Iraqis Protest Proposed Deal to Allow US Troops to Stay in Iraq Until 2011

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/21/iraqis_protest_proposed_deal_to_allow

Iraqis Protest Proposed Deal to Allow US Troops to Stay in Iraq Until 2011

On Saturday, tens of thousands of Iraqis demonstrated against the proposed Status of Forces Agreement, but US military chief Michael Mullen warned today that Iraq could risk “losses of significant consequence” if the deal is not approved quickly. We speak to Patrick Cockburn and Raed Jarrar.

John Nichols on the GOP’s New McCarthyism and the 2008 Congressional Races

On Friday, Republican Congress member Michele Bachmann of Minnesota stoked controversy after calling Barack Obama “Anti-American” while urging the media to launch an investigation to determine who in Congress is pro-American or anti-American. Bachmann’s re-election now seems a bit less certain. We look at Bachmann’s race and other closely contested congressional races.

Iraq Pullout Deal in Doubt Due to Disagreements

Iraq Pullout Deal in Doubt Due to Disagreements

by Corinne Reilly & Nancy A. Youssef
McClatchy News
http://www.azcentra l.com/arizonarep ublic/news/ articles/ 2008/10/18/ 20081018us- iraq1018. html
October 18, 2008

BAGHDAD – A draft agreement by U.S. and Iraqi negotiators that calls for withdrawing American troops by 2012 appears to be facing obstacles in Iraq that could kill the deal before it’s implemented, lawmakers in Baghdad said.

After seven months of wearisome back and forth, negotiators completed the draft this week. Both governments are reviewing it. Although the agreement doesn’t require congressional approval, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are reaching out to key members of Congress and asking them to support it.

In Iraq, the Political Council for National Security, Cabinet and parliament must approve.

The campaigns of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and Republican rival John McCain, both on Senate committees that deal with the issue, have been briefed.

Progress on the accord follows a compromise on the biggest point of contention: the legal jurisdiction over U.S. military personnel in Iraq.

Under the draft now being discussed, Iraq could prosecute American troops accused only of committing major, premeditated crimes while they were off-duty and outside U.S. bases. Some Iraqis argue that that doesn’t go far enough, especially because U.S. troops and contractors rarely move around the country unless they’re on duty.

The draft also calls for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraqi cities by mid-2009 and from the country entirely by 2012.

An agreement is necessary because a U.N. mandate allowing American troops to operate in Iraq will expire Dec. 31. If an accord governing their continued presence isn’t reached by the end of the year, U.S. forces in Iraq technically could become illegal occupiers.

Despite this week’s movement, concern is widespread that the pact, which the United States hopes to finalize by the end of the year, won’t win Iraqi approval.

Whether the draft will survive is questionable, lawmakers here said.

“It’s very hard to judge at this point,” said Sami al-Askari, a senior Shiite Muslim lawmaker and a close adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. “There are some who will fundamentally oppose any agreement with the Americans, regardless of the terms.”

He said others may reject the draft because they thought that Iraqi negotiators had given up too much concerning legal jurisdiction over U.S. troops.

Mithal al-Alusi, a secular Sunni Muslim member of parliament, said that he would support the draft if it made it to a vote in parliament. He added, “Many could oppose it because they are agents of Iran. It will ultimately be a fight between true Iraqi patriots and those who have been taken over by the Iranians.”

Upcoming elections in Iraq could complicate matters, said Salim Abdullah al-Juburi, a spokesman for parliament’s largest Sunni bloc.

“Unfortunately, not everyone will look at the agreement from the point of view of what is best for Iraq,” he said. “Some will think only about the impression their decision might have on voters.”

He said that he expected members of the United Iraqi Alliance, the largest Shiite bloc in parliament, to oppose the agreement because of Iran’s influence.

“I won’t decide my opinion until I have the opportunity to scrutinize the draft,” he added.

Other lawmakers previously have made up their minds. “I won’t vote for this agreement as it stands, and anyone who would is a traitor to the Iraqi people,” said Bahaa al-Araji, a lawmaker with the Sadrists, followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. “Many of the points included in the draft I read are contrary to the Iraqi constitution and Iraqi law.”

On Friday, U.S. negotiators in Iraq, along with Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top American commander here, had a video conference with senior aides in both houses of Congress to brief them about the draft’s terms. At the same time in Iraq, top government officials and party leaders had a similar meeting.

A statement issued late Friday by the Iraqi government said its meeting had ended without any formal decisions. Discussions will continue in the coming days, the statement said.

The agreement also discusses a larger role for Iraqis in U.S. military operations.

Thousands of Iraqis Protest U.S. Security Pact

Thousands of Iraqis Protest U.S. Security Pact

Associated Press
http://www.msnbc. msn.com/id/ 27249170/
October 18, 2008

BAGHDAD – Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Saturday called on Iraq’s parliament to reject a U.S.-Iraqi security pact as tens of thousands of his followers rallied in Baghdad against the deal.

