Iraq analysis

[Al-khiyal]

Iraqi defense chief due in South Korea to discuss security, economic ties

January 9, 2009 -- Iraq's defense minister will visit South Korea next week to discuss common Middle East concerns and inspect an industrial plant here, the defense ministry in Seoul said Friday, according to Yonhap news.

The five-day trip by Abdul Qader begins on Sunday, the Ministry of National Defense said in a statement, adding he plans to meet with his South Korean counterpart and tour a local automobile factory.

The visit will come less than a month after South Korea ended its four-year-long deployment of reconstruction units, Zaytun and Daiman, as part of U.S.-led international forces in conflict-troubled Iraq.

[Al-khiyal]

South Korean army officer accused of bribery in Iraq

SEOUL, South Korea, January 10, 2009: A South Korean army officer has been arrested on suspicion of accepting bribes from a local construction firm while serving in Iraq, a Defense Ministry official said Saturday.

The 30-year-old captain is accused of taking $25,000 and a digital camera from the firm in return for extending the deadline for constructing facilities at the Korean military base in Iraq, the official said on condition of anonymity citing the ongoing investigation.

South Korean military prosecutors arrested the captain last month along with a master sergeant in the same unit who is accused of demanding bribes from the Iraqi firm, the official said.

The official declined to identify the two army engineers involved as well as the Iraqi firm.

He said prosecutors will decide whether to indict the two in the next few days.

In December, South Korea ended its five-year reconstruction mission in Irbil, about 220 miles (350 kilometers) north of Baghdad. The South Korean contingent numbered about 3,600 troops at its height, making Seoul the third-largest U.S. coalition partner in Iraq.

The deployment was largely unpopular with the South Korean public, but Seoul billed it as a way to strengthen its alliance with Washington.

[Al-khiyal]

Sunnis clash over selection of new parliament leader

BAGHDAD, January 10, 2009 — The Iraqi parliament plunged into a fresh crisis Saturday, just a day before it was scheduled to reconvene, when members of the main Sunni Arab coalition fell into bitter infighting over choosing a new parliament speaker.

The fighting centers on replacing Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, a prominent Sunni Arab politician who was forced to resign as speaker December 23rd after months of complaints by the main Kurdish and Shiite blocs in parliament. The blocs said they were upset about his overall performance and his frequent lashing out from the podium. In the end, some Sunni Arab lawmakers agreed and supported his ouster.

According to political agreements, his successor must be a Sunni Arab, as part of a codified effort to help Iraq's Sunni minority feel it has a voice in government. But disagreements over the choice led to more walkouts from the main Sunni political coalition, Tawafiq, on Saturday, weakening the bloc before crucial provincial elections scheduled for the end of January and raising the possibility of street protests by outraged Sunnis. The dispute may also keep parliament from passing any legislation until a speaker is chosen and confirmed.

Tawafiq had been given until Friday to come up with a new candidate for the post. On Thursday, Iyad al-Samarraie, Tawafiq's head and a senior leader in one of the bloc's main parties, the Iraqi Islamic Party, said in an interview that he had been nominated for the position. Accusing the party of trying to force its coalition partners into accepting al-Samarraie, four Sunni deputies, including Taha al-Luhaibi, said Saturday that they would leave Tawafiq.

"The Islamic Party wants to take all decisions," said al-Luhaibi, accusing the party of presuming to speak in the name of all Sunnis. "It's the dictatorship of the one party."

This leaves Tawafiq, which was already beset by infighting and other defections, with about 25 members in parliament, of whom about 22 are from the Iraqi Islamic Party. There are a total of 69 Sunni Arabs in the 275-member parliament.

[Al-khiyal]

U.S. faulted for poorly managing Blackwater in Iraq

WASHINGTON, January 10, 2009 -- The US State Department was faulted Friday for poorly managing Blackwater Worldwide and other private security firms operating in Iraq under a contract worth nearly two billion dollars.

"The department's security operation in Iraq has been highly effective in ensuring the safety of chief of mission personnel," according to the report by the department Office of Inspector General (OIG).

"However, the rapid rise in use and scale of private security contractors has strained the department's ability to effectively manage them," the OIG added.

"The department's management of the security program in Iraq has been undermined by frequent staff turnover, understaffing, increased workload, and the lack of standardized operating policies and procedures," it added.

It said that under the security contract, the embassy in Baghdad's regional security office overseeing logistics is responsible for managing and controlling government-furnished vehicles, arms, communications and other equipment.

The office is directed by a personnel services contractor (PSC) which oversees six Blackwater administrative logistics security specialists, it added.

And OIG said it believes the use of "a PSC to direct-- and Blackwater administrative specialists to carry out" - the mission of the logistics office to control "government-furnished equipment is a poor management practice."

