Last Throes

[George.]

Ali Allawi, Iraq's finance minister, estimated that insurgents reap 40 percent to 50 percent of all oil-smuggling profits in the country. Offering an example of how illicit oil products are kept flowing on the black market, he said that the insurgency had infiltrated senior management positions at the major northern refinery in Baiji and routinely terrorized truck drivers there. This allows the insurgents and their confederates to tap the pipeline, empty the trucks and sell the oil or gas themselves.

"It's gone beyond Nigeria levels now where it really threatens national security," Mr. Allawi said of the oil industry. "The insurgents are involved at all levels."

American officials here echo that view. "It's clear that corruption funds the insurgency, so there you have a very real threat to the new state," said an American official who is involved in anticorruption efforts but refused to be identified to preserve his ability to work with Iraqi officials. "Corruption really has the potential of undercutting the growth potential here."

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/images/jan06/Iraq_Jan06_grph5.GIF

When nearly half the country, and an overwhelming majority of Sunnis, don't simply want the US to leave, but actually approve attacks - in other words, would be willing to give aid and cover, or at least turn a blind eye to insurgents - I don't see how the insurgency can be defeated short of a full scale civil war.

And if the insurgents are tapping heavily into oil money, they won't be running out of weapons or recruits anytime soon.

Something is on its last throes - but I don't think it is the insurgency.

[LeeG]

here's a good example of group think:

"corruption really has the potential"..the potential?

"its scale is so broad as to be a serious threat to Iraq's economic rebirth."

http://tinyurl.com/dknpm

American officials here echo that view. "It's clear that corruption funds the insurgency, so there you have a very real threat to the new state," said an American official who is involved in anticorruption efforts but refused to be identified to preserve his ability to work with Iraqi officials. "Corruption really has the potential of undercutting the growth potential here."

Frequent insurgent attacks on the pipeline have been one reason Iraqi oil exports have plummeted over the past year.

Oil smuggling is only one part of a broader corruption problem that ranges from small-scale kickbacks to major fraud of the kind that took place in Iraq's Defense Ministry, where investigators last August said they had identified more than $1.3 billion in misspent military contracts. Hazem Shaalan, who was defense minister under former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and gave Mr. Juburi the job of protecting the Baiji pipeline, was charged with public corruption last year and is now living in London.

Not all the corruption is related to the insurgency. But American and Iraqi officials say its scale is so broad as to be a serious threat to Iraq's economic rebirth.

[LeeG]

revenge of the nerds,,Feith and Wolfowitz run to the hills followed by those history re-writers chasing them off the field (GWs phrase for people who dare to not support the party line).

http://ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=31987

Schnabel is co-editor of a new book, "Security Sector Reform and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding", published by United Nations University press and written by an international group of academics and military commanders who examine the record and challenges of security sector reform in post-conflict societies.

"Instead of stabilising places like Iraq, international efforts to centralise power are creating a more fragile security environment than ever before," Schnabel said.

The United States is avoiding widely recognised peace-building processes that involve external military powers quickly creating a basic security environment and then allowing domestic peace- and nation-building efforts to succeed.

Schnabel estimates that full democracy is at least 20 years in the future.

Meanwhile, the time frame for stability in Iraq is an open question.

What has happened in Iraq over the past three years violates many of the recommendations in the book, which draw on experiences in the post-conflict environments of Macedonia, Bosnia, Russia, Georgia, Northern Ireland, El Salvador, Guatemala, Columbia, Chile, Haiti and on the African continent.

"Internal forces must be put under democratic control, restructured and retrained to become an asset, not a liability, in the long-term peace-building process," the authors state.

[Memphis Mike]

Talkin to yourself again, Lee? :rolleyes:

[LeeG]

not if you're responding

[George.]

Hey, I have a plan for ending the occupation: the US should get the NYT to publish the Mohammed cartoons on its front page. Then, the Iraqis will demand that the US leave and reject US investments, as they are doing with the Danes. Ergo, peace with honor! :D

[LeeG]

the thing to appreciate with this administration is that they aren't burdened by reality.

A VP who consistantly talks in contradictions is accepted. Really, he KNOWS about effective prisoner interrogation methods. He KNOWS about the threats to the Homeland. He KNOWS what US energy policy should be. He KNOWS the executive needs more power. Trust in Cheney, GW does.

That Libby has resigned and Rove is next on the chopping block is business as usual.

How much will be spent this year in Afghanistan/Iraq? $400 Billion?...with about $10 Billion spent on Iraqs reconstruction, half of which is their own money.

yep, corruption really has the potential of undercutting the growth potential.

The Quadrennial Defense Review is out,,seems that overtaking nation states to combat terrism isn't as important as as it was before,,,well, found that out.