Checkpoint Baghdad

Foreign Oil Companies Decline Deal for Iraq's Oilfields

2009-07-02T13:55:43Z

By Lennox Samuels

Iraqi oil minister Hussain Al-Shahristani was expecting to score a second triumph on the day American combat troops withdrew from his nation's cities. But by the time bidding to develop eight Iraqi oil and gas fields ended, he had only one potential deal in hand. Shut out of Iraq's hydrocarbon industry for more than three decades, foreign oil companies nevertheless declined to pursue development contracts that were seen to be advantageous to Iraq, but not so good for them.

BP and CNPC of China agreed to produce oil at the 17-billion-barrel Rumaila field, accepting the government's offer of $2 a barrel for each additional barrel the consortium extracts. The joint venture had sought $3.99 a barrel. Reps from other companies, including Exxon, Shell and 30 others from 18 countries sat impassively, apparently underwhelmed by the potential payoff. Shahristani made clear that Big Oil would be paid a flat fee for their efforts and would be allowed no ownership stake in any field.

For some, the government's posture was hubris. Analysts said Shahristani provided oil companies little incentive to bid, asking companies to spend heavily on development for very little return. "They clearly went too far in not allowing any kind of reasonable profit," said Sam Ciszuk, an energy analyst with IHS Global Insight Middle East, in London. "There are huge risks - not only financial, but legal and political."

And life-threatening, he could have added. A just-released United Nations report states that most of Iraq's oil fields are mined. The Ministry of Defense bans non-military de-mining operations, meaning the oil companies will not be able to use civilian contractors to clear any land mines. "One wonders whether oil companies actually thought about this issue at all," a U.N. official told NEWSWEEK. "It might take years before they even set foot on the fields.

The companies' cool response could put a damper on Iraq's economic-development plans, which hinge on oil. Dependent on crude, Iraq has seen its budget decrease as per-barrel prices have dipped. The loss in revenue even threatens funding for the Army and National Police, which have inherited responsibility for security in urban areas with American combat forces gone. "They need to learn to make better deals," says a Western consultant to the Maliki government, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Shahristani said he expected production on the eight fields to yield $1.7 trillion over 20 years. But the Western companies would realize only a fraction of that. Given the lack of enthusiasm, the oil minister ended Tuesday's session early. Matters could get worse still: Even the BP/CNPC is no sure thing. No contracts have been signed and there's no guarantee that the deal will go forward, Ciszuk told NEWSWEEK. "Nobody's popping champagne corks in London," he said.

At the opening of the session at Al-Rasheed Hotel, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was bullish. "Today we - Iraq, the Iraqis - and the entire world will witness a round which might be unique of its kind in the region," he stated. It appears he and his cabinet should not count their oil barrels before they are filled.

Kirkuk Bombing Foreshadows Continuing Iraqi Instability

2009-06-21T23:08:22Z

By Lennox Samuels

After years of war and insurgency, Iraqis have become almost inured to carnage. But incidents such as the suicide truck bombing that killed 80 residents near Kirkuk on Saturday have alarmed even some jaded citizens. The reasons: the disputed northern city of Kirkuk remains a major flashpoint in Iraq's political future, and the assault comes just days before U.S. combat troops are scheduled to permanently leave the country's cities and towns.

The stunning attack in Taza refocuses the spotlight on the nation's underlying sectarian tensions and exposes lingering anxieties about what will happen once the Americans withdraw on June 30, and whether the Iraqi Security Forces can adequately replace them.

Taza's residents are mostly Turkmen, but it lies just south of Kirkuk, where Kurds and Arabs continue to jostle for control. The attack has left Arabs pointing fingers at Kurds, Kurds blaming Arab insurgents, the Baghdad government accusing Al Qaeda, and Shiite and Sunni Arabs eyeing each other with suspicion.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, U.S. Ambassador Christopher R. Hill and the top American commander, Gen. Ray Odierno, all condemned the bombing, which injured an additional 200 people, vowing that it would derail neither political reconciliation nor the withdrawal steps laid out in the security agreement that Iraq and the U.S. signed last November. But the statements have not quelled the unease, suspicion and paranoia of Iraq's various sects and ethnic groups. No one has claimed responsibility for the latest "significant act," but there are suspects aplenty.

"I think the big explosion in Kirkuk was committed by the Kurdish authorities to show that Kirkuk needs to be under their control to be safe," Baghdad college student Ali Saad told NEWSWEEK.

"People in Kurdistan, including some top officials, are telling me this was the work of either Al Qaeda or the secret services of neighboring states trying to foster Arab nationalism and a renewed civil war," said Asos Kurdi, a veteran journalist in the city of Sulaimaniya.

"This is likely the work of Sunnis who don't want the Americans to leave because they are afraid they will lose even more power, as well as the money the Americans pay them," declared a Shia resident of Baghdad's Karrada district, who asked for anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Such sentiments underscore the challenge Baghdad faces as the Americans draw down and eventually leave altogether by the end of 2011. The government has been adamant that there will be no adjustment in the security agreement. Government leaders have taken every opportunity to emphasize that the country's security forces are ready to take over. Some American commanders initially suggested it might be wise to keep some combat troops in some especially problematic cities, notably Kirkuk and the northern city of Mosul, but the Iraqis were not interested.

"All U.S. [combat] troops will be out no later than the 30th of June," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said at a press conference last week, adding that that date "will be written in Iraqi history books." At the same briefing, Gen. Odierno, who previously had acknowledged reservations about leaving a half-dozen specific areas, including Mosul, stated stiffly that a joint security assessment with the Iraqis had resulted in the conclusion "that combat forces would withdraw and that trainees and advisers would remain as appropriate." He added that "I feel more comfortable now about where we are." Al-Dabbagh said a solution would be found in Kirkuk that would "avoid any further problems in the city."

