Many unknowns remain, including what role still-powerful Ahmad Chalabi will play, whether the vice president positions will continue to
the justice and accountability committee was a joke, and it was clear it was designed not to root out baathists but to keep sectarianism alive and dispose of would-be-contenders, everyone knows this, Just look at the number of sunnis they banned compared to other peoples. And it is headed by ahmed chalabi, probably one of the most deceitful untrustworthy people in Iraq. I dont even understand how a head of a contending party was allowed to head the committee, conflict of interest anyone?
…
IB wrote
First, no current or ex-active ba'athi deserve to be part of the process, just like the Nazis in Germany, to say otherwise is beyond the absurd and desperation.
Secondly,
In Iraq, we had a Catholic christian neighbor, we had an amazingly good relationship with them like all close neighbors do, closer than a family to date, one day the mother came to our house for a visit, talking to the family and we were talking about Saddam and his possible removal, there she told us "can you please hide my daughter in your house if saddam was toppled (by shia) , you are shia and they are not going to attack you". I am not going to interpret the above to you.
Now for whatever it is worth, I don't know what make Christians vote for (((((former))))) allies of alqaeda who attacked Christians and everyone, and the (((former))) allies of muqatada who targeted everyone ?
Do you see Muqtada as a loved figure here, not a chance, it just that no one defends him like they do defend Iraq's worst scum because political correctness is frivolously used to protect them.
You know, the above is very familiar pattern I have been hearing from supporters of the list of resistance supporters, al ba'ath defenders, and anti-deba'athification scum, as well as racist foreigners from the glorious "Arabic depth", giving meaningless lip-service starting with "ba'ath such such such" then they go on to follow it with a sentence preceded by A "BUT".
Reidar Visser says: Allawi has participated all the way, with high-level meetings with Maliki, a “keynote speech” in the assembly, his trusted cousin serving in the next government and in fact quite a few Iraqiyya members getting upset with the way in which he reportedly influenced the nomination of Iraqiyya candidates for the various ministers.
Looking at the real persons that are ministers as of today, the cabinet is a State of Law/Iraqiyya dominated affair. I agree Maliki has handled things to his best advantage, although one possible indication of weakness is that almost all the confirmed SLA people are his old stalwarts.
Banu Malik: the support for Saddam came from a small pocket that included the head of the tribe in Qurna who is now an MP in SoL: Salam Abdul-Muhsin Irmish. Most of the tribe members throughout the south stood and fought against Saddam. Besides Salam whose invitation to take part of March elections under SoL did not come out of love as much as it was a calculated political move, Nouri is quite reluctant to bringing in his fellow tribemen.
.You are here: Skip to content.Big challenges ahead for new Iraq goverment .
Wednesday, 22 December 2010 10:33 Mohideen Mifthah .
The Iraqi new cabinet stands for an oath at the house of parliament in Baghdad December 21, 2010. Iraq's parliament approved Nuri al-Maliki as prime minister on Tuesday, giving the Shi'ite leader a second term as Iraq tries to cement fragile security gains and build its fledging democracy. REUTERS
BAGHDAD, Dec 21 (Reuters) - Iraq's new government, finally approved on Tuesday after months of factional squabbling, must stabilise fragile security, pass new investment and hydrocarbons laws and rebuild war-shattered infrastructure.
High on the priority list for a cabinet headed for a second term by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is Iraq's ambitious goal to become a top oil producer and exporter by tapping vast oilfields for the money needed to reconstruct a one-time pariah state torn by war before and after Saddam Hussein's fall.
Maliki will rely on former Oil Minister Hussain-al-Shahristani, now elevated to deputy prime minister with responsibility for the entire energy sector, to continue his work with global oil companies to push Iraq's crude production to world-class levels.
- To read the main story double click on [nLDE6BK12I].
WHAT COMES NEXT?
* Lawmakers will be pressed to pass a long-awaited hydrocarbons law and new investment laws that carry at least some of the protections foreign investors are looking for before plunging into a nation just emerging from war.
* After nine months of limbo, the new government must pass a 2011 budget as soon as possible. The initial spending plan before lawmakers, based on oil at $73 a barrel, sees a $12 billion deficit.
