi guards are stationed at the courthouse, the bulk of security duties appeared to fall to American troops.
A U.S. officer overseeing the troops declined to say what role he played: "All I can say is have a nice day," he said.
PRAYERS
On Tuesday, the court convicted 21 people for charges that included possession of illegal weapons and sentenced them to 7 years in jail each, the U.S. military said in a statement.
In court on Wednesday, Kinnassy watched his clients -- a 50-year-old man, his three sons and his brother-in-law -- as they sat on the floor of the courtroom with their faces close to the wall. U.S. soldiers stood guard behind them.
Two of them prayed in anticipation of the verdict, aware they faced a maximum sentence of 30 years. One by one, the men entered a metal pen to hear the judge read testimony from two witnesses -- both U.S. soldiers.
The father, Kathim Taher, could barely speak. His sons told the judge Sunni militants had badly beaten him during 14 months in U.S. custody and he had not recovered. The family are Shi'ite Muslims, their lawyer said -- not typical of insurgent suspects.
Each of the younger men said U.S. troops came to their house to search for weapons and they were handed the AK-47 assault rifle that each Iraqi family is allowed to possess.
The soldiers did find a cache of rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and other weapons in farmland 300 meters (yards) away, the court was told. They brought it back to the house, placed it beside the family and took photographs.
After a brief recess, the judge acquitted all five men.
Others had more mixed results. But Shakir Salman still walked free. Detained for having a forged identity card, he was sentenced to six months. But the judge let him go after noting he had already been held by the Americans for a year.
----------------------------
Citation: Michael Georgy. "Iraqis tired of US-run show at criminal court," Reuters, 22 March 2006.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060322/ts_nm/iraq_court_dc
----------------------------
Reuters, 22 March 2006
Baghdad's new courthouse is held up by U.S. officials as a symbol of the independent legal system three years of U.S. occupation has brought, but defense lawyers are angry at what they say is summary American justice.
"During Saddam's time we couldn't say a word. Now we scream and scream and nobody listens," defense attorney Thabit Zubeidi told Reuters as he waited on standby for officials to appoint him to defend those accused who had no other representation.
On Wednesday, an apparently typical day at the Central Criminal Court of Iraq (CCCI), Iraqi lawyers stood aside as U.S. troops escorted shackled prisoners, who were being made to carry heavy cases of bottled water into the building.
Armed American soldiers are a visible presence throughout the low rise building, once Saddam Hussein's treasure store for official gifts he received. They are also on guard inside the courtrooms, where trials on "terrorism" charges are held.
U.S. military lawyers insisted the court is an Iraqi operation and their only role is to help gather evidence and observe sessions: "The Iraqi judges are the ones making the decisions," said Lieutenant Colonel John Carroll, who is a judge back home in the United States. "This is an Iraqi process."
It is a central part of a strategy to defeat an insurgency that has killed thousands of Iraqis since 2003.
But defense lawyers involved in the process, in which a typical trial may consist of a single, hour-long hearing, complained they had little practical access to clients who are swept up by U.S. troops and detained for months at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib jail or the remote Camp Bucca in the south.
"We only learn what the charges are when they arrive here," said attorney Amer al-Kinnassy, who was in court to defend five men from one family accused of possessing weapons. "Even then, the Americans do not let us talk to our clients ... If I try to walk over there and talk to my clients they won't let me."
CONVICTIONS
U.S. officials present at the court, most of them wearing security badges turned inward to conceal their identities, declined comment on the procedures. In principle, detainees are entitled to visits but lawyers say it is difficult in practice.
More than 40,000 Iraqis have been detained as suspected rebels over the past three years, most from the Sunni Arab minority dominant under Saddam. Over 14,000 are now in U.S. custody, a process that can last many months or even years.
The CCCI has condemned 879 people to sentences up to 30 years in 964 trials, according to data published this week by Task Force 134, the U.S. military unit overseeing detentions.
Lawyers said about 20 suspected insurgents are brought to trial every day from the Abu Ghraib prison, formerly the site of prisoner abuse under Saddam and more recently by U.S. guards.