The government's eagerness to get the Americans out is not shared by all Iraqis. An unexpected dynamic in the country has been the shifting attitudes of many Shiites and Sunnis. Ascendant during the Saddam regime, many Sunnis initially rebelled against the American "liberators," joining the insurgency alongside Al Qaeda, which paid them to plant IEDS, blow up cars and commit suicide bombings. The Shia, meanwhile, welcomed U.S. troops, which restored to them the power they believed was rightfully theirs by dint of their majority status. Nowadays, however, many Sunnis see a continuing U.S. presence as needed to guarantee their minority rights, and some Shia want the occupiers out of their way to better enjoy complete control.

For many ordinary Iraqis, the government's insistence that the Iraqi Security Forces can maintain law, order and security is a hollow promise, if not dangerous. The ISF—essentially the army and national police—is widely seen as having a huge learning curve. The police, in particular, may not be quite ready for serious paramilitary duties, notwithstanding many months of NATO-sponsored training by Italy's Carabinieri branch of the armed forces. And concerns persist about whether the worldwide economic crisis, which has also hit Iraq, will affect the government's ability to properly arm and equip the army.

Defense Minister Abdul Qadir al-Ubaydi calls government allocations "acceptable," saying the department has achieved its goals. And Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani, while conceding that terrorism, organized crime and recalcitrant militias remain concerns, insists that "the Iraqi Security Forces have the capability to face these challenges."

And so the U.S. departure from urban areas continues. Multinational forces that once numbered 160,000 are down to 130,000, overwhelmingly American troops. More than 140 bases have been closed or turned over to the Iraqis. By the end of this month, the U.S. will have 320 bases in Iraq, a drop from the current 460. And Odierno says, "We will hand over all detainees in a safe and secure fashion." Some of the approximately 13,000 detainees will remain in U.S. custody after June 30, but all will be released or handed over by the end of the year.

No one, however, expects attacks such as Saturday's deadly bombing to end anytime soon. Maliki himself warned that opportunists will continue to take advantage of the American withdrawal from cities to try to destabilize the nation. Many ordinary Iraqis agree, some revealing a marked cynicism about national politics. "With the U.S. withdrawal, everybody will try to assume power," says Fatima Azeez, a primary-school teacher. "There are the Baathists, there is Qaeda, the Badr Brigade, Dawa [Maliki's party], other organizations and parties, who all have weapons."

Hashim al-Taie, a member of parliament from the Sunni Tawafuq bloc, has called for the questioning of the defense and interior ministers as well as the armed forces commander to find out why security violations persist. He also thinks the Americans should help "raise the level of performance for Iraqi forces." But with Iraq's top-line leaders hustling the Americans out, there doesn't seem to be much appetite—or time—for that.

Soccer As An Extension of Politics By Other Means (Apologies to Clausewitz)

2009-05-22T17:21:47Z

PHOTO: Christopher Anderson/ Magnum for Newsweek

U.S. soldiers leaned back on metal chairs in the open parking lot where the crowds walked through metal detectors. Inside their cordon they mingled through the stands at Baghdad's national soccer stadium. The games today comprised mixed teams of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi national police, organized by the areas they patrol together, in what's thought to be the largest-scale attempt at soccer counterinsurgency since the U.S.-led invasion six years ago.

These are days, yet again, of great uncertainty in Baghdad. There's been a spate of high-profile attacks after a couple weeks of relative calm. Doubt hangs in the air about what will happen when American forces reduce their numbers in Iraqi cities next month and whether Iraqis can handle what will be thrown at them. But on this hot, hazy afternoon troopers from the 82nd Airborne Division, the Iraqi national police and a London group that promotes reconciliation through soccer provided a microcosm of how things could be if the country stays on track.

U.S. and Iraqi troops mingled in the stands, not only unarmed but in their soccer jerseys and shorts. The stadium, a sleek, tapered oval that holds several thousand, was mostly empty but for the hundreds of Iraqi kids who came to attend soccer clinics or just stop by for a look after prayers or a swim in a nearby community pool. Integrated teams of Iraqis and Americans, including one American woman, played hard on the field. And, in a display of the Iraqi top-down management American military trainers often complain of, an Iraqi commander in the press booth atop the stands could be seen radioing tips to a coach on the sidelines. At one point, he was heard ordering an Iraqi player to apologize to an American opponent, perhaps for some minor contact.

In the VIP section, American and Iraqi commanders sat in overstuffed chairs, sipping Gatorade and mingling with invited sheiks. They were afforded a security detail of U.S. and Iraqi sentries though visitors streamed in and out. Yamam Nabeel, chief executive of London-based FC Unity, looked on. His group uses State Department and private funding to start soccer programs in Iraq and provided the equipment for the ongoing tournament around the days event. A native Iraqi whose family left the country when he was three years old in 1980, Nabeel acknowledged the obvious point that one soccer tournament does not make peace. But for those playing and watching, he said, it might undermine some of the recruiting lines used by insurgents. Potential recruits, he said, "might think, I was on a team [with Americans] and they did not act like you say they do."

Making a Lasting Peace with the Sunni Awakening Movement

2009-05-19T17:36:58Z

Iraqi government representatives faced leaders of the Awakening tribal militia movement in Baghdad today to hear their complaints and answer with promises that they are not being abandoned. In the second such large public meeting meant to clear the air, sheiks and former officers from the old Iraqi army lined up at a microphone in the Rasheed Hotel to sound off. Their fighters aren’t getting paid what they’re owed, they claimed. They will be left unprotected and vulnerable to Al Qaeda when their forces are moved into the Iraqi security forces. And, some protested, many in their ranks have been arrested by government forces or are in hiding.

