In Iraq, Combating Oil Corruption, Staving Off Fears of a Kurdish-Arab War

Iraq Oil Report. Posted February 22, 2009.

Following the poor performance of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) – also known as the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) — in recent parliamentary elections, Sa’ad Salloum of Niqash sat down with Adel Abdul-Mahdi, Vice-President of Iraq and a leading SIIC member, to discuss the election and the SIIC response.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s growing post-election strength means opponents – and once allies – the Kurdistan Alliance and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq parties are looking at ways to limit his power, if not see him removed from his post, Ma’ad Fayad reports for Asharq Alawsat.

Kuwait’s deputy prime minister will go to Iraq in March in what will be the first high-level visit of a Kuwaiti official since Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of the tiny Gulf state, Aseel Kami reports for Reuters.

President Jalal Talabani agreed last Tuesday to share power within his Kurdish party to avoid a split which would have weakened the group ahead of polls in northern Iraq. Agence France-Presse reports Talabani, who is chief of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), “accepted the demands of the five leaders who submitted their resignations, so as to prevent them leaving the party.” Kosrat Rassoul, who is vice president of the Kurdistan regional government in northern Iraq, said he was resigning along with four members of the political office. Efforts to fight corruption and improve democracy in both the regional government and the PUK were among the issues in dispute.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany’s foreign minister, met Iraqi leaders and boosted economic links during a surprise visit, as a key opponent of the US-led invasion joined rebuilding efforts, Agence-France Presse reports.

On the heels of a strong showing for his political party in recent provincial elections, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki is reaching out to industrialized nations in an effort to help turn around his war-torn nation, Trenton Daniel reports for McClatchy Newspapers. ”Iraq needs construction. Iraq needs investment. Iraq needs infrastructure,” said Maliki’s close advisor, Sadiq al Rikabi, who added that another high-ranking European official would arrive in the coming days. “We need to deal with industrialized nations to rebuild Iraq.”

Steinmeier, on the first visit to Baghdad by a German foreign minister in two decades, held talks with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, President Jalal Talabani and his Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari.

Before heading home, Steinmeier stopped in the KRG to officially open a consulate there. “We are very pleased by this historic visit and invite Germany to participate in rebuilding the Region,” KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said at the ceremony.

Of course, Germany has already been represented in Iraq’s Kurdish region:

Iraqonomics

Iraqi lawmakers will resume work on approving the oil producing country’s 2009 budget, despite failing once more last Thursday to select a new parliament speaker, Waleed Ibrahim and Aseel Kami report for Reuters.

Umm Qasr, Iraq’s only deepwater port, is bustling with activity. A large proportion of the country’s imports pass through its docks but, as a critical artery for the nation, it offers a glimpse into the state of Iraq’s faltering economy after years of sanctions and war. While imports flow in, there are no goods going in the opposite direction; many of its outdated cranes do not work; and it is far behind the rest of the world in terms of the size of vessels it can accommodate, Andrew England reports for the Financial Times.

Security & Society

The trial of the Iraqi television journalist who threw his shoes at President Bush was adjourned after 90 minutes on Thursday until March 12. But the brief appearance of the journalist, Muntader al-Zaidi, who has been incarcerated since he threw the shoes during a news conference in Baghdad on Dec. 14, was enough to trigger applause and shouting both in the courtroom and in the hallways outside, Campbell Robertson reports for The New York Times. The law under which Mr. Zaidi has been charged applies to offenses against a foreign leader on a formal visit; if the visit is found to be informal, a largely technical point, it will cast the matter onto less certain legal ground.

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