In principle the heavily guarded courthouse, next to the Green Zone government compound where Saddam himself is on trial in a special court, is open to the public. Few attend, however.
Clutching M-16 rifles, U.S. soldiers escorted prisoners in bright yellow uniforms, chained hand and foot, into the building. Prisoners included a woman -- a rarity in the system -- who unlike the other detainees wore a helmet and body armor.
Though Iraqi guards are stationed at the courthouse, the bulk of security duties appeared to fall to American troops.
A U.S. officer overseeing the troops declined to say what role he played: "All I can say is have a nice day," he said.
PRAYERS
On Tuesday, the court convicted 21 people for charges that included possession of illegal weapons and sentenced them to 7 years in jail each, the U.S. military said in a statement.
In court on Wednesday, Kinnassy watched his clients -- a 50-year-old man, his three sons and his brother-in-law -- as they sat on the floor of the courtroom with their faces close to the wall. U.S. soldiers stood guard behind them.
Two of them prayed in anticipation of the verdict, aware they faced a maximum sentence of 30 years. One by one, the men entered a metal pen to hear the judge read testimony from two witnesses -- both U.S. soldiers.
The father, Kathim Taher, could barely speak. His sons told the judge Sunni militants had badly beaten him during 14 months in U.S. custody and he had not recovered. The family are Shi'ite Muslims, their lawyer said -- not typical of insurgent suspects.
Each of the younger men said U.S. troops came to their house to search for weapons and they were handed the AK-47 assault rifle that each Iraqi family is allowed to possess.
The soldiers did find a cache of rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and other weapons in farmland 300 meters (yards) away, the court was told. They brought it back to the house, placed it beside the family and took photographs.
After a brief recess, the judge acquitted all five men.
Others had more mixed results. But Shakir Salman still walked free. Detained for having a forged identity card, he was sentenced to six months. But the judge let him go after noting he had already been held by the Americans for a year.
----------------------------
Citation: Michael Georgy. "Iraqis tired of US-run show at criminal court," Reuters, 22 March 2006.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060322/ts_nm/iraq_court_dc
----------------------------
Sectarian Violence Creating Iraq Exiles
By Bassem Mroue
The Associated Press, 22 March 2006
Thousands of Shiite and Sunni families who once lived side by side have been forced from their homes and into a desperate exile, victims of the beginnings of ethnic cleansing a month after the bombing of an important Shiite shrine.
A sign posted in Baghdad's famous Sunni Muslim Abu Hanifa Mosque tells half the story of the growing numbers of displaced Iraqis in the wake of sectarian killings set in motion by the Feb. 22 attack on the Askariya shrine in Samarra.
"We urge those wishing to help displaced families to give their offerings to the mosque Donations Committee," the sign said. Sunnis have come by the hundreds, and dozens more arrive daily.
The second half of the increasingly violent and bitter tale can be found among displaced Shiites in the capital, who have fled primarily to be with other Shiites in the Sadr City slum. Followers of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr were waiting with a huge network already in place to help the poor.
Even before the shrine bombing, the practice of ethnic displacement had been going on for some time in neighborhoods south of Baghdad. But in the aftermath of the Samarra attack, it has become a nationwide problem in places where the two sects had lived as neighbors.
Saeed Haqqi, head of the Iraqi Red Crescent Society, said Shiites have fled mainly to Sadr City and to the southern cities of Najaf, Karbala and Basra. Sunnis were headed mostly to Baghdad's Abu Ghraib suburb and to Tarmiyah, where Shiites were recently run out of the town 30 miles north of the capital.
Minister of Migration Suhaila Abed Jaafar said her department has helped 3,705 displaced families nationwide since Feb. 22.
U.S. military engineers working to upgrade the Iraqi electricity grid estimate each Iraqi family at six people. The math, then, shows the known number of displaced at more than 22,000 in the past month alone.
And that figure does not count what must be hundreds, if not thousands, more families who have moved in with relatives, taken shelter in community centers and mosques or occupied partially built homes and those abandoned by displaced members of the other Muslim sect.