With American commanders as matchmakers, the arranged marriage between the Shiite-led Iraqi government and the largely Sunni Awakening movement is one of the country’s most tenuous and important pairings. It will take constant tending. American officers, who had encouraged a similar meeting last fall, lined the back of the hotel ballroom today. The 90,000-strong Awakening militias include many former insurgents who decided to turn and fight against Al Qaeda and with U.S. forces--who paid them salaries. The trick is to find enough of them jobs and a future--without dependence on the departing U.S. forces--to keep them from returning to insurgency. Last year they were put under the command and pay of an Iraqi government they trust little and has given mixed messages.

For starters, the Iraqi government continues to hold in jail about 17 Awakening (also called Sahwa or Sons of Iraq) leaders and arrested another just last night. U.S. Maj. Gen. J.D. Johnson, overseeing the program, says that’s out of a total of about 800 leaders. But each arrest casts a chill over the other leadership. The fear is that government forces are settling scores or view the militia commanders as rivals. The government says some of them have committed crimes, abusing their positions. Some have. But some have also been released after U.S. officers investigated and found the charges to be bogus. “Once we know about [an arrest], we start tracking it very closely,” Johnson said. His answer appeared to acknowledge another complication: Sometimes the Iraqis are making the arrests without U.S. knowledge.

There’s also a multitude of problems with the cumbersome management of the diverse local groups. It’s rarely clear if salaries are delayed by government opposition or simply problems in reconciling the many lists of fighters with payrolls. It almost doesn’t matter in the end. “The slightest bureaucratic error becomes interpreted as something greater than that,” Johnson said.

While Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has repeatedly promised to integrate the fighters into the government, their presence angers members of his own Shiite constituency who worry about coddling former Baathists or insurgents. About 13,000 have been brought into the Iraqi security forces so far, a slow pace endangered anew by a government budget crunch.

Some Awakening leaders see the end of their influence coming as their men fold into the government. Whether they were in it for the money, the power or out of patriotic duty, these tribal leaders and neighborhood elders are the ones who encouraged their followers to switch sides. The decision came with risks. “They should support us. We are targeted by Al Qaeda , by IED’s, by snipers,” pleaded Gen. Abdel Razaq, an avuncular, retired commander who leads a group of fighters in western Baghdad. “We support the government.”

Combat Stress System to Come Under New Focus

2009-05-12T19:34:46Z

Amid the patrols, searches, training of Iraqi counterparts and the usual tedium of soldiering, many U.S. troops in Iraq are also trying to manage their mental health. Modern warfare today means an Army in which sleeping pills and anti-depressants are dispensed by medical units to help keep troops functioning in a war in which the forces are stretched thin. It’s not uncommon, Army psychologists have said, for soldiers to threaten others or themselves. There are procedures, like confiscating weapons and imposing around-the-clock suicide watches, to prevent danger. Now the shocking shooting spree by a U.S. soldier who killed five of his comrades at a combat stress center is placing new emphasis on the military mental health system, and the challenges of convincing some soldiers to use it.

The Pentagon today announced that the soldier, Sgt. John M. Russell is in custody facing a charge of aggravated assault and five counts of murder. After being flagged by commanders for stress problems about a week ago, the military said, Russell was ordered to a combat stress clinic at Camp Liberty (abutting his home base, Camp Victory). His weapon had already been taken from him. According to published reports, he apparently had an altercation with someone there and used another person's gun to kill two officers who were staff members in the clinic and three soldiers who happened to be there at the time. It’s the worst reported case of a soldier attacking his own troops since the war started. In addition to the criminal investigation, the Army has ordered a complete review of its mental health system.

The mental health infrastructure in Iraq has been growing throughout the war. The shooting yesterday took place at one of four “restoration centers” in Iraq, where soldiers can bunk temporarily or get outpatient care along with therapy. There are about 40 other combat stress teams on location with troops around the country. Their phone numbers are posted on bulletin boards, handed out by chaplains and commanders. But commanders acknowledge the system has problems, different doctrines and techniques have been tried.

As an Army psychologist explained to me a few years ago, there are competing interests between mental health and war fighting. One of the biggest is that soldiers and officers still look at therapy as a sign of weakness. Secondly, the goal is “unit cohesion,” that is, keeping the soldier at work rather than sending him or her home. Medicines can be prescribed but, as soldiers are sent back to the field, they don’t have the follow-up they need to monitor their condition--or make sure they don’t hand out the pills to others.

The hope for the troop was that as the violence in Iraq subsided and tours of duty were shortened, stress would decrease. But in some cases, simply being connected through the Internet to family back home has been enough to cause problems--the psychiatrist told me of one case in which a wife back home had posted photos of her and her new boyfriend on the Web to torment her soldier husband. And a recent USA Today story posited that boredom may increase stress.

The psychiatrist told me that it was especially hard to get officers to seek help because they feared it would impede their career or undermine their reputations. He tried to argue that it would help them avoid career-ruining incidents. The words seemed apt today as Maj. Gen. Daniel P. Bolger talked about the military’s efforts to get people to go for help. “It’s particularly challenging for a fellow like Sgt. Russell. He’s a non-commissioned officer,” Bolger said. “He’s in a leadership capacity and to make that trip down there is a tough decision for him or his chain of command to make, but we’re willing to make it.”

UN Human Rights Report: Torture and Detention Without Charge in Iraq

2009-04-30T13:34:10Z

A new United Nations report on human rights in Iraq cites Iraqi prisons for continued torture of detainees, incarceration for months without charges and warns, as it has in the past, that “security may not be sustainable unless significant steps are taken in the area of human rights such as strengthening the rule of law and addressing impunity.” The report (PDF), covers mainly the last half of 2008.