The mass public show of opposition came as U.S. and Iraqi leaders face a Dec. 31 deadline to reach agreement on the deal, which would replace an expiring U.N. mandate authorizing the U.S.-led forces in Iraq.

Al-Sadr’s message was addressed to Iraqi lawmakers and read by his aide Sheik Abdul-Hadi al-Mohammadawi before a huge crowd of mostly young men waving Iraqi and green Shiite flags and chanting slogans including “no, no to the agreement” and “yes to Iraq.”

“The Iraqi government has abandoned its duty before God and its people and referred the agreement to you knowing that ratifying it will stigmatize Iraq and its government for years to come,” he said.

Al-Sadr, who is living in Iran, also cast doubt on the Iraqi government’s argument that the security pact is a step toward ending the U.S. presence in Iraq. The deal would require U.S. forces to leave by Dec. 31, 2011 unless Iraq asked some of them to stay.

‘Do not betray the people’

“If they tell you that the agreement ends the presence of the occupation, let me tell you that the occupier will retain its bases. And whoever tells you that it gives us sovereignty is a liar,” al-Sadr said. “I am confident that you brothers in parliament will champion the will of the people over that of the occupier … Do not betray the people.”

The demonstrators marched from the main Shiite district of Sadr City to the more central Mustansiriyah Square in eastern Baghdad.

“No, No to America,” shouted one man, wearing a white Islamic robe as he sat in a wheelchair and clutched a poster of the Iraqi flag. “We prefer death to giving concessions. “

Security was tight, with Iraqi security forces manning checkpoints on sidestreets and snipers on rooftops. Iraqi Humvees controlled all the roads leading to the square. Giant Iraqi flags covered nearby buildings.

One banner in English said “We refuse the existence of the U.S. in Iraq.”

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government and the Bush administration have hammered out a draft agreement after months of bitter negotiations.

But the Iraqi parliament must ratify the deal and Iraq’s pre-eminent cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has said any accord must have national consensus.

Al-Maliki, a Shiite, could be politically isolated if he tries to win parliament’s backing in the face of widespread opposition.

Several Sunni and Shiite clerics, who wield considerable influence in shaping public opinion, also spoke out during Friday prayer services against the draft, complaining that the Iraqi public knows little about the terms.

A copy of the draft accord obtained by The Associated Press specifies that U.S. troops must leave Iraqi cities by the end of June and be gone by 2012. It gives Iraq limited authority over off-duty, off-base U.S. soldiers who commit crimes.

U.S. Congressional approval is not required for the pact to take effect, but the administration is trying to build maximum political support anyway.

The march was called by al-Sadr after he had to postpone a mass demonstration on April 9 to mark the fifth anniversary of the U.S. capture of Baghdad. That march had been postponed after many of his followers complained they were not allowed to enter the capital amid fears of violence.

Also on Saturday, Bahrain’s foreign minister arrived in Iraq’s capital Saturday for a one-day visit aimed at improving bilateral relations between the countries, the latest high-level visit by a senior Arab dignitary.

Draft agreement promises troop withdrawal by 2011

Draft agreement promises troop withdrawal by 2011

Simon Tisdall
The Guardian
Thursday October 16 2008

US troops will withdraw from Iraq by December 31 2011 and American and British soldiers deployed there in the interim period could face prosecution in Iraq’s courts for serious, premeditated “off-duty” crimes under the terms of a draft status of forces agreement outlined yesterday by officials in Baghdad and Washington.

The draft agreement, which is intended to replace the UN security council mandate that legitimised the US-led invasion in March 2003, and subsequent occupation, follows months of fraught negotiations. It must be ratified by the Iraqi parliament before the end of the year.

Passage is far from guaranteed. Iraq’s most influential Shia cleric, Grand
Ayatollah Ali Sistani, said last week that any pact must have the support of Iraq’s people and political parties before it could be endorsed. Some of the deal’s terms may also prove controversial in the US.

But the agreement, if implemented, would mark a milestone in the slow, often painful evolution of independent, Iraqi self-government since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein five years ago. It also represents a climbdown by the Bush administration, which had previously refused to set a deadline or timetable for a troop withdrawal.

Ali al-Dabbagh, the Iraqi government spokesman, said US forces would pull out of Iraqi towns and villages by the middle of next year and withdraw from the country as a whole by the end of 2011. But he left open the possibility that some US and other forces might be asked to stay beyond that date if needed.

“The withdrawal is to be achieved in three years,” Dabbagh said. “In 2011 the government at that time will determine whether it needs a new pact or not. What type of pact will depend on the challenges it faces.” Dabbagh indicated US troops and Pentagon contractors would be subject to US law while on base or while conducting off-base “military missions” – a potentially catch-all definition since US forces rarely venture off base.

But he added that “Iraqi judicial law will be implemented in case these
forces commit a serious and deliberate felony outside their military bases
and when off-duty”. In such instances, American offenders would be held in US custody but could be surrendered to the Iraqi authorities for questioning and possible trial.

