News & Views 12/04/07

Photo: A woman walks in a market in Basra, 550 km (342 miles) south of Baghdad, December 2, 2007. Women in Iraq's southern city of Basra are living in fear. More than 40 have been killed and their bodies dumped in the streets in the past five months for behaviour deemed un-Islamic, the city's police chief says. (Stringer/Reuters)

REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ

Beyond the surge, an Iraqi city suffers

Cities around Iraq are taking advantage of improved security to rebuild neighborhoods, but here in Samarra, the ruins of a revered Shiite Muslim shrine bleed seamlessly into the desolation that is this city's downtown. Samarra shows the limits of the U.S. surge, which has brought a modicum of calm to cities such as Fallujah, Baghdad and Ramadi. No additional troops have been sent here, no Sunni leader is stepping forward to rally his forces against foreign fighters, and there are no promises to rebuild. The golden-domed al Askariya Mosque, which was destroyed in a February 2006 bombing that brought simmering sectarian violence to a boil, remains closed, engulfed by untouched mountains of rubble. Blocks of shops around it also are closed, and there are no shoppers, much less religious pilgrims. Al Qaida in Iraq, the radical Islamist group that's been vanquished in much of the country by an alliance between U.S. troops and Sunni Muslim tribesmen, remains a power to be reckoned with. There's been no surge of U.S. troops and no local leader willing to take on al Qaida. In fact, there are only 700 soldiers to hold this town of 90,000 residents, and the 2,000 Shiite police sent here to help are widely distrusted by the residents.

Baghdad’s Long-Awaited Sign of Hope

Hassan Abid - who owns a fish restaurant on Abu Nawas, a once-vibrant Baghdad street, east of the Tigris river - has, like many businessmen in the capital, had a tough time of it over the last few years. He was forced to close his restaurant after the US-led invasion in 2003, when public access to the street was severely restricted by American troops. "The situation [here] changed significantly after the fall of the regime," Abid, 37, told this reporter. "No one was coming…to have a good time.” After several car-bombings, the street - which runs for several kilometres, featuring restaurants, teashops and amusement parks - was blocked off altogether. Baghdadis have a particular fondness for Abu Nawas, named after a famous and risqué eighth century poet, because it was where “masgoof” fish were prepared on open coal grills, something of a city attraction. A week ago, Abu Nawas was reopened to the public and visitors once again ambled along its pavements, with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki the first to do so.

Iraq will suffer from cholera for two years -govt

Iraq will continue to suffer from cholera for the next two years until projects for providing sanitised water and a new sewage system are built, the Health Ministry said on Tuesday. "Since there is a defect in the infrastructure in providing sanitised water and in sewage, the problem of cholera will stay deep rooted," Adel Abdullah, general inspector in the Health Ministry, told a news conference. "Within two years there are ambitious projects to provide all Baghdad's districts with sanitised water in sufficient quantities and sewage projects. When these projects are complete, cholera will become history." Iraq has been hit by a cholera outbreak this year, focused mainly on the north but lately spreading to the capital Baghdad. Abdullah said 4,637 cases of cholera have been registered in Iraq, mostly in the two cities of Kirkuk and Sulaimaniya in northern Iraq. So far 24 cases have been fatal.

IRAQ: Government to cut items from its free food handouts

From the beginning of 2008 the quantity of national food rations delivered freely to all Iraqi families will be further reduced - from 10 to five items, due to lack of government financial support, Trade Minister Abid Falah al-Soodani said on 3 December. The food rations’ system, known as the Public Distribution System (PDS), was set up in 1995 as part of the UN’s Oil-for-Food programme after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait 17 years ago. However, it has been crumbling since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 due to insecurity, poor management and corruption. “Since the government’s financial support will not be available next year, we will reduce the items from 10 to five and the quantities of the remaining items will not be the same as this year and in past years,” al-Soodani told parliament. “We need US$5-6 billion instead of the US$3.1 billion allocated for the rations’ system in 2008 to cope with the soaring prices of these items on international markets. In addition, there has also been an increase in shipping and transportation costs worldwide and inside Iraq,” al-Soodani said. Al-Soodani blamed corruption and manpower shortages in his ministry for the malfunctioning of the nationwide rations’ system, the poor quality of items distributed and delays in delivering them. He said his ministry had only 30,000 employees running the rations’ system for 30 million people.

REPORTS – IRAQI MILITIAS, POLITICIANS, POWER BROKERS

Power-Sharing Ends Northern Iraq Dispute

Sunni Arab lawmakers ended a yearlong boycott of politics in this disputed northern Iraqi city Tuesday, after the Kurdish majority agreed to allot one-third of government jobs to Arabs and appoint an Arab as deputy governor. The move helps mend a rift here between Arabs and Kurds, months before the province is set to vote on whether it will join Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region to the north or continue to be governed by Baghdad. Much of Iraq's vast oil wealth lies under the ground in Kirkuk, and the province is coveted by Kurdish and Arab parties. Kurdish and Arab lawmakers signed a pledge on Sunday to cooperate, though the council's Turkomen lawmakers continue a boycott. The Arabs attended their first council meeting in more than a year on Tuesday.