Some of the main points, written in the typically understated voice of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI):

The report found 26,249 people being held in Iraq prisons in December. It said they faced “months or even years in overcrowded cells” and many had not been formally charged.
The agency found, “that the use of torture as an interrogation method and the ill-treatment of detainees remains a serious challenge to Iraq’s criminal justice system.” It says there is no known case in which any official in the powerful Ministry of Defense, which has its own jails, “has been held accountable for human rights abuses.”
When UN officials told a senior police officer in the western city of Ramadi that Iraq was adopting an international convention against torture, he replied, “How are we going to get confessions? We have to force the criminals to confess and how are we going to do that now?”
The report singled out jails in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region for poor treatment including beatings and electric shock.
Kurdistan also came under fire for its high rate of so-called “honor killings” of women and the many cases of women burned or coerced into suicide in honor cases.
Speaking of Iraq in general, the report said, “the vast majority of women still face at least one form of domestic violence.”
The UN found that the amnesty law, passed at the insistence of the U.S. in attempt to foster reconciliation, has had little of its intended affect, with it only resulting in the release from jail about 7,500 from prison (the report said 127,431 were eligible, though it was not clear if that included people facing arrest warrants but not in prison).
It faulted U.S. forces for detaining people “for prolonged periods without judicial review.” The report cited no other mistreatment of detainees in U.S. detention.
The report urged U.S. officials to continue investigations into two shootings by guards for the American embassy working for Blackwater Worldwide (the firm now goes by the name Xe).
It noted the Sept. 16, 2007 killing of 17 people by a Blackwater convoy in a Baghdad traffic circle. (One of the guards has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in a U.S. court and five others face charges. The company has said the guards were acting in self-defense).
The report also said an embassy official told the UN that guards for the company allegedly killed a 75-year-old Iraqi in traffic after the man came close to the company's convoy. The embassy official told the UN the case had been referred to the U.S. Department of Justice. A spokeswoman for Xe told NEWSWEEK the company was reviewing the report but has "no indication that the company or its personnel were involved in an incident like the one described."
The number of people killed in violence is still high but decreasing, according to the Iraqi government, which stopped releasing the figures when things were the worst in 2007. The UN reported Iraqi figures showing 6,787 civilians and security forces were killed in all of 2008, with 20,178 wounded – down from 34,542 killed and 36,685 wounded in 2006. It tallied 102 suicide attacks in 2008.
The report noted concern over continued attacks against Christian and other religious or ethnic minorities. It made no mention of killings of gay Iraqis, which have been widely reported in the media, but it did criticize the jailing in Kurdistan of a doctor who had published an article about health issues related to gay sex.

Iraq Bombings Threaten to Renew Chaos

2009-04-24T21:41:04Z

An Iraqi talk show anchor planned to spend his hour today talking about the recent robbery and shooting spree against jewelry store owners. But after the third bombing with massive casualties in two days, he changed the subject. Here’s a sample of the comments from callers.

Abdel Rahman from Baghdad: “What we’re seeing in Iraq now is the stuff of Hollywood films. This is a CIA agenda and the Americans are the first and last ones responsible.”

Zeinab, calling from Syria: “How can the politicians keep telling us to come back?”

Abu Sabhan: “Now is the time for the people to go into the street and bring down this government that is implementing the US project.”

Haider from Baghdad: “We stand at checkpoints for half an hour for the sake of security. I want to know what those checkpoints are for.”

Now, talk shows in Baghdad tend to attract the same kind of opinionated callers as shows in the United States, and this one was on Baghdadiya TV, one of the stations more critical of the government (and home of shoe-throwing reporter Muntather al-Zeidi). Still, these were the sounds of confidence draining from the security bubble of the last several months.

More than 150 Iraqis have died and at least as many have been injured in two separate bombings Thursday and this afternoon. The targets have been Shiite Muslims, including pilgrims coming from Iran yesterday and worshipers on their way to a Shiite shrine in Baghdad today. It’s the kind of violence that struck over and over from mid-2003 until Shiites started fighting back in horrific street attacks and kidnappings in 2006.

U.S. officials stress that the overall numbers of attacks are still down from 2003 levels. So far 14 U.S. soldiers have died this month, up from 9 in March and lower than the 17 in February, according to the Website icasualties.org. The site reports that civilian deaths are running about the usual rate of between 200 to 300. (An Associated Press story yesterday reported a new Iraqi tally showing nearly 90,000 killed since the start of 2005)

But U.S. commanders have expressed frustration at not being able to stop the “spectacular” attacks we’ve been seeing lately. The attacks–two coordinated in a usually secured location today, six in one morning on April 6–also show a degree of organization that belies claims that Al insurgents are desperate or on the run. In fact, they appear to be able to strike some of the city’s most patrolled areas.

The bombs have shaken the city and threaten the tortuously slow political reconciliation that most Iraqis and Americans agree is needed to bring real stability and to keep the country from splintering into chaos again. People are calling for action and resorting to old, usually ethnic, animosities. Some of what could happen next if things turn for the worse:

The bombings could scuttle plans for a conference in the coming weeks that would include Sunni Baathists interested in recognizing the Shiite-led government. Shortly after the bombing today, influential Shiite cleric Sadr al-Din al-Qubanchi blamed Baathists for the attacks and warned politicians that, “winning over 1,000 Baathists will lose you 100,000 of the people's votes.”
Iraqis who fled the violence for other countries, including badly needed doctors, engineers and civil servants, will be less likely to return.
The government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, which won recent local elections and touts security gains, could lose the people’s trust and even face parliamentary attempts to unseat it–which would likely lead to months of leaderless stagnation. Maliki quickly called for an investigation into security breaches at the bombings Friday.
Iraqis could lose confidence in the fledgling security forces or the Americans training them, which would reduce their desire to risk providing all-important intelligence on threats.
Worst of all, and so far not occurring, government forces or rogue Shiite militias could try to exact the kind of street vengeance that made 2006-7 so horrendous and required the American troop surge just to get things to where they are now. But now, the U.S. is trying to withdraw troops. That kind of violence could even cause the splintering or collapse of some of the new security forces.