A series of incidents allegedly involving US forces and Pentagon employees which led to the death of Iraqi civilians and, in one case, the alleged rape of a 14-year-old girl, has outraged public opinion and added to pressure for tougher rules.

Officials in Washington confirmed yesterday that a compromise on
prosecutions and a withdrawal date had been reached but urged caution. “There is a text that people are looking at,” a state department spokesman said. “Nothing is done until everything is done. Everything isn’t done.”

The draft agreement, if implemented, would also prevent the US military from continuing to hold Iraqi suspects without charging them with crimes under Iraqi law. At present the majority of the 18,000 people held by coalition forces have not been charged with any offence.

British soldiers serving in Iraq are likely to be subject to the new rules
from next year. Asked this week about the future status of British forces, the Ministry of Defence said: “Our requirements are very similar to those of the US. We intend to use the Iraqi/US text as the basis of our agreement.”

The mooted deal comes against a backdrop of growing pressure from Iraqi public opinion and from Iraq’s powerful majority Shia neighbour, Iran, for the departure of US and other foreign forces. Iraq’s nationalist prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has moved successfully in recent months to assert army and police control over areas such as Basra, although levels of violence have been rising again in recent weeks.

http://www.guardian .co.uk/world/ 2008/oct/ 16/iraq-usa

Christians Flee from Mosul Amid New Wave of Terror

Christians Flee from Mosul Amid New Wave of Terror

by Jareer Mohammed
Azzaman
http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?code=ennewsen
October 11, 2008

Iraqi Christians are fleeing the northern city of Mosul, leaving behind houses and personal belongings amid a new wave of violence in the city.

Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city has traditionally been a major center of Christianity in Iraq. But in the past few weeks there has been a predetermined wave of violence directed specifically at Christian minorities there.

Church sources say at least 10 Christians have been killed in the past few days with families receiving written and verbal threats either to leave or bear the consequences.

Church reports say some 500 families have fled the city to the string of Christian villages in the eastern and northern outskirts of Mosul.

These villages are relatively quieter but the influx has already strained their meager resources.

Many families have nowhere to go as schools and other public buildings in these villages are already crammed with refugees.

Sami al-Maleh member of a political faction grouping various Christian denominations says Christians in Mosul now receive daily threats “with statements handed out in the city alleys and streets demanding that they leave the city. We do not know who is behind these threats but ask the provincial authorities to bring the criminals to justice.”

Mosul is now Iraq’s most restive city and a major stronghold of forces opposing U.S. occupation and the Iraqi government. Some of these groups have allied themselves with al-Qaeda.

The exodus began following the murder of several Christians and the closure of churches some of which date back to the early centuries of Christianity.

The fleeing families live in horrific conditions. Many of them, fearing for their lives, had even to leave personal belongings like shoes and clothes behind.

Corruption blamed as cholera rips through Iraq

Corruption blamed as cholera rips through Iraq

By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
The Independent – UK
Friday, 10 October 2008

A deadly outbreak of cholera in Iraq is being blamed on a scandal involving corrupt officials who failed to sterilise the local drinking water because they were bribed to buy chlorine from Iran that was long past its expiration date.

The centre of the epidemic is in Babil province, south of Baghdad, in the
marshy lands east of the Euphrates river, not far from the ruins of ancient Babylon. In Baghdad, where half the six million population has no access to clean drinking water, people are now drinking only bottled or boiled water.

The Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has appointed a commission of
inquiry to find out why ineffective chlorine was being used. He is also
refusing to release three officials under arrest despite demands from the
Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) to which they are linked. In the town of al-Madhatiya, in southern Babil, a councillor involved in buying the chlorine was reportedly released after militiamen connected to ISCI
intimidated police into freeing him.

The scandal over the contract is becoming a test case of the Maliki
government’s willingness to tackle the pervasive corruption in Iraq where
officials see their jobs primarily as a way of enriching themselves through
bribes. It is also a test of his ability to exercise central control over
ISCI and parties which have been hitherto dominant outside Baghdad.

Cholera is endemic in Iraq but last year there was an epidemic in northern Iraq which was far more serious than anything seen for years. Some 4,700 people, mostly in Sulaimaniyah province, were struck.

This year, the government hoped to stop another outbreak of the disease by repairing shattered water and sanitation stations and putting chlorine in the water supply. An Iraqi government official, who did not want his name published, said the Health Ministry bought $11m (£6.4m) worth of chlorine from Iran for use in the provinces of Babil, Diwaniyah and Kerbala, all on the Euphrates river south of Baghdad.

In the latter two provinces, officials noticed that the chlorine was old and the time during which it could be employed effectively had expired, and refused to use it. But in Babil the chlorine was put in the fresh water
supply stations at al-Madhatiyah, al-Hashimiyah and al-Qasim, south-east of the provincial capital, al-Hillah. Soon 222 people were confirmed as having cholera in Babil, in a total of 420 cases of whom seven have died.

