Friday, October 08, 2010

Refugees of Iraq, refugees of the 'process'

Yesterday's snapshot noted accusations about the US military coming out of Iraq:

Press TV reports today that the central government or 'government' out of Baghdad is complaining about the American military "moving around the city without being escorted by Iraqi forces, while using Iraqi army uniforms and vehicles as a disguise." Nouri al-Maliki's spokesperson Ali al-Dabbagh is quoted stating, "We Iraqi people cannot accept the presence of foreign troops on our land soldiers, it is crushing the national feeling and that is why we have been happy that the troops are leaving and the balance of the troops is going to diminish next summer."

Last night, Press TV interviewed US journalist Wayne Madsen about the charges and he stated, "The fact that Americans are found to be wearing Iraqi uniforms in Iraqi military vehicles looks like it's a complete, blatant switch tactic where it was announced with much fanfare that the US was ending its combat mission in Iraq, and now we find US troops still engaged in combat missions in Iraqi uniforms." And, as the US government and the Iranian government vie for most influential in Iraq, you better believe Press TV is going to run with this story. Meanwhile, today on Morning Edition (NPR), Peter Kenyon offers an analysis of several factors at play in Iraq including Kurdish MP Mahmoud Othman who states, "They tried very hard -- they had Jesh al-Mahdi, but Jesh al-Mahdi didn't behave well, they were not as clever as Hezbollah. But now still they have such a possibility -- that's exactly what they are aiming at. Iran is aiming at making the Sadrists a sort of Hezbollah in Iraq." As Kenyon's report notes, the political stalemate continues.

March 7th, Iraq concluded Parliamentary elections. The Guardian's editorial board noted last month, "These elections were hailed prematurely by Mr Obama as a success, but everything that has happened since has surely doused that optimism in a cold shower of reality." 163 seats are needed to form the executive government (prime minister and council of ministers). When no single slate wins 163 seats (or possibly higher -- 163 is the number today but the Parliament added seats this election and, in four more years, they may add more which could increase the number of seats needed to form the executive government), power-sharing coalitions must be formed with other slates, parties and/or individual candidates. (Eight Parliament seats were awarded, for example, to minority candidates who represent various religious minorities in Iraq.) Ayad Allawi is the head of Iraqiya which won 91 seats in the Parliament making it the biggest seat holder. Second place went to State Of Law which Nouri al-Maliki, the current prime minister, heads. They won 89 seats. Nouri made a big show of lodging complaints and issuing allegations to distract and delay the certification of the initial results while he formed a power-sharing coalition with third place winner Iraqi National Alliance -- this coalition still does not give them 163 seats. They are claiming they have the right to form the government. In 2005, Iraq took four months and seven days to pick a prime minister. It's seven months and one day and counting.

Last Friday, Moqtada al-Sadr's bloc was announcing their support for Nouri al-Maliki as prime minister and some wrongly thought it meant end of stalemate. It didn't even mean end of discussion. As the editorial board of the Japan Times observes, "That move could break the deadlock, but it does not mean that a deal is imminent. Considerable horse-trading is still required to form a government. Ultimately, however, there needs to be power-sharing with Mr. Maliki's chief rival, former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. Failure to do so could result in another outbreak of sectarian violence." This morning, Sam Dagher (Wall St. Journal) reports, "In Mr. Allawi's first interview since the Maliki-Sadr tie-up, the former prime minister said he had agreed to restart power-sharing talks with Mr. Maliki that were broken off last month—but only if all top posts, including who serves as prime minister, are on the table for discussion." Alsumaria TV reports that tribal Sheik Sabah Al Shumari is calling for all parties to speed up the process.