Such a practice may also violate Federal Acquisition Regulation policy stipulating that contractors not be used to carry out "inherently government functions," it added.

"This arrangement is particularly troubling because Blackwater personnel have inspected their own company," it added.

The report comes as five former Blackwater guards stand trial on charges of killing 14 Iraqi civilians and wounding 18 others by gunfire and grenades in Baghdad in 2007.

[Al-khiyal]

Iraq victims sue UK security firm

January 11, 2009 -- One of Britain's largest private security firms is being sued over allegations that its men opened fire on unarmed civilians and then drove away, leaving an Iraqi brother and sister fighting for their lives.

The case, the first of its kind brought by British lawyers against a private security contractor in Iraq, claims employees of Hampshire-based Erinys fired from a 4x4 vehicle at an approaching taxi in north Iraq. Documents relating to the claim describe how a 26-year-old man was shot in his right eye and his sister, 24, lost consciousness during the incident 15 months ago. Also hit was another passenger in the taxi, Iraqi journalist Sangar Mawloud Mohamed, 30, who lost part of his left ear and remains partly deaf.

The release of details of the shooting coincides with unease over the role of private security firms in Afghanistan and Iraq. Last week, five guards from US firm Blackwater denied the manslaughter of 17 Iraqis shot in Baghdad in 2007.

Papers relating to the Iraqis' claim describe how student Arazw Younus Qader, 24, passed out after being struck by shrapnel soon after Erinys employees began shooting at the taxi. On regaining consciousness, she turned to her brother, Zirag Younus Qader, 26, and "saw his eye hanging out of its socket and bleeding so profusely she thought that he would also die. She saw Zirag was losing consciousness and dragged him out of the car".

Following the incident, the US military offered "condolence payments" of $2,500 to each of the victims. Erinys, which is understood to be bidding for new military contracts, was paid $100 million by the Bush administration to guard Iraqi oil installations. At one point Erinys employed 17,000 in Iraq and last year had more men in Iraq than the current British armed force of 4,000.

London-based lawyers Leigh Day allege that Erinys guards "committed unlawful assaults" against them. They say psychiatric assessments reveal all three are suffering post-traumatic stress, anxiety and trauma. Zirag, according to the compensation claim, still has shrapnel lodged in his face and skull after he was struck in the eye socket. He has twice attempted suicide since the shooting in October 2007. In addition he was so disfigured that he lost his job as a fresh juice maker in Irbil, Kurdistan, because employers feared he would scare off customers. His sister, also struck by shrapnel in her face and scalp, often wishes she were dead, according to psychiatric assessments, has severe depression and is considered a suicide risk.

Mohamed, who worked for Kurdistan's Zagros TV and radio station, Voice of Kurdistan, is said to require "complex surgery to reconstruct the left ear, to remove the large number of pellets embedded in his head and face and to restore his hearing". Psychiatric prognosis reveals that his severe depression may lead to suicidal tendencies. Relatives have had to care for his six-year-old brain-damaged son because his wife has been forced to find a job.

Erinys said they had warned the taxi before opening fire, though the Iraqis maintain they did not notice any "verbal, hand or bright light warnings" before they were fired on.

The Iraqis are also suing for negligence after Erinys allegedly drove off without checking the condition of the victims. Meetings in Iraq between the families and officials over a compensation deal describe the attitude of Erinys as "reprehensible", accusations that the company rejects.

A statement by Erinys said the taxi had unaccountably driven around stationary traffic and driven across open space towards the Erinys convoy, ignoring visual and shouted warnings. It added that there had been two reported insurgent incidents the day before. A senior US army officer appointed to investigate the incident had concluded, according to the firm, that Erinys had acted properly against a potential suicide bomb attack.

[Al-khiyal]

Kurdish leader sees authoritarian drift in Iraq

Salahuddin, January 11, 2009 -- The president of Iraq's Kurdish region charged Saturday that Prime Minister Nouri Maliki was drifting toward authoritarian rule, in the latest sign of the dangerous rift that has emerged between the Iraqi leader and his partners in the country's ruling coalition.

"One gets lost in absolute authority," said Massoud Barzani, the leader of the semi- autonomous Kurdistan region in Iraq's north. "You become too authoritarian, you lose yourself."

In an interview at his palatial office here, Barzani accused Maliki of working to purge Kurds from the Iraqi security forces. And citing concerns about changes to the constitution, he refused to rule out the possibility that Kurdistan could declare independence from Iraq.

"For sure, we will not accept an Iraq ruled by dictatorship," he said, sitting in a room with a view of the snow-topped Zagros mountains.