The scandal is a reflection of the the way Iraqi politics works. The ruling
parties monopolise jobs and contracts. It is impossible to find work at any level in most ministries without a letter of commendation from one of the parties in the government. The enormous Iraqi government apparatus, employing some two million people, is a patronage machine. There are now more state officials than under Saddam, but it is unable to supply electricity, food rations and clean water, despite Iraq’s $80bn in accumulated oil revenues.

The power base of ISCI, the most powerful Shia religious party, is the Shia provinces of southern Iraq between Baghdad and Basra. Political parties are expected to protect their members from arrest. This explains what happened next. The officials arrested in Babil belonged to the Badr Organisation, the militia wing of ISCI. Leaders of the party demanded their release but Mr Maliki refused. Badr militants then turned up at a police station in al-Madhatiya and forced the police to release a councillor apparently involved in purchasing the chlorine.

But the grand Shia coalition which won more than half the seats in the Iraqi parliament in the last election in December 2005 has broken up. Mr Maliki is trying to build up his own Dawa party, using the resources of the state.

He has deepening differences with ISCI which won most of the southern Iraqi provinces. They accuse him of trying to create a power base in what was previously their territory by paying the tribes who belong to
government-sponsore d “support councils” in southern Iraq. His aim is to get his own candidates elected in the provincial and parliamentary elections next year. “These will be crucial in deciding who will hold power in Iraq in future,” said one senior Iraqi official.

Control of oil revenues gives Mr Maliki a crucial card. Iraq has 50 to 60
per cent unemployment and most jobs are with the state. Salaries of state employees have risen sharply. But the government remains largely
dysfunctional aside from its growing military strength. Iraqi journalists
are encouraged and paid to write “good news” stories. In Baghdad, people notice there is little mention of the cholera in the media. This provokes fear that the epidemic may be worse than the government admits.

After the invasion: Services in Iraq

* Before the war, Baghdad had electricity between 16 and 24 hours a day. This has dropped to just under 12.

* There was no national mobile phone network, now there are at least 12 million subscribers.

* In April 2007 there were 261,000 internet subscribers. Before the war this number was estimated as 4,500.

* Of the 34,000 doctors registered in pre-war Iraq, 20,000 fled, 2,000 have been killed and 250 kidnapped.

* Registered cars more than doubled, to 3.1 million by October 2005.

Source: The Brookings Institution

http://www.independ ent.co.uk/ news/world/ middle-east/ corruption- blamed-as- cholera-rips-through- iraq-956701. html

Immunity for US Troops a Barrier in Iraq Talks

Immunity for US Troops a Barrier in Iraq Talks

by Jomana Karadsheh & Mohammed Tawfeeq
CNN
October 8, 2008

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/10/07/iraq.main/

BAGHDAD – The United States’ insistence that its troops and contractors remain immune from Iraqi law is a key obstacle to reaching a status of forces agreement, the Iraqi foreign minister said Tuesday.

The status of forces agreement would define and govern U.S. military operations in Iraq, including criminal and civil jurisdictions.

“The sticking points are the immunity issues and there [is] some progress with the new suggestions submitted by the Iraqi government,” Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said at a joint news conference with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte.

“A number of immunity issues have been resolved in the previous negotiations,” Zebari noted. But until the issue is fully resolved, the foreign minister said, “I cannot give you a timetable for this agreement.”

The current United Nations mandate which governs how foreign forces operate in Iraq expires at the end of the year.

Negroponte would not elaborate on the ongoing discussions.

“We both agreed that while we’re still negotiating, there’s no point in getting into a detailed discussion of where we might not yet have come to closure, because what you have people doing is dissecting disagreements without fully understanding the background,” he said.

He stressed that while both countries are “pursuing this issue from the point of view of their own national self-interest,” Iraq and the United States both have a vested interest in reaching an agreement before the U.N. mandate expires on December 31.

About 30 minutes before Tuesday’s news conference, which took place inside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, two explosions detonated near an entry to that area. The district, which is also known as the International Zone, is where Iraq’s government and the U.S. military are based.

An Iraqi Interior Ministry official said two “sticky bombs” attached to two cars detonated in a parking lot near the Iraqi Foreign Ministry at 10:50 a.m., wounding at least five people and damaging at least four civilian vehicles. A column of smoke rose from the parking lot.

The explosives are called “sticky bombs” because they are attached to a vehicle using a magnet or an adhesive, as opposed to car bombs in which the vehicles themselves are packed with explosives.

It was unclear if Negroponte was at the Foreign Ministry compound when the attack happened.

Officials in Washington and Baghdad have been in negotiations for many months to produce a status of forces agreement and a strategic framework agreement, which would cover a wide range of areas of cooperation, from the economy to education.

Speaking last month in a televised address, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki expressed frustration at the lack of progress in reaching a status of forces agreement because of the immunity issue, which he called “a point of great disagreement.”