On the other hand, this could end up being a test the new Iraqi security forces are up to handling. Today’s bombing was in the Kazimiya district of Baghdad. I was there a couple times last week and was struck by two things. First, it’s one of the cleanest, most pleasant areas of the city. Large homes line the banks of the Tigris River and the sumptuous gold dome of the shrine floats above the busy shops and mosques like a crown.

Second, the security at the checkpoints controlling all the entrances was lax. Iraqi troops waved an electronic wand by passing cars but let them go one after another with little more than that by way of inspection. After the bombing, NEWSWEEK talked to an employee at the shrine who said today’s attack was near the site of a smaller bombing last week and insisted the police are not doing their jobs. Despite the fact that attacks are still frequent, there’s a complacency that may be creating an opening for insurgents. Friday, Abdel Mehdi al-Karbalai, a prominent Karbala cleric, warned that the government has to end its infighting and keep the security forces on the alert. Local media reported that Maliki suspended top security officials in Kazimiya.

People in predominantly Shiite Kazimiya are conservative merchants, not looking for a fight and craving stability. I remember being there after a large bombing scarred a holy day in March, 2004. Residents gathered in an impromptu meeting and some called for indiscriminant blood against Sunnis until one man calmed them with reminders that they must follow their clerics, mainly Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and he was urging patience. Most of Baghdad doesn’t have the cool tempers they do in Kazimiya, where people have so much to lose if things turn to mayhem. The city’s patience is being put to the test.

With Saad al-Izzi and Hussam Ali.

A Plan for Opening Abraham's Biblical City

2009-04-21T19:01:12Z

American archaeologist Brian Rose visited Iraq this month to work with antiquities officials in making southern Iraq’s historic site of Ur, a reputed home of the Biblical Abraham, accessible for tourists and research. But nothing about Iraq’s vast and beleaguered archaeological treasures is simple, even the management of one of the country’s better-protected ruins.

The ancient city, one of the world’s first, lies within the perimeter of the Tallil Air Base, an old Iraqi installation that has been used by U.S. and Coalition forces since 2003. That proximity has helped protect the site from the looting that occurs at many of the country's thousands of unguarded sites. The Coalition is scheduled to transfer control of the site to Iraqi authorities next month, prompting Rose’s State Department-sponsored trip to consult on the site’s needs. For starters, the change will require new fencing and a round-the-clock contingent of Iraqi antiquities guards, Rose told NEWSWEEK after his return last week. The site also lacks electricity, water, sufficient parking or the facilities like a visitors’ center, public bathrooms, tourist paths or explanatory signage.

The Bible places Abraham as living in “Ur of the Chaldees.” The ruins near Iraq’s city of Naseriya are more than 7,000 years old and were populated until about 500 BC. Rose, president of the Archaeological Institute of America, is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, which, along with the British Museum, did the pioneering excavations on the site in the 1920s. They turned up royal tombs stocked with offerings of gold, ivory and items for entertainment in the afterlife, like a harp adorned with a golden bull’s head and a mother-of-pearl game board (many of these are now viewable in Western museums). Though most of the area is still underground, Rose says excavation is the last thing it needs until work can be done to prevent damage to structures amid the ruins. Rose hopes to return in the summer to work on a management plan for the site.

Archaeologists worry that hasty excavation could alert thieves to the location for new loot. On his helicopter flights, Rose says he could see hundreds of looter holes dug like honeycombs into other historic locations – Iraq has more than 12,000 known archaeological sites. Visiting another site, Ubaid, he saw trenches for Saddam Hussein’s tanks cut through the ruins mounds.

Saddam added embellishments to Ur. In hopes of a never-made visit by the late Pope John Paul II, he ordered the foundations of three ancient homes to be combined and built into a mansion to represent Abraham’s house – surely a distortion of the modest abode Abraham probably had if he was indeed from there. The site’s greatest landmark is the mountain-like ziggurat of Ur-Nammu, which was covered in the 1960s with new brick facing. Soldiers have had held ceremonies atop the structure and recently Iraqi and American jazz bands held a concert at its base April 1.

This was Rose’s first trip to Iraq. He praised the country’s resourceful antiquities officials, including director Amira Edan al-Dahab. He also found value in some of Iraq’s modern artifacts, namely the four enormous hands that hold crossed swords in arches over an old regime parade route in the current Green Zone. The hands are modeled after Saddam Hussein’s and the new government made an aborted, controversial start at dismantling them. He says it’s up to Iraqis what to do with the hands and Saddam’s gaudy house of Abraham in Ur. But he’d rather the country keep them rather than “attempt to erase history through iconoclasm.”

In the Green Zone, Light at the End of the Tunnel

2009-04-08T17:30:41Z

For nearly six years, the Green Zone’s perimeter walls have choked off several key traffic arteries where they intersect in the heart of the capital. One may now be opening. A major east-west highway, which dips into a tunnel in mid-Green Zone and emerges in western Baghdad, is being prepared for traffic again.

The work has been visible for weeks. Semi-trailers and cranes have been used to place blast walls along the approach to the tunnel – which is inside the Green Zone near the Iraqi parliament. Road crews have pulled up the weeds that grew between the road’s concrete segments during the years it has been blocked off. U.S. Army personnel have come to oversee the work. Several rows of barricades still have to be removed before traffic can pass and new gates and walls will be needed to separate the road from the secure areas.

The opening date is still not public but word has spread among Iraqis who are eager for any relief of the traffic congestion, which has been badly aggravated by this chokepoint at the center of the grid. While U.S. troops still watch over and control the area, where the U.S. Embassy, Iraqi leadership and thousands of Iraqis and foreigners live, official jurisdiction was handed to the Iraqi government in January. There’s been a growing push by the public and Iraqi politicians to open the roads.

