Cheney Greeted by Mortars, Demonstrations:
Iraqi Parliament pleads for US withdrawal
Al-Hayat writes in Arabic that US Vice President Dick Cheney was greeted, on his surprise visit to Baghdad, by a rain of mortar shells on the Green Zone and by protests in several cities organized by Puritan Shiite followers of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. One could have added the bombing in Irbil, the seat of close US ally Massoud Barzani, the Kurdistan leader.
Aljazeera is alleging that high on Cheney's agenda is getting the new petroleum bill passed through parliament. That legislation is certainly one of the four benchmarks the Bush administration has pushed on the al-Maliki government, and given Cheney's background as CEO of Halliburton, it is plausible that the oil bill looms large in his visit. It is probably behind his scolding of Iraqi parliamentarians for even considering a two-month hiatus this summer.
Cheney arrived a day after a majority of Iraqi parlimentarians signed a petition in favor of the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. Actually, last fall 131 signed a similar petition. By the rules of the Iraqi parliament, such petitions have no force. The sense of those deputies was communicated to a committe, which promised to report out the resolution to the entire parliament, which it apparently never did. So, Tuesday's move shows a 10% rise in commitment to the principle of withdrawal over 6 months ago, but may be no more consequential. A petition is not a vote, and is a sign of how powerless the parlimentarians feel.
Reuters reports political violence in Iraq on Wednesday, including the killing of one US soldier and wounding of 3 others by a roadside bomb in Diyala. There were several bombings in Baghdad. Two more members of the Yazidi religion were killed at Mosul.
Police found 21 bodies in Baghdad on Wednesday, and 8 in Diyala Province.
a Kurdish leader is interviewed by Ben Lando concerning Iraq's petroleum law. The link between Kurdish desire for relative autonomy and their commitment to privatizing the Iraqi petroleum industry comes out clearly in this piece.
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 5/10/2007 12:30:00 AM
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3 Comments:
It behooves us to remember, when we are discussing the Iraqi parliment and government, that the rules they use were written by us.
What did the U.S. promise the Kurds in order to get them to recite Bush Administration talking points? I see no reason why, with the Kurds integrated into Parliament and the security forces, and living in many cases directly on the northern oil fields, they should fear a nationalized oil policy. It would guarantee that Iraqi oil proceeds are used to rebuild that devastated nation and benefit all Iraqis (including Kurds), rather than go the major oil companies, and incentivize future aggressive wars of conquest.
William, if the Iraqi Parliament is our puppets, then why did they just pass that ANTI-US resolution? Please explain.
What did the U.S. promise the Kurds in order to get them to recite Bush Administration talking points?
Get your talking points in order. Bush wants a national per-person revenue from oil. Oh, maybe the Kurds aren't puppets, either?
The Kurds want their geographic share of the oil money. That won't not going to happen if it's in a national pool.
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