The number of incidents cannot be fully gauged, but is not yet at the level of mass expulsions of the kind that took place in the Balkans during the civil war there in the 1990s.
The killings in Iraq since the April 2003 ouster of Saddam Hussein have nearly all been, at root, driven by sectarian rage. Saddam's Sunni minority ran the country for decades, oppressing the Shiite majority, which has since assumed a dominant political place.
The Sunnis, angered by their sudden loss of status, became a ripe recruiting ground for the insurgency that, along with Sunni terrorists in the al-Qaida in Iraq organization, have killed thousands over the past three years.
Shiites have begun hitting back, especially members of shadowy death squads that are said to operate out of the Interior Ministry, which is run by a member of the sect.
In the past month a dozen or more bullet-riddled bodies, often showing signs of torture, have been found scattered throughout Baghdad and other cities each day. Nearly 90 bodies were found on one day alone this month — reason enough for an Iraqi to flee his home if he is among the minority in his neighborhood.
Khalil Mohammed Khalil, a 39-year-old Sunni who owned an electrical appliances shop in Baghdad's Shiite neighborhood of Shaab, fled to his parents' home with his wife and four children.
After the shrine attack Khalil had been kidnapped along with two other Sunni men, who were killed. He survived when the brothers of his wife, a Shiite, negotiated his freedom.
"After my release I returned and found that my shop and house were burned so I took my family and rushed to my parents house," Khalil said during an interview at Abu Hanifa Mosque, one of Sunni Islam's holiest places of worship in Iraq.
Khalil al-Azami, head of the Azamiya neighborhood council in north Baghdad, said he was working with dozens of Sunni families who have fled from Shiite neighborhoods such as Shaab and Husseiniyah.
Five miles east in Sadr City, 39-year-old Mtashar Fakher, his wife and four children are jammed into one small room at al-Wafa School after the Shiite family was run out of the predominantly Sunni neighborhood around the notorious Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad. Al-Sadr followers provided the shelter.
"I used to leave my house scared every morning and return home scared every night. Then they distributed leaflets telling Shiites to get out," said Fakher, dressed in a track suit, his children listening in a big common room at the school. "I left on my own. No one threatened me, but five Shiites who live in the same street were killed."
The U.S.-led invasion promoted a vision of democracy and peace for Iraqis after decades of oppression and tyranny, but for 31-year-old Abu Hussein Abbas, a Shiite who fled Abu Ghraib, that dream no longer includes returning home.
He spoke to a reporter from a small room in a Sadr City school where he lives with his wife, two children, his mother, his brother and his wife and three children. Also crammed in with them was the wife of a slain brother and her three children.
The dead brother was killed by Sunni extremists.
Abbas said the family fled Abu Ghraib when they received a leaflet reading: "You Shiites are infidels and we have every right to kill you."
"Now," he says, "it is only a dream to go home. The reality is I would be killed the day I went back."
-------------------------------
Citation: Bassem Mroue. "Sectarian Violence Creating Iraq Exiles," The Associated Press, 22 March 2006.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060322/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_the_displaced
-------------------------------
The Associated Press, 22 March 2006
Thousands of Shiite and Sunni families who once lived side by side have been forced from their homes and into a desperate exile, victims of the beginnings of ethnic cleansing a month after the bombing of an important Shiite shrine.
A sign posted in Baghdad's famous Sunni Muslim Abu Hanifa Mosque tells half the story of the growing numbers of displaced Iraqis in the wake of sectarian killings set in motion by the Feb. 22 attack on the Askariya shrine in Samarra.
"We urge those wishing to help displaced families to give their offerings to the mosque Donations Committee," the sign said. Sunnis have come by the hundreds, and dozens more arrive daily.
The second half of the increasingly violent and bitter tale can be found among displaced Shiites in the capital, who have fled primarily to be with other Shiites in the Sadr City slum. Followers of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr were waiting with a huge network already in place to help the poor.