Though the illegal war has obviously not created a functioning government -- or the desire for one -- it has created the largest refugee crisis in the world. "UNHCR does not consider the security situation in Iraq adequate to facilitate or promote returns. We nonetheless continue to assist refugees who voluntarily express their wish to return, in close coordination with the Iraqi authorities," declared UNHCR spokesperson Melissa Fleming today in Geneva. Flemming noted that a survey of Iraqi refugees had been taken in Syria -- utilizing over 2,000 respondents -- and the majority are not talking return to Iraq. She noted, "A similar survey on the Iraq-Jordan border among some 364 families (representing approximately 1450 individuals) found that none were returning to Iraq permanently." SwissInfo interviews Happy Talker and Low Information Official Walter Kerns.
of the United Nations:

swissinfo.ch: Before your visit, you called on the Iraqi authorities to end the displacement of people within the country. What specifically is the problem?

W.K.: It was not so much the displacement. After people were forced to flee the violence between religious communities in 2006, the government failed to organise any sort of assembly points – no camps, no collective accommodation. That means that many poorer people squatted on land or in buildings that are publicly-owned. At least there they were slightly protected, but a moratorium on evicting them has been lifted. I appealed for these people not to be thrown out onto the street – that would only make the humanitarian and social problems worse. Instead, let them remain where they are until the government has come up with a solid plan for finding solutions – whether it’s allowing them to return or to settle where they are.

swissinfo.ch: Did your appeal work?

W.K.: It didn’t fall on totally deaf ears. I had a very long discussion with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who was very open to the idea that the relevant ministries should work out a strategy for dealing with these displaced people, including the allocation of land on which they could build houses. From that point of view, I think it was good. There was no assurance that another moratorium on evictions would be announced, but the suggestion wasn’t rejected. We’ll see.

Walter -- and the outlet -- seem unaware that 50,000 US troops remain in Iraq and that Europe is forcibly evicting Iraqi refugees. Or maybe that's an example of something not falling "on totally deaf ears"?

David DeGraw's need book is The Road Through 2012: Revolution or World War III and he has posted chapter two online. And that's all I can manage this morning on our lurching taxi ride.

TV notes. On PBS' Washington Week, Peter Baker (New York Times), Joan Biskupic (USA Today), Michael Duffy (Time) and David Wessel (Wall St. Journal) join Gwen around the table. Gwen now has a weekly column at Washington Week and the current one is "
The Risks and Rewards of Party Purity." This week, Bonnie Erbe will sit down with Karen Czarnecki, Avis Jones-DeWeever, Nicole Kurokawa and Irene Natividad on the latest broadcast of PBS' To The Contrary to discuss the week's events. And this week's To The Contrary online is extra is on cyber bullying. Need To Know is PBS' new program covering current events. This week's hour long broadcast airs Fridays on most PBS stations: "A report on the jobs situation profiles an unemployed baby-boomer couple and two Millenials; and details a federally funded, temporary jobs program. Included: ex-labor secretary Robert Reich and Sara Horowitz (Freelancers Union) provide perspective." Turning to broadcast TV, Sunday CBS' 60 Minutes offers:

The Speed Traders
Steve Kroft gets a rare look inside the secretive world "high-frequency trading," a controversial technique the SEC is scrutinizing in which computers can make thousands of stock trades in less than a second.

Mandela
A collection of his memoirs, mostly from the 27 years he spent in prison, reveal the innermost thoughts of the international civil rights giant Nelson Mandela, whose movement brought down the apartheid regime of South Africa. Bob Simon reports.

Eminem
CNN's Anderson Cooper profiles the chart-topping rapper from Detroit who overcame addiction to reclaim the winning style that made him the biggest selling artist of the past decade.

60 Minutes, Sunday, Oct. 10, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.






Radio note. The Diane Rehm Show airs on most NPR stations (and begins streaming online at 10:00 a.m. EST). For the first hour (domestic news), guest host Susan Page is joined by panelists Jackie Calmes (New York Times), Steve Roberts (George Washington University) and disreputable sexist and homophobe (check his book title for the latter) Dana Milbank; for the second hour (international), the panelists are Karen DeYoung (Washington Post), Hisham Melhem (Al-Arabiya TV) and Moises Naim (El Pais).


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