Puppet Maliki to buy 36 F-16 while nation doesn't even have Water & Power

Iraq's Maliki says will buy 36 F-16 fighters from US

30 Jul 2011 14:36

Source: reuters // Reuters

BAGHDAD, July 30 (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Saturday his government would buy 36 F-16 fighters from the United States, doubling the number of aircraft it had initially planned to buy.

Earlier this year, Iraq had delayed the purchase of F-16 jets, made by Lockheed Martin Corp , after putting $900 million of allocated funds into its national food programme to reduce the pressure from Iraqis staging demonstrations in protest against poor basic services. (Reporting by Waleed Ibrahim, writing by Patrick Markey, editing by Tim Pearce)

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Iraq's Maliki wins approval to trim government

30 Jul 2011 16:35

Source: reuters // Reuters

BAGHDAD, July 30 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki won parliamentary approval on Saturday to trim the size of Iraq's government by cutting more than 10 ministries in an effort to meet popular demands for more efficiency and better basic services.

The measure could stir tension in his cross-sectarian government, where critics accuse Maliki of seeking to consolidate his position by doing away with posts belonging to opposition parties such as the Sunni Muslim-backed Iraqiya.

Many Iraqis, encouraged by protests sweeping the rest of the Arab world, earlier this year took to the streets to demand improvements in public services and the food rationing system, and call for an end to corruption.

The current cabinet has more than 40 posts, including 16 ministers without portfolio.

"The parliament voted to cancel all ministries of state without of portfolio, except three," Sadiq al-Rikabi, a lawmaker and top aide to Maliki's Dawa party, told Reuters.

Maliki said a second stage would merge other ministries that were carrying out similar work, such as those for agriculture and irrigation.

Iraq's power-sharing coalition consists of Sunni, Shi'ite Muslim and Kurdish parties who formed a government in December nine months after an inconclusive election.

Any increase in political tension would hamper the coalition just as it tries to decide whether to ask some U.S. troops to stay in Iraq beyond an year-end withdrawal date, more than eight years after the U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.

Violence has eased since the peak in 2006-07 but Sunni and Shi'ite militias still carry out attacks, killings and bombings almost daily in the OPEC oil-producing country.

Maliki gave his ministers 100 days from late February to find solutions to the main complaints of Iraqis. But that deadline expired without many signs of improvement and protests have since sputtered out. (Reporting by Waleed Ibrahim; writing by Patrick Markey; editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Trimming will cover all small entities and ethnic groups, Premier Maliki
7/30/2011 8:34 PM

BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: Premier Nouri al-Maliki announced today that trimming the government will include the smaller components within the bigger ones, in addition to ethnic groups, without depriving them from participating in governmental responsibilities, pointing out that he will entrust the post of ministry of defence to present culture minister, as acting minister, if no agreement reached on the nominated persons for such posts.

In a press conference, following parliamentary session on trimming the government, he pointed the mechanism for the smaller and ethnic entities in a manner that will deprive them from their rights.

Iraqi parliament voted today for canceling all ministries of state, except for three, women, provinces and parliament affairs.

The governmental programme was discussed.

The number of the ministries shall reach 29 at maximum, while the present figure reached to 43 ministries.

Maliki added that there is a plan to establish State Consultants Authority that will extend their expertise in different fields.

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Aswat Al Iraq / Politics , Baghdad
Al-Iraqiya Coalition rejects appointment of Saadoun al-Duleimy for Acting Defense Minister’s post
7/31/2011 12:29 PM

BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: The Spokeswoman of al-Iraqiya Coalition, led by Iyad Allawi, Maysouon al-Damaloujy, has announced on Sunday its rejection of the appointment for the post of Acting Defense Minister by the current Culture Minister, Saadoun al-Duleimy, saying that her Coalition had nominated several candidates, who were all rejected by Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki.



“Al-Iraqiya Coalition rejects the appointment of the post of Acting Defense Minister for Saadoun al-Duleimy, considering the talk in this respect by Prime Minister Maliki as “an another individual decision, reflecting Maliki’s individualism to deal with such issues,” Damaloujy said.



She said that “al-Iraqiya Coalition had nominated a large number of candidates for the said post, but the Prime Minister had rejected them all, because he doesn’t want al-Iraqiya Coalition to share in the security dossier in any form.”



Iraq’s Prime Minister Maliki had said in a news conference on Saturday, after attending a Parliament session that “if no agreement would take place towards the appointment of the candidates for the security cabinet posts, I shall assign the current Culture Minister, Saadoun al-Duleimy, to carry out the duties of the Defense Minister on acting basis,” pointing out that Duleimy possesses a previous experience in that respect.