Even before the shrine bombing, the practice of ethnic displacement had been going on for some time in neighborhoods south of Baghdad. But in the aftermath of the Samarra attack, it has become a nationwide problem in places where the two sects had lived as neighbors.
Saeed Haqqi, head of the Iraqi Red Crescent Society, said Shiites have fled mainly to Sadr City and to the southern cities of Najaf, Karbala and Basra. Sunnis were headed mostly to Baghdad's Abu Ghraib suburb and to Tarmiyah, where Shiites were recently run out of the town 30 miles north of the capital.
Minister of Migration Suhaila Abed Jaafar said her department has helped 3,705 displaced families nationwide since Feb. 22.
U.S. military engineers working to upgrade the Iraqi electricity grid estimate each Iraqi family at six people. The math, then, shows the known number of displaced at more than 22,000 in the past month alone.
And that figure does not count what must be hundreds, if not thousands, more families who have moved in with relatives, taken shelter in community centers and mosques or occupied partially built homes and those abandoned by displaced members of the other Muslim sect.
The number of incidents cannot be fully gauged, but is not yet at the level of mass expulsions of the kind that took place in the Balkans during the civil war there in the 1990s.
The killings in Iraq since the April 2003 ouster of Saddam Hussein have nearly all been, at root, driven by sectarian rage. Saddam's Sunni minority ran the country for decades, oppressing the Shiite majority, which has since assumed a dominant political place.
The Sunnis, angered by their sudden loss of status, became a ripe recruiting ground for the insurgency that, along with Sunni terrorists in the al-Qaida in Iraq organization, have killed thousands over the past three years.
Shiites have begun hitting back, especially members of shadowy death squads that are said to operate out of the Interior Ministry, which is run by a member of the sect.
In the past month a dozen or more bullet-riddled bodies, often showing signs of torture, have been found scattered throughout Baghdad and other cities each day. Nearly 90 bodies were found on one day alone this month — reason enough for an Iraqi to flee his home if he is among the minority in his neighborhood.
Khalil Mohammed Khalil, a 39-year-old Sunni who owned an electrical appliances shop in Baghdad's Shiite neighborhood of Shaab, fled to his parents' home with his wife and four children.
After the shrine attack Khalil had been kidnapped along with two other Sunni men, who were killed. He survived when the brothers of his wife, a Shiite, negotiated his freedom.
"After my release I returned and found that my shop and house were burned so I took my family and rushed to my parents house," Khalil said during an interview at Abu Hanifa Mosque, one of Sunni Islam's holiest places of worship in Iraq.
Khalil al-Azami, head of the Azamiya neighborhood council in north Baghdad, said he was working with dozens of Sunni families who have fled from Shiite neighborhoods such as Shaab and Husseiniyah.
Five miles east in Sadr City, 39-year-old Mtashar Fakher, his wife and four children are jammed into one small room at al-Wafa School after the Shiite family was run out of the predominantly Sunni neighborhood around the notorious Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad. Al-Sadr followers provided the shelter.
"I used to leave my house scared every morning and return home scared every night. Then they distributed leaflets telling Shiites to get out," said Fakher, dressed in a track suit, his children listening in a big common room at the school. "I left on my own. No one threatened me, but five Shiites who live in the same street were killed."
The U.S.-led invasion promoted a vision of democracy and peace for Iraqis after decades of oppression and tyranny, but for 31-year-old Abu Hussein Abbas, a Shiite who fled Abu Ghraib, that dream no longer includes returning home.
He spoke to a reporter from a small room in a Sadr City school where he lives with his wife, two children, his mother, his brother and his wife and three children. Also crammed in with them was the wife of a slain brother and her three children.
The dead brother was killed by Sunni extremists.
Abbas said the family fled Abu Ghraib when they received a leaflet reading: "You Shiites are infidels and we have every right to kill you."
"Now," he says, "it is only a dream to go home. The reality is I would be killed the day I went back."
-------------------------------
Citation: Bassem Mroue. "Sectarian Violence Creating Iraq Exiles," The Associated Press, 22 March 2006.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060322/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_the_displaced
-------------------------------