Baghdad wants the power to arrest and try Americans accused of crimes that are not related to official military operations, plus jurisdiction over troops and contractors who commit “grave mistakes” in the course of their duties.

Al-Maliki said the United States is rejecting both ideas.

He said he also wanted the United States to refrain from military operations in Iraq without the prior approval of the Iraqi government.

The two sides also disagree over how long detainees can be held, al-Maliki said.

Iraq wants the United States to hand over Iraqi detainees within 24 hours, al-Maliki said, while the United States wants Iraqis to hand over American detainees to U.S. forces immediately.

Al-Maliki said each side should be be required to hand over detainees in the same amount of time — either 24 hours or immediately.

He suggested the end-of-the-year deadline for agreement is critical because it is unlikely a new U.N. mandate could be worked out. Iraq will not accept the mandate in its current form, he said, and the United States will not accept Iraqi amendments.

Negroponte said Tuesday that he expected the negotiations to last until the final hour.

“Both sides have dedicated literally hundreds if not thousands of hours of negotiating time to moving toward that agreement,” the deputy secretary said. “I don’t think I could add to how Foreign Minister Zebari characterized the progress we are making. He said we are close and we’re going to be working on this intensively and against the very deadline we’ve spoken of.”

Other developments:

• Iraqi authorities Tuesday arrested a 38-year-old woman suspected of heading up recruitment of female suicide bombers, the Iraqi Defense Ministry told CNN.

Ibtisam Adwan was arrested in a village east of Baquba, Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said. Adwan is suspected of being directly involved in the training of Rania Ibrahim, 15, who was caught at a market a few weeks ago with explosives strapped to her waist.

Iraq too dangerous for many professionals

Iraq too dangerous for many professionals

By Tina Susman, Staff Writer
The Los Angeles Times
October 4, 2008

Baghdad — Naqi Shakir sits on a sagging mattress pushed against a wall. His wife and two daughters perch on tattered sofas and chairs crowded into the one room of the house with signs of family life: personal photographs tacked to the wall, a TV, books, and knickknacks on dusty shelves.

Except for a folding table and chairs in the kitchen, nearly everything has been sold so the family can bolt as soon as someone rents the two-story home in a relatively safe Baghdad neighborhood.

At a time when the Iraqi government is encouraging its citizens to return
and the U.S. military is highlighting security gains across Iraq, the
Shakirs nevertheless want out. They see no future here for Iraqis such as themselves: well educated, affluent, secular or non-Muslim.

Their imminent departure is a major concern facing Iraq, which has suffered a traumatic brain drain in the last five years and is struggling to lure back or hang on to educated professionals.

In June, the government raised civil servant salaries 50% to 75% to bring back state employees such as teachers and doctors, many of whom were fired after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. Iraq’s Ministry of Displacement and Migration says tens of thousands of people have returned to Iraq since last fall.

But with more than 2.5 million Iraqis having fled the country, political and
business leaders believe it will be many years before the loss of
professionals can be reversed.

Many people continue to leave. The Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees said it monitored numbers at the main border
crossing linking Iraq to Syria from January to July 2008 and found that
7,200 more Iraqis left than entered. And some say a new U.S. policy opening the door to more Iraqi refugees each year is exacerbating the situation.

“It’s counterproductive, ” said Raad Ommar, president of the Iraqi American Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Baghdad. “They’re trying to achieve their goal on one hand of taking Iraqis to the United States, and on the other hand they’re trying to get Iraq stabilized and improve the economy and everything else. The flight of qualified Iraqis is not going to help that.”

In the years since the fall of Hussein, the chamber would get 200 to 300
applications when it placed a newspaper ad seeking a staff attorney, public relations executive, engineer or administrative worker. Now, Ommar is lucky to get 20, usually from people sorely lacking in experience and with
checkered resumes resulting from wartime upheavals. Ommar used to say it would take Iraq a couple of years to recover economically.

“Now, if I say five years, I’m not confident,” he said. “I think, in
general, people don’t really have much confidence in the future.”

More than 7,000 physicians have left Iraq since 2003, including virtually
all who had 20 years’ or more experience, said Mustafa Hiti, a member of
parliament who sits on its health committee. About 600 have returned, he said, but none are the sort of top-flight specialists needed here.

Most specialists were Sunni Arabs who, to achieve their professional status, were members of Hussein’s Baath Party. Even if they did not adhere to its ideology, they were ostracized and forced from their jobs after Hussein was ousted. Now, they do not feel comfortable in a country run by Shiite Muslims, said Hiti, who expressed doubts about the government’s commitment to moving away from the so-called de-Baathification policies.

“Are the parties in the government now willing to give jobs to the right
people, or do they see these jobs as political spoils?” Hiti said.

At the Ministry of Higher Education, spokeswoman Siham Shujairi said 6,700 professors have left Iraq since 2003 and only about 150 have returned. About 300 have been killed.

