A State Dept friend called to lament that with all the Iraq work the Dept did yesterday, it didn't really get noted here (or elsewhere). I plan to include some of the background briefing in today's snapshot (as I noted in yesterday's snapshot) but we'll post it in full now.
Background
Briefing on U.S.-Iraq Political and Diplomatic JCC Meeting and the
U.S.-Iraq Bilateral Relationship Under the Strategic Framework Agreement
Special Briefing
Senior Administration Official
Washington, DC
August 15, 2013
MODERATOR:
Hi, everyone. We have – are you here for the backgrounder on Iraq? Yes.
So many of you know [Senior Administration Official]. He’s going to be
on background as a Senior Administration Official. He’ll give a few
opening remarks, reading out today’s meeting here, talk a little bit
about our overall policy on where we are in Iraq, and then we’re happy
to take some questions. He does, just for everyone’s knowledge, have to
leave a little after 3:00 to get to the White House, so keep your
questions short, and he will endeavor to answer as many as he can.
Thanks, guys.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:
Thanks. I thought I would just give a quick kind of readout of the – or
at least overview of what was discussed today, and then also give a
brief synopsis of our policy in Iraq and what we’re trying to
accomplish.
Today was the fourth meeting under the Strategic
Framework Agreement, the Joint Coordinating Committee, in which we
coordinate diplomatic and political issues. And the political issues is
important because it’s not just diplomatic engagement. The SFA also
gives us – it obligates us to help the Iraqis through their very
difficult internal political dynamic, so we discussed that today.
So
on the agenda of the meeting today was Iraq’s overall regional
integration as it grows and increases its oil export and production
export potential, and also as the region is under this rapid
transformation the role that Iraq can play, and also mitigating the risk
to Iraq’s stability given all these crosscurrents that are crossing
through its territory.
Second, we talked specifically about the
situation in Syria. Iraq was a primary participant in the first Geneva 1
talks, and so the Secretary went through the kind of thinking on Geneva
2 and the role that Iraq might be able to play should we eventually get
to that point, and we hope that we will.
Also on Syria was the
broader theme in the region of trying to bolster moderate forces and
isolate extremists. There was a very candid and frank exchange about the
fact that throughout the region, particularly in Iraq, a young
generation of Iraqis are being radicalized by things they’re seeing on
YouTube and on the internet across the Sunni and Shia divide. And you
have clerics like Sheikh Qaradawi on Al Jazeera calling for all
able-bodied Sunni Muslim males to come into Syria and fight a jihad. And
then you have, on the other side, Hassan Nasrallah calling on his
followers to go into Syria and do the same thing. Iraqis are
increasingly being caught up in this – a young generation of Iraqis –
and we want to try to keep them out of it. So there was a focus on how
can we work together to bolster moderate forces and isolate these
extremes.
There was also a discussion of the President’s decision
earlier this year to protect – extend extraordinary protections for
Iraq’s Development Fund for Iraq. That’s Iraq’s sovereign assets, which
are in New York and which are given extraordinary protections from legal
liability. That will expire in May of next year, and we have to talk
about how to make sure Iraq can settle its Saddam-era claims in a way
that is – protects its assets so it can use it for its very dire
infrastructure needs.
We talked about things like our education
programs. Iraqis studying here in the United States have increased by
about 31 percent over the last year. We have about 800 now. And this is
something that is very important to the Iraqi side and also to us.
So
that was the overall kind of theme of the meeting. It was from the very
general to the very specific, and as these meetings go, they’re kind of
benchmarks to take a temperature of where we are and what we need to
focus on until we get together again at this level.
I want to just
discuss briefly kind of our overall policy focus in Iraq. Our policy
efforts here are focused on – we look at what our national interests
are, and we have five real pillars to direct our efforts. First is
maintaining a unified and federal Iraq as defined under the Iraqi
constitution, and a lot of that is focused on the relationships between
Baghdad and Erbil, and various tensions in the disputed border areas.
And we’ve actually seen tremendous progress in that area over the last
six months or so.
Second is maintaining the production – the
increases in the production and export of Iraq’s energy resources.
That’s very important for Iraq, it’s very important for us, it’s
important for the entire global economy. By prudent estimates under the
International Energy Agency, Iraq is on track to be a six-to-ten million
barrel a day energy producer over the next decade, but it’ll have to do
a number of things to get there. We have a very clear vision of Iraq’s
overall strategic infrastructure with three redundant export routes –
one through the Straits of Hormuz, one to Aqaba through Jordan, and one
from Basra to Ceyhan in Turkey – plus making sure the oil in the north
is also getting on to global markets consistent with that overall
national strategic vision. So that’s a common topic of our discussions.