Still, the Green Zone remains very heavily fortified with walls and checkpoints not just around it but in clusters inside. Yesterday, when it was thought President Barack Obama might be visiting and amid a wave of recent car bombings in the city, columns of armored vehicles closed off streets inside the Green Zone itself. Sometimes that happens even without a presidential visit. So while they might be opening an important underground thoroughfare, it doesn’t mean there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

The Ripples from Provincial Elections are Just Starting

2009-03-26T18:40:34Z

The implications of the January provincial elections are still playing out in Iraqi politics. Since they required intramural competition among Sunni and Shiite political parties (rather than just the old, lopsided Shiite vs. Sunni scenario) they gave the best indication yet of whom voters really support. The results were being officially certified Thursday by the commission governing the vote.

The 14 local councils elected will now have to form coalitions and choose who will serve as their governors – powerful posts with widespread authority over local budgets and security forces. It’s complicated – many provinces had more than seven different parties win seats – and the local deals could be tied to agreements on the national level.

The vote showed support for nationalist parties over parties favoring strong local powers. Parties seen as less religiously led did well (though secular liberals like Ayad Allawi still struggled). Those who lost significant power were the Iraqi Islamic Party (Sunni) and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (Shiite), both which are religious and seen as backing local power over central government. Iraqis increasingly want a strong national state.

Here are some of the choices for the pols in the month ahead.

A Move Against Maliki?

Maliki was the biggest winner and is at the center of all the activity. For example, his list won a controlling 28 seats on the crucial 57-seat Baghdad province council. But that has unsettled his rivals. Kurdish leaders, who want to protect their region’s autonomy, have chafed at Maliki’s efforts to strengthen the central government’s control on the armed forces and oil resources. He’s also worried his previous Shiite coalition partners ISCI, who had been the dominant power in the Shiite south.

Though their numbers in the provincial councils are now lower, the Kurds, ISCI and the Iraqi Islamic Party are still formidable in the parliament (which is not up for election until January) and are supposedly discussing ways to curb Maliki’s burgeoning power. One way would be to hold a no-confidence vote that could turn Maliki into a weakened, caretaker prime minister. But that could also backfire, allowing Maliki to blame his opponents for the government’s failure to provide services, like electricity and water.

The parliament could also try to invoke more of its powers to examine and investigate the prime minister’s offices. It already cut his budget. Any of this could be alarming to American officials, since it could cause paralysis and friction as U.S. troops begin to pull out.

Maliki’s Countermoves

To keep his momentum, Maliki has clearly been seeking to broaden his alliances. After using government forces last spring to pound into submission illegal militias led by renegade Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, he has been reaching out to Sadrist politicians in parliament, negotiating top ministry positions he could offer to their partisans.

He has also made deals with former Sunni adversaries in forming coalitions on the local councils. One is Saleh al-Mutlaq, a parliamentarian whose slate won new local seats. If they can make local deals, it could also win the support of Mutlaq’s parliamentary block in preventing a no-confidence vote.

Increased Cross-Sectarian Coalitions

With Maliki talking to Mutlaq and the ISCI talking to the IIP, it raises the possibility that Iraq will not forever be about ethnic politics, Sunnis banding against Shiites. This is something U.S. officials encourage. It could form reconciliation between the sects and weaken the influence of Shiite Iran, which can exert its will easier when Iraqi Shiites are united.

Iran vs. the United States

The countries fighting for influence in pivotal, oil-rich Iraq will be watching how politicians ally and divide in preparations for the big national elections to be held by the end of January.

One rumor going around the Green Zone is that when former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani recently visited Baghdad, he urged Maliki to run in the national vote as part of the broad Shiite bloc he ran with in 2005. Maliki is reputed to have answered that he would consider it if his Islamic Dawa Party leads the ticket – last time it was headed by the more Iranian-linked ISCI.

Maybe the Sahwa Is Hiring

2009-03-24T11:56:49Z

The Western media's financial downfall has been felt sharply in Baghdad, where the number of American reporters has dropped significantly over the past year and bureaus are laying off Iraqi staff.

The word has gotten around. I recently met with a leader of one of the Awakening, or "Sahwa," militias, the Sunni tribesmen who fought Al Qaeda and allied with U.S. forces. Abu Azzam lives in the Green Zone's Rasheed hotel now. He was a businessman in the United Arab Emirates before returning to Iraq to lead forces in the Abu Ghraib area and apparently still follows the markets. When I handed him my Newsweek business card he asked in Arabic, "Has this newspaper gone bankrupt yet?"

Obama Gets a Small Nod on Baghdad's Haifa Street

2009-03-19T18:06:33Z

By Saad Al-Izzi

A traffic circle near the end of Baghdad’s once restive Haifa Street is dedicated to the region’s heroes. The street was once named after British Lt. Gen. Stanley Maude, who captured the city in 1917. Then it became King Ghazi Square, after the second Monarch in the Iraqi royal Family. When Pan-Arab spirit rose, it was named after Egypt’s Gamal Abdel-Nasser. A statue of Iraq’s first king, Faisal I (played by Alec Guinness in “Lawrence of Arabia”) is there today.

Now U.S. President Barack Obama has a modest place in the walk of fame on a handmade sign above a pastry shop. The Al Salhiya Bakery has dedicated its storefront, where it sells the traditional breakfast bun, called “kahi,” to the new president. The large orange banner reads, in a mix of Arabic and English, “Kahi Obama.”

“It started as a joke and then turned real,” said storeowner Monthir Tahir, a 35-year-old who has worked in the store since his father opened it when Monthir was a child. Last year, in the run-up to the election, he heard U.S. troops on patrol around the shop discussing their excitement about the upcoming vote. Joining in, Tahir added Obama’s name on small sign in the store’s window and promised to make it bigger if the Democrat won.

Though most symbols of American leadership are viewed skeptically in Baghdad, the sign has not hurt sales, which have actually risen. The shop has a steady mix of regular customers, including local Iraqi police. Kahi is dough soaked in butter and oil, then oven-baked to be crispy and dipped in sugary syrup. It’s usually eaten with “gaimur,” a cream made from buffalo milk.