Shakir, 65, used to make good money as a customs clearing agent, but he closed shop after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion because of security worries. The family smuggled his son out of the country in 2005 after two failed kidnapping attempts. The Shakirs’ car has been riddled with bullets in a random shooting on a Baghdad street, and a car bomb in the neighborhood damaged their home.

“There is nobody upholding justice here,” Shakir said as a soap opera
flickered on the TV and the family’s Pekingese dog ran excited circles
across the floor. “You live your life according to chance. Anyone can do
anything.”

His daughters Rafah and Raghad, both in their 30s, feel pressure to wear
veils outside even though the family is Christian. Rafah Shakir tucks her
small cross pendant into her shirt when she goes out.

“I used to have an import-export business. I used to be able to go to my
office and work on my own,” said Rafah, who is studying to be a human rights lawyer in Sulaymaniya, in the semiautonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. “I can’t do it anymore. I can’t even wear short sleeves anymore.”

Even though security has improved, professionals continue to be targets of assassinations by extremists who see them as being pro-Western or religious infidels. In addition, the power in Iraq lies with conservative Shiites, and there is no sign that will change any time soon.

Even if provincial elections, considered key to balancing power among
Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds and others, take place later this year, the parties
now in power probably will come out on top again. That’s because of name recognition, and because the provincial election law likely to govern the vote allows parties to use religious symbols on the ballots.

“I’m sure it’ll play in favor of the Shiite Islamist parties,” said a senior
U.S. official.

This scenario, combined with anger over Iraq’s failing infrastructure and
distrust of its stability, does not encourage moderate Muslims such as Ali, 26, who has a medical degree and hopes to immigrate to the United States.

“Nothing is guaranteed. That’s the problem,” said Ali, who asked that his
surname not be used to avoid problems with his employer. “Here, everything is possible — but in a negative sense.”

Ali ticked off the frustrations of everyday life: power outages, lack of
clean tap water, hours-long waits to buy fuel for cars and generators, and the lack of social life because of most of his friends’ departures and the closure of late-night restaurants, nightclubs, and cinemas.

“Even if it’s safe, if the services are not available it makes life hard,”
said Ayad Abdul Ameer, an electrical engineer.

“The gas lines — people just sit there for hours and hours, like they’re
dead,” Ali said, growing visibly infuriated as he spoke. “It’s like a Stage
4 cancer,” he said of Iraq’s growing problems.

Ameer returned to Iraq in April after a year abroad but doesn’t plan on
staying. He came back because his work visa application was rejected in
Oman, and because he needed to repair his house, which had been hit by mortar rounds a couple of months earlier.

Ahmed Farhan, who works as a chef in Scotland, returned to Iraq for the
first time in 14 years this month and couldn’t wait to leave again. He and
his family are Shiites, but Farhan said he found the atmosphere stifling and the sight of armed police and soldiers on street corners unnerving.

“It’s a losing battle,” he said, arguing against the idea that educated
Iraqis such as himself are the best hope for reversing the brain drain.

Hiti, the parliament member, has some hope. He is lobbying the health
minister to establish a specially protected zone for doctors and their
families to live in, in central Baghdad. That could encourage their return,
he said. On Monday, the government said doctors would be allowed to carry guns for self-protection. At least 176 physicians have been killed since 2003.

Spokeswoman Shujairi said the Ministry of Higher Education has received
hundreds of e-mailed requests from professors outside Iraq who want to know how they can return to their jobs.

Hiti, though, hesitated when asked whether he would encourage Iraqi doctors to come home under the current circumstances.

“I would not give it an absolute ‘yes,’ ” he said, adding that he would
prefer his protected zone be finished before doctors return en masse.

“Accidents happen everywhere, but the probability in Iraq is very high.”

Times staff writers Saif Rasheed, Saif Hameed, Mohammed Rasheed and Caesar Ahmed contributed to this report.

http://www.latimes. com/news/ nationworld/ world/la- fg-displaced5- 2008oct05, 0,8
22267.story

Blackwater Machine Gun Found in Raid on Iraqi Insurgents

Published on Thursday, October 2, 2008 by ABC News

Blackwater Machine Gun Found in Raid on Iraqi Insurgents

Incident Was Kept Secret and Raises More Questions About the Firm’s Iraq Operations

by Brian Ross

An M4 machine gun sent to Iraq by the Blackwater private security firm somehow disappeared from the company’s storage facility in Baghdad and was later discovered during a US military operation, apparently against suspected insurgents, people familiar with the situation have told ABC News.

The incident, in 2006, has been kept secret until now but it raised more questions about Blackwater’s operations in Iraq.

Allegations that Blackwater shipped weapons and silencers to Iraq without proper licensing are already under investigation by a federal grand jury in North Carolina, according to people familiar with the case.

Blackwater says all of its weapons “are shipped in accordance with U.S. export control regulations.”

A separate federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. is investigating a shooting incident involving Blackwater guards that led to the deaths of 17 civilians. Indictments in that case could come as soon as next week, officials say.