* Maliki has not decided on permanent ministers for sensitive security posts -- defence, which controls the army; interior, which controls the police; and national security. Officials said Maliki lacked qualified, independent candidates.
* Progress on services will be an important factor in public acceptance of the new government. Iraqis frequently complain about intermittent electricity, water shortages and insecurity.
“The new government will not be allowed the luxury of taking months to form a plan and years to implement it. People want fast solutions for the provision of social services and addressing the challenge of security,” said Eman Ragab, an Iraq expert at Cairo's al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
IMPACT ON OIL
* Iraq has signed a series of deals with international oil companies to unlock its vast oil wealth in a bid to boost its output capacity to 12 million barrels per day from 2.5 million bpd now. The deals could catapult Iraq into the top league of oil producers, rivalling Saudi Arabia.
* Oil companies could be reassured by familiar faces. Maliki returns for a second term; Shahristani, the previous oil minister and architect of the contracts, moves up to deputy prime minister with expanded power over energy; new Oil Minister Abdul Kareem Luaibi is well known to the oil firms and was at the negotiating table during the oilfield auctions.
Reidar Visser wrote: I would assume he is a relative of the other Luaybi in the oil sector, Jabbar, who headed the South Oil Company for a while. If so, they are a family of sayyids from southern Iraq that also have family branches elsewhere in the Gulf. Luaybi is reckoned as an independent technocrat, if perhaps Maliki-leaning, by some.
* However, Shahristani's promotion and the emergence of his close ally at the oil ministry leaves unresolved key energy issues: Baghdad's troubled relationship with the semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region, which halted crude exports last year in a spat with the central government.
* Shahristani believes contracts which the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has signed with foreign oil companies are illegal and his relations with the region are fraught. Kurdish lawmakers staged a brief parliamentary walkout last week when they learned Baghdad plans to dock the region's share of federal revenues if it fails to produce oil for export next year.
* One analyst said Luaibi might be able to ease tensions between Baghdad and Arbil, the Kurdish regional capital.
“Luaibi has been the main intermediary when there have been talks between the oil ministry and the KRG,” said Samuel Ciszuk of IHS Energy. “One could see him as someone the Kurds can at least stomach.”
IMPACT ON NON-OIL INVESTMENT
* Iraq's infrastructure has been degraded by decades of war, sanctions and under-investment. The previous government had ambitious plans to ramp up electricity generation, build hundreds of thousands of new homes, expand ports, build railroads and pave roads.
* The new government may encourage potential infrastructure investors who have been sitting on the sidelines. But they will want clarity from parliament in the form of legal protections for foreign firms looking to invest in a country just emerging from war and from decades of dictatorship with a centrally planned economy.
* Iraq's weakened but still lethal insurgency is also a worry for investors. Militants launch daily attacks -- many aimed at the Iraqi army, police and government officials.
IMPACT ON SECURITY
* The inclusion of all the factions -- majority Shi'ites, minority Sunnis and Kurds -- in a power-sharing government could help prevent a slide back into sectarian slaughter.
* The ability of Iraq's army and police to fend off a major surge in violence during the nine months it took to form a government could be a positive sign for investors as the U.S.
military forges ahead with plans to withdraw by end-2011.
* Iyad Allawi's decision to join the government may help ease tensions.
=============
20 Dec 2010
Iraq's Kurdistan ready to export oil according to Baghdad govt.'s export level, officialText size
BAGHDAD: North Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government has expressed readiness to export the quantity of oil, assigned by the Central Government in Baghdad, in its general budget's draft-law, but such decision is liable to the Kurdish demands related to the settlement of the difference in this regard with the Central government, according to Kurdistan Government's Natural Resources Ministry's Advisor on Monday.
"The draft law, presented to the Iraqi Parliament about the state's general budget includes an article, limiting the exportation of 150,000 barrels of Kurdistan oil per day (bpd), within the current Iraqi plan to export 2.15 million barrels of oil per day (bpd), a level that we have no objection towards, in this respect," Dr. Ali Hassan Ballo told the Saudi-based al-Sharq al-Awasat (Middle East) Newspaper.