A year or two ago, it would have been unthinkable for a shop owner to pay homage to an American president on a street where insurgents could run free. Now, though there are still bombings and killings in the capital, the incidents have been reduced steeply since 2007. “The time of fear is gone,” Tahir says.

But heroes come and go in Iraq. Maude’s Brits were driven out and the monarchs were toppled. Tahir is willing to wait and see how Obama does. “We have given him a one year," he says. "After that, if he proves to be good, we will keep the banner and probably we will make him a bigger one."

--With Larry Kaplow

Some Iraqis Support Tough Shoe-Thrower Sentence

2009-03-12T18:19:10Z

Not all Iraqis want to let the shoe thrower off the hook and some even agree with the harsh three-year jail sentence Muntadhar al-Zeidi received today from an Iraqi court.

Granted, it's a minority. Zeidi was lauded in street demonstrations in Baghdad and other capitals when the 30-year-old television reporter zinged his two shoes past a ducking President George W. Bush in a press conference here Dec. 14. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, at a lectern next to Bush, vainly tried to block the flying leather. Iraqi security wrestled and pummeled Zeidi and whisked him off to jail.

Zeidi later told the court that he couldn't bear listening to Bush claim success in Iraq while all the reporter could think of was the monumental human loss and suffering of the last six years. He said he viewed Bush as an occupier. Iraqis and other Arabs have hailed him as a national hero. It's probably the majority view, but there's a nuance, too.

Many think he broke an important Middle Eastern and especially Iraqi code that requires hospitality for even reviled guests. It's a little like American Southern hospitality--if someone is in your house, you treat them well as a sign of your own good upbringing and honor. "[Bush] was a guest and a guest should be respected and not humiliated," said a construction worker who wanted to be identified just by his first name, Fawad. "It's our duty to respect him, not because we love Americans but because we love our country. In our tradition as Arabs, even if you see your enemy at a meeting you should greet your enemy as a sign of respect for that meeting."

Zeidi's lawyers made a compelling argument that the sentence was too stiff. They said he should not have been charged under the law against attacks on a foreign leader but rather a lesser crime of insulting a foreign leader.

"Muntadhar would not have dared to throw his shoe at President Bush if Saddam had been receiving Bush, not al-Maliki," said Sabah Shakir Majhool, a university student. "The three years is a fair sentence for his bad behavior." Another man, an engineer, noted that if he had a complaint about Bush, Zeidi could have used his platform as a journalist to express it.

Others may feel more like Ahmed Saad, a 37-year-old grocer who expressed the same anger as Zeidi about the American-wrought chaos of the recent years. "They should honor him instead of punishing him," he said. "He has done what every Iraqi should have done against the criminal Bush, who destroyed the country and caused the killing of young people and children." Or like mechanic Abdullah Mustafa who said, "It's not fair to put a good guy who loves his country and people in prison just because he has done what all Iraqis wish to do. Zeidi's protest did give voice to Iraqis who felt ignored."

Zeidi has already spent three months in jail and, according to family members, has been badly beaten. Even with good behavior, he might not get out for about two years. Elections are scheduled for early next year. Perhaps the Iraqi leadership could show the same nuance as the people have and commute his sentence before then.

--With Hussam Ali, Saad al-Izzi and Salih Mehdi in Baghdad.

Abu Ghraib Gets a Makeover

2009-02-24T16:50:01Z

By Lennox Samuels

Karim Kadim / AP

Iraq has opened a prison that its operators say will be an example of enlightened and modern incarceration. The freshly painted walls are almost sunny and the facilities include a library, gym, computer room and health care center. It is hard to imagine that this lockup, called Baghdad Central Prison, was previously Abu Ghraib, a global symbol of abuse and human rights violations.

Five years ago TV and newspapers flashed images around the globe of U.S. soldiers gleefully assaulting and sexually humiliating Iraqi detainees in the prison on the western edge of Baghdad. The photos, circulated in April 2004, stunned the world, deepened anti-American sentiment in Iraq and stiffened opposition against the war. The prison closed in 2006.

The renovated facility, opened at the weekend with something akin to fanfare, seems more like a minimum-security detention center than a warehouse for hardened criminals or terrorists. That was the intent, say Iraqi officials, who have assumed control from the U.S. Indeed, Mohammed al-Zeidi, an official with the Iraq Rehabilitation Department suggests that it is almost resort-like. Spokeswoman Fayha Shukri talks about the detainee-to-room ratio the way school principals talk about student-to-teacher ratios. Rooms will have eight beds, compared with 30 beds in the Saddam Hussein days, she says.

The Saddam comparison is appropriate, because long before U.S. Army Specialists Charles Graner and Lynndie England were captured on film terrorizing inmates, the late Iraqi dictator used the prison to torture and kill many of his own people. “Our ministry has rehabilitated a big part of Abu Ghraib prison,” says Fayha, referring to the Ministry of Justice, which now operates the place. No longer will the jail be a dumping ground for people merely suspected--whether by American or Iraqi authorities--of being guilty of something. It will house mostly those who have been tried and sentenced, the spokeswoman explains.

About 400 inmates reside in Baghdad Central Prison, whose current capacity is 3,000. Plans call for more renovations on the 280-acre site, with capacity eventually growing to12,000. The Iraqis will need the space: They will soon take custody of 15,000 more detainees from the U.S. military. For now, though, the small population will get to savor refurbished quarters. Illiterate inmates will be taught how to read and write in new classrooms. They will be able to pray in a small mosque. They even will be able to take sewing classes.

In 2004 and 2005, courts martial convicted seven U.S. soldiers of such offenses as battery and dereliction of duty. They were dishonorably discharged and sentenced to federal prison. Graner and England received sentences of 10 years and three years, respectively. A brigadier general, Janis Karpinski, was demoted to colonel. Some members of Congress and various officials called for the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld, defense secretary at the time. Many still say that people in higher positions should have been punished.