Blackwater says it is cooperating with the grand jury investigation and has said that its guards acted in self-defense during the incident.

The State Department renewed Blackwater’s one-billion dollar private security contract earlier this year, despite the grand jury investigations.

In the case of the missing machine gun, Army investigators said the “Bushmaster M4″ was discovered in March 2006 by US troops during an unspecified military operation.

Blackwater apparently had no idea the machine gun had gone missing and possibly ended up in the hands of insurgents fighting US troops, according to documents reviewed by ABC News.

In a statement, Blackwater said “equipment has been stolen by insurgents” in some instances, but that “every loss has been reported to the relevant U.S. authorities.”

But that was not the case with the M4, according to internal documents.

Blackwater’s inventory records showed no transfer of the weapon after it arrived in Baghdad, and it was listed as still in the weapons pool.

US soldiers reportedly found the weapon was in surprisingly good condition when it was recovered.

Criminal investigators for the US Army turned the weapon over to Blackwater. A spokesman for the Army CID said no further investigation was conducted as to whether the weapon had been stolen or sold on the black market by someone with access to the Blackwater facility.

The Bushmaster, according to the company’s website, is one of the “world’s most popular military and law enforcement carbine models.” It is outfitted with a flash suppressor and, in military models, can fire three round bursts or fully automatic.

Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

Remember Iraq?

Published on Tuesday, September 30, 2008 by Salon.com

Remember Iraq?

The drop in violence has made the war an afterthought — and allowed

McCain to claim we’re “winning.” Here’s why we’re not — and we can’t.

by Gary Kamiya

With Congress rejecting the $700 billion bailout package, the Dow falling 700 points and the U.S. economy on the edge of a cliff, no one is paying much attention to Iraq. Money talks, and incomprehensible and endless wars walk. From a purely financial perspective, that dismissive attitude makes no sense. The Iraq war has already cost almost $700 billion, and as Joseph Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes have argued, its total cost, factoring in huge back-end costs like disability payments, could end up exceeding $3 trillion. As Tom Engelhardt and Chalmers Johnson point out on TomDispatch, the money we’ve poured and are continuing to pour down the bottomless pit of Iraq, to the tune of $10 billion a month, could have bailed us out many times over.

But of course, the Iraq war is about a lot more than money. It’s about the 146,000 U.S. troops still stationed there, and their families. It’s about the stability of the Middle East, and our vital national interest in ensuring that it does not explode. It’s about the overall direction of our foreign policy. It’s about how America is perceived throughout the world. And it’s about the fate of Iraq itself, a nation that our invasion devastated and that we owe our best efforts to rebuild.

Along with fixing our economy, then, what we should do about Iraq is the most important issue facing the country. And the choices offered by the two presidential candidates could not be more different. John McCain will continue the same policies as George W. Bush. He insists that Iraq remains “the central front in the war on terror,” claims that the surge was a decisive turning point and that we are now winning the war, and warns that if America elects Barack Obama, we will lose, with catastrophic consequences. Obama argues that the war was a mistake to begin with, that it led us to “take our eye off the ball” and allow Osama bin Laden to escape and al-Qaida to regroup, and that it has strengthened Iran. He says that if elected he will withdraw American troops in stages over a 16-month period.

The first presidential debate highlighted these clear differences between Obama and McCain. But, unfortunately, Obama did not really challenge McCain’s central claim that we are “winning” in Iraq. There are good political reasons why he didn’t: The fact that he opposed a war that McCain ardently supported, and that most Americans have long turned against, allowed him to win the debate without venturing onto that dangerous terrain. But as a result, McCain’s exaggerated claims about the surge, and his larger claim that we are winning in Iraq, have gone unrefuted. And what is actually happening in Iraq bears no resemblance to McCain’s triumphant vision.

George W. Bush has defined “victory” in Iraq as a unified, democratic and stable country. McCain echoed this definition in the debate, saying that Iraq will be “a stable ally in the region and a fledgling democracy.” Yet McCain never explained just how Iraq is going to become unified, democratic or stable, let alone a U.S. ally — and Obama did not demand that he do so. McCain was lucky he didn’t, because there is no answer.

McCain’s entire position on Iraq boils down to two words: the surge. According to McCain, Gen. Petraeus’ counterinsurgency tactic worked to perfection, and after years of failed approaches, victory is now within our grasp. McCain endlessly attacks Obama for not supporting the surge, painting his rival as a craven defeatist who, as McCain’s top foreign policy advisor put it, “would rather lose a war that we are winning than lose an election by alienating his base.”

The media has largely bought into this rosy view of the surge. Violence has fallen sharply in Iraq and U.S. casualties are down, and the media and the U.S. public have tacitly accepted both that the surge was largely responsible for these laudable outcomes and, to a lesser degree, that the underlying situation in Iraq has fundamentally improved. Unfortunately, neither claim is true.

