IRAQ - Oil-For-Aid Scandals.
The US has had a bumpy relationship with the UN over the Iraq
project. There are potentially explosive implications from the UN
oil-for-aid programme agreed in 1996 with Iraq's previous . . .
IRAQ - Focusing On The Non-Oil Sector - Part 6-L - The UN
Angle.
Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari on June 1 urged the
United Nations to help his transitional government write a constitution,
which he described as "the most critical test for the future of . . .
IRAQ - Japan & Australia Face Hostage Crises.
Two of Washington's staunchest allies in Iraq grappled with
hostage crises on May 10 as Japan confirmed one of its citizens was
missing and a deadline set by the captors of an Australian passed . . .
IRAQ - Fraud Cases.
There will be many fraud scandals associated with the US
involvement in Iraq. A criminal inquiry has been launched into a
suspected case of embezzlement by US officials administering . . .
IRAQ - US Iraq Costs Surpass 1,600 Deaths & $300 Bn.
Total US troop deaths in the Iraq war on May 8 reached 1,601,
according to a CNN count. In all, 1,780 coalition forces - not counting
Iraqi forces - had been killed by then. The US death toll . . .
IRAQ - Kuwait Jails Iraq Volunteers.
Saudi Arabia and other GCC states now pursuing all Salafi suspects
in their territories, a Kuwaiti court on May 8 sentenced 20 suspected
Salafi Islamists to three-year jail terms on charges of . . .
IRAQ - Finishing Off Zarqawi.(Brief Article)
US counter-insurgency experts on May 14 were quoted as saying the
key to ending Zarqawi's war in Iraq would be to catch Bin Laden.
Zarqawi's men in Iraq are drawing on dozens of . . .
IRAQ - Ethnic Rifts Tearing At Al-Qaeda.
US and Pakistani intelligence agents are exploiting a growing rift
between Arab members of Al-Qaeda and their Central Asian allies, a
fissure tearing at the network of extremists as militants . . .
IRAQ - Al-Qaeda Recruiting In Mauritania.(Brief Article)
Al-Qaeda has been pouring vast sums into mosques and Islamic
schools in Mauritania, hoping to recruit insurgents and send them to the
front lines of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mauritanian . . .
IRAQ - Talabani's View.(Brief Article)
During a state visit to Jordan, Iraq's Kurdish President Jalal
Talabani told Reuters in Amman last week that Zarqawi was being funded
by supporters of the strict Saudi-based Wahhabi sect and . . .
IRAQ - Raids Near Syria & US Refocuses Strategy.
Salafi insurgents of Jordanian militant Abu Mus'ab
Al-Zarqawi's Qaeda, who control parts of the western Iraqi desert
and include well trained Syrian volunteers, have fallen back to regroup
as US . . .
IRAQ - Popular Sovereignty & What Follows.
The success of this military strategy, however, depends on a
political gamble. As democratisation is the centerpiece of US policy,
other goals - power sharing, regional stability, Iraqi . . .
IRAQ - Focusing On The Non-Oil Sector - Part 6-K - The US
Options.(Brief Article)
There are three scenarios for the future of Iraq and the US
preference is for the first and most hopes for. This is a gradual
withering away of the Sunni insurgency as government police and . . .
The Shiite Position.
The political impasse which has caused such a long delay in forming
a cabinet is being viewed by the four senior-most Shiite religious men
of Najaf - the Marja'iya - as a symbolic defeat for . . .
The US Military Presence.(Brief Article)
One of the first orders of business for the new government under
Ja'fari will be to strike a deal over the terms and conditions of
the 150,000-troop-strong US military presence. A UN Security . . .
The Role Of Talabani & Regional Reaction.
Talabani has spent a lifetime fighting for Kurdish rights, forming
a secret student association at the age of 13 and even taking up arms
against the Iraqi government. Now, as president of Iraq, he . . .
The Role Of Khalilzad.
It was on April 5 that the Bush administration nominated Khalilzad,
the ambassador to Afghanistan, to become the new ambassador to Iraq. In
her announcement, expected weeks earlier, Secretary of . . .
Focusing On The Non-Oil Sector - Part 6-J - Iraq 10 - Into The
Green Zone.
Iraq now has a republican and federal democracy, for the first time
in its history, led by a central government based in Baghdad's
Green Zone which is heavily protected by the US and where the US . . .
IRAQ - Parliament Meets As Efforts To Form Coalition Govt.
Intensify.
Iraq's first post-war elected National Assembly met on March
16, more than six weeks after the Jan. 30 vote. But no decision was
taken on a national coalition government as Shiite and Kurdish . . .
IRAQ - Massive Corruption Risks.
Transparency International (TI), the world's leading
anti-corruption campaign, has warned that the reconstruction of Iraq
could become the biggest corruption scandal in history if . . .
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