O:9:"magpierss":20:{s:6:"parser";i:0;s:12:"current_item";a:0:{}s:5:"items";a:25:{i:0;a:8:{s:4:"guid";s:57:"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3463907.post-605404933315702237";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Fri, 20 Jun 2008 23:05:00 +0000";s:4:"atom";a:1:{s:7:"updated";s:29:"2008-06-21T09:58:48.530+02:00";}s:5:"title";s:53:"Baradei: Attack on Iran Would Create Fireball in ME; ";s:11:"description";s:1860:"
International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohammed Elbaradei said Friday that Iran's nuclear research program was not such as to raise grave concerns at the moment, and that any attack on the research facilities would turn the Middle East into a fireball and force his own resignation. Quotes from the Al-Arabiya interview via Reuters:
"I don't believe that what I see in Iran today is a current, grave and urgent danger. If a military strike is carried out against Iran at this time ... it would make me unable to continue my work . . ."
"A military strike, in my opinion, would be worse than anything possible. It would turn the region into a fireball . . ."
"If you do a military strike, it will mean that Iran, if it is not already making nuclear weapons, will launch a crash course to build nuclear weapons with the blessing of all Iranians, even those in the West."
Meanwhile, acting Friday Prayers leader in Tehran, hard liner Ahmad Khatami threatened a "strong blow" in retaliation if Iran were attacked. The AFP article misquotes him, since he did not say that Iran's mentality is to attack foreigners. He said its mentality is to reject foreign rule.";s:4:"link";s:72:"http://www.juancole.com/2008/06/baradei-attack-on-iran-would-create.html";s:6:"author";s:31:"noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole)";s:7:"summary";s:1860:"
International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohammed Elbaradei said Friday that Iran's nuclear research program was not such as to raise grave concerns at the moment, and that any attack on the research facilities would turn the Middle East into a fireball and force his own resignation. Quotes from the Al-Arabiya interview via Reuters:
"I don't believe that what I see in Iran today is a current, grave and urgent danger. If a military strike is carried out against Iran at this time ... it would make me unable to continue my work . . ."
"A military strike, in my opinion, would be worse than anything possible. It would turn the region into a fireball . . ."
"If you do a military strike, it will mean that Iran, if it is not already making nuclear weapons, will launch a crash course to build nuclear weapons with the blessing of all Iranians, even those in the West."
Meanwhile, acting Friday Prayers leader in Tehran, hard liner Ahmad Khatami threatened a "strong blow" in retaliation if Iran were attacked. The AFP article misquotes him, since he did not say that Iran's mentality is to attack foreigners. He said its mentality is to reject foreign rule.";}i:1;a:9:{s:4:"guid";s:58:"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3463907.post-7081578029927489675";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Fri, 20 Jun 2008 23:00:00 +0000";s:4:"atom";a:1:{s:7:"updated";s:29:"2008-06-21T09:30:14.092+02:00";}s:8:"category";s:4:"Iraq";s:5:"title";s:91:"Sadrist Condemns 'Eternal Slavery' to US; 1 US Troop Killed, 5 Wounded; Bombings in Mosul";s:11:"description";s:5598:"
Congress passed a $161 bn. budget for the Iraq War, with a bit for Afghanistan in it, but failed to get language about a timetable for troop withdrawal included. If Americans dislike this outcome, they will have to elect more senators (especially senators) and congressional representatives who want out of Iraq, of both parties, this fall. The gesture of November 2006 just was not strong enough, given the consensual rules of the Senate (where you really need 60 to accomplish anything) and the Hawks' continued control of the White House. Oh, that is another thing they could change in November, if they don't like throwing good money after bad.
Iraqi troops undertook a wave of arrests in Amarah on Friday, putting behind bars the mayor of the city, several members of the provincial council of Maysan, and 20 policemen, among dozens of others the government said were implicated in militia-led gangsterism in the city. Sadrists protested that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was attempting to weaken their part ahead of provincial elections. Maysan is the only province in Iraq run by the Sadr Movement, and al-Maliki's main backer, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, would like to take it in the next election.
Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that a compromise has been reached on the provincial elections law in parliament, which should be voted on shortly. Kirkuk will not be included in the provinces voting, until after a referendum is held there on whether it should accede to the Kurdistan Regional Government. The KRG provinces, which have now been melded into a single confederacy, also will not vote in the fall. The Sadr Movement opposes this plan, insisting that Kirkuk take part. It also opposes a quota whereby 25% of seats on the provincial assemblies go to women. The United Iraqi Alliance and the Iraqi List insist on the quota for women. The Sadrists say they fear that the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq is attempting to delay provincial elections until early 2010 and have them coincide with the next parliamentary elections at the federal level. ISCI controls most of the Shiite provinces and the Sadrists say it is afraid it will lose them because it has not performed well.
Al3marh.net reports that al-Nasiri criticized what he called secret provisions of the proposed SOFA. He said that it called for American military bases to remain in Iraq. He said that no self-respecting Iraqi would stand for such a notion.
Moreover, immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts was being extended from US troops even to big US corporations. which he condemned as an affront to Iraqi sovereignty.
He also found unacceptable any plan for the US to retain the ability to arrest Iraqis at will.
Al-Karbala'i said that the Shiite religious leadership would endorse no party list or individual candidate in the upcoming provincial elections, but rather would remain equidistant from all.
He also said that any Status of Forces Agreement between Iraq and the US must meet the following conditions:
It must preserve the political, economic, security and cultural interests of the Iraqi people
It must not sacrifice any Iraqi sovereignty in any of those fields
It must not allow Iraq to be used as a springboard for an attack on a third country.
It must be submitted for approval to parliament, which was elected by the people.
A roadside bomb targeted an Iraqi army patrol in al-Ghabat area Friday afternoon wounding eleven servicemen.
A parked car bomb targeted a police patrol in al-Wahda neighbourhood, downtown Mosul, wounding six policemen. . .
One unidentified body was found in Baghdad by Iraqi Police in Shaab.
A parked car exploded in Kindi Street, Harthiyah, central Baghdad at 9 p.m. Friday killing three civilians, injuring seven.
Diyala
Gunmen blew up two houses in Ashti neighbourhood, al-Saadiyah district , to the northeast of Baquba Thursday evening. Both houses were empty when they were blown up by remote control, but a civilian passer by was in the vicinity and was injured by the blast. '
Congress passed a $161 bn. budget for the Iraq War, with a bit for Afghanistan in it, but failed to get language about a timetable for troop withdrawal included. If Americans dislike this outcome, they will have to elect more senators (especially senators) and congressional representatives who want out of Iraq, of both parties, this fall. The gesture of November 2006 just was not strong enough, given the consensual rules of the Senate (where you really need 60 to accomplish anything) and the Hawks' continued control of the White House. Oh, that is another thing they could change in November, if they don't like throwing good money after bad.
Iraqi troops undertook a wave of arrests in Amarah on Friday, putting behind bars the mayor of the city, several members of the provincial council of Maysan, and 20 policemen, among dozens of others the government said were implicated in militia-led gangsterism in the city. Sadrists protested that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was attempting to weaken their part ahead of provincial elections. Maysan is the only province in Iraq run by the Sadr Movement, and al-Maliki's main backer, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, would like to take it in the next election.
Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that a compromise has been reached on the provincial elections law in parliament, which should be voted on shortly. Kirkuk will not be included in the provinces voting, until after a referendum is held there on whether it should accede to the Kurdistan Regional Government. The KRG provinces, which have now been melded into a single confederacy, also will not vote in the fall. The Sadr Movement opposes this plan, insisting that Kirkuk take part. It also opposes a quota whereby 25% of seats on the provincial assemblies go to women. The United Iraqi Alliance and the Iraqi List insist on the quota for women. The Sadrists say they fear that the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq is attempting to delay provincial elections until early 2010 and have them coincide with the next parliamentary elections at the federal level. ISCI controls most of the Shiite provinces and the Sadrists say it is afraid it will lose them because it has not performed well.
Al3marh.net reports that al-Nasiri criticized what he called secret provisions of the proposed SOFA. He said that it called for American military bases to remain in Iraq. He said that no self-respecting Iraqi would stand for such a notion.
Moreover, immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts was being extended from US troops even to big US corporations. which he condemned as an affront to Iraqi sovereignty.
He also found unacceptable any plan for the US to retain the ability to arrest Iraqis at will.
Al-Karbala'i said that the Shiite religious leadership would endorse no party list or individual candidate in the upcoming provincial elections, but rather would remain equidistant from all.
He also said that any Status of Forces Agreement between Iraq and the US must meet the following conditions:
It must preserve the political, economic, security and cultural interests of the Iraqi people
It must not sacrifice any Iraqi sovereignty in any of those fields
It must not allow Iraq to be used as a springboard for an attack on a third country.
It must be submitted for approval to parliament, which was elected by the people.
A roadside bomb targeted an Iraqi army patrol in al-Ghabat area Friday afternoon wounding eleven servicemen.
A parked car bomb targeted a police patrol in al-Wahda neighbourhood, downtown Mosul, wounding six policemen. . .
One unidentified body was found in Baghdad by Iraqi Police in Shaab.
A parked car exploded in Kindi Street, Harthiyah, central Baghdad at 9 p.m. Friday killing three civilians, injuring seven.
Diyala
Gunmen blew up two houses in Ashti neighbourhood, al-Saadiyah district , to the northeast of Baquba Thursday evening. Both houses were empty when they were blown up by remote control, but a civilian passer by was in the vicinity and was injured by the blast. '
";}i:2;a:8:{s:4:"guid";s:57:"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3463907.post-431775506009861155";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:33:00 +0000";s:4:"atom";a:1:{s:7:"updated";s:29:"2008-06-20T08:50:01.384+02:00";}s:5:"title";s:45:"Ahmadinejad: 'I was Almost Kidnapped by Bush'";s:11:"description";s:2543:"
The USG Open Source Center translates an article in Tabnak saying that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is alleging that the US had planned to abduct him when he visited Baghdad in March, but that the plan was foiled. Ahmadinejad is also said to have alleged that Bush sought to attack Iran twice recently, but was forestalled by the opposition of his own officer corps.