Ballo, meanwhile, said:
"We see that forcing (Kurdistan) Region's government to implement such commitment, without achieving its demands, represents a prejudiceness of the rights of the Region, taking into consideration non-payment of the dues on the government for the campanies working in the oil sector in Kurdistan."
The Legislatures of Kurdistan Coalition and its "Change List" had withdrawn from the Iraqi Parliament's session last Saturday, in protest against some articles of the draft-law on the general Iraqi state budget for 2011, regarding the quantities decided for oil exports from Kurdistan Region.
"The dues of oil fields that were not discovered yet by the Kurdistan Region's government itself, but through specialized international companies, must be paid to those companies before talk about any export of oil from Kurdistan fields," Ballo said, adding:
"we must expect a possibility to increase oil exports from Kurdistan fields next year to 200,000-250,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd), but that necessitates the improvement and development of the infractructure of the oil industry, thing that won't be achieved without the Iraqi government's recognition of the oil contracts."
The Kurdistan official said that "non-existence of an oil and gas law in Iraq is considered the basic problem the central government is suffering from; as there is no defined legal mechanism for the sharing of power and authorities in the oil sector between Kurdistan and the Central Government - a problem that rises from this angle."
The Kudistan official warned that "in the event of the approval of the state budget's law in its current form, the relationship between the (Kurdistan) Region and the Central Government would end, because imposing the Region to accept such legal chain shall deprive it from its resources, at a time when the Regional government needs its share from the state budget to satisfy the prerequisites of the (Kurdistan) Region and its citizens."
"The (Central) government's position stems from its preparadness to export the quantities of oil demanded from it, but that is based onDr. Ballo said.
meeting the conditions and demands we had raised, forefronted with compensating the companies working in the oil sector and the recognition of the oil contracts, signed by the Kurdistan Regional government,"
Noteworthy is that the Iraqi Council of Ministers had approved the draft-law for the state's general budget for the year 2011, in addition to the agreement on the Finance Ministry's addition of US$5 billions for investment projects, to be financed through credits from the Central Bank of Iraq.
© Aswat Aliraq 2010
===========
After Months, Iraqi Lawmakers Approve a Government Ali Abbas/European Pressphoto Agency
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki waited for cabinet members to arrive at Tuesday’s Parliament session, at which his government was approved.
By JOHN LELAND and JACK HEALY
Published: December 21, 2010
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LinkedinDiggMixxMySpaceYahoo! BuzzPermalink. BAGHDAD — Iraq’s Parliament approved a new government on Tuesday, ending nine months of infighting that threatened to throw the nation into a constitutional crisis but leaving many festering problems unresolved.
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The delay in forming a government led to growing unemployment, worsening services and rising cynicism among voters who risked their lives to participate in the March election. But the new government rests on jury-rigged alliances that may make it too unwieldy to address Iraq’s many problems, especially as American troops prepare to withdraw by the end of 2011.
As he did after the previous election in 2005, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki did not appoint heads for the ministries in charge of security, promising to do so later as he named himself as acting head of those posts.
Mr. Maliki told lawmakers he was “very content” — even if he knew that they were not.
“I do not need anybody to sugarcoat me,” Mr. Maliki said. “I have not satisfied anybody at all. Everybody is angry with me, and everybody is frustrated with me.”
With all major political parties and ethnic groups participating for the first time in an Iraqi government, the 325-member Parliament approved each of the 34 ministers proposed by Mr. Maliki.
But in a sign of the new government’s fragility, one small party walked out, and several lawmakers — mainly women, who received only one cabinet ministry — protested the government’s makeup.
Now, a nation with virtually no democratic track record and a history of sectarian warfare must figure a way to move forward with a government that comprises four major blocs — two Shiite, one Sunni-backed and multi-sectarian, and one Kurdish — each with a different agenda.
All parties said they wanted an inclusive government.
But the resulting body may be ill suited for solving the country’s problems, including poor security, lack of an oil policy, and tensions between Arabs and Kurds over some of the country’s most oil-rich territories, said Reidar Visser, author of “A Responsible End? The United States and the Iraqi Transition, 2005-2010.”
“The downside is that all the compromises have had a price — lots of ministries that aren’t really needed,” Mr. Visser said. “It’s an open question whether the government will be able to decide on key legislation, which is really needed.”