Saadoun al-Duleimy has held the post of Defense Minister in the past and he holds the post of the Minister of Culture now.



He was born in Anbar Province in 1954 and is an independent Iraqi politician, who does not belong for any party.
He had got the MA degree in Social Sciences from Baghdad University in 1979 and PhD in Social Psychology from the United Kingdom in 1990.



Duleimy had joined the opposition against the regime of Iraq’s former President Saddam Hussein after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and was sentenced to death in absentia for his role in a coup attempt against Saddam’s regime.

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Aswat Al Iraq / Politics , Baghdad
Al-Iraqiya Coalition proposes 4 candidates for Defense Minister’s post, before Political Leaders’ Meeting
8/1/2011 11:05 AM

BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: Al-Iraqiya Coalition, led by Iyad Allawi, has proposed 4 candidates for the Defense Minister’s vacant post in the Iraqi Cabinet, its Legislature, Haider al-Mulla, reported on Monday, confirming that his Coalition “insists on the settlement of the issue of the security Cabinet posts in the next meeting of the Iraqi Political Leaderships, scheduled to convene on Tuesday.”



“Our Coalition insists that the meeting of the Political Leaders, scheduled to convene tomorrow (Tuesday), would settle the dossiers of the security ministries and the Arbil Agreement,” Mulla told al-Hayat Newspaper.



Mulla said that the candidates of al-Iraqiya Coalition for the Defense Minister’s post were Qais al-Shadir, Salah al-Jiboury, Salem Dally and Abdul-Karim al-Samarrae, who holds the post of the Minister of Sciences & Technology in the current Cabinet.



The Newspaper quoted Mulla as having denied reports of “Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki’s approval to assign the Defense Minister’s post for the current Communications Minister, Mohammed Allawi,” reiterating that al-Iraqiya Coalition “insists on the implementation of all articles of the Arbil Agreement and the achievement of a genuine partnership in the State’s administration, which it insists not to submit.”



Al-Iraqiya Coalition had rejected on Sunday, according to its Official Spokeswoman, Maysoun Damaloujy, the assignment of the Acting Defense Minister’s post for the current Minister of Culture, Saadoun al-Duleimy, saying that her Coalition had presented several candidates for the post, but they were all rejected by the Prime Minister.



Al-Iraqiya Coalition had threatened mid last month to withdraw trust from Maliki’s government and to call for early elections in the event of non-achievement of the national-partnership, which some analysts believe that such position had been taken due to non-achievement of any progress in the talks between the negotiating committees, formed by both al-Iraqiya and the State of Law Coalitions, led by Allawi and Maliki.

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Iraqi Government is Downsized

Posted on 03 August 2011. Tags: Cabinet, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Reidar Visser
Iraqi Government is Downsized

The following article was published by Reidar Visser, an historian of Iraq educated at the University of Oxford and currently based at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. It is reproduced here with the author’s permission. Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.

The Iraqi parliament has been unusually efficient today. Although the assembly barely reached the quorum level (only 183 deputies were reportedly present), those who attended today’s session – which included a questioning of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki regarding his plans to reduce the size of his government – were effective enough. Whereas a previous session had ended with a lame “agreement to downsizing the government in principle”, today all ministries of state save three (provincial affairs, women’s affairs and parliamentary affairs) were abolished by a majority vote.

In one way, of course, this is a positive development, because a main problem in the government that was formed by Nuri al-Maliki in December 2010 was precisely its bigness and its sprawling, unwieldy character. Criticism of unnecessary and symbolic government offices that primarily serve to augment the hubris of their holders has been part and parcel of the limited “Arab Spring” that has manifested itself in Iraq over the past half year. With fewer ministers, decision-making inside the cabinet should be made easier and, in principle at least, one of the main obstacles towards a more effective government has been removed through today’s action.

At the same time it should be clear that everything that was done today represents a flagrant violation of the Iraqi constitution. That is so because the constitution does not distinguish between ordinary ministers (i.e. those with portfolio) and ministers of state (i.e. without portfolio) as far as sacking them is concerned. They should enjoy exactly the same right to individual questioning before parliament prior to a vote of no confidence, meaning that today’s en masse cancellation of around ten such ministries represents a clear constitutional violation. To add insult to injury, Maliki told parliament that “no legal problems” pertained to the process of reducing the size of the government and Iraqiyya expressed satisfaction as far as procedure was concerned. There have been vague attempts at establishing a distinction between ministries for which separate laws have already been issued and those that lack such laws (including the ministries of state). However, none of that cancels out the constitutional provisions, but so far it appears that only individual politicians like Wail Abd al-Latif and Aliyya Nusayf have even pointed out the constitutional infractions involved in today’s actions. Of course, it is not the first time the Iraqi parliament violates the Iraqi constitution, but what happened today does raise the question about the role of constitutions in states that have recently transitioned from authoritarian rule: Are they just for fun? Can their lofty principles be violated in such a flagrant way without damaging the fiction of democracy and the rule of law?