Iran's President Discloses US 'Calculated Plan' For His Abduction in Iraq Tabnak Online Thursday, June 19, 2008 Document Type: OSC Translated Text
A Tabnak correspondent has reported: During a meeting today with members of the Qom Theological Lecturers Association, our country's president has disclosed that a US plan to abduct him in Iraq and transfer him to the US has failed.
According to one of the lecturers present at the meeting, Dr Ahmadinezhad added: Simultaneous with my visit to Iraq, the Americans intended to carry out a calculated plan to abduct me and transfer me to the US so that they could use the issue of terrorism as an excuse to blackmail the Islamic Republic.
The president continued: Despite this, praise be to God, the changes which were made to my travel schedule spoilt their plan. They were taken by surprise and realized what had happened when I was flying back to Iran. This was whilst we didn't even visit the Green Zone, which is Baghdad's safest area. The interesting point is that Bush, the US president, hasn't even stayed overnight in Iraq.
Elsewhere, the president said: Twice, Bush made a serious decision to attack Iran this year and last year. However, this country failed to take such action due to opposition from its military commanders.
The president said that attacking Iran had become Bush's obsession, and added: He even proposed to his advisors that they attack one or two Iranian cities. However, after the advisors disagreed, he called for Iran's sound barrier to be broken. But, every time Bush's advisors and military commanders stressed that any attack on Iran would create a hell which would be against US interests.
He stressed: God willing, US officials will take this wish to the grave with them.
(Description of Source: Tehran Tabnak Online in Persian -- is a conservative Persian website replacing the banned Baztab. It is believed to be associated with the former IRGC commander and the Expediency Discernment Council Secretary Major General Mohsen Reza'i. URL: http://www.tabnak.ir)";s:4:"link";s:74:"http://www.juancole.com/2008/06/ahmadinejad-i-was-almost-kidnapped-by.html";s:6:"author";s:31:"noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole)";s:7:"summary";s:2543:"
The USG Open Source Center translates an article in Tabnak saying that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is alleging that the US had planned to abduct him when he visited Baghdad in March, but that the plan was foiled. Ahmadinejad is also said to have alleged that Bush sought to attack Iran twice recently, but was forestalled by the opposition of his own officer corps.
Iran's President Discloses US 'Calculated Plan' For His Abduction in Iraq Tabnak Online Thursday, June 19, 2008 Document Type: OSC Translated Text
A Tabnak correspondent has reported: During a meeting today with members of the Qom Theological Lecturers Association, our country's president has disclosed that a US plan to abduct him in Iraq and transfer him to the US has failed.
According to one of the lecturers present at the meeting, Dr Ahmadinezhad added: Simultaneous with my visit to Iraq, the Americans intended to carry out a calculated plan to abduct me and transfer me to the US so that they could use the issue of terrorism as an excuse to blackmail the Islamic Republic.
The president continued: Despite this, praise be to God, the changes which were made to my travel schedule spoilt their plan. They were taken by surprise and realized what had happened when I was flying back to Iran. This was whilst we didn't even visit the Green Zone, which is Baghdad's safest area. The interesting point is that Bush, the US president, hasn't even stayed overnight in Iraq.
Elsewhere, the president said: Twice, Bush made a serious decision to attack Iran this year and last year. However, this country failed to take such action due to opposition from its military commanders.
The president said that attacking Iran had become Bush's obsession, and added: He even proposed to his advisors that they attack one or two Iranian cities. However, after the advisors disagreed, he called for Iran's sound barrier to be broken. But, every time Bush's advisors and military commanders stressed that any attack on Iran would create a hell which would be against US interests.
He stressed: God willing, US officials will take this wish to the grave with them.
(Description of Source: Tehran Tabnak Online in Persian -- is a conservative Persian website replacing the banned Baztab. It is believed to be associated with the former IRGC commander and the Expediency Discernment Council Secretary Major General Mohsen Reza'i. URL: http://www.tabnak.ir)";}i:3;a:9:{s:4:"guid";s:58:"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3463907.post-5766755590934961817";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:15:00 +0000";s:4:"atom";a:1:{s:7:"updated";s:29:"2008-06-20T10:40:56.545+02:00";}s:8:"category";s:4:"Iraq";s:5:"title";s:69:"They're Baaack; It is Politically Inconvenient to Acknowledge . . .";s:11:"description";s:11584:"
' But the deals, known as service contracts, are unusual, said Greg Mutitt, co-director of Platform, an oil industry research group. "Normally such service contracts are carried out by specialist companies ... The majors are not normally interested in such deals, preferring to invest in projects that give them a stake in ownership of extracted oil and the potential for large profits. The explanation is that they see them as a stepping stone..."
He said the companies' lawyers had been insisting "on extension rights under which each company would get first preference on any future contract for the field on which it has worked".'
Bush and Cheney clearly went into Iraq primarily in order to put US petroleum firms in precisely this favored position. The US power elite wanted this outcome and connived actively at it. As Alan Greenspan put it, “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.”
Poor Iraq has been looted, occupied, and disrupted by the industrialized West for a century because of the curse of its oil wealth. The Iraqi Petroleum Company was until 1929 the Turkish Petroleum Company since it began in 1912 with a concession from the Ottoman Empire, which ruled Iraq before the 1917 British conquest. The victors of World War I used their victory to leverage themselves into Iraqi oil. The Ottomans had thrown in with Germany and Austria in 1914, and were defeated by the victorious allies. Iraq was considered a successor state to the Ottomans in its territory and so shared in the ignominy and disadvantage of defeat. A German company was one of the original concessionaries, but the French usurped its shares as a spoil of war; that was how the Compagnie Francaise des Petroles, now Total, got into Iraq. And, as one of the victors in the war, the US pressed claims to enter the concession, with its oil majors eventually being awarded a quarter of the shares.
The San Remo conference of 1920 deeply disappointed Iraqis by awarding the country to Britain as a League of Nations Mandate, or colony with term limits. The Iraqis had wanted immediate independence, and launched a months-long revolution against the British that summer. San Remo did set aside a 20 percent share in the oil concession for Iraqis, but the Western petroleum companies refused to allow implementation of that provision, locking Iraqis out of any possession of their own petroleum. They did offer to pay the Iraqi government a small royalty based on their profits, but said that would not kick in for 20 years! The Iraqi Petroleum Company was notorious for not training Iraqis to fill management positions, implementing a typical colonial business model.
In 1958 the British-installed monarchy was overthrown in Baghdad by an officers' coup that was accompanied by popular revolt. Gen. Abd al-Karim Qasim [Kassim] in 1961 issued Law 80, revoking the Iraqi Petroleum Company's claims on undeveloped fields in the rest of Iraq, beyond the ones they already had developed. He set March, 1963, as the date on which the decree would be implemented.
In February, 1963, he was overthrown by the Baath Party. It is rumored that the US was complicit with that coup, and some Baathists who made it said so. The US also certainly did have foreknowledge of it.
If Washington thought the Baath would revoke Law 80, however, they were disappointed. The Baath did cooperate in destroying the Iraqi Communist Party, but it kept Qasim's oil law. The Iraq Petroleum Company retaliated by keeping Iraq's production relatively low and so starving the government of oil rents, and by not giving Baghdad as favorable terms as some other OPEC countries. After 8 months, the Baath was overthrown by another clique of officers, who ruled until 1968. The nationalist officers in Iraq were outraged by US and Dutch support of Israel in the 1967 war, and joined an oil boycott of the West that began that June. The nationalist Iraqi regime also put pressure on other Gulf oil countries to take control of their resources away from American firms that were essentially allied with Israel via their government in Washington. The later round of oil nationalizations were in some ways Arab revenge for the humiliating defeat in 1967.
In 1968 the Baath returned to power in a second coup, and in 1971 President Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr nationalized the IPC. Below is an initial CIA analysis of the 1972 nationalization of Iraqi petroleum. I am omitting the Agency's incorrect prediction that Iraq would find it difficult to market its nationalized petroleum. The CIA could not have foreseen the 1973 Arab oil boycott or the quadrupling of oil prices in the rest of the 1970s.
"CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY Directorate of Intelligence June 1972
INTELLIGENCE MEMORANDUM
SOME IMPLICATIONS OF IRAQ'S OIL NATIONALIZATION
Introduction
1. In a sudden and dramatic move on 1 June 1972, the Iraqi government nationalized all the assets of the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), a consortium of US, British, Dutch, and French oil firms operating in northern Iraq. The nationalization culminates 11 years of smoldering disputes between the members of the oil consortium and the Iraqi government. The same group of oil firms also controls the only two other non-government oil-producing companies in Iraq – the Mosul Petroleum Company (MPC) and the Basrah Petroleum Company (BPC). These companies, which have less production than the IPC, have not been affected by the nationalization decree. In concert with the Iraqi move, the Syrian government seized the Syrian portion of the IPC pipeline through which the oil produced in northern Iraq is transported to ports on the eastern Mediterranean. This memorandum describes the events leading up to the nationalization and analyzes Iraq's ability to maintain output and sales of the newly acquired oil. In addition, the possible repercussions on the Iraqi economy and the world oil market resulting from the action are discussed . . .
Discussion
Background
2. The source of the present conflict between Iraq and IPC is rooted in "Law 80" promulgated in 1961 [by Abd al-Karim Qasim (Kassim)]. From 1925 until 1961, IPC held concessions in Iraq covering virtually the entire country. This law withdrew from IPC all concession acreage not then being worked by IPC companies – an area amounting to more than 99% of the total. The canceled concessions included the potentially prolific North Rumaila oilfield that IPC had discovered and partly developed, but from which production had not yet begun. The companies refused to acknowledge the validity of the law, and for more than a decade the dispute simmered. Intermittent government-company discussions failed to resolve the issue. In retaliation, IPC refused to grant Iraq the same financial benefits that other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)* were able to obtain in the mid-1960s, such as expensing royalties. This action has led to an Iraqi claim for back payments of nearly $400 million. Negotiations on the back payments claims and the North Rumaila issue took place again in January and February 1972 but ended in deadlock primarily because of IPC's adamant stand on compensation for the loss of the North Rumaila oilfield. . .
3. Tensions between IPC and the government were accentuated when oil production from the northern oilfields dropped sharply during March, April, and early May 1972. The Iraqis regarded this cutback as a further attempt to apply retaliatory pressure against the government following the breakdown of negotiations in February. By mid-May as the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) saw the serious downturn in government oil receipts, which are vitally needed for political as well as economic reasons, IPC was threatened with confiscatory legislation if the company did not increase production from the northern oilfields, agree on a long-term production program, and make a "positive offer" on the other outstanding issues. On 31 May, IPC agreed to increase production from the northern oilfields and to set up a long-range production program but continued to demand compensation for the loss of North Rumaila. By then the RCC had already decided on the need for a dramatic political move, and Oil Minister Hamadi rejected the proposal out-of-hand, insisting that Iraq would never pay compensation for the North Rumaila field. The nationalization law was adopted the next day.
4. IPC has six shareholders: British Petroleum (BP), Shell Petroleum, and Compagnie Francaise des Petroles (CFP) [Total], each with 23.75%; the two American oil companies, Mobil and Standard Oil (New Jersey)[now Exxon], are equal partners in the Near East Development Corporation and jointly own another 23.75%; and the C.S. Gulbenkian Estate owns the remaining 5%. The company's production comes mainly from the Kirkuk oilfield in northern Iraq and is exported via pipeline across Syria to the eastern Mediterranean ports of Banias in Syria and Tripoli in Lebanon.
Prospects for Iraq's Producing and Marketing the Oil
5. Although production has apparently now been stopped on orders from Baghdad, output could begin on short notice. Maintaining output from the nationalized facilities and transporting the oil from the Kirkuk field to the Mediterranean ports should pose no insurmountable problems for the Iraqis. The operation of the northern fields is already almost entirely in the hands of Iraqi nationals who are expected to remain under the new ownership. The Syrians similarly should encounter little difficulty operating the IPC pipeline.
6. Production is not the problem, however. The most serious problem facing the Iraqis is finding buyers. The companies comprising IPC control a large share of the world oil market. It is unlikely that they would agree to market the nationalized oil without an Iraqi commitment for prompt and adequate compensation. . . "
Well, the compensation hasn't been prompt. It is now likely to be adequate.";s:4:"link";s:68:"http://www.juancole.com/2008/06/theyre-baaack-it-is-politically.html";s:6:"author";s:31:"noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole)";s:7:"summary";s:11584:"
' But the deals, known as service contracts, are unusual, said Greg Mutitt, co-director of Platform, an oil industry research group. "Normally such service contracts are carried out by specialist companies ... The majors are not normally interested in such deals, preferring to invest in projects that give them a stake in ownership of extracted oil and the potential for large profits. The explanation is that they see them as a stepping stone..."
He said the companies' lawyers had been insisting "on extension rights under which each company would get first preference on any future contract for the field on which it has worked".'
Bush and Cheney clearly went into Iraq primarily in order to put US petroleum firms in precisely this favored position. The US power elite wanted this outcome and connived actively at it. As Alan Greenspan put it, “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.”
Poor Iraq has been looted, occupied, and disrupted by the industrialized West for a century because of the curse of its oil wealth. The Iraqi Petroleum Company was until 1929 the Turkish Petroleum Company since it began in 1912 with a concession from the Ottoman Empire, which ruled Iraq before the 1917 British conquest. The victors of World War I used their victory to leverage themselves into Iraqi oil. The Ottomans had thrown in with Germany and Austria in 1914, and were defeated by the victorious allies. Iraq was considered a successor state to the Ottomans in its territory and so shared in the ignominy and disadvantage of defeat. A German company was one of the original concessionaries, but the French usurped its shares as a spoil of war; that was how the Compagnie Francaise des Petroles, now Total, got into Iraq. And, as one of the victors in the war, the US pressed claims to enter the concession, with its oil majors eventually being awarded a quarter of the shares.
The San Remo conference of 1920 deeply disappointed Iraqis by awarding the country to Britain as a League of Nations Mandate, or colony with term limits. The Iraqis had wanted immediate independence, and launched a months-long revolution against the British that summer. San Remo did set aside a 20 percent share in the oil concession for Iraqis, but the Western petroleum companies refused to allow implementation of that provision, locking Iraqis out of any possession of their own petroleum. They did offer to pay the Iraqi government a small royalty based on their profits, but said that would not kick in for 20 years! The Iraqi Petroleum Company was notorious for not training Iraqis to fill management positions, implementing a typical colonial business model.
In 1958 the British-installed monarchy was overthrown in Baghdad by an officers' coup that was accompanied by popular revolt. Gen. Abd al-Karim Qasim [Kassim] in 1961 issued Law 80, revoking the Iraqi Petroleum Company's claims on undeveloped fields in the rest of Iraq, beyond the ones they already had developed. He set March, 1963, as the date on which the decree would be implemented.
In February, 1963, he was overthrown by the Baath Party. It is rumored that the US was complicit with that coup, and some Baathists who made it said so. The US also certainly did have foreknowledge of it.
If Washington thought the Baath would revoke Law 80, however, they were disappointed. The Baath did cooperate in destroying the Iraqi Communist Party, but it kept Qasim's oil law. The Iraq Petroleum Company retaliated by keeping Iraq's production relatively low and so starving the government of oil rents, and by not giving Baghdad as favorable terms as some other OPEC countries. After 8 months, the Baath was overthrown by another clique of officers, who ruled until 1968. The nationalist officers in Iraq were outraged by US and Dutch support of Israel in the 1967 war, and joined an oil boycott of the West that began that June. The nationalist Iraqi regime also put pressure on other Gulf oil countries to take control of their resources away from American firms that were essentially allied with Israel via their government in Washington. The later round of oil nationalizations were in some ways Arab revenge for the humiliating defeat in 1967.
In 1968 the Baath returned to power in a second coup, and in 1971 President Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr nationalized the IPC. Below is an initial CIA analysis of the 1972 nationalization of Iraqi petroleum. I am omitting the Agency's incorrect prediction that Iraq would find it difficult to market its nationalized petroleum. The CIA could not have foreseen the 1973 Arab oil boycott or the quadrupling of oil prices in the rest of the 1970s.
"CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY Directorate of Intelligence June 1972
INTELLIGENCE MEMORANDUM
SOME IMPLICATIONS OF IRAQ'S OIL NATIONALIZATION
Introduction
1. In a sudden and dramatic move on 1 June 1972, the Iraqi government nationalized all the assets of the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), a consortium of US, British, Dutch, and French oil firms operating in northern Iraq. The nationalization culminates 11 years of smoldering disputes between the members of the oil consortium and the Iraqi government. The same group of oil firms also controls the only two other non-government oil-producing companies in Iraq – the Mosul Petroleum Company (MPC) and the Basrah Petroleum Company (BPC). These companies, which have less production than the IPC, have not been affected by the nationalization decree. In concert with the Iraqi move, the Syrian government seized the Syrian portion of the IPC pipeline through which the oil produced in northern Iraq is transported to ports on the eastern Mediterranean. This memorandum describes the events leading up to the nationalization and analyzes Iraq's ability to maintain output and sales of the newly acquired oil. In addition, the possible repercussions on the Iraqi economy and the world oil market resulting from the action are discussed . . .
Discussion
Background
2. The source of the present conflict between Iraq and IPC is rooted in "Law 80" promulgated in 1961 [by Abd al-Karim Qasim (Kassim)]. From 1925 until 1961, IPC held concessions in Iraq covering virtually the entire country. This law withdrew from IPC all concession acreage not then being worked by IPC companies – an area amounting to more than 99% of the total. The canceled concessions included the potentially prolific North Rumaila oilfield that IPC had discovered and partly developed, but from which production had not yet begun. The companies refused to acknowledge the validity of the law, and for more than a decade the dispute simmered. Intermittent government-company discussions failed to resolve the issue. In retaliation, IPC refused to grant Iraq the same financial benefits that other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)* were able to obtain in the mid-1960s, such as expensing royalties. This action has led to an Iraqi claim for back payments of nearly $400 million. Negotiations on the back payments claims and the North Rumaila issue took place again in January and February 1972 but ended in deadlock primarily because of IPC's adamant stand on compensation for the loss of the North Rumaila oilfield. . .
3. Tensions between IPC and the government were accentuated when oil production from the northern oilfields dropped sharply during March, April, and early May 1972. The Iraqis regarded this cutback as a further attempt to apply retaliatory pressure against the government following the breakdown of negotiations in February. By mid-May as the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) saw the serious downturn in government oil receipts, which are vitally needed for political as well as economic reasons, IPC was threatened with confiscatory legislation if the company did not increase production from the northern oilfields, agree on a long-term production program, and make a "positive offer" on the other outstanding issues. On 31 May, IPC agreed to increase production from the northern oilfields and to set up a long-range production program but continued to demand compensation for the loss of North Rumaila. By then the RCC had already decided on the need for a dramatic political move, and Oil Minister Hamadi rejected the proposal out-of-hand, insisting that Iraq would never pay compensation for the North Rumaila field. The nationalization law was adopted the next day.
4. IPC has six shareholders: British Petroleum (BP), Shell Petroleum, and Compagnie Francaise des Petroles (CFP) [Total], each with 23.75%; the two American oil companies, Mobil and Standard Oil (New Jersey)[now Exxon], are equal partners in the Near East Development Corporation and jointly own another 23.75%; and the C.S. Gulbenkian Estate owns the remaining 5%. The company's production comes mainly from the Kirkuk oilfield in northern Iraq and is exported via pipeline across Syria to the eastern Mediterranean ports of Banias in Syria and Tripoli in Lebanon.
Prospects for Iraq's Producing and Marketing the Oil
5. Although production has apparently now been stopped on orders from Baghdad, output could begin on short notice. Maintaining output from the nationalized facilities and transporting the oil from the Kirkuk field to the Mediterranean ports should pose no insurmountable problems for the Iraqis. The operation of the northern fields is already almost entirely in the hands of Iraqi nationals who are expected to remain under the new ownership. The Syrians similarly should encounter little difficulty operating the IPC pipeline.
6. Production is not the problem, however. The most serious problem facing the Iraqis is finding buyers. The companies comprising IPC control a large share of the world oil market. It is unlikely that they would agree to market the nationalized oil without an Iraqi commitment for prompt and adequate compensation. . . "
Well, the compensation hasn't been prompt. It is now likely to be adequate.";}i:4;a:8:{s:4:"guid";s:58:"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3463907.post-8369220787570464399";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:01:00 +0000";s:4:"atom";a:1:{s:7:"updated";s:29:"2008-06-20T08:41:06.928+02:00";}s:5:"title";s:32:"Doggett Introduces Climate Bill";s:11:"description";s:15091:"Climate MATTERS Cap-and-Trade Legislation Introduced
Washington, DC – U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), announced today that he is introducing the Climate MATTERS Act (Climate Market Auction Trust and Trade Emissions Reduction System) to institute a strong cap-and-trade system designed to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. This is the first such bill to receive primary referral to the Ways and Means Committee, which is scheduling a hearing on it within a month. Its cosponsors from that Committee include Congressmen Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD).
“My bill to combat global warming gives a green light to green technology, which translates into green dollars and green jobs. America can run the new green energy economy or get run over by it. We can wait and pay dearly to import this technology from abroad, or we can lead with what will become major high tech exports of American products. Let’s encourage those high-wage green-collar jobs here at home. Instead of an energy policy, which consists of little more than holding hands with Saudi princes and doing nothing as gas prices soar, jobs go overseas, and our planet overheats, we can combat global warming in a way that is right for the environment, right for our economy, right for our health, and right for our national security.”
“The Climate MATTERS Act will align public policy in a way that propels American innovation, significantly enhances America’s competitiveness in the world, creates millions of new high-skilled, high-wage green collar jobs and dramatically cleans up our environment,” said Congressman Van Hollen.
“Global warming is this generation’s greatest challenge, and we need everyone at the table now to develop a comprehensive solution,” said Congressman Blumenauer. We face a carbon constrained economy, and ignoring this will cost consumers and the environment dearly. A cap and trade system will allow us to create and transfer value. This means that by cutting emissions, we can generate revenue to invest in renewable energy sources, create jobs and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. I can think of no better opportunity and no better time to start.”
Joining Reps. Doggett, Blumenauer and Van Hollen were representatives of the Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, the National Venture Capital Association, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Rep. Lloyd Doggett
Remarks on Introduction of Climate Matters Bill
June 17, 2008
We gather today in the hearing room for a committee that considers revenue, trade, and health legislation. The proposal, which we are announcing today addresses all three.
Certainly, global warming represents our greatest environmental challenge. With the increased competition for limited resources already underway around the world, with the potential displacement of millions of people from both flooding and desertification, I believe that global warming also represents our greatest long-term national security challenge. But with every challenge comes an opportunity, and I am convinced that this immense challenge can offer a significant economic opportunity for our country to take the global lead in developing renewable energy technology and the more efficient use of all energy.
Our country has been the world’s biggest greenhouse gas polluter, and my home state of Texas is the biggest greenhouse gas polluter in America. We have a responsibility to find a solution, and today we offer a new bill, the “Climate Matters Act.” This is the first climate change bill to have been introduced in Congress, which will receive primary referral here to the House Ways and Means Committee. We have been promised a hearing on it here in this room within a month. While perhaps true that climate change legislation cannot be approved this year, the only way to get it approved next year, is to keep pushing forward now on this urgent national priority.
The Climate Market Auction, Trust, and Trade Emissions Reduction System – you can see why we call it the “Climate MATTERS Act,” creates a market-based, cap-and-trade system to put strong yet achievable limits on greenhouse gas pollution. It creates a carbon marketplace in which allowances to emit greenhouse gases will be auctioned, bought, sold and traded. The goal is essentially to charge a fair market price for pollution that is currently being dumped into the atmosphere free of charge.
We applaud similar efforts by Senators Lieberman, Warner, and Boxer. Countless forces have sought to weaken and undermine their proposal. We believe that the science-based solution that we are all seeking is best advanced by strengthening the cap and trade system that they proposed, not by weakening it. Accordingly, we would both place limitations on more pollution and give away fewer allowances to pollute free-of-charge to existing polluters than was provided in their bill.
The first title of our bill concerning trade is also unique. We call for the presidential leadership, which we have lacked for eight years, to engage in immediate international negotiations to encourage all major countries to participate in a comparable cap-and-trade system. We include both “carrots” and “sticks,” consistent with World Trade Organization requirements, to encourage this global participation. US manufacturers should not be disadvantaged by foreign competitors, who continue to pollute. Our bill removes the incentive either to buy goods made from “dirty” manufacturing processes abroad or to move manufacturing offshore.
The auction we propose will raise substantial new revenue: revenue that the bill reinvests in clean energy technology, assistance to workers and consumers affected by the transition to a low-carbon economy, and some repair of the damage already inflicted by global warming. Unlike previous bills, Climate MATTERS would vest all responsibility for this auction and management of the funds that it generates to the Treasury Department and leave the Environmental Protection Agency to focus exclusively on the vital role that it was created to serve -- protecting the environment.
Another unique feature of our legislation is its creation of a “Healthy Families Fund.” Our two most pressing domestic priorities are resolving the health care crisis, which is entangling more and more American families, and the threat of global warming. This legislation offers significant help on both. The carbon auction will raise substantial revenues that can address the plight of 72 million uninsured or underinsured Americans. This fund can assist with financing access to affordable, quality care as part of our commitment to helping families transition to a new clean energy future. I appreciate the letter of support from Families USA for this important provision in our bill.
Another unique provision in our proposal expands on provisions in the Boxer substitute to Lieberman-Warner is the creation of a Transportation Alternatives Account. This is a provision developed by Congressman Blumenauer. I would ask him to expand on that and his experience as a key member of the Select Committee on Global Warming.
By creating a market for the sale of emissions allowances, we will be creating another market - a market for green technologies that reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. Existing polluters will seek out green technology to improve their bottom line, and reduce the amount of allowances they must purchase. One of our Caucus leaders, who truly understands that a green light to green technology translates into green dollars and green jobs is Chris Van Hollen.
Our other Committee original cosponsors include Reps. Rahm Emanuel, John Larson, Allyson Schwartz, John Lewis, Stephanie Tubbs Jones, Mike McNulty, Kendrick Meek, Mike Thompson, Jim McDermott, Pete Stark, Bill Pascrell, Joe Crowley and Shelley Berkley.
I will have a complete list of our other original cosponsors shortly.
America can run the new green energy economy or get run over by it. We can wait and pay dearly to import this technology from abroad, or we can lead with what will become major high tech exports of American products. Already financing some of the most innovative developments in renewable energy technology are members of the National Venture Capital Association, whose Executive Director Mark Heesen has provided encouragement in our endeavors.
Because an effective response to global warming is our most pressing environmental concern, a wide range of environmental groups have offered encouragement and advice on this legislation. You will find letters of support from—environmental groups, the health community, scientists, physicians, and faith leaders. I would particularly like to acknowledge—environmentalists present who are not speaking: Anna Aurilio with Environment America, and Sarah Wilhoite with Earth Justice. In addition, we will hear from representatives from Dave Hamilton, with the Sierra Club’s Global Warming Campaign, Colin Peppard with Friends of the Earth, Lexi Schultz with the Union of Concerned Scientists, Dr. Mike McCally with the Physicians for Social Responsibility, and Jim Marston with Environmental Defense Fund. In addition, Jim will introduce economist Dr. Matthias Ruth, the principal author of a study noting the low cost of an effective cap-and-trade program compared to doing little or nothing about the problem.
Instead of an energy policy, which consists of little more than holding hands with Saudi princes and doing nothing as gas prices rise, jobs go overseas, and our planet overheats, we can combat global warming in a way that is right for the environment, right for our economy, right for our health, and right for our national security.
The Climate MATTERS Act develops an innovative plan for the auction, revenue and trade aspects of a cap and trade system.
Strikes a Balance: The Climate MATTERS Act is environmentally strong, but realistic about its goals and methods to accomplish them.
* Domestic Auction o The Climate MATTERS Act emissions cap will reduce emissions 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.
o Beginning by auctioning 85% of all emissions allowances, this bill quickly moves to a 100% auction in 2020.
o While excluding agriculture, forestry and small businesses from the emissions cap, this bill also provides incentives for these sectors to reduce their emissions.
* Green Investment Plan for Auction Revenue o As the comprehensive auction system raises significant new revenue, this bill recognizes that this revenue is an important aspect of a comprehensive response to global warming. The Climate MATTERS Act devotes this revenue to addressing the social, economic and environmental aspects of adapting to a clean energy economy and offsetting the inevitable impacts of climate change.
o Consumer and Worker Assistance: * Consumer Assistance: Provides substantial assistance to American families in meeting their household needs and making energy efficient improvements.
* Part of the revenue is used to create the “Healthy Families Fund.” The reserve fund acknowledges that climate change and lack of access to affordable healthcare are two of the largest problems America confronts. This fund will assist households with the costs of obtaining and maintaining healthcare coverage as we transition to a new clean energy future.
* Affected Worker Assistance: Provides funding for adjustment assistance, employment services, income-maintenance, and needs-related payments for workers to ease the transition to a low carbon economy. Funds will also assist communities in attracting new employers, provide local government services.
* Worker Training: Supplements funding for green worker training, and provides funding for the advancement of environmental education to create an environmentally-literate workforce.
o Environmental Protections: * Provides funding to conserve natural resources, mitigate impacts and help wildlife and ecosystems survive global warming. Provides funding to help the developing countries begin to adapt to a changing climate.
* Provides funding to achieve real, verifiable, additional, permanent, and enforceable reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture and forestry sectors, as well as promoting forest restoration and deforestation reduction efforts internationally.
o Transition to a Clean Energy Economy: * Technological Development: Provides funding for the advancement of basic renewable energy technologies. * Energy Efficiency: Provides funding for energy efficiency and conservation, advancement in mass transit and provides funding to load serving entities to implement energy efficiency programs for their customers. In addition, the bill provides funding for heating and weatherization assistance programs.
* Early Action: Provides funding to operators of emitting facilities in recognition of early action to reduce greenhouse gases.
* International Technology and Adaptation: Provides funding to qualified developing countries to accelerate low carbon technologies and assist the most vulnerable developing countries cope with climate change impacts.
* International Cooperation o The Climate MATTERS Act also provides strong encouragement to other countries such as China and India to participate through a combination of carrots and sticks in a manner designed to be WTO compliant.
o The bill provides incentives to encourage early implementation of cap and trade agreements by allowing flexibility in setting emissions levels in a limited number of initial agreements.
o Carbon-intensive goods from countries lacking such emissions caps cannot enter the U.S. market without allowances purchased to cover their carbon footprint.
o In addition, the Climate MATTERS Act acknowledges the substantial benefits of tropical deforestation reductions by providing negotiators the ability to reward countries that significantly reduce deforestation, even if they are unable to implement a comprehensive emissions cap.
Fiscally Responsible: The Climate MATTERS Act devotes a portion of the auction proceeds to ensure the bill does not add to our national debt.";s:4:"link";s:68:"http://www.juancole.com/2008/06/doggett-introduces-climate-bill.html";s:6:"author";s:31:"noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole)";s:7:"summary";s:15091:"Climate MATTERS Cap-and-Trade Legislation Introduced
Washington, DC – U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), announced today that he is introducing the Climate MATTERS Act (Climate Market Auction Trust and Trade Emissions Reduction System) to institute a strong cap-and-trade system designed to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. This is the first such bill to receive primary referral to the Ways and Means Committee, which is scheduling a hearing on it within a month. Its cosponsors from that Committee include Congressmen Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD).
“My bill to combat global warming gives a green light to green technology, which translates into green dollars and green jobs. America can run the new green energy economy or get run over by it. We can wait and pay dearly to import this technology from abroad, or we can lead with what will become major high tech exports of American products. Let’s encourage those high-wage green-collar jobs here at home. Instead of an energy policy, which consists of little more than holding hands with Saudi princes and doing nothing as gas prices soar, jobs go overseas, and our planet overheats, we can combat global warming in a way that is right for the environment, right for our economy, right for our health, and right for our national security.”
“The Climate MATTERS Act will align public policy in a way that propels American innovation, significantly enhances America’s competitiveness in the world, creates millions of new high-skilled, high-wage green collar jobs and dramatically cleans up our environment,” said Congressman Van Hollen.
“Global warming is this generation’s greatest challenge, and we need everyone at the table now to develop a comprehensive solution,” said Congressman Blumenauer. We face a carbon constrained economy, and ignoring this will cost consumers and the environment dearly. A cap and trade system will allow us to create and transfer value. This means that by cutting emissions, we can generate revenue to invest in renewable energy sources, create jobs and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. I can think of no better opportunity and no better time to start.”
Joining Reps. Doggett, Blumenauer and Van Hollen were representatives of the Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, the National Venture Capital Association, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Rep. Lloyd Doggett
Remarks on Introduction of Climate Matters Bill
June 17, 2008
We gather today in the hearing room for a committee that considers revenue, trade, and health legislation. The proposal, which we are announcing today addresses all three.
Certainly, global warming represents our greatest environmental challenge. With the increased competition for limited resources already underway around the world, with the potential displacement of millions of people from both flooding and desertification, I believe that global warming also represents our greatest long-term national security challenge. But with every challenge comes an opportunity, and I am convinced that this immense challenge can offer a significant economic opportunity for our country to take the global lead in developing renewable energy technology and the more efficient use of all energy.
Our country has been the world’s biggest greenhouse gas polluter, and my home state of Texas is the biggest greenhouse gas polluter in America. We have a responsibility to find a solution, and today we offer a new bill, the “Climate Matters Act.” This is the first climate change bill to have been introduced in Congress, which will receive primary referral here to the House Ways and Means Committee. We have been promised a hearing on it here in this room within a month. While perhaps true that climate change legislation cannot be approved this year, the only way to get it approved next year, is to keep pushing forward now on this urgent national priority.
The Climate Market Auction, Trust, and Trade Emissions Reduction System – you can see why we call it the “Climate MATTERS Act,” creates a market-based, cap-and-trade system to put strong yet achievable limits on greenhouse gas pollution. It creates a carbon marketplace in which allowances to emit greenhouse gases will be auctioned, bought, sold and traded. The goal is essentially to charge a fair market price for pollution that is currently being dumped into the atmosphere free of charge.
We applaud similar efforts by Senators Lieberman, Warner, and Boxer. Countless forces have sought to weaken and undermine their proposal. We believe that the science-based solution that we are all seeking is best advanced by strengthening the cap and trade system that they proposed, not by weakening it. Accordingly, we would both place limitations on more pollution and give away fewer allowances to pollute free-of-charge to existing polluters than was provided in their bill.
The first title of our bill concerning trade is also unique. We call for the presidential leadership, which we have lacked for eight years, to engage in immediate international negotiations to encourage all major countries to participate in a comparable cap-and-trade system. We include both “carrots” and “sticks,” consistent with World Trade Organization requirements, to encourage this global participation. US manufacturers should not be disadvantaged by foreign competitors, who continue to pollute. Our bill removes the incentive either to buy goods made from “dirty” manufacturing processes abroad or to move manufacturing offshore.
The auction we propose will raise substantial new revenue: revenue that the bill reinvests in clean energy technology, assistance to workers and consumers affected by the transition to a low-carbon economy, and some repair of the damage already inflicted by global warming. Unlike previous bills, Climate MATTERS would vest all responsibility for this auction and management of the funds that it generates to the Treasury Department and leave the Environmental Protection Agency to focus exclusively on the vital role that it was created to serve -- protecting the environment.
Another unique feature of our legislation is its creation of a “Healthy Families Fund.” Our two most pressing domestic priorities are resolving the health care crisis, which is entangling more and more American families, and the threat of global warming. This legislation offers significant help on both. The carbon auction will raise substantial revenues that can address the plight of 72 million uninsured or underinsured Americans. This fund can assist with financing access to affordable, quality care as part of our commitment to helping families transition to a new clean energy future. I appreciate the letter of support from Families USA for this important provision in our bill.
Another unique provision in our proposal expands on provisions in the Boxer substitute to Lieberman-Warner is the creation of a Transportation Alternatives Account. This is a provision developed by Congressman Blumenauer. I would ask him to expand on that and his experience as a key member of the Select Committee on Global Warming.
By creating a market for the sale of emissions allowances, we will be creating another market - a market for green technologies that reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. Existing polluters will seek out green technology to improve their bottom line, and reduce the amount of allowances they must purchase. One of our Caucus leaders, who truly understands that a green light to green technology translates into green dollars and green jobs is Chris Van Hollen.
Our other Committee original cosponsors include Reps. Rahm Emanuel, John Larson, Allyson Schwartz, John Lewis, Stephanie Tubbs Jones, Mike McNulty, Kendrick Meek, Mike Thompson, Jim McDermott, Pete Stark, Bill Pascrell, Joe Crowley and Shelley Berkley.
I will have a complete list of our other original cosponsors shortly.
America can run the new green energy economy or get run over by it. We can wait and pay dearly to import this technology from abroad, or we can lead with what will become major high tech exports of American products. Already financing some of the most innovative developments in renewable energy technology are members of the National Venture Capital Association, whose Executive Director Mark Heesen has provided encouragement in our endeavors.
Because an effective response to global warming is our most pressing environmental concern, a wide range of environmental groups have offered encouragement and advice on this legislation. You will find letters of support from—environmental groups, the health community, scientists, physicians, and faith leaders. I would particularly like to acknowledge—environmentalists present who are not speaking: Anna Aurilio with Environment America, and Sarah Wilhoite with Earth Justice. In addition, we will hear from representatives from Dave Hamilton, with the Sierra Club’s Global Warming Campaign, Colin Peppard with Friends of the Earth, Lexi Schultz with the Union of Concerned Scientists, Dr. Mike McCally with the Physicians for Social Responsibility, and Jim Marston with Environmental Defense Fund. In addition, Jim will introduce economist Dr. Matthias Ruth, the principal author of a study noting the low cost of an effective cap-and-trade program compared to doing little or nothing about the problem.
Instead of an energy policy, which consists of little more than holding hands with Saudi princes and doing nothing as gas prices rise, jobs go overseas, and our planet overheats, we can combat global warming in a way that is right for the environment, right for our economy, right for our health, and right for our national security.
The Climate MATTERS Act develops an innovative plan for the auction, revenue and trade aspects of a cap and trade system.
Strikes a Balance: The Climate MATTERS Act is environmentally strong, but realistic about its goals and methods to accomplish them.
* Domestic Auction o The Climate MATTERS Act emissions cap will reduce emissions 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.
o Beginning by auctioning 85% of all emissions allowances, this bill quickly moves to a 100% auction in 2020.
o While excluding agriculture, forestry and small businesses from the emissions cap, this bill also provides incentives for these sectors to reduce their emissions.
* Green Investment Plan for Auction Revenue o As the comprehensive auction system raises significant new revenue, this bill recognizes that this revenue is an important aspect of a comprehensive response to global warming. The Climate MATTERS Act devotes this revenue to addressing the social, economic and environmental aspects of adapting to a clean energy economy and offsetting the inevitable impacts of climate change.
o Consumer and Worker Assistance: * Consumer Assistance: Provides substantial assistance to American families in meeting their household needs and making energy efficient improvements.
* Part of the revenue is used to create the “Healthy Families Fund.” The reserve fund acknowledges that climate change and lack of access to affordable healthcare are two of the largest problems America confronts. This fund will assist households with the costs of obtaining and maintaining healthcare coverage as we transition to a new clean energy future.
* Affected Worker Assistance: Provides funding for adjustment assistance, employment services, income-maintenance, and needs-related payments for workers to ease the transition to a low carbon economy. Funds will also assist communities in attracting new employers, provide local government services.
* Worker Training: Supplements funding for green worker training, and provides funding for the advancement of environmental education to create an environmentally-literate workforce.
o Environmental Protections: * Provides funding to conserve natural resources, mitigate impacts and help wildlife and ecosystems survive global warming. Provides funding to help the developing countries begin to adapt to a changing climate.
* Provides funding to achieve real, verifiable, additional, permanent, and enforceable reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture and forestry sectors, as well as promoting forest restoration and deforestation reduction efforts internationally.
o Transition to a Clean Energy Economy: * Technological Development: Provides funding for the advancement of basic renewable energy technologies. * Energy Efficiency: Provides funding for energy efficiency and conservation, advancement in mass transit and provides funding to load serving entities to implement energy efficiency programs for their customers. In addition, the bill provides funding for heating and weatherization assistance programs.
* Early Action: Provides funding to operators of emitting facilities in recognition of early action to reduce greenhouse gases.
* International Technology and Adaptation: Provides funding to qualified developing countries to accelerate low carbon technologies and assist the most vulnerable developing countries cope with climate change impacts.
* International Cooperation o The Climate MATTERS Act also provides strong encouragement to other countries such as China and India to participate through a combination of carrots and sticks in a manner designed to be WTO compliant.
o The bill provides incentives to encourage early implementation of cap and trade agreements by allowing flexibility in setting emissions levels in a limited number of initial agreements.
o Carbon-intensive goods from countries lacking such emissions caps cannot enter the U.S. market without allowances purchased to cover their carbon footprint.
o In addition, the Climate MATTERS Act acknowledges the substantial benefits of tropical deforestation reductions by providing negotiators the ability to reward countries that significantly reduce deforestation, even if they are unable to implement a comprehensive emissions cap.
Fiscally Responsible: The Climate MATTERS Act devotes a portion of the auction proceeds to ensure the bill does not add to our national debt.";}i:5;a:8:{s:4:"guid";s:58:"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3463907.post-5801271567299340799";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Wed, 18 Jun 2008 23:09:00 +0000";s:4:"atom";a:1:{s:7:"updated";s:29:"2008-06-19T10:19:41.558+02:00";}s:5:"title";s:25:"The Great Torture Scandal";s:11:"description";s:6828:"
McClatchy and other reporters are abruptly pulling the curtain away from the Bush team's illegal practices in arresting people arbitrarily, declining to offer proof that they were guilty of anything, detaining them indefinitely without trial or charges, and deliberately torturing them to the extent of leaving long-term scars and disabilities. The torture practices originated not with lower-level officers but with Donald Rumsfeld and others in Bush's inner circle, who then later blamed lower-level officials for developing the ideas that Rumsfeld ordered them to develop. Nothing they have done has survived a court challenge where one has been permitted.
Recent reports, taken together, provide a chilling glimpse of a vast torture operation, deliberately planned out by serial torturers in Bush's White House and possibly by the president himself. The program was designed to repeal the Geneva Conventions, which the US and Israel have long found inconvenient, even though they were legislated to prevent futher abuses such as those of the Nazis. AP interviews with former detainees show that they were systematically tortured and sometimes permanently injured.
The Underscretary of Defense for Planning, Douglas Feith abruptly pulled out of his testimony on Capitol Hill about torture techniques, apparently because he was afraid to testify in the same session as Lawrence Wilkerson, the former chief of staff of Colin Powell. Wilkerson was high enough to hear the real story on a lot of issues and could have shredded Feith's lies into confetti if they testified together.
"The framework under which detainees were imprisoned for years without charges at Guantanamo and in many cases abused in Afghanistan wasn't the product of American military policy or the fault of a few rogue soldiers. It was largely the work of five White House, Pentagon and Justice Department lawyers who, following the orders of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, reinterpreted or tossed out the U.S. and international laws that govern the treatment of prisoners in wartime, according to former U.S. defense and Bush administration officials."
A lot of Bush's detainees had no connection to international terrorism. Some had even fought the Taliban, been captured, and then were sold to the Americans by the Taliban, who had in the meantime changed turbans and begun pretending to be loyal to Karzai.
The tendency of the bureaucracy to experiment on human guinea pigs reached beyond the torture of detainees to mentally distressed Veterans. The Veterans Administration experimented on them with pharmaceuticals, without their knowledge. The VA neglected to tell them the drug they were being fed had serious side effects, including "anxiety, nervousness, tension, depression, thoughts of suicide, and attempted and completed suicide." Oh, yeah, that's what a person who has been through hell in Iraq and has post-traumatic stress really needs.
So all these revelations should be on cable news 24/7, right? Not so much.
As Gen. Taguba says, the fact of the extensive torture is not in doubt. The question is whether the Bushies will get away with it. It is looking as though they will. But there are going to be some European countries where Bush and his cronies would be ill advised to visit.";s:4:"link";s:58:"http://www.juancole.com/2008/06/great-torture-scandal.html";s:6:"author";s:31:"noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole)";s:7:"summary";s:6828:"
McClatchy and other reporters are abruptly pulling the curtain away from the Bush team's illegal practices in arresting people arbitrarily, declining to offer proof that they were guilty of anything, detaining them indefinitely without trial or charges, and deliberately torturing them to the extent of leaving long-term scars and disabilities. The torture practices originated not with lower-level officers but with Donald Rumsfeld and others in Bush's inner circle, who then later blamed lower-level officials for developing the ideas that Rumsfeld ordered them to develop. Nothing they have done has survived a court challenge where one has been permitted.
Recent reports, taken together, provide a chilling glimpse of a vast torture operation, deliberately planned out by serial torturers in Bush's White House and possibly by the president himself. The program was designed to repeal the Geneva Conventions, which the US and Israel have long found inconvenient, even though they were legislated to prevent futher abuses such as those of the Nazis. AP interviews with former detainees show that they were systematically tortured and sometimes permanently injured.
The Underscretary of Defense for Planning, Douglas Feith abruptly pulled out of his testimony on Capitol Hill about torture techniques, apparently because he was afraid to testify in the same session as Lawrence Wilkerson, the former chief of staff of Colin Powell. Wilkerson was high enough to hear the real story on a lot of issues and could have shredded Feith's lies into confetti if they testified together.
"The framework under which detainees were imprisoned for years without charges at Guantanamo and in many cases abused in Afghanistan wasn't the product of American military policy or the fault of a few rogue soldiers. It was largely the work of five White House, Pentagon and Justice Department lawyers who, following the orders of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, reinterpreted or tossed out the U.S. and international laws that govern the treatment of prisoners in wartime, according to former U.S. defense and Bush administration officials."
A lot of Bush's detainees had no connection to international terrorism. Some had even fought the Taliban, been captured, and then were sold to the Americans by the Taliban, who had in the meantime changed turbans and begun pretending to be loyal to Karzai.
The tendency of the bureaucracy to experiment on human guinea pigs reached beyond the torture of detainees to mentally distressed Veterans. The Veterans Administration experimented on them with pharmaceuticals, without their knowledge. The VA neglected to tell them the drug they were being fed had serious side effects, including "anxiety, nervousness, tension, depression, thoughts of suicide, and attempted and completed suicide." Oh, yeah, that's what a person who has been through hell in Iraq and has post-traumatic stress really needs.
So all these revelations should be on cable news 24/7, right? Not so much.
As Gen. Taguba says, the fact of the extensive torture is not in doubt. The question is whether the Bushies will get away with it. It is looking as though they will. But there are going to be some European countries where Bush and his cronies would be ill advised to visit.";}i:6;a:9:{s:4:"guid";s:58:"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3463907.post-7995297802972589528";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Wed, 18 Jun 2008 23:07:00 +0000";s:4:"atom";a:1:{s:7:"updated";s:29:"2008-06-19T09:08:00.078+02:00";}s:8:"category";s:4:"Iraq";s:5:"title";s:51:"Troops Move in To Amara; Awakening Mounts Party; ";s:11:"description";s:4762:"
Iraqi forces maintained that 60 militiamen surrendered ahead of the operation. The offices of the Sadr Movement in Amara were abandoned on Thursday morning and the outside walls pockmarked with bullet holes. That tells me that that push on Maysan Province was an attempt to weaken the Sadrists in the one province they presently control. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq needs Maysan if he is to achieve his goal of melding 8 southern Shiite provinces into a single super-province.
Al-Hayat says that nevertheless, Sadrist leaders hailed al-Maliki for keeping his pledge not to arbitrarily arrest large numbers of Sadrists in the province. Still, Al-Hayat says that provincial council members, clergymen and local notables made a concerted effort to monitor the influx of Iraqi troops to ensure that they did not commit excesses.
The Awakening Councils in Iraq's Sunni Arab provinces are attempting to become a political force in the upcoming provincial elections, writes Michael Gisick. They seem likely to give the fundamentalist Iraqi Islamic Party a run for its money, but the idea that they will emerge as a national trans-ethnic political party strikes me as fanciful.
Trudy Rubin suggests that, ironically, the reduction of political violence in Iraq in the past seven months has laid the groundwork for Iraqi politicians to play hardball with the US on the Status of Forces Agreement now being negotiated. She argues that the stronger a position the Iraqis can maintain in the negotiations, the more likely it is US troops will start coming home.
McClatchy reports political violence in Iraq on Wednesday. Although the attacks are wounding more persons than they are killing, the pattern of the bombings continues to suggest an active Sunni Arab insurgency that targets specific government and police officials in a quest to forestall the stabilization of the new order in Iraq.
' Baghdad
- The casualties of Tuesday’s car bomb in the northwest Baghdad neighborhood of Hurriyah increased from 51 people killed to 63 people killed, police and medical sources said.
- A roadside bomb targeted a car in the central Baghdad neighborhood of Karrada. Four people were wounded, including two officers who worked with the Ministry of Interior.
- Two dead bodies were found in Baghdad today: one was found in Al-Qanat Street in east Baghdad and one was found in Saidiyah in southwest Baghdad.
Mosul
- A car bomb targeted a convoy of Iraqi Army vehicles in the Rashidiyah suburb of Mosul. Four people were injured, including three soldiers and a woman.
- A car bomb detonated in Al-Karama neighborhood in Mosul. Eight people were injured in the blast, Iraqi police said. The U.S.-led coalition forces said that 14 people were injured in a statement.
Kirkuk
- On Wednesday morning a roadside bomb targeted a police patrol in downtown Kirkuk. Three policemen were injured.
- Around 10 a.m. a roadside bomb targeted a police patrol in Al-Wasiti neighborhood in downtown Kirkuk city. One policeman was killed and another was injured. '
Iraqi forces maintained that 60 militiamen surrendered ahead of the operation. The offices of the Sadr Movement in Amara were abandoned on Thursday morning and the outside walls pockmarked with bullet holes. That tells me that that push on Maysan Province was an attempt to weaken the Sadrists in the one province they presently control. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq needs Maysan if he is to achieve his goal of melding 8 southern Shiite provinces into a single super-province.
Al-Hayat says that nevertheless, Sadrist leaders hailed al-Maliki for keeping his pledge not to arbitrarily arrest large numbers of Sadrists in the province. Still, Al-Hayat says that provincial council members, clergymen and local notables made a concerted effort to monitor the influx of Iraqi troops to ensure that they did not commit excesses.
The Awakening Councils in Iraq's Sunni Arab provinces are attempting to become a political force in the upcoming provincial elections, writes Michael Gisick. They seem likely to give the fundamentalist Iraqi Islamic Party a run for its money, but the idea that they will emerge as a national trans-ethnic political party strikes me as fanciful.
Trudy Rubin suggests that, ironically, the reduction of political violence in Iraq in the past seven months has laid the groundwork for Iraqi politicians to play hardball with the US on the Status of Forces Agreement now being negotiated. She argues that the stronger a position the Iraqis can maintain in the negotiations, the more likely it is US troops will start coming home.
McClatchy reports political violence in Iraq on Wednesday. Although the attacks are wounding more persons than they are killing, the pattern of the bombings continues to suggest an active Sunni Arab insurgency that targets specific government and police officials in a quest to forestall the stabilization of the new order in Iraq.
' Baghdad
- The casualties of Tuesday’s car bomb in the northwest Baghdad neighborhood of Hurriyah increased from 51 people killed to 63 people killed, police and medical sources said.
- A roadside bomb targeted a car in the central Baghdad neighborhood of Karrada. Four people were wounded, including two officers who worked with the Ministry of Interior.
- Two dead bodies were found in Baghdad today: one was found in Al-Qanat Street in east Baghdad and one was found in Saidiyah in southwest Baghdad.
Mosul
- A car bomb targeted a convoy of Iraqi Army vehicles in the Rashidiyah suburb of Mosul. Four people were injured, including three soldiers and a woman.
- A car bomb detonated in Al-Karama neighborhood in Mosul. Eight people were injured in the blast, Iraqi police said. The U.S.-led coalition forces said that 14 people were injured in a statement.
Kirkuk
- On Wednesday morning a roadside bomb targeted a police patrol in downtown Kirkuk. Three policemen were injured.
- Around 10 a.m. a roadside bomb targeted a police patrol in Al-Wasiti neighborhood in downtown Kirkuk city. One policeman was killed and another was injured. '
";}i:7;a:8:{s:4:"guid";s:58:"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3463907.post-8711831203391639422";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:54:00 +0000";s:4:"atom";a:1:{s:7:"updated";s:29:"2008-06-19T08:32:54.260+02:00";}s:5:"title";s:22:"John McCain's Oil Scam";s:11:"description";s:6798:"
McCain is arguing for offshore drilling to lower US petroleum prices in the "short term."
The world uses on the order of 86 million barrels a day of petroleum. That figure is expected to veer sharply upward as China and India go in for automobiles and trucking in a big way.
If all the known offshore fields were drilled and panned out, the lower 48's oil production would be increased by 7%. That would be 300,000 barrels a day.
Millions of barrels of oil a day produced by US and by world, with McCain's proposed increase through offshore drilling.
You will note that the Saudis just offered to increase their production by 0.5 million barrels a day, and the oil futures market just yawned. And that is in the real world, right now, not in some decade or two-decades-out in the future drilling scheme.
Moreover, US consumption of petroleum is increasing over time, so the extra 300,000 barrels a day would quickly be used up and then some.
McCain is cynically wooing Big Oil in Texas in order to get campaign contributions, while lying to the American people about his offshore drilling plan having a quick impact on oil prices and their quality of life. Bringing the 300,000 barrels a day on line would make somebody a lot of money. It will do us no good with regard to energy prices, and in fact will harm our standard of living because drilling for the oil will endanger beaches and the environment more generally, and burning that extra oil will accelerate climate change.
An informed reader writes, "We can save more than 300,000 barrels a day by everyone in the US using just one sixth of a gallon less a day. The US did it in WW2, why not in the War on Oil?"
It isn't even a matter of just voluntarily using less. If the US depended more on trains and increased automobile and truck fuel efficiency, it could reduce its use of petroleum by millions of barrels a day, which would have a stupendous impact on oil prices compared to what could be achieved from offshore drilling. Rail is much more efficient at transporting goods than trucking. Trucking in the US receives very substantial hidden subsidies. Trucks tear up the highways in ways that passenger automobiles do not, so the hundreds of millions of dollars the government spends on road repair every year, which you pay for with your tax dollars, is effectively a vast subsidy to trucking companies. If that subsidy were cancelled, or given to the railroads, and trucking companies had to actually pay the cost in carbon production and road repair generated by their industry, the US would be light years closer to energy independence. It is Congress, which is bribed by campaign contributions from concrete and trucking concerns, that has set up this ridiculous system of hidden subsidies that harms us all. Moreover, Detroit's silly resistance to fuel efficient automobiles will bury the US car industry, as the world turns to vehicles produced by the Japanese or Europeans that are much cheaper to run. And Congress coddles them on all this.
"Redshift" notes below,
'To add to his new energy policy instanity, McCain is a longtime opponent of Amtrak. He's actually worse than Bush in this area. In the "differences" column of the recent NYT chart comparing Bush and McCain on policy, this is noted under "Federal spending":
"Mr. McCain has sought to emphasize his differences with Mr. Bush by portraying himself as a stronger opponent of pork-barrel projects and other wasteful spending. He says he would not sign any earmarked projects into law and would cut financing for ineffective programs, including Amtrak." '
(Since rail is also more efficient in moving passengers than automobiles, and since automobiles account for a significant proportion of US petroleum use, opposing subsidies for Amtrak while spending billions in public money to build and repair roads for autos is suicidal.)
But I have a sinking feeling that the Democrats will have no effective answer to McCain's cynical offshore drilling ploy. Developing a Green rhetoric that is convincing to the public is the most essential political task of our generation, and of tremendously more import than terrorism or war.";s:4:"link";s:58:"http://www.juancole.com/2008/06/john-mccains-oil-scam.html";s:6:"author";s:31:"noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole)";s:7:"summary";s:6798:"
McCain is arguing for offshore drilling to lower US petroleum prices in the "short term."
The world uses on the order of 86 million barrels a day of petroleum. That figure is expected to veer sharply upward as China and India go in for automobiles and trucking in a big way.
If all the known offshore fields were drilled and panned out, the lower 48's oil production would be increased by 7%. That would be 300,000 barrels a day.
Millions of barrels of oil a day produced by US and by world, with McCain's proposed increase through offshore drilling.
You will note that the Saudis just offered to increase their production by 0.5 million barrels a day, and the oil futures market just yawned. And that is in the real world, right now, not in some decade or two-decades-out in the future drilling scheme.
Moreover, US consumption of petroleum is increasing over time, so the extra 300,000 barrels a day would quickly be used up and then some.
McCain is cynically wooing Big Oil in Texas in order to get campaign contributions, while lying to the American people about his offshore drilling plan having a quick impact on oil prices and their quality of life. Bringing the 300,000 barrels a day on line would make somebody a lot of money. It will do us no good with regard to energy prices, and in fact will harm our standard of living because drilling for the oil will endanger beaches and the environment more generally, and burning that extra oil will accelerate climate change.
An informed reader writes, "We can save more than 300,000 barrels a day by everyone in the US using just one sixth of a gallon less a day. The US did it in WW2, why not in the War on Oil?"
It isn't even a matter of just voluntarily using less. If the US depended more on trains and increased automobile and truck fuel efficiency, it could reduce its use of petroleum by millions of barrels a day, which would have a stupendous impact on oil prices compared to what could be achieved from offshore drilling. Rail is much more efficient at transporting goods than trucking. Trucking in the US receives very substantial hidden subsidies. Trucks tear up the highways in ways that passenger automobiles do not, so the hundreds of millions of dollars the government spends on road repair every year, which you pay for with your tax dollars, is effectively a vast subsidy to trucking companies. If that subsidy were cancelled, or given to the railroads, and trucking companies had to actually pay the cost in carbon production and road repair generated by their industry, the US would be light years closer to energy independence. It is Congress, which is bribed by campaign contributions from concrete and trucking concerns, that has set up this ridiculous system of hidden subsidies that harms us all. Moreover, Detroit's silly resistance to fuel efficient automobiles will bury the US car industry, as the world turns to vehicles produced by the Japanese or Europeans that are much cheaper to run. And Congress coddles them on all this.
"Redshift" notes below,
'To add to his new energy policy instanity, McCain is a longtime opponent of Amtrak. He's actually worse than Bush in this area. In the "differences" column of the recent NYT chart comparing Bush and McCain on policy, this is noted under "Federal spending":
"Mr. McCain has sought to emphasize his differences with Mr. Bush by portraying himself as a stronger opponent of pork-barrel projects and other wasteful spending. He says he would not sign any earmarked projects into law and would cut financing for ineffective programs, including Amtrak." '
(Since rail is also more efficient in moving passengers than automobiles, and since automobiles account for a significant proportion of US petroleum use, opposing subsidies for Amtrak while spending billions in public money to build and repair roads for autos is suicidal.)
But I have a sinking feeling that the Democrats will have no effective answer to McCain's cynical offshore drilling ploy. Developing a Green rhetoric that is convincing to the public is the most essential political task of our generation, and of tremendously more import than terrorism or war.";}i:8;a:9:{s:4:"guid";s:58:"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3463907.post-1252553452606471838";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:00:00 +0000";s:4:"atom";a:1:{s:7:"updated";s:29:"2008-06-18T20:20:58.797+02:00";}s:8:"category";s:4:"Iraq";s:5:"title";s:116:"Massive Bomb Burns Market, Kills, Wounds 126; US Soldier Killed Near Hilla; Debaathification Law Never Implemented";s:11:"description";s:9077:"
McClatchy says that US military sources suspect a rogue Shiite group of being responsible for the bombing, speculating that the blast may have gone off prematurely and that it had been intended for use against US troops. The evidence given-- a secret Shiite claim of responsibility and the type of explosive-- doesn't seem to me conclusive, and I don't actually think one can rule out Sunni Salafi Jihadis as the perpetrators. I fear that the Pentagon has lied so much in the past, attributing everything bad in Iraq to "al-Qaeda", that their current campaign to blame everything on Shiite extremists linked to Iran seems suspect.