Interior ministry to merge tribal fighters into police

The Iraqi interior ministry would rehabilitate and train tribal fighters as a prelude to merge them into the Iraqi police, a security official said on Tuesday. "All tribal fighters in the different Iraqi provinces will be merged into the police forces within a national project to attract young men seeking jobs in the Iraqi police without any political interferences in this respect," Maj. General Abdul-Kareem Khalaf al-Kinani, the head of the ministry's national command center, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). Kinani did not set a date to start the merger or these training courses or but said the ministry "has formed a committee to train tribal fighters and another to consider whether they should have special uniform." "The law is above all. There will never be armed groups outside the framework of the law," he emphasized.

Sadr tells Bush to get out of Iraq

Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr overnight blasted US President George W. Bush for signing a deal with Baghdad that ensures a long-term American military presence in Iraq. "I say this to the evil Bush - leave my country," Sadr said in the Shiite holy city of Najaf. "We do not need you and your army of darkness," he said. "We don't need your planes and tanks. We don't need your policy and your interference. We don't want your democracy and fake freedom. Get out of our land." Sadr's salvo comes a week after the US president and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced a deal ensuring a long-term presence of US forces in the country. Mr Bush and Mr Maliki decided to end the UN mandate for foreign troops' presence in Iraq in 2008 and replace it with a bilateral pact between the two countries for an American military presence beyond 2008. Sadr, known for his anti-American stance, also criticised the other top Shiite parties in Iraq, Mr Maliki's Dawa and the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC).

REPORTS – US/UK/OTHERS IN IRAQ

Oil firms don't fear Iraq security, await laws-US

International oil firms are not afraid of insecurity in Iraq and are ready to begin investing once Baghdad enacts key oil laws, U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmitt said on Tuesday. Speaking to reporters during a visit to Iraq, Kimmitt said the absence of oil laws was now the main hurdle to a wave of international investment as violence has subsided. "What I hear from the companies talking to me, both U.S. and international oil companies, is that they come in and they want to know what the rules of the road are," he said. "A lot of times people think they are not investing because the security situation is difficult. Well, the security situation is improving, and as the oil companies will tell you, they invest in many places in the world where security is a tough factor. "What they really want to know is: what are the rules of the road? With whom should I be contracting? Is that party a qualified contracting party? If there is a dispute, what is the dispute resolution mechanism?"

British hostages video released

A video of five British citizens kidnapped in Iraq and held since May has been aired on Al Arabiya television today. The video calls for British forces to withdraw from the country or the kidnappers would kill one of their five hostages. The video showed a statement in which the group threatened that "this hostage will be killed as a first warning, which would be followed with details that you would not wish to know". One of the hostages was shown on the video as he sat in front of a banner of the Shi'ite Islamic Resistance in Iraq. "Today is November 18. I have been here now 173 days and I feel we've been forgotten," he said. He was filmed with two masked militants pointing assault rifles at him as he sat on the floor. ……The written statement featured on the video accused Britain of plundering the wealth of Iraq and that the five hostages had "acknowledged and confessed and detailed the agenda with which they came to steal our wealth under false pretense of being advisers to the finance ministry."

IRAQI REFUGEES

Iraqi Refugees in Lebanon Face Crisis

A humanitarian organization has issued a report on the rocky predicament of Iraqi refugees in Lebanon, saying authorities in that Middle Eastern nation "arrest Iraqi refugees without valid visas and detain them indefinitely to coerce them to return to Iraq," Human Rights Watch on Tuesday published 66-page report, "Rot Here or Die There: Bleak Choices for Iraqi Refugees in Lebanon." The report "documents the Lebanese government's failure to provide a legal status for Iraqi refugees in Lebanon and details the impact of this policy on the refugees' lives," the group said. "Iraqi refugees in Lebanon live in constant fear of arrest," said Bill Frelick, refugee policy director for Human Rights Watch. "Refugees who are arrested face the prospect of rotting in jail indefinitely unless they agree to return to Iraq and face the dangers there."

How to Help Iraqi Refugees

ANOTHER Way to help: The Collateral Repair Project

RESISTANCE

We Support the Troops Who Oppose the War

On the weekend of 13-15 March, 2008, Iraq Veterans Against the War will assemble history's largest gathering of US veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as Iraqi and Afghan survivors. They will provide first hand accounts of their experiences and reveal the truth of occupation. We support Iraq Veterans Against the War and their Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan Investigation. Join us in supporting the effort to reveal truth in the way that only those who lived it can.

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Quotes of the day: I look forward confidently to the day when all who work for a living will be one with no thought to their separateness as Negroes, Jews, Italians or any other distinctions. This will be the day when we bring into full realization the American dream -- a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few; a dream of a land where men will not argue that the color of a man's skin determines the content of his character; a dream of a nation where all our gifts and resources are held not for ourselves alone, but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity; the dream of a country where every man will respect the dignity and worth of the human personality: Martin Luther King, Jr.