As for the political aspects of today’s actions, it appears that many of the ministries that were cancelled are from the smaller Shiite parties, including the Sadrists (Abd al-Mahdi al-Mutayri and Diya al-Asadi), Fadila (Bushra Hussein) and ISCI (Hasan Radi and possibly Yasin Hasan Muhammad Ahmad). Apparently, State of Law are giving up two ministries (Ali al-Dabbagh and possibly Amir al-Khuzaie whose national reconciliation position is listed as a “ministry of state” in many accounts) and Iraqiyya two (depending on how, in addition to Salah al-Jibburi, one counts Ali al-Sajri, originally from the Unity of Iraq list that has since been enrolled in Iraqiyya, and Jamil al-Batikh whose White Iraqiyya seceded from Iraqiyya back in March). The Kurds lose the ministry of state for civil society as well as a Fayli minister of state.

The ministries of state that were not abolished today are two held by State of Law (women’s affairs and parliamentary affairs) and one by a Turkmen (Turhan al-Mufti), whose party is seen as close to Iraqiyya but whose political rhetoric is often Turkmen first. The decision by Maliki to hold on to his embattled ally Safa al-Din al-Safi who is having trouble with accusations about corruption is interesting, and could indicate that he is feeling the threat of isolation within his own cabinet.

In terms of people, based on a rough count, the remaining rump cabinet includes 7 from State of Law, 5 Sadrists (who increased their share during the first half of 2011 through additional appointments in February and April), 2 smaller Shiite groups (ISCI and Fadila with one each), 4 Kurdistan Alliance plus one minority representative often seen as pro-Kurdish, and finally 7 from Iraqiyya plus Sadun al-Dulaymi (whose Unity of Iraq is now technically part of Iraqiyya) as well as the aforementioned Turhan al-Mufti. Which in turn means that the lingering decisions on the defence and interior portfolios could become an even more crucial factor in deciding the political balance of the Iraqi cabinet in the coming period.

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Government should not exempt any power from national reconciliation, Joburi
8/4/2011 1:59 PM

BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: Ex-Qaeda leader called the Iraqi government to take "courageous steps for the national reconciliation process for all parties, warning that the instability will persist if not all real leaders participate in the dialogue.

Mulla Nadhim Al-Joburi, expert in armed groups affairs, told Al-Hayat daily today that "the government is using the national reconciliation only for propaganda", even the earlier five leaders who joined the reconciliation process either were detained and want to clear their records, or left the resistance long time ago and joined the pro-government Al-Sahwa (Awakening) forces.

He called upon the government "to take courageous and practical steps if it is serious about the reconciliation process".

Joburi demanded that the government should not expempt any force or power from the reconciliation process, because will not have stability unless dialogue is made with the real leaders of these armed forces.

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Security breaches due to non-filling security ministerial posts, Anbar deputy governor
8/4/2011 10:08 PM

ANBAR / Aswat al-Iraq: Deputy Anbar Governor declared today that the security breaches in the province have grave indications, attributing them to non-filling security ministerial posts and the occupation of MPs with organizing the political scene.

Hikmat Jasim Zaidan pointed out to Aswat al-Iraq that yesterday explosion is due to these reasons and to the absence of agreements among the political parties and entities.

Yesterday (Wednesday) nine civilians were killed and 17 injured in two consecutive bomb blasts.

The bombs were put in garbage car and barrel mid of Ramadi city.

Today (Thursday) two civilians and two cops were injured when a grenade were hurled on a police patrol mid of Fallouja.

Zaidan called for greater security vigilance to protect the civilians, particularly during praying times, because the armed forces wait every leak or opportunity to strike.

"We have confidence that the Iraqi forces are able to shoulder responsibility in imposing security and stability in the country", he confirmed.

Since March 2010 elections, the country is passing through a state of mistrust, particularly between the main two political blocs (the State of Law and Iraqiyah), where the last demands the implementation of Arbil agreement and the formation of the Higher National Strategic Council.

Iraqiyah bloc warned many times the possibility of withdrawing confidence from the government and calling for early elections.

Ramadi city, center of Anbar province, lies 110 km west of the capital, Baghdad