First, the surge was not primarily responsible for the drop in sectarian violence in Iraq. It played a role, but was far less important than the simple, grim fact that the Shiite militias in Baghdad had already succeeded in ethnically cleansing the city. This was established by a team of UCLA geographers who analyzed night-light signatures in the city. They found that night lights in Sunni neighborhoods declined dramatically just before the February 2007 surge and never came back. “Essentially, our interpretation is that violence has declined in Baghdad because of intercommunal violence that reached a climax as the surge was beginning,” John Agnew, a UCLA professor of geography and the study’s lead author, told Science Daily. “By the launch of the surge, many of the targets of conflict had either been killed or fled the country, and they turned off the lights when they left … The surge really seems to have been a case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.”

The UCLA scientists’ findings are supported by Shiite expert Juan Cole, who argues that the surge actually helped the Shiite militias to ethnically cleanse Baghdad by disarming Sunnis. “Rates of violence declined once the ethnic cleansing was far advanced, just because there were fewer mixed neighborhoods,” Cole argues.

Joining Cole and the UCLA team is one of the best field reporters in Iraq, Nir Rosen, author of an important piece, “The Myth of the Surge,” which appeared in Rolling Stone. Rosen points out that another key factor behind the cessation of violence is that U.S. troops began bribing their former deadly enemies, Sunni insurgents, to cooperate. (The Sunnis had turned against al-Qaida because of its brutal tactics — a key factor in the decline of terrorist attacks in Iraq that the surge had nothing to do with.) But these Sunnis, called “the Awakening” or “Sons of Iraq,” will be off the U.S. payroll on October 1, and Rosen paints a grim picture of what is likely to happen next. “There is little doubt what will happen when the massive influx of American money stops: Unless the new Iraqi state continues to operate as a vast bribing machine, the insurgent Sunnis who have joined the new militias will likely revert to fighting the ruling Shiites, who still refuse to share power.”

The final reason for the cessation of violence was the stand-down by Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, which is lying low. That stand-down, which can be reversed at any time, was brokered by — Iran. But Iran is playing all sides: It supports both Maliki and Sadr. The U.S. simply cannot compete in this kind of deep game, at which Iran has excelled for centuries, without diplomatic engagement. But for McCain, that is anathema.

Insofar as the surge helped to contribute to lowered levels of violence in Iraq, it is to be commended. And there is no doubt that Gen. Petraeus’ adoption of classic counterinsurgency doctrine, which mandates moving troops out of secure bases and closer to the people, was a significant improvement over previous tactics. But as the above should make clear, the surge was not the main reason for the reduction of violence — which remains at terrifyingly high levels. In any case, the mere reduction of sectarian violence does not prove that the U.S. is “winning.” Even the Bush administration has acknowledged that the critical issue in Iraq is political reconciliation. And the sad reality is that there has been no political reconciliation in Iraq, that there are no indications it is on the horizon and that there is no reason to believe that the continued presence of U.S. troops will help bring it about.

As analyst Peter Galbraith points out in an excellent piece in the New York Review of Books, the salient fact about Iraq is that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government is allied with Iran, wants to create a Shiite Islamic state and will never integrate the Sunni Awakening forces into the Iraqi Army, because it correctly sees them as threatening the current regime’s existence. Its rapprochement with the Kurds, the only group that supports the U.S., is fragile and could collapse at any time, with the fate of the disputed, oil-rich city of Kirkuk likely to be the trigger.

Galbraith sums up the situation thus: “George W. Bush has put the United States on the side of undemocratic Iraqis who are Iran’s allies. John McCain would continue the same approach. It is hard to understand how this can be called a success — or a path to victory.”

Most critically, the Maliki regime wants U.S. forces to leave Iraq — on the same 16-month timetable as the one Obama has proposed. The Iraqi people also want the U.S. out. The U.S. simply lacks the power to oppose this demand, and McCain’s bluster about staying in Iraq until “victory” is absurd in the face of it.

McCain’s talk of “victory” is not just logically false, it is morally obscene. Our unprovoked invasion destroyed Iraq. Up to a million Iraqis may have died. The infrastructure is dreadful, far worse than in Saddam’s time. Most of Iraq’s doctors have fled or been killed. Vast numbers of Iraqis have been forced into exile, and few have dared to return. The sectarian war our invasion let loose has ripped the country apart. Iraq remains one of the most dangerous and violence-torn countries in the world. (On Sunday, five bomb attacks in Baghdad killed at least 27 people.)

What do we do confronted with this situation? What do we owe the Iraqi people? What do we owe ourselves? What is in our national interest? And with our economy melting down, how long can we spend $10 billion a month waiting to decide?

There are no easy answers to these questions. But we cannot hide them behind cheap talk of “victory” and incoherent fear-mongering. We will have to hope that in January we will get a new administration, one not deluded by empty slogans and neoconservative ideology. And they will then have to begin the difficult process of figuring out how to responsibly extricate ourselves and the Iraqi people from the nightmare we created.

Copyright ©2008 Salon Media Group, Inc.
Gary Kamiya is a writer at large for Salon.