Against predictions and despite a number of coordinated, deadly attacks that rattled the country, Iraq did not experience an overall rise in violence during the impasse.
In Washington, President Obama called the vote in Parliament a “significant moment in Iraq’s history” and “a clear rejection of the efforts by extremists to spur sectarian division.”
American officials said that the inclusion of Sunni officials in high-ranking posts reduced the chances that disaffected Sunnis would split off from the political process and resume sectarian warfare, as happened after Sunnis boycotted the election five years ago.
One Sunni politician whose ties to Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party had barred him from holding office was appointed as one of three deputy prime ministers. The speaker of Parliament, a powerful position that drives the legislative agenda, is a Sunni. And Mr. Maliki, a religious Shiite, replaced the Shiite finance minister with a Sunni.
“This is a very good day for U.S. policy in Iraq,” Christopher R. Hill, a former American ambassador in Baghdad, said in a telephone interview. “Iraqis are not fond of giving Christmas presents, but I think they gave us one today.”
The relatively robust Sunni and Kurdish representation in the new government could help Mr. Maliki navigate one of the most immediate and vexing choices facing his new government: whether any of the 50,000 American troops now in Iraq will stay past a withdrawal deadline of December 2011.
American officials have said that the United States military would stay if asked, but until Tuesday, there had been no Iraqi government with the legal standing to make such a request.
Mr. Maliki has said he is committed to the American withdrawal, but Iraqi officials have privately cited the need for some sort of residual force.
Lawmakers aligned with the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr are vehemently opposed to American forces here.
The Sadrists failed in a bid to secure a slot as deputy prime minister, a development that pleased American officials. But some say their involvement in the government also reduces chances of violence.
The new council of ministers includes 10 members of Iraqiya, the multi-sectarian, Sunni-backed bloc that finished slightly ahead of Mr. Maliki’s in the March election, and 8 members of the Sadrist movement.
The agreement among seemingly irreconcilable forces is a testament to the political shrewdness of Mr. Maliki, whose re-election campaign finished second in the election with fewer than one-third of the seats. After this weak showing, he outflanked his rivals and formed alliances with former antagonists.
Critics consider Mr. Maliki an authoritarian who used the political process to consolidate his own power and neutralize his rivals.
“Authoritarian tendencies — that’s part of Iraqi political culture,” said Ryan C. Crocker, former United States ambassador to Iraq and now dean of the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. He said that Mr. Maliki had formed a broad enough coalition that he did not rely on any of his allies.
“If the Sadrists decide to walk at some point, Maliki can say, ‘fine,’ ” Mr. Crocker said. “If Iraqiya pulls out, it won’t force a vote of no confidence. He’s got a lot of latitude. Some of the alliances may not hold up. And that may be O.K. with him.”
At Tuesday’s session, a member of Iraqiya shouted, “This is not democracy, this is not fair,” but the Parliament speaker, Osama al-Nujaifi, who is also from Iraqiya, shouted him down. One Iraqiya lawmaker, Hassan al-Allawi, angry that he was not made minister of culture, criticized the bloc’s leader and said that he expected 40 members to break off from the coalition and form an opposition in Parliament.
The new government held several significant smaller developments. In one, a sectarian Sunni became minister of education, succeeding a religious Shiite at the helm of a system that has become more religious since the fall of Mr. Hussein in 2003.
“There’s a political agreement now to make books more general, not religious,” said Mohamad Ali Tamim, the new minister.
Female lawmakers, and many male allies, protested that only one minor office, an unspecified ministry of state, went to a woman, Bushra Salah, even though Iraq’s Constitution mandates that one-fourth of all parliamentary seats be held by women.
“It’s not society — society is much, much better than our leaders,” said Safia al-Souheil, a lawmaker from Mr. Maliki’s bloc, who openly criticized the prime minister for not doing more for women.
The female lawmakers refused the position of minister of women’s affairs, because they felt they were being marginalized. The position went to a man, Hoshyar al-Zebari, who was also made foreign minister. His appointment as minister of women’s affairs drew laughter from some lawmakers.
Duraid Adnan and Yasmine Mousa contributed reporting.
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