At the time, Bush administration officials were taken to task for parsing the Geneva Conventions while insisting they did not condone torture. As the Iraqis now give tours of upgraded dining facilities and greenhouses at the new and improved Baghdad Central Prison, they pledge that they will abide by international norms on detainee treatment.

Iraq's Shiite Pilgrims Try Not to Yield to Violence

2009-02-13T21:48:51Z

By Lennox Samuels

It seemed like a typical Friday in Baghdad during celebrations for Arbaeen, the ceremony that comes 40 days after the anniversary of the death of Imam Hussein. Hypnotic chants wafted over the city and men and women, some pushing strollers, walked along Karrada Inner Street and Mohammed al-Qasim Highway on their way to the holy city of Karbala. It was hard to tell that bombers had killed more than 60 Shia Muslims and injured dozens more in three consecutive days of mayhem.

And that is how the Shiite pilgrims wanted it. Yes, bombings in Baghdad killed at least 12 people Wednesday, followed by the death of eight more a day later in a suicide attack in Karbala itself and finally, the slaughter of at least 32, mostly women and children, by a female suicide bomber near Iskandiriyah on Friday. Iraqis walking stoically along the pilgrimage route and worshiping in Baghdad and Karbala mosques had decided they would not yield to terrorists trying to reignite violent sectarianism. The pilgrimage, once an act of defiance against Saddam Hussein, has become an act of defiance against terrorism.

“These terrorist acts will increase our determination to do the pilgrimage. We will challenge terrorism,” Mohammed Ajaj Kazem, a 27-year-old farmer from Nasiriyah, tells NEWSWEEK. He walked five days from his hometown to Najaf, another holy city, en route to Karbala. Kazem is among the millions of Iraqis who went to the polls Jan. 31 to elect provincial councils. For him, the election represented a decisive shift toward a new Iraq and he will not to be distracted from seizing the future. Others say the same thing. Despite strong provocation, Iraqis may at last be finding the will to resist the call to violence.

Many are motivated by sheer war weariness and the desire for normality. In the Karrada and Mansour districts, men are starting to throng cafes again. Families browse electronics stores along Outer Karrada Street. Residents regard empty, abandoned hulks and ask openly when the structures will be rehabilitated or demolished. A middle-aged university professor who has not worked for months since his 7-year-old son was kidnapped says he just wants to have his son back and return to teaching. Some Iraqis who worked for Coalition forces or contractors and had been desperate to secure visas to America now say they want to stay and help rebuild.

Iraqis increasingly want to be left alone to fix their enervated society. And they’re not just talking about the Americans and their coalition partners. More of them are articulating a deep suspicion of and exasperation with their geographical neighbors, especially Iran and Syria. Some see the hand of Tehran in the pilgrimage bombings. “The terrorism is financed by neighboring governments unwilling to free their own people and become like Iraqis,” says Kamal Abbas, 32, a Najaf policeman making the trek. “Iran has incubators in Iraq and they feed the extremists of both sects [Shia and Sunni] to try to destroy Iraq.” His comment blithely presumes an imminently democratic Iraq. Kazem, the Nasiriyah farmer, does too. “Those bad people do not like democracy to spread from Iraq to their homelands, like Syria and Saudi Arabia,” he declares.

Along with such awareness comes a widening political savvy. Provincial election balloting, which saw Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s candidates grab the largest proportion of votes in nine out of 14 provinces, suggested that Iraqis no longer can be expected to vote along mostly religious lines. Some pilgrims confirmed that, along with a shrewd assessment of high-stakes politics. “Some of the violence in Iraq comes from the political powers,” says Yasir Zaki, 28, a Baghdad contractor. “The parties that failed in the last elections started to cause violence in order to oblige the powers that did win to bring them into the government.”

Violence, some Iraqis say, could be reduced at least to a degree if the political chess game ended. The government would become a meritocracy, with no regard to allocating ministries on the basis of party affiliation. “Some parties try to create problems for other parties in order to take ministries from them," Jalal Ali Hassan, a 45-year-old Baghdad businessman, tells NEWSWEEK. “The solution is to let the prime minister choose figures for the ministers who are not from parties.” Such a system, of course, assumes the prime minister can be trusted to make merit-based decisions.

Further, Iraqis are increasingly vocal in demanding that the government expend its energy on their needs. Some look at the success of the Kurdistan region of their country with a degree of envy and admiration, despite their antipathy toward the Kurds. And they understand that central and southern Iraq must be as uncompromising in the quest to properly exploit the nation’s lucrative oil industry and attract business and even tourism, while keeping people safe.

They also prescribe a frontal assault on government corruption. Amin Ali, 44, works at Doura Refinery. He says oil revenues are not spent on building power stations or more refineries, but on unrelated, even irrelevant projects. “Ministries like Trade, Oil, Electricity, Industry, their performance is catastrophic,” he says. “They are spending their budgets on issues that do not develop the performance of the ministries themselves. He adds that, “Corruption is stronger than anything else in the country. I think it is as dangerous as the armed groups and the insurgency.”

With many Iraqis focused on the route to development, it is less likely that Iraq’s nascent self-confidence will be snuffed by deadly terrorism on the road to Karbala. Granted, the lethal attacks of the last three days showed that the nation’s improved security forces cannot prevent suicide attacks and bombings, even with hundreds of soldiers and police, aerial surveillance and numerous checkpoints. But those trying to scare off pilgrims are certain to fail. Karbala governor Akeel al-Khazali said more than 4 million are making the march. “Each time they create an incident, they are making more people want to go,” says Riyadh al-Ghoraifi, a 50-year-old Baghdad expert on family trees. And those seeking to use the pilgrimage attacks to incite renewed violence may find Iraqis are not so eager to turn on each other, again.

--With Hussam Ali and Saad Al-Izzi