Third
is checking the – making sure that al-Qaida in Iraq cannot – the
ascendancy of AQ in Iraq and making sure that the sanctuaries in Iraq
that they had back in the 2005, 2006, 2007 timeframe cannot be
reestablished. And that’s something that is – we have an awful lot of
work to do, and I’m happy to talk about that in some specific detail.
Fourth
is the overall strategic orientation of Iraq. We recognize the
difficulty it faces in the region, the fact that it’s going to remain
independent for many of the disputes going on in the region. We also
recognize that Iraq looks to be globally economically integrated, and
we’re doing an awful lot of work there in terms of U.S. companies. They
just trade – passed the trade and investment act through the Iraqi
parliament, which helps us in a number of ways in this area. And also
diplomatically, we settled a number of disputes going all the way back
to the ’91 – 1991 Gulf War between Iraq and Kuwait. Those were settled
just a couple months ago before the United Nations Security Council,
which was the fruition of literally years of work from diplomats on our
side and also the Kuwaitis and the Iraqis.
Finally is Iraq’s
overall democratic institutions and democratic trajectory. We’re very
focused on ensuring that the Iraqis are able to hold regular elections,
that those elections are genuine and credible. It just completed a
series of elections of provincial councils. Two of those elections were
delayed. As the Secretary said when he was last in Iraq in March, we
found the decision to delay the provincial elections in Nineveh and
Anbar troubling. That decision was reversed, those elections went
forward, and those provinces now have provincial councils. And Iraq will
face national elections in the first quarter of 2014. That’ll be a
really pivotal moment for the overall future trajectory of Iraq. We want
to make sure those elections happen, they happen on time, and that they
are independently monitored and lead to a genuine and credible result.
So
that is the overall framework of our efforts. And some things in that
overall five pillars we’ve made tremendous progress on, I think, over
the last six months, and some things we actually have a lot more work to
do, which was the topic of our discussions today.
So with that, I’ll turn it over.
MODERATOR:
I’ll go ahead and take the questions. For those who came in late,
again, this is on background as a Senior Administration Official, just
making sure everyone knew the ground rules.
Yes, Michael. We’ll start with you.
QUESTION:
In the comments that Secretary Kerry made upstairs, he flagged and
identified one problem, which is the flow of weapons from Iran through
Iraqi airspace to Syria. And when Secretary Kerry was in Baghdad in
March, we had a similar briefing from a Senior Administration Official
who made the point that at that juncture, the Iraqis, I think, had
inspected only two Iranian flights, and one was on its way back from
Damascus to Tehran.
Given that officials have talked with some
specificity about this problem in the past, can you tell us, in recent
months, how many inspections the Iraqis have carried out of Iranian
flights and how frequent these Iranian weapons flights to Syria are
these days? Because the Secretary identified it as an area in which some
progress had been made, but there was still some – a lot of work to do.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:
Right. The Secretary identified two problems which Iraq is caught in:
One is the flow of weapons and extremist fighters coming from Syria into
Iraq, which is increasingly a very serious problem; and second is the
flow of weapons and illicit cargo flying over Iraq into Syria.
Between
September and March before the Secretary went, as you said, the
inspection – there were hardly any inspections. From March until now,
the record has been quite different, and we have seen a disruption in
the flow of what we suspect is cargo going from Iran to Syria. The level
of these discussions – it’s important to understand what – it’s not
like we have a specific flight, a specific time, we go to the Iraqis and
say, “Here, you’ve got to stop this flight.” That’s not what this is.
It’s trying to help them develop an inspection regime that will be
foolproof.
And all I can say is there’s been progress in this
area, but it’s not perfect, as I think the Secretary said. The Iraqis
today came very forcefully with the fact that they have a hard time
monitoring and controlling their overall airspace and guarding their
sovereignty above their – in their skies. We just notified to Congress a
sale of an integrated air defense system, which will help the Iraqis
with that problem, but that system will not really be up and running for
some time as we train the Iraqis on it and get it into place. So that
was a significant development, but all I can say, Michael, is this
remains a very difficult and ongoing problem.
QUESTION: My name is Said Arikat --
MODERATOR: Go ahead, Said. Yeah.
QUESTION:
Thank you. