Trading our futures

By Andrew Shouler, Editor, Financial Review Published: August 19, 2008, 23:32

Oil prices were already known to contain a risk premium. Now they seem to carry a big speculative premium too. Dr Muhammad-Ali Zainy tells Financial Review that the US's review will probably find some sort of legislative compromise. There has been a fair amount of talk about the speculative froth in oil prices, and the extent to which this mainstream cost for the importing, substantially OECD or Western, countries has been driven by financial traders. What is your view of that debate? Who are the players in such trading? And does it surprise you that the reaction has not become more political, general and vocal? There has been a positive correlation between the volume of trading on the oil futures markets and the price of oil. Tens of billions of dollars have moved to the oil futures markets trading in 'paper' barrels. This phenomenon has given rise to speculative pressures pushing the oil price upwards. One should remember, however, that these investor-speculators are not haphazard gamblers basing their decisions on mere luck; they study the market carefully and make their decisions. Such decisions, therefore, incorporate, in addition to speculation, elements of potential impacts of geopolitics as well as fundamentals. The New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) is regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), so traders on this exchange cannot follow manipulative practices or excessive speculation since such practices are prohibited by law and regulated by the CFTC. The billions of dollars of the so-called speculators are playing the over-the-counter (OTC) exchanges and the US trading terminals of the London-based Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) trading in West Texas Intermediate (WTI). The OTC and ICE US terminals are unregulated and their dealings are opaque. The players are, therefore, not exactly known to the public, but they include corporate and government pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, large trader banks, hedge funds and other institutional investors. I believe the reaction to such practices is gathering pace. As the oil price soared, the US airlines, truckers and other shipping companies are calling for a crackdown on financial speculators. It is also becoming more political as the Democrats in the US Congress have proposed legislation to curb speculation in energy trading. The Republicans, however, want to introduce several amendments, including removing the congressional ban on drilling in the US Outer Continental Shelf (OTC); President Bush has already removed the presidential ban on drilling in the OTC. There may also be pressure groups (such as the US pension funds) impeding such legislation.  Before the speculative premium it used to be the risk premium that received most mention, sometimes cited as representing perhaps $20-$30 of the price, even at $100 (Dh 367.3) per barrel. How would you relate that element to the fundamentals of oil pricing currently? A risk premium is always there, given the chronic instability in the Middle East, terrorism, military conflict, infrastructure sabotage (as in Nigeria) and resource nationalism (as in Russia, Venezuela and some other countries). The risk premium was quite pronounced in 1973-74 in the aftermath of the Arab-Israeli war, in 1979 with the impact of the Islamic revolution in Iran, and a brief premium (price spike) in 1991 Gulf War, which premium was then suppressed by a prompt production increase from Saudi Arabia and good management of the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The risk premium would be very little when Opec, the world's swing producer, had ample spare production capacity that would cover any perceived supply disruption. That was the case with the Gulf War in 1991 when Saudi Arabia, more than any other Opec member, had a considerable spare capacity and was able to replace Iraq's exports plus Kuwait's exports when the latter disappeared from the market for a brief period. Tight spare capacity, on the other hand, gives rise to large premiums, which characterises the situation nowadays. Opec's current spare capacity is barely 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd); about 75 per cent of it rests in one country, that is Saudi Arabia. Given Iran's nuclear issue and the possibility that it might be attacked, Opec's spare capacity cannot replace Iran's present production of over 3.9 million bpd, let alone deal with the potentially disastrous event of closing the Strait of Hormuz through which around 40 per cent of the world's oil trade passes. There is definitely a pronounced risk premium now, which itself partially fuels speculation. To the extent that it has become part of the political arena, for instance in Congressional hearings in the US and parliamentary scrutiny in the UK. How do you interpret that attention and reaction and where it might lead? There is much more political fuss in the US Congress than in the UK parliament and, perhaps, that is due to the fact that oil is cheaper to the euro and sterling areas by virtue of the US dollar decline against these two currencies. The Americans are not used to very high gasoline prices which, for some time, exceeded $4 (about Dh14.71) per gallon at the pump. Price inflation of gasoline and diesel hurt the constituencies of Senators and Congressmen, and they have to respond to the outcry of their people if they want to be re-elected, especially as this year happens to be an election year. The Democrats are moving ahead with legislation to curb speculation and the Republicans introduced amendments to open the US Atlantic and Pacific Outer Continental Shelves for oil and gas drilling. The outcome will ultimately result in some legislative compromise to accommodate both. Speculation will have to be reined in and, after all, if the US needs to increase its domestic oil and gas production and reduce its reliance on the Middle East, it will have to lift the 1981 congressional moratorium on drilling the OCS and, maybe, even the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).   Climate change, energy conservation and alternative fuels have become mantras globally.  What is your view of these general efforts in the face of the world's historic dependence on fossil fuels, and especially oil. Is it well-informed? Is it too little, too late? According to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2008, during the four decades spanning the period 1967-2007, world oil consumption increased from 36,072 million bpd to 85,220 million bpd, world natural gas consumption increased from 765.4 billion cubic metres to 2,921.9 billion cubic metres and world coal consumption increased from 1,442.5 million tonnes oil equivalent to 3,177.5 million tonnes oil equivalent, each growing at an average rate of 2.1 per cent, 3.3 per cent and 2 per cent per annum respectively. This is, of course, a clear growing dependency on fossil fuels, especially oil since it is almost the only energy source, so far, to fuel the transportation sector. Burning fossil fuels emit carbon dioxide (CO2), which is a greenhouse gas (GHG) that contributes to global warming, although the world is not absolutely clear whether the global warming phenomenon is entirely due to the emission of GHGs or a recurring one in the earth's past history. CO2 emission, however, has to be curbed, whether through the Kyoto Protocol, emissions trading or some other system. To curb the world's dependence on fossil fuel in general, energy conservation should always be pursued and improved, and research has to continue in earnest for the development of economically viable alternative sources of energy. The ongoing efforts in this direction are not too little and it is never too late. If strong global demand trends for hydrocarbon-based energy is presumed, what trends do you foresee on the supply side, particularly from the Middle East? What price expectations and perception of the strategic dimension do you have in this respect for the medium term? By hydrocarbon-based energy I assume oil is meant, to the exception of natural gas and coal, since the question's focus is on Opec and Arabian Gulf states. Non-Opec supply is faltering and many of the major oil provinces are now in decline. The recent announcement by the US Geological Survey that the area north of the Arctic Circle holds around 90 billion barrels of oil and 1,670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas is good news, but supplies from there will not be forthcoming in the medium term. Oil supply from Alberta's oil sands is slowly rising and may reach 3-4 million bpd in the medium term, but the cost per barrel (capital and operating) is about $70 (about Dh257.1), which will put a floor to the oil price as long as oil from oil sands remains the market's marginal supplier. The onus will fall on Opec supply in case of a strong global oil demand trend. And out of the 12 members of Opec, only Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq promise oil supplies that would meet any expected strong demand, given their present proven reserves of 264, 138 and 115 billion barrels respectively. Strategically speaking, there could be a scramble for oil supply security between the rising Asian economic giants: China and India on the one hand and the United States and Europe (to a lesser degree) on the other hand. Do you agree with the pundits who say that oil prices will now remain high indefinitely? It is not so many years that they dropped into single digits, and for many years they stayed comparatively low, without any expectation of a climb, let alone rocketing ascent. What other themes or factors do you think should be borne in mind about the current situation, and future? The price explosions of the 1970s were in the lesser part justified by the economics of the oil market at the time, especially when the price was raised in 1973. On the major part, however, the price exploded either in response to geopolitical events (the Islamic revolution) or raised mechanically by Opec without justifiable market forces. To such unwarranted high prices the market responded by opening the new oil provinces of the North Sea and Alaska and also new additional supplies from many other parts of the world. Additionally, conservation drives and improved efficiency of oil use played a significant role in reining in demand. The situation now is different, as there has been a major structural change in the market. The price increases from 2002 and afterwards were, essentially, demand-led. Demand increments, caused by emerging markets (led by China) are still on, albeit with lower volumes. Non-Opec supplies are practically stagnant, and will increase only slowly and modestly as there aren't North Seas or Alaskas anymore. The Arctic potential supplies will need a long time to materialise, and by then world oil demand will have increased too. Opec will remain with a relatively small spare production capacity, and world refining conversion capacity is currently very tight and may remain comparatively tight even with the addition of new capacity in Asia and the Middle East, given that the marginal Opec supplies are mostly heavy crudes. I have already mentioned above that oil sands, being a marginal supplier, are putting a price floor of $70 per barrel (about Dh257.1). Even if additional non-Opec supplies start pressuring the price downwards, I do not think that Opec will accept a price below the range of $70-$80 per barrel. Opec will move to cut production. - Interview by Andrew Shouler, Editor, Financial Review.

Leave as soon as you sensibly can

Aug 28th 2008
From The Economist print edition

Iraqis naturally want their country back, and should have it as soon as they think they are ready

AFP

IT IS a cheering new sign of confidence that Iraq's prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, is now demanding an agreement with the United States that would require all American troops to leave the country by the end of 2011. That is a bit later than Barack Obama's proposal to bring them home by May 2010 and a bit earlier than John McCain's more tentative hopes for a withdrawal by 2013. But it suggests that the spectrum of serious possibilities is narrowing. It shows that Iraqis are beginning to believe in their ability to stand on their own feet. And it flashes a ray of light at the end of Iraq's still dismally dark tunnel.

Iraq is far less horrible than it was two years ago. The Americans' surge of extra troops, a series of ceasefires and deals with once hostile Sunni tribes in the west and with Shia militias in the slums of Baghdad, the windfall of extra cash from oil exports: all these things have given the country fresh hope.

But it is still a bloody mess. Some 4m Iraqis have fled the country or remain displaced from their homes within it. Hundreds are still being killed every month. A vicious insurgency persists, especially in the mixed-sect provinces north of Baghdad and around the northern city of Mosul. No solution to the rancorous dispute over the now mainly Kurdish-run city of Kirkuk is in sight. The Iraqis have yet to decide how to manage the oil and dish out its revenue. Above all, the newly dominant Shia Arabs have yet fully to accommodate the aggrieved Sunnis, who ruled Iraq under Saddam Hussein and since its inception as an independent country nearly 80 years ago.

So Mr Maliki's optimism must be tempered with many a caveat. His new insistence on a strict timetable is partly intended to burnish a nationalist image in the face of his populist Shia rival, Muqtada al-Sadr, who has long demanded the immediate removal of the Americans. Though the Sadrists may not stand in the upcoming provincial elections as a party, individuals known as disciples of Mr Sadr are likely to do well. And Mr Maliki knows that what is agreed upon with an outgoing American administration may have to be adjusted by a new one; deadlines will be subject to shifting circumstances.

In any event, he still has a lot to do to keep Iraq heading in the right direction—and give it a chance of meeting a tighter deadline for an American exit. For one thing, he should strive far harder to bring into a new national-security structure the Sunni fighters known as "Sons of Iraq", whom the Americans have been paying to fend off al-Qaeda and other insurgents in Sunni areas of Baghdad and in western Iraq. Instead, there have been alarming reports that Mr Maliki's men have been seeking to arrest several hundred of the leading "Sons", thereby risking a deeper rupture between Iraq's two main Arab communities. It is also vital that Mr Maliki overcomes recent glitches to ensure that provincial elections, due late this year or early next, do take place, so that the Sunnis who had previously boycotted them are re-empowered. Parliamentary elections should follow at the end of next year. It is by no means certain that Mr Maliki will keep his job as prime minister.

Don't be boxed in

Moreover, any Iraqi leader will still need the flexibility to call on foreign allies' military muscle. Iraq's army has improved but cannot yet defeat the insurgency on its own. If Mr Obama wins the presidency, he may prove wisely more elastic in his interpretation of an American withdrawal; Mr McCain still rightly refuses to be hemmed in by deadlines. If Iraq's leader tells the Americans to go forthwith, they must do so. But that is unlikely to happen in a hurry. Whatever the arguments over the American-led invasion, it remains the case that a hectic exit would be bad for everyone, especially the Iraqis.

$3 billion oil service contract signed with China

I find it odd that people like Raed Jarrar have adamantly opposed any production sharing agreements (PSAs), and yet Saddam's regime entered into a PSA with China, which both parties have agreed to amend (it is no longer a PSA) in order to make it fairer to Iraq.

Reuters
Published: August 28, 2008

Iraq reaches oil agreement with China

"Iraq and China have agreed on the terms of a $3 billion oil service contract, the Iraqi oil minister said Wednesday, announcing his country's first major oil contract with a foreign company since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The oil minister, Hussain al- Shahristani, warned that time was running out for big Western oil companies, which have pressed for years for Iraqi contracts, to seal even short-term deals that had been expected to mark their return to Iraq, which has the world's third-largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Iraq and the Chinese state-run oil company, CNPC, have agreed on the renegotiated terms of a deal signed in 1997 to pump oil from the Ahdab oil field, Shahristani said. CNPC is the biggest oil and gas company in Asia.

"Finally we have reached an agreement," Shahristani said. "The total investment of the project is expected to be about $3 billion."

Iraq has toughened the terms, changing the contract to a set-fee service from the production-sharing agreement signed under Saddam."

Basra resources exploited, yet Basrawis neglected

Saddam neglected Basra too after 1991. How ironic and sad. Thanks Dad for the forward. Iraqis must be aware of what this government has (and has not) done.

Dear all,

Salam to you

I am writing and feel very sad to what is happening in Basra and to Basrawi people…. they are totally ignored …….. the city has the reserve of:

65 Billion Oil barrels

3.2 Trillion Cubic feet of natural gas

Producing 1.2 million barrel of oil per day ( = 120 million US dollar daily income to Iraq )

How much spent on Basra:

Nothing

No clean running water

No electricity supply (no more than 6 hrs/day)

No new school been built

No new hospital been built

No new roads been opened

No job opportunities been created

All governors in Basra are belong to Islamic parties and groups

· Da’ua party

· Al majlis group

· Fadhila party

· Hiz bulla group

· Muqtada group

No communist; No baatheist ; No nationalist ……… no excuses at all

Security in the town is fair and normal most of the time………… no excuses again

But all are haramia (thieves) this is the fact. The Islamic groups failed to govern and to serve the people in this town so please if you have a friends or any related person in Basra argue them not to elect the Islamic haramia again.

Thanks

Dr. Hussain H. Ahmed MBE

Great Poem

An Iraqi Brit slams Al Jazeera and the Arabs for their support of Saddam Hussein. I don't have time to translate it, but he says America is a liberator, not an occupier.

Baghdad's misguided crackdown on Sahwa

Baghdad's misguided crackdown on the Sons of Iraq

Prime Minister Maliki's Shiite-dominated government risks security gains by taking on U.S.-backed Sunni forces.

By Shawn Brimley and Colin Kahl
August 26, 2008

There is a gathering storm on Iraq's horizon. Over the last several weeks, its central government has embarked on what appears to be an effort to arrest, drive away or otherwise intimidate tens of thousands of Sunni security volunteers -- the so-called Sons of Iraq -- whose contributions have been crucial to recent security gains. After returning from a trip to Iraq last month at the invitation of Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, we are convinced that if Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and his advisors persist in this sectarian agenda, the country may spiral back into chaos.

Much of Iraq's dramatic security progress can be traced to a series of decisions made by Sunni tribal leaders in late 2006 to turn against Al Qaeda in Iraq and cooperate with American forces in Anbar province. These leaders, outraged by Al Qaeda's brutality against their people, approached the U.S. military with an offer it couldn't refuse: Enter into an alliance with the tribes, and they would turn their weapons against Al Qaeda rather than American troops.

Throughout 2007, U.S. commanders capitalized on this Sunni movement, the so-called Awakening, to create an expanding network of alliances with Sunni tribes and former insurgents that helped turn the tide and drive Al Qaeda in Iraq to near extinction. There are now about 100,000 armed Sons of Iraq, each paid $300 a month by U.S. forces to provide security in local neighborhoods throughout the country. In recognition of the key role the Awakening played in security improvements, President Bush met with several Sunni tribal leaders during his trip to Anbar last September, and Petraeus, who cites the program as a critical factor explaining the decline in violence, has promised to "not walk away from them."

But Iraq's predominantly Shiite central government seems intent on doing precisely that. Maliki and his advisors never really accepted the Sunni Awakening, and they remain convinced that the movement is simply a way for Sunni insurgents to buy time to restart a campaign of violence or to infiltrate the state's security apparatus. In 2007, with Iraq's government weak and its military not yet ready to take the lead in operations, the Maliki government acquiesced to the U.S.-led initiative and grudgingly agreed to integrate 20% of the Sons of Iraq into the Iraqi security forces. Now, a newly confident Maliki government is edging away from this commitment.

During our trip, a common theme among U.S. military commanders, intelligence officers, diplomats and Iraqi political leaders we spoke with was the growing hubris of Maliki and his closest advisors. Recent government successes in Basra, Sadr City and Mosul seem to have convinced Maliki's inner circle that Iraq's army does not need American help as much as it used to. A newly emboldened prime minister is now moving out aggressively against his adversaries, including the Sons of Iraq.

Plans to integrate these Sunni fighters into Iraq's security forces or provide them with civilian employment have been consistently "slow rolled." While Maliki has committed to incorporate 20% of the 100,000 Sons of Iraq members under U.S. contract into Iraq's army or police forces by the end of this year, only a small fraction have actually been hired. When asked if the Iraqi government had created stumbling blocks to integrating the Sons of Iraq, Petraeus said in a recent interview, "That certainly has been the case."

Continued

"The Shia won and the Sunni lost"

So the departure of US troops from Iraq will not mean a renewed civil war?

"No. The main civil war is over. The Shia won and the Sunni lost. But the Sunni minority in Baghdad look vulnerable without American protection. The Iraqi army is increasingly moving against the Sunni Awakening Movement in Anbar and elsewhere."

Will US withdrawal solve Iraq's internal problems?

72% of respondents to an Al Jazeera poll said "Yes".

Bomb vest fitted by her husband's relatives

This makes me Angry: "A young female suicide bomber was caught by police in Baquba before she could detonate her payload. She said she was fitted for the bomb by her husband's female relatives, though her own mother appears to have played a leading role, as well."

Posted on Monday, August 25, 2008

By Leila Fadel | McClatchy Newspapers

Dazed Iraqi teen suicide bomber says she didn't want to die

BAQOUBA, Iraq — The 15-year-old girl had the chubby cheeks of a child who hadn't lost her baby fat when she was arrested Sunday by an alert policeman. Around her chest was a vest packed with explosives. The policeman chained her to the bars of a window, stripped off her dress, found the vest and deactivated the bomb. Had he not intervened, Rania would have been this year's 31st suicide bomber in Iraq.

A day later, Rania seemed in a daze as she spoke about the people who put her up to it: the relatives who forced her to don the vest and apparently drugged her, her husband, whom police accuse of being a member of the group al Qaida in Iraq, and her mother, who seemed to play a central role in turning Rania into a human bomb but whom she looked to as a rescuer.

Continued

Latest Fatwa: Open Buffets Haram

The stupid Wahhabis have issued another food-related fatwa. They have decided that open buffets are haram.

“The state cannot accept the Awakening”

I can understand why many Iraqis are reluctant to integrate the Sahwa (Awakening) into Iraq's security forces, since so many Sahwa members were allied with Al Qaeda in Iraq at some point and presumably participated in crimes against Iraqi civilians. But what if their rejection does lead to renewed civil war? What is the solution to this problem?

Iraq Takes Aim at Leaders of U.S.-Tied Sunni Groups

By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
Published: August 21, 2008

BAGHDAD — The Shiite-dominated government in Iraq is driving out many leaders of Sunni citizen patrols, the groups of former insurgents who joined the American payroll and have been a major pillar in the decline in violence around the nation.

In restive Diyala Province, United States and Iraqi military officials say there were orders to arrest hundreds of members of what is known as the Awakening movement as part of large security operations by the Iraqi military. At least five senior members have been arrested there in recent weeks, leaders of the groups say.

West of Baghdad, former insurgent leaders contend that the Iraqi military is going after 650 Awakening members, many of whom have fled the once-violent area they had kept safe. While the crackdown appears to be focused on a relatively small number of leaders whom the Iraqi government considers the most dangerous, there are influential voices to dismantle the American backed movement entirely.

“The state cannot accept the Awakening,” said Sheik Jalaladeen al-Sagheer, a leading Shiite member of Parliament. “Their days are numbered.”

Continued

What Arabs got Angry about

June 08, 2006: 'Shiites now dominate the government, and their party militias are active in Iraq's new security forces. They are accused of mounting uniformed "death squads" against disenfranchised Sunni Arabs.'

What Arabs are (not) Angry about II

Grooming a female suicide bomber

'More women have carried out suicide bombings here in Diyala province than anywhere else in Iraq -- 15 this year alone. Iraqi commanders believe the Sunni Arab insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq has established networks in the province designed specifically to recruit women.

The ethnically and religiously mixed province east of Baghdad has long been a center of Al Qaeda in Iraq, which formed alliances here with Sunni tribesmen and nationalist political groups against Shiite militants. This is a world in which few women are educated, loyalty to family and tribe are paramount, and fear permeates relations with outsiders.

Al Qaeda in Iraq leaders, known as emirs, managed to recruit entire clans to their cause by marrying into the families here. The women forced into these marriages are often passed around among emirs, said Saja Quadouri, who sits on the provincial council's security committee and is its only female member.

"They will get married to more than one man and get pregnant without knowing who the father is," she said. "Eventually, due to despair, hopelessness and fear, they get exploited to commit such crimes, as they become unwanted by society."

Other women are persuaded to perform a suicide mission to avenge the loss of a father, husband or brother, said a U.S. intelligence analyst, who asked not to be identified for security reasons. In tribal societies, the loss of male relatives typically leaves women without protection or means of survival.

Asma's marriage collapsed shortly before her husband died in a shootout; she says she does not know who killed him. Her father has spent the last three years in a U.S. detention facility on terrorism charges.

Squatting on a bed mat, Ikran, 50, described how the masked gunmen took over their neighborhood on the west side of Baqubah shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein's Sunni-led regime in 2003. She asked that the family be identified by their first names only, to avoid shaming the tribe.

"People say they were displaced families from other neighborhoods who came to our area and tried to control it," said Ikran, a formidable woman in a somber black robe and green head scarf. "The first thing they did was kill several people and leave the bodies in the traffic circle, so everyone would see."

The militants cruised the neighborhood in search of young men to stand at checkpoints and turned up at schools, where they provided instruction at gunpoint on their extreme interpretation of Islam.

"They told the whole school that we must cover our faces and . . . wear gloves," said Ikran's younger daughter, Ilaf. The pretty teen with henna-tinted fingernails said she dropped out of class because she was terrified by their frequent visits. Just 15, she is engaged to marry a neighbor's son.

In the womb-like safety of the cell, Ikran scoffed at the militants' strictures and lit up a cigarette, which they would have regarded as sacrilege. But she said she never dared cross the militants in public.

"We were afraid of them," Ikran said. "Sometimes they would ask us, 'Are we good?' Of course we said yes. Otherwise we would have been killed."

When U.S. forces arrested Ikran's husband, Dawoud, on terrorism charges three years ago, she said the family retreated behind closed doors and rarely ventured outside their home.

"We can't think why anyone would accuse us," she said. "Iraqis will do anything for money." '

What Arabs are (not) Angry about

I suppose I shouldn't expect Arabs to be Angry about Saddam (or any of our Arab brothers) killing innocent Iraqis when they aren't even Angry about Jordanian men killing their own sisters.

Sister shot six times in alleged 'honour' killing

August 01, 2008 10:00pm

A 26-YEAR-old Jordanian man was charged with murder today after his 23-year-old sister was shot dead in an apparent "honour" killing.
The unnamed suspect allegedly shot his sister six times last night in the Nqeira area south of the capital Amman, a security official said.

"He turned himself in and confessed to murdering his sister to cleanse his family's honour because she disappeared from home for four months with a man," the official said.

"He killed her the moment she returned home last night. But forensic tests showed that the girl was a virgin."

It was the eighth reported so-called honour killing this year, according to Jordanian authorities which in 2007 recorded 17 such murders - a slight rise on previous years.

Those convicted in such cases often receive light sentences because parliament has twice refused to reform the penal code, despite pressure from human rights groups to end the near impunity of perpetrators.

Iraq strengthens ties with Lebanon

More good news. Somehow this is easier to digest than the agreement with Jordan, I must say.

Iraq to export oil to Lebanon

By Qassim Abdul-Zahra
ASSOCIATED PRESS

4:29 a.m. August 20, 2008

BAGHDAD – Iraq and Lebanon plan to sign a series of trade agreements in coming weeks, including one on Iraq exporting oil to Lebanon, the prime ministers of the two countries said Wednesday.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora's one-day trip to Baghdad was only the third visit by a senior Arab official since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

The U.S. has encouraged visits to Iraq by moderate Arab leaders to shore up support for Iraq's Shiite-dominated government and as a counterweight to influence from Iraq's fellow Shiite neighbor, Iran.

Iraq is also eager to improve ties with its Arab neighbors, as security improvements boost the government's confidence.

At a news conference alongside Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Saniora offered support for Iraq and urged other Arab states to do the same.

“I do believe that Iraq's return to the Arabs and the Arabs' return to Iraq is a key goal and we all have to work to achieve it,” he said.

Al-Maliki said the two countries would sign several agreements, including one outlining Iraqi oil exports to Lebanon, but provided no details. “There were talks about oil, cooperation in the oil industry, oil exports and supplying Lebanon with Iraqi oil according to an agreement,” the Iraqi prime minister said.

Continued

US helps Iraq protect its oil infrastructure

...after our Arab "brothers" sabotage it. I wish the US or Iraqi military would also protect Iraq's electricity-generating infrastructure, if they haven't done so already.

"Insurgents have made a habit of attacking the oil infrastructure; the recent rise in output is due chiefly to improved security. In particular, the United States has paid for a project to reduce sabotage to a pipeline that links the Kirkuk oilfield, one of the country’s biggest, to the main outlets for exports—ports in the south and a pipeline north to Turkey. The Kirkuk-Baiji pipeline (see map) is now protected on either side by a ditch, a dirt barrier, a fence topped with razor wire, and three more rolls of razor wire on the ground. There are two guardhouses at every road crossing; the government has recruited local tribesmen suspected of mounting many past attacks to man them and conduct patrols. Oil has flowed freely since the construction of these defences began last summer. The American army says that, as a result, exports in the 11 months to May went up by 91m barrels, worth an extra $8.2 billion."

Iraq to sign $1.2 bln oil service deal with China

Nobody will complain about this.

Iraq to sign $1.2 bln oil service deal with China

By Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Iraq will sign a $1.2 billion oil service contract with China to replace a production-sharing deal agreed under Saddam Hussein, an Iraqi newspaper quoted oil minister Hussain al-Shahristani as saying on Tuesday.

The oil minister is travelling to China at the end of this month to discuss the deal, which was orginally signed in 1997 between Iraq and the China National Petrolium Company (CNPC).

"We have held talks with (the Chinese) for a year, and the terms of the deal were changed to a service contract. The Chinese have agreed on that, with a value of $1.2 billion," Shahristani told the an-Noor newspaper.

If finalised, the revised deal would be the first oil service contract signed by the new Iraqi government since the fall of Saddam in 2003.

Continued

Why Arab states must embrace Iraq

Good article.

Why Arab states must embrace Iraq

By Roula Khalaf

Published: August 19 2008 03:00 | Last updated: August 19 2008 03:00

Last week, King Abdullah of Jordan became the first Arab head of state to travel to Baghdad since the 2003 war. From there, he urged his fellow leaders to re-engage with Iraq, calling it a "source of strength for the Arab nation".

What took him there, five long years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, might have been, in part, Jordan's economic needs: being on good terms with Iraq guarantees a recently agreed deal to provide Amman with discounted Iraqi oil.

But there was more to it. The trip underlined a new diplomatic trend: in recent months several Sunni Arab states, including the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain, have announced the reopening of their embassies in Baghdad and named new ambassadors for the first time since Egypt's envoy was assassinated in 2005.

Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the UAE foreign minister, became the first top Gulf diplomat to visit Iraq this summer. His trip was followed by the little-noticed arrival of Saad Hariri, head of Lebanon's main Sunni party. He travelled to the Iraqi capital and Najaf, the Shia holy city, where he met Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the highest religious authority.

The road from Arab capitals to Baghdad is still slow and bumpy. But, driven by fear that a US withdrawal from Iraq will pave the way to even greater Iranian influence in a leading Arab state, it is a belated recognition of the Shia government in Baghdad and of the need to promote Shia-Sunni reconciliation more vigorously.

Jordan's monarch was the first to warn, in 2004, of the rise of a "Shia crescent", an unfortunate comment that infuriated Iraqi officials. Realising he might have fanned the flames of sectarianism, the king tried to take back his words, sending his aides to deny he uttered them, and to reinterpret their meaning.

But his words stuck for two reasons. They were an expression of the paranoia of Sunni Arab states about Iran's growing role in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, and a symbol of Arab impotence at the shifting balance of power that the US had created by toppling the Sunni Ba'athist regime.

However, in the time since the king made his remark, Sunni Arab states have reinforced their irrelevance through a misguided diplomatic isolation of Iraq. Although the demise of Saddam Hussein had been a boon to his neighbours, Sunni-dominated Arab regimes have never come to terms with the rise of Iraq's majority Shia, or the fact that Baghdad had become a friend of Iran. They have entertained the fantasy of a return of a Sunni strongman or hoped that a secular Shia would take over, no matter that such a leader could not win an election.

As they have lamented the marginalisation of the Sunni minority, they also increased pressure on the US to ensure the Sunni's reinsertion into Iraqi politics. They ignored Iraqi officials' arguments that embracing the Shia administration was the best way to secure a voice in Iraq and check Iranian influence. Instead, the Arabs backed the Sunni. As Iraq began its slide into civil war the Arab states found themselves threatened with a regional Sunni-Shia struggle.

Fortunately, this attitude is changing. After dismissing Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, as a puppet of Iran, some Arab officials now praise him for taking on Shia militias. Hinting that the Iraqi government might be more independent than was first assumed, one senior Arab official tells me that he now sees a rare opportunity to bring Iraq's Shia government back into "the Arab fold". Winning back influence in Iraq is more urgent, he says, because Iran has expanded its influence in another Arab sectariar hotspot, Lebanon, where Tehran's ally, the Hizbollah group, has won a greater political role.

But the Arabs' return to Iraq is still hesitant. Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, the Iranian president, went to Baghdad in March in a media blitz. In contrast, the Jordanian king's visit was announced only after he had departed, in a sign of the continued Jordanian concerns about security.

Worryingly, Saudi Arabia has been flagrantly absent from this tentative wave of engagement. The Saudi regime is apparently still holding a grudge against the Maliki government. Yet it is difficult to see how Arab states can be serious about renewing ties with Iraq without the participation of the Saudis.

To contribute to Iraqi stability - and reassure Iraqi Shia that this is indeed the intention - Arab governments' diplomacy has to be more dynamic and convincing. Cancelling all of the debt Iraq owes to its Arab neighbours, for example, is long overdue. Saudi Arabia, for one, has yet to make that move.

Most important, Arab states have to maintain realistic expectations. It would be foolish to expect Iran's influence to dissipate. The Islamic regime - which fought an eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s - has unparalleled relations with a whole range of Iraqi groups (Kurdish as well as Shia), which it cultivated during decades of Ba'athist oppression.

The aim of embracing Iraq's Shia-led government is to strengthen it so that it can govern the country and stand on its own feet. For that to happen, Iraq needs national reconciliation between its various communities above all. Arab states' contribution should be to encourage dialogue between Iraq and its neighbours as much as between Iraqi parties.

roula.khalaf@ft.com

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

Blackwater guards face prosecution in US

Good news.

From The Times

August 19, 2008

Blackwater guards face prosecution over killing of 17 Iraqi civilians

( Ali Yussef/AFP/Getty Images)

A burnt car on the site where Blackwater guards opened fire

James Bone in New York

Six Blackwater Worldwide security guards have been notified that they could face prosecution in America for shooting dead 17 civilians in Baghdad's Nisoor Square in an infamous incident that provoked fury in Iraq.

The Blackwater employees have reportedly been sent "target letters" by US prosecutors telling them that they could face charges for opening fire at the crowded intersection on September 16 last year.

The move was welcomed by human rights activists, who have long complained about US private security in Iraq.

"It's incredibly important that these incidents are not beyond the law. It certainly would be a step in the right direction if the US would go ahead and bring charges," said Jennifer Daskal, of Human Rights Watch, who has interviewed the traffic policeman on duty in Nisoor Square at the time of the shooting. "This is definitely the most high-profile case of contractor abuse in Iraq, but it's certainly not the only one."

Continued

Suicide bombings in Israel vs. Iraq

I am surprised that no journalists except Robert Fisk have compared the number of suicide bombings in Israel to the number of suicide bombings in Iraq. Between 2000 and 2002 there were 70 suicide bombings in Israel, the country that has been hated by most Arabs for 60 years. In Iraq, it has become difficult to keep count of the number of suicide bombings and the number of victims. In March Robert Fisk and The Independent published an article that estimated the number of suicide bombers in Iraq at the time to be an astounding 1,121:

'But a month-long investigation by The Independent, culling four Arabic-language newspapers, official Iraqi statistics, two Beirut news agencies and Western reports, shows that an incredible 1,121 Muslim suicide bombers have blown themselves up in Iraq. This is a very conservative figure and – given the propensity of the authorities (and of journalists) to report only those suicide bombings that kill dozens of people – the true estimate may be double this number. On several days, six – even nine – suicide bombers have exploded themselves in Iraq in a display of almost Wal-Mart availability. If life in Iraq is cheap, death is cheaper.

This is perhaps the most frightening and ghoulish legacy of George Bush's invasion of Iraq five years ago. Suicide bombers in Iraq have killed at least 13,000 men, women and children – our most conservative estimate gives a total figure of 13,132 – and wounded a minimum of 16,112 people. If we include the dead and wounded in the mass stampede at the Baghdad Tigris river bridge in the summer of 2005 – caused by fear of suicide bombers – the figures rise to 14,132 and 16,612 respectively. Again, it must be emphasised that these statistics are minimums. For 529 of the suicide bombings in Iraq, no figures for wounded are available.

...Never before has the Arab world witnessed a phenomenon of suicide-death on this scale. During Israel's occupation of Lebanon after 1982, one Hizbollah suicide-bombing a month was considered remarkable. During the Palestinian intifadas of the 1980s and 1990s, four per month was regarded as unprecedented. But suicide bombers in Iraq have been attacking at the average rate of two every three days since the 2003 Anglo-American invasion.

The mind boggling number of suicide bombings in Iraq, when compared to the number of suicide bombings in Israel, is symbolic of what Arab extremists think of Iraqis. To these Arabs, Iraqis are expendable, if not apostates or traitors who deserve violent death. Iraqi Shia are "worse than the Jews", according to many takfiri Arabs. The number of suicide bombings in Iraq and the celebration of such bombings proves the Arab hatred of Shia in Iraq.

Why did takfiri Arabs not mass murder Iraqi Shia before 2003? Because in general Sunni Arabs were reasonably happy with Saddam. They had nothing to complain about. Saddam was oppressing Iraq's Shia and non-Iraqi Sunni Arabs did not seem to mind. Since 2003 Iraqis have been cooperating with Americans in setting up a democracy in Iraq, as flawed as it may be, and for this they are mass murdered by our Arab "brothers". Iraqi Sunni Arabs who support democracy have been murdered as well. As more of Iraq's Sunni Arabs turn against Al Qaeda and work with Americans, Al Qaeda in Iraq has murdered more Iraqi Sunni Arabs - just yesterday a suicide bomber blew himself up among worshipers in the Abu Hamifa mosque in Adhamiya, killing the deputy commander of Adhamiya's Sahwa.

So this is what our Arab "brothers" think of Iraqis. Arabs have traveled from near occupied Palestine to fight US occupation and ended up mass murder Iraqis, apparently because it's easier than entering Israel and killing civilians there. Gulfie Arabs mass murder Iraqis for working with Americans as US companies do big business in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar. Arabs complain about US military bases in Iraq as US bases and embassies are scattered throughout the Arab world, including the US CENTCOM in Doha. Yet we do not read about suicide bombings in Doha, no bombings of markets in Riyadh. Only Iraqis are murdered in these horrific ways and in such large numbers.

WMD: The Murderous Reign of Saddam Hussein

"If the United States had not removed Saddam Hussein from power, we would owe Hitler an apology."

The Thieves of Baghdad

I spent Saturday night with my parents and three of my father’s siblings, along with their children in a nice suburb of London. It was the biggest gathering of close relatives since last summer, when my cousin’s (mom’s side) wife declared that America brought Al Qaeda to Iraq, and warned me with great sternness that it is blasphemous to defend infidels. There are some religious people in my extended family. Some of them are religious and educated at the same time. My uncles – my father’s brothers - and my aunt’s children are religious, yet quite educated and successful. Many of them are doctors and dentists. For as long as I can remember, one of my cousins, Majeed, a pediatrician who is closer to my dad’s age than mine, possessed a great intensity and unique emotional flare, much like my father. They both have a great sense of humor. They even look alike. In my first post I wrote about Majeed’s brother, who was murdered by Saddam’s regime in 1980. Until last year I had not spent much time with Majeed, and I was surprised last summer to see him married with children – three of them, aged 16 to 19! Majeed is married to E, an engineer and niece of Jiddu, whom I wrote about in October 2007. It was good to spend more time with Majeed and his wonderful family this weekend. After a long night of eating delicious food and catching up, we had to spend the night there because it was so late.

The next morning, after E served us breakfast, she told us her story, which I will summarize here. E, like so many Iraqis, escaped Iraq long before 2003. The current conflict in Iraq may have eclipsed what happened to Iraqis during Saddam’s long reign of terror and intimidation, and certainly the media’s coverage of Iraq in the last five years has been much greater than all the media's coverage of Saddam’s atrocities. This is why I believe it is important to document these crimes, to remind people of what took place in Iraq before 2003.

Madrasat Rahibat

As a thirteen year old in the early 1970s, E attended Madrasat Rahibat (Nuns’ School), a private school for well-to-do Baghdadis. In her class E remembers a girl, a Faili (Shia) Kurd, who one day debated another girl, Ilham, the daughter of Khairallah Tulfah, the Governor of Baghdad and uncle of Saddam Hussein. The Kurdish girl argued during Religion class that the Kurds who were killed by the Baathi regime were martyrs. Ilham disagreed, and she believed that the Kurds who were killed by the state were in fact traitors, not martyrs. E recalls how casual the debate was, and how their teacher, a Najafi woman, allowed the debate to proceed. The next morning, after E boarded the school bus, she noticed that her Kurdish friend was missing. When E arrived at school, her teacher was not there. E never saw her teacher again. Her Kurdish friend and her family also disappeared.

To digress, Ilham was later married to Haythem, son of Ahmed Hassan al Bakr. When Saddam became President, he forced the couple to divorce and he forced Ilham to marry his half brother. Saddam’s older half brother, Barzan, was already married to Ilham’s sister Ahlam.

Mass Graves

E’s cousins and their children (most of them older than E, in University and the Army) lived in Kerbala. During Saddam’s campaign to expel Iraqis of Iranian ancestry, and despite the fact that E’s ancestors had lived in Iraq for 700 years, her relatives in Kerbala were targeted for deportation to Iran. One of her uncles in Kerbala had a 15 year old son, who was separated from his parents after they were arrested – the Baathi authorities were afraid the kid would join the Iranian Army. The kid’s parents were driven to the Iranian border and dropped off there, just like God knows how many Iraqis were. The family of this boy waited anxiously for 24 years hoping Saddam’s regime would fall so they could be reunited with their son, their brother. In 2003 the boy’s older brother traveled to Iraq, where he learned that his little brother had been murdered and buried in a mass grave. Upon hearing this news, his father fell ill and suffered from a stroke. He finally died last year, after being paralyzed by the stroke.

The Thief of Baghdad

Khairallah Tulfah was also known as “Harami Baghdad” (The Thief of Baghdad). Uncle of Saddam Hussein, father of Sajida (Saddam’s wife), Khairallah Tulfah was appointed Governor of Baghdad in the 1970s and by 1980 he amassed a great fortune by usurping financial and real assets of Iraqis. E’s family had the misfortune of living next to Tulfah in the 1970s. In early 1980, during Saddam’s campaign to expel Iraqis of Iranian descent, E’s entire family was arrested one day while they were eating lunch – Saddam’s secret police walked into the home and told E’s family to gather their essentials. While the family gathered their essentials, Saddam’s “emen” (security) sat down and ate the dolma that E’s mother had prepared. Before E’s family was taken away, her mother called E’s older sister, who was married and living in a different part of town, and told her what was happening. E’s sister immediately took a taxi to her parents’ house, where she saw none of her family at home, and she saw Khairallah Tulfah standing in the street. She became angry and asked Tulfah how he could allow the police to take away his innocent neighbors. He had no response, but after a few hours he called the detention center and told them to release E’s family. This good natured act was not free.

When this happened to E’s family, her father was naturally furious and saddened by what had become of his country. He decided that he would send his children out of the country one by one, but he died just a few weeks later. Soon after E’s father died, Khairallah Tulfah sent an aide to E’s family to inform them that he wanted to be a “partner” in the sports clothing factory that E’s father had built into a successful business. E’s family felt they had no choice in the matter – they still felt under threat. E’s brother continued to run the factory, but Tulfah diverted all the factory’s profits to himself. Khairallah Tulfah freed E’s family, and then he stole their livelihood. After six months, Tulfah’s assistant informed E’s family that he wanted the factory all for himself, but because they were his neighbors, he offered to “sell” the factory back to E’s family for 100,000 dinars (more than $300k at the time!). E’s family raised the money by selling their jewelry and borrowing from relatives. They bought the business that Tulfah stole from them. E’s family understood they were buying their safety, their immunity from prosecution for being of "Iranian descent". Soon after they got their factory back, E escaped Iraq for Abu Dhabi in August 1980. Because of the long war with Iran and its economic effects, E’s family were unable to import material or spare parts, and eventually the factory was closed. Today it sits in Abu Ghraib collecting dust.

This conversation with E was surrounded by other discussions, of course, and many of those discussions had to do with the current situation in Iraq and the Iraqis who participated in thievery and injustice after 2003.

An Iraqi boy's story

Thanks C.H. for this heartbreaking story.

 

Kevin Cullen

The end of Rakan's war

Life asked far too much of Rakan Hassan, the Iraqi boy brought to Boston in 2005 for treatment after a mistaken shooting by American troops. The next chapter of his story is hard to write.

Rakan Hassan flashed his famous smile during a physical therapy session in Boston in November 2005. (Globe Staff Photo / Michele McDonald)

Email|Print|Single Page| Text size – + By Kevin Cullen

Globe Columnist / August 3, 2008

We were standing on a dusty road in Mosul, Dr. Larry Ronan and I, and he had just left us.

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It was January 2006 and this boy named Rakan had driven away in an Opel sedan identical to the one he was riding in when his life changed forever a year before, and so we stood there, with this odd mix of hope and apprehension, and waved goodbye.

Rakan Hassan had been shot and paralyzed, his parents killed, when American soldiers panicked and opened fire on the family car as it sped toward them in the fading light of dusk. Ronan and other doctors and therapists in Boston had put Rakan back together, and I had watched the whole process, to write about it, and then we brought Rakan back to the war zone where he was nearly killed because that was what Rakan and his family wanted.

As we waved, and the car driven by Rakan's brother-in-law disappeared into the dust, Larry Ronan must have felt what I was feeling because he put his hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eye, and said, "Don't worry. We'll see him again."

We never did.

Rakan Hassan, the boy whose life Larry Ronan saved, the boy I sat with most days for five months, the boy who became my sons' friend, the boy who touched anybody and everybody he met, was killed in June when a bomb exploded at his family's home in Mosul. He was 14 years old. Two of his sisters - an infant and a teenager - were injured in the attack but are expected to recover.

It happened June 16, but given the madness that is Iraq, it took us weeks to confirm. We got a death certificate the other day and so now we know for sure.

The information is, like Iraq's future, sketchy at best. Through an interpreter, Rakan's brother-in-law and guardian, Nathir Bashir Ali, said he suspects insurgents put a bomb in or next to the house. He believes the house was targeted either because of his associations with the Iraqi government or because the family had accepted help for Rakan from Americans.

But the truth is, we don't know why. We only know Rakan is dead.

Larry Ronan has been heartsick for weeks, as he awaited final word. I have been, too. Ronan is a doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital with thousands of patients, but for six months in fall 2005 and winter 2006 you would have thought his only patient was Rakan.

Rakan's case caught the eye of humanitarians because his shooting was captured in a series of haunting photographs by Chris Hondros, a photographer for Getty Images who was embedded with the platoon from the First Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division, which opened fire on a car they thought was carrying suicide bombers.Continued...

Capturing Saddam

Looks like Discovery Channel has made a re-enactment of the historic event. I found a clip:

Shia Women in Saddam's Iraq

By Robert Fisk - 23 January 2004

'The women's faces are all veiled. They are mostly young. They are all Iraqi Shia Muslims. And their terrible fate - their vicious torture and deliberately cruel executions - should place their deaths on the list of barbarities for which Saddam Hussein could be tried, although almost all were put to death when the United States was supporting Saddam's regime.

For only now has a newly formed "Documentation Centre for the Female Martyrs of the Islamic Movement" at last produced the chronicle of these women's suffering. It is not for the faint-hearted.

Wives were forced to watch their husbands hanged before being placed in the electric chair, were burned with acid, tied naked to ceiling fans, sexually abused. In several cases, women were poisoned or used as guinea pigs for chemical substances at a plant near Samarra believed to be making chemical weapons.

Their names - along with the names of their torturers and executioners - are at last known. One man, Abu Widad, once boasted that he had hanged 70 female prisoners in one night at the Abu Ghraib jail outside Baghdad. In many cases, women were put to death for the crime of being the sisters or wives of a wanted man. Most were associated with the forbidden al-Dawa party, whose members were routinely tortured and killed by the Baathist government.

A typical entry in Imprisoned Memories: Red Pages from a Forgotten History - compiled by Ali al-Iraq in the Iranian city of Qum - reads as follows: "Samira Awdah al-Mansouri (Um Iman), born 1951, Basra, teacher at Haritha Intermediate School ... married to the martyr Abdul Ameer, a cadre of the Islamic movement military wing ... member of Islamic Dawa party ... Torturers: Major Mehdi al-Dulaymi who tortured while drunk, Lieutenant Hussain al-Tikriti, who specialised in breaking the rib cages of his victims by stamping on them ... Lieutenant Ibrahim al-Lamee who beat victims on their feet ... Um Iman was beaten ... hung by her hair from a ceiling fan and and suffered torture by electricity. Having spent two months in the prison cells in Basra without giving way, al-Dulaymi recommended she be executed for carrying unlicensed arms and belonging to the al-Dawa party."

In fact, Um Iman was transferred to the Public Security Division in Baghdad, where further torture took place over 11 months. She subsequently appeared before the Revolutionary Military Security Court, which sentenced her to death by hanging. She spent another six months in the Rashid prison west of Baghdad, until - when she might have hoped that her life would be spared - she was, on a Sunday evening, transferred to Abu Graib and executed by Abu Widad.

There are frequent accounts of women and children tortured in front of their husbands and fathers. In 1982, for instance, a Lieutenant Kareem in Basra reportedly brought the wife of an insurgent to the prison, stripped and tortured her in front of her husband, then threatened to kill their infant child. When both refused to talk, the security man "threw the baby against the wall and killed him".

Ahlam al-Ayashi was arrested in 1982 at the age of 20 because she was married to Imad al-Kirawee, a senior Dawa member. When he refused to give information to the security police, two torturers - named in the report as Fadil Hamidi al-Zarakani and Faysal al-Hilali - attacked Ahlam in front of the prisoner and his child, torturing her to death. Three of Ahlam's five brothers were executed along with her husband, and another brother was killed in the insurrection that followed the liberation of Kuwait in 1991. But her child Ala, who witnessed her mother's torture, was taken to Iran, where she married and is now about to enter university.

Awatif Nour al-Hamadani, 21, was betrayed by her own husband, who - under extreme torture - named his wife and several colleagues as gun-runners.

Awatif was pregnant but was set upon by a man called Major Amer who beat her with a metal chair and then sexually abused her. At her trial, Judge Mussalam al-Jabouri suggested that "a miniature gallows should be found for her baby daughter because she had sucked on her mother's hate-filled milk". Awatif was taken to be executed for the first time with two female colleagues and forced to watch the hanging of 150 men, 10 at a time; as their corpses were taken away, she recognised one of them as her husband. She was then returned to her cell. She was later executed in an electric chair.

Maysoon al-Assadi was an 18-year-old university student when she was arrested for membership of a banned Islamic organisation. During her interrogation, she was hanged by her hair and beaten on the soles of her feet and then sentenced to hang by Judge Awad Mohamed Amin al-Bandar. Her last wish - to say goodbye to her fiance - was granted, and the two married in the prison. But while saying goodbye to other prisoners, she made speeches condemning the leadership of the Iraqi regime, and the prison governor decided that she should be put to death slowly. She was strapped into the jail's electric chair and took two hours to die.

Salwa al-Bahrani, the mother of a small boy, had been caught distributing weapons to Islamic fighters in 1980.

She was allegedly administered poisoned yoghurt during interrogation by a doctor, Fahid al-Dannouk, who experimented in poisons that could be used against Iranian troops. Salwa died at home 45 days after being forced to eat the yoghurt.

The 550-page report is no literary work. Some of its prose is florid and occasionally appears to describe women's martyrdom as a fate to be emulated. Nor is this a work which will make easy reading for Americans anxious to use it as evidence against Saddam. The book repeatedly states that the chemicals used on women prisoners were originally purchased from Western countries. But the detail is compelling - the names and fates of at least 50 women are recorded, along with the names of their torturers - and the activities of the "Monster of Abu Ghraib", Abu Widad, have been confirmed by the few prisoners who survived the jail. He carried out executions between 8pm and 4am and would hit condemned men and women on the back of the head with a hatchet if they praised a murdered imam before they were hanged. In the end, 41-year-old Abu Widad was caught after accepting a bribe to put a reprieved prisoner to death instead of the condemned man. He was hanged on his own gallows in 1985.'

Copyright: The Independent

Either sanctions had to end or Saddam had to end

From a January 2003 article: 'As Peter Hain, a minister in the British Foreign Office, said:
"There's $24 billion of oil wealth under the control of the United Nations that he'd like to get his hands on, to re-arm himself to inflict tyranny in the region and on his own people again, which he has not been able to do under the sanctions regime." [He was still able to inflict tyranny on "his own" people and HE DID]

'A HARD CHOICE'
Still, the humanitarian suffering linked to the sanctions has vexed the West. Then-chief U.S. delegate to the United Nations Madeleine Albright was asked by Leslie Stahl in a "60 Minutes" interview in 1996 about reports that half a million children had died and whether the price was worth the benefits of sanctions.

Said Albright: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it."
It is a statement that foes of sanctions repeat angrily and regularly.
Foes of sanctions oft point to two U.N. reports issued in 1999.
A Security Council's special panel to report the effects of sanctions, released in March 1999, said:
"In marked contrast to the prevailing situation prior to the events of 1990-91, the infant-mortality rates in Iraq today are among the highest in the world, low infant birth weight affects at least 23 percent of all births, chronic malnutrition affects every fourth child under 5 years of age, only 41 percent of the population have regular access to clean water."
A UNICEF report of August 1999 said children younger than 5 were dying at more than twice the rate of 10 years ago.
Sanction backers argue that Saddam could easily end sanctions by fully cooperating with the U.N.
And they argue that Saddam is not directing the resources he has, legal oil sales and black-market sales, to the Iraqis, but is squandering them on palaces, other luxuries and weapons.
Foes of sanctions argue Saddam's resources — legal and illegal — are not enough to rebuild the country's shattered infrastructure, nor to feed the people and supply the hospitals.
Furthermore, they say, sanctions have prevented the importation of many vital items, such as chlorine and pumps, that would be used in water systems, because they also can be used in weapons production. [Meanwhile Saddam built palaces for himself and his family all over Iraq]

OIL FOR FOOD
Since 1996, Iraq has been allowed to sell oil to raise money for humanitarian relief. Sanctions foes say the program has been too little too late.
Originally, Iraq was allowed to sell up to $2 billion of oil every six months. That amount has expanded through the years to where it is now open-ended. About a quarter of the money goes to Kuwait as war reparations, and about 3 percent goes to the U.N. for administration of the program.'

Iraqis in London

It is unbelievable the number of Iraqis in London and the rest of the UK. I've been spending a lot of time in the UK this summer, and I am amazed by the number of Iraqis living here. Many of my uncles, aunts and older cousins moved to London in 1992 and 1993, after Gulf War I. Two of my uncles were lucky enough to have been studying in the UK in 1980, when Saddam took over. Needless to say, they did not return to Iraq. So I have dozens of cousins who spent most of their lives, if not all, in the UK. My youngest cousin, on my mom's side, is two years old. My oldest cousin, who's been in the UK since the late 70s, is in his late 50s now and he has two teenage children. How is that possible? My dad's sister is in her 70s, and started having kids long ago. My mom's brother is in his 50s, and he can't stop having kids!

Outside my family, I am surprised by the number of Iraqis in London. It seems that at least half the Iraqis living in the UK arrived in the early 90s. I am pleasantly surprised by the number of Sunni Arab Iraqis who hated Saddam enough to flee Iraq during his rule, and many of them fled in the 80s. London has always been the center of political opposition to Saddam. London continues to be an important scene for Iraqi politics, and much of the talk these days is about the corruption and incompetence in the current Iraqi government. Many Iraqis here, even Shia, are anti-American. Another older cousin of mine (on my mom's side) is married to a religious woman who believes that the US brought Al Qaeda to Iraq, and the Americans are responsible for the bombings of markets. When I heard this a year ago I said this doesn't make sense to me. She responded angrily by telling me that as a Muslim I should not defend infidels! Her 19 year old son, who grew up here, was a tad embarrassed by her, and he argued with her (quite loudly) that this kind of thinking is not understood by an American.

Sanctions killed Iraqi children

Watch this excerpt of a 2000 UK documentary to see what Muttanabi Street looked like. John Pilger interviews Dennis Halliday, who describes life for ordinary Iraqis under sanctions, and he points out that Iraqi professionals often sold their books to feed themselves and their kids. It's hard to believe that Iraq experienced 12 years of cruel sanctions.