The Kurds, who are scattered across several Middle Eastern nations, have long fought to establish their own state. Iraq's Kurdistan is the closest that the ethnic minority has come to achieving its nationalist dreams. But now, 18 years after the Kurds achieved de facto independence, the population once again is worried that Iraq's Arabs could turn on them.

Barzani said he hopes that an upcoming visit by Maliki to Kurdistan and a series of working groups set up in November would go a long way toward resolving the problems.

His comments in the hour-long interview with the Los Angeles Times veered from direct attacks on the prime minister's record to the conciliatory. He denied rumors that efforts were underway by parties in the government to replace Maliki.

Barzani, dressed in an olive military shirt, baggy traditional pantaloons, sash and cummerbund, and a headdress, appeared to grapple with his turbulent relations with Maliki. He described how he had intervened to block an attempt to overthrow Maliki in spring 2007 and how he had offered crucial support last year when an embattled Maliki ordered his forces into the southern city of Basra.

A veteran of the guerrilla struggle against Saddam Hussein's regime, Barzani demanded a reason for what he felt was the prime minister's desertion of the Kurds.

"We want to know. It is also a surprise for us. In Arabic there is a saying that absolute authority could lead to an individual losing insight or [his] bearing. In other words, his character would be lost in absolute authority," he said.

Barzani said he was stunned by Maliki's behavior. The prime minister, whose Islamic Dawa Party joined the Kurds in fighting Hussein from the mountains of northern Iraq in the 1980s, has courted Arab nationalists hostile to the Kurds and called for the strengthening of the central government, which the Kurds fear could rob them of their autonomy.

"I never expected that he would be opposing the rights of the Kurdish people, or he would be opposing the existence of . . . peshmerga or Kurds within the Iraqi army and he would be marginalizing them," he said. "Unfortunately, this is what is happening and we are disappointed by that."

Recent events have proved alarming for the Kurds, particularly an effort in the summer by Sunni and Shiite Arab lawmakers to get a jump on the Kurds with their own solution regarding the disputed northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk, which Kurds want to incorporate into their region.

Since then, Kurds say, they have watched Maliki transfer Kurdish units out of provinces such as Nineveh, where veterans of the Kurdish peshmerga forces that fought Hussein have dominated the Iraqi army. Maliki has also called for the constitution to be revised, which the Kurds consider a direct threat to their powers in northern Iraq.

The tensions have evoked a feeling of betrayal among Kurds.

"The personal aspect derives from the relationship that the Kurds had with the Shiite Islamist parties during the time of exile," said Iraq expert Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group.

The developments have already provoked a war of words between Maliki and Barzani.

In November, Barzani said the central government was increasingly sliding toward one-party rule, but steered clear of direct insults against the prime minister.

Soon after, Maliki criticized the Kurds for signing their own contracts with foreign oil companies. He also suggested that Kurdish forces were arresting and torturing Arabs in disputed regions.

On Saturday, Barzani discussed the quarrel over the long-stalled national oil law, which is supposed to govern relations among provinces on oil revenue and contract signing. Barzani faulted the central government for not agreeing to a compromise that would have allowed regions to sign oil contracts with foreign companies. The Kurds have not waited for a law to proceed with such contracts.

"Unfortunately, it seems that Baghdad is dragging its feet and not wanting an amicable solution to it. In real essence, the problems or blame are being laid at the doorsteps of the Kurds at a time when the state has no oil policy and the ministry is a failed ministry with a failed policy," Barzani said.

He warned that if the prime minister continued to try to make changes to the constitution and alter the spirit of post-Hussein Iraq, the Kurds might consider declaring independence.

"That's the bridge we will have to cross when we come [to] it," he said. "Even in the preamble of the constitution, it says very clearly [that] adherence to this constitution is a precondition to preserving the unity of Iraq."

Members of Maliki's Dawa party said Saturday that Barzani should be careful with his words.

"Massoud Barzani is a significant leader, and he should realize the great responsibility in issuing [statements], since it can change many equations," Dawa member Ali Alaaq said. "A well-placed statement can do a lot of good, while the contrary can cause a great deal of damage."

[Al-khiyal]

U.S. soldier killed by IED in eastern Baghdad

BAGHDAD, January 11, 2009 (KUNA) -- A U.S. soldier died when an improvised explosive device struck his vehicle in eastern Baghdad last night, the U.S. army in Iraq reported on Sunday. The Multi-National Division in Baghdad reported in a statement, that the soldier was killed at approximately 8:00 p.m. Saturday night, when an explosive device struck his vehicle in eastern Baghdad. The soldier's name is being withheld pending notification of next of kin. The death toll of U.S. soldiers in Iraq had increased since the start of the liberation war in Iraq in March 2003, recording 4,224 deaths.