In fact, Hurriya where the bomb went off used to be a mixed neighborhood that is now largely Shiite, and a Sunni revenge bombing in reprisal for the ethnic cleansing that drove Sunnis out seems to me a plausible motive.
McClatchy also reports on efforts in the Iraqi parliament to curb the activities of the Mojahedeen-e Khalq (MEK or Holy Warriors for the People), which has 4,000 fighters at Camp Ashraf in Diyala Province. Iran considers the MEK a terrorist organization.
Al-Zaman refers to the Shiite deputies who pressed for the action against the MEK as Iraq's "Iran Lobby."
It is rumored that the US Pentagon deploys the MEK to spy on and conduct covert operations against Iran, despite the State Department's having designated it a terrorist organization. Shiite and Kurdish MPs in Parliament have now banned dealings with it and demand that Iraqi troops be permitted to guard the camp entrances.
The law revising treatment of former Baathists, which Bush and McCain had hailed as meeting a "benchmark" for political progress in Iraq, has never been implemented. The law is so ambiguous that how it is put into effect would determine if it could actually reduce the resentments of Sunni ex-Baathists. It was denounced when it was passed this winter by ex-Baathists such as Iyad Allawi and Salih Mutlak in the Iraqi parliament, which I thought a bad sign.
Although this important Reuters story is itself a refutation of the whole Kagan-Bush-McCain victory narrative of the "surge" or troop escalation, it will not even be mentioned on American television. The troop escalation had been intended to lead to political reconciliation, not just to temporarily tamp down violence in some neighborhoods. In fact, it led to a massive ethnic cleansing of Baghdad's Sunnis. There is no evidence that most of the Sunni Awakening Councils, who take money from the US to fight the Salafi Jihadis, are eager to reconcile with al-Maliki's government, by the way.
Patrick Cockburn reports that the US side has backed down on the issue of extraterritoriality for American security contractors in Iraq. Initially Washington, in its negotiations with the al-Maliki government for a Status of Forces Agreement, had demanded that private security guards such as those of Blackwater be immune from prosecution in Iraqi courts. This demand was unacceptable to the Iraqi side and almost led to a complete breakdown of the negotiations, but Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari (from the Kurdistan Alliance) insists that the talks are ongoing and will succeed. Of all Iraqis, the Kurds most want the SOFA; it is viewed with suspicion by most Arab Iraqis. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has insisted that the text be voted on by parliament, and al-Maliki has acquiesced. Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr says that it must be subject to a national referendum, for which there appear in fact to be no plans; the US is said to vehemently reject this idea.
A controversy is raging in the Arabic press over whether the 4 Grand Ayatollahs in Najaf will present their own electoral lists in the provincial elections scheduled for this fall. Three of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani's deputies, in Basra, Karbala and Kut, ran on the United Iraqi Alliance list in January, 2005, apparently because the resulting interim parliament was charged with drafting the Iraqi constitution and Sistani wanted his own men there. The three did not run again in December, 2005. One of them, Ali Safi of Basra, is now apparently saying that an "Ayatollahs' list" may run in the provincial elections. This allegation has been denied by Sistani's own office. If such lists were fielded, they would be serious competition for the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which has run as part of the United Iraqi Alliance and used Sistani's picture and endorsement to enhance its appeal to voters. Many Iraqis are disappointed with ISCI's performance in office, especially with regard to the provision of services.
Half the world's growing refugee population is displaced from Afghanistan and Iraq. There are an estimated 2 million displaced Iraqis abroad, primarily in Jordan and Syria, with about 50,000 each in Lebanon and Egypt. There are an additional 2 million internally displaced. The Iraqis abroad for the most part decline to come back and UNHCR polling among them suggests they don't intend to any time soon. This datum suggests that they don't believe Iraq is stable enough to permit their return. If the hundreds of thousands of Sunnis displaced from Baghdad in the past 18 months did come back from Syria en masse, I suspect it would revive the civil war in the capital, because the Mahdi Army now occupies their homes.
- Around 9 a.m. a man riding a motorcycle rigged with a bomb targeted a local awakening council, a U.S. backed Sunni militia, in Sleikh neighborhood killing four members of the militia and injuring two civilians.
- Around 10 a.m. a roadside bomb exploded beneath Al Ghadeer bridge. The blast targeted Iraqi national police vehicle injuring one policeman and three civilians.
- Around 4 p.m. A roadside bomb targeted civilians in Zafaraniyah neighborhood injuring one civilian.
- Around 5 p.m. gunmen attacked two employees of the prime minister's office in Al Nisour square killing one and injuring one in their car.
- Around 6 p.m. a parked mini-bus rigged with explosives ripped through a busy market in the northwest Baghdad neighborhood of Hurriyah, killing 51 and injuring 75.
- Police found three dead bodies throughout Baghdad, one in Palestine Street, one in Haifa Street and one in Atifiyah.
Diyala
- Around noon a parked car bomb targeted a police checkpoint near the Diyala police headquarters in central Baquba injuring 4 policemen and 14 civilians.
Nineveh
- Gunmen killed Muhyee Al Deen Abdul Hameed, a newscaster at a local station called Nineveh Television, in Al Ziraa neighborhood in northern Mosul. The gunmen fled after they shot Abdul Hameed.
Wasit
- Around 12:30 p.m. gunmen attacked two vehicles, a mini-bus and a truck, in the town of Aziziyah. They kidnapped 6 men from the vehicles and then set the vehicles on fire. Police headed to the scene and a roadside bomb detonated in the area of the kidnapping killing police Colonel Ali Mohammed and injuring 6 other policemen.'
McClatchy says that US military sources suspect a rogue Shiite group of being responsible for the bombing, speculating that the blast may have gone off prematurely and that it had been intended for use against US troops. The evidence given-- a secret Shiite claim of responsibility and the type of explosive-- doesn't seem to me conclusive, and I don't actually think one can rule out Sunni Salafi Jihadis as the perpetrators. I fear that the Pentagon has lied so much in the past, attributing everything bad in Iraq to "al-Qaeda", that their current campaign to blame everything on Shiite extremists linked to Iran seems suspect.
In fact, Hurriya where the bomb went off used to be a mixed neighborhood that is now largely Shiite, and a Sunni revenge bombing in reprisal for the ethnic cleansing that drove Sunnis out seems to me a plausible motive.
McClatchy also reports on efforts in the Iraqi parliament to curb the activities of the Mojahedeen-e Khalq (MEK or Holy Warriors for the People), which has 4,000 fighters at Camp Ashraf in Diyala Province. Iran considers the MEK a terrorist organization.
Al-Zaman refers to the Shiite deputies who pressed for the action against the MEK as Iraq's "Iran Lobby."
It is rumored that the US Pentagon deploys the MEK to spy on and conduct covert operations against Iran, despite the State Department's having designated it a terrorist organization. Shiite and Kurdish MPs in Parliament have now banned dealings with it and demand that Iraqi troops be permitted to guard the camp entrances.
The law revising treatment of former Baathists, which Bush and McCain had hailed as meeting a "benchmark" for political progress in Iraq, has never been implemented. The law is so ambiguous that how it is put into effect would determine if it could actually reduce the resentments of Sunni ex-Baathists. It was denounced when it was passed this winter by ex-Baathists such as Iyad Allawi and Salih Mutlak in the Iraqi parliament, which I thought a bad sign.
Although this important Reuters story is itself a refutation of the whole Kagan-Bush-McCain victory narrative of the "surge" or troop escalation, it will not even be mentioned on American television. The troop escalation had been intended to lead to political reconciliation, not just to temporarily tamp down violence in some neighborhoods. In fact, it led to a massive ethnic cleansing of Baghdad's Sunnis. There is no evidence that most of the Sunni Awakening Councils, who take money from the US to fight the Salafi Jihadis, are eager to reconcile with al-Maliki's government, by the way.
Patrick Cockburn reports that the US side has backed down on the issue of extraterritoriality for American security contractors in Iraq. Initially Washington, in its negotiations with the al-Maliki government for a Status of Forces Agreement, had demanded that private security guards such as those of Blackwater be immune from prosecution in Iraqi courts. This demand was unacceptable to the Iraqi side and almost led to a complete breakdown of the negotiations, but Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari (from the Kurdistan Alliance) insists that the talks are ongoing and will succeed. Of all Iraqis, the Kurds most want the SOFA; it is viewed with suspicion by most Arab Iraqis. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has insisted that the text be voted on by parliament, and al-Maliki has acquiesced. Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr says that it must be subject to a national referendum, for which there appear in fact to be no plans; the US is said to vehemently reject this idea.
A controversy is raging in the Arabic press over whether the 4 Grand Ayatollahs in Najaf will present their own electoral lists in the provincial elections scheduled for this fall. Three of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani's deputies, in Basra, Karbala and Kut, ran on the United Iraqi Alliance list in January, 2005, apparently because the resulting interim parliament was charged with drafting the Iraqi constitution and Sistani wanted his own men there. The three did not run again in December, 2005. One of them, Ali Safi of Basra, is now apparently saying that an "Ayatollahs' list" may run in the provincial elections. This allegation has been denied by Sistani's own office. If such lists were fielded, they would be serious competition for the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which has run as part of the United Iraqi Alliance and used Sistani's picture and endorsement to enhance its appeal to voters. Many Iraqis are disappointed with ISCI's performance in office, especially with regard to the provision of services.
Half the world's growing refugee population is displaced from Afghanistan and Iraq. There are an estimated 2 million displaced Iraqis abroad, primarily in Jordan and Syria, with about 50,000 each in Lebanon and Egypt. There are an additional 2 million internally displaced. The Iraqis abroad for the most part decline to come back and UNHCR polling among them suggests they don't intend to any time soon. This datum suggests that they don't believe Iraq is stable enough to permit their return. If the hundreds of thousands of Sunnis displaced from Baghdad in the past 18 months did come back from Syria en masse, I suspect it would revive the civil war in the capital, because the Mahdi Army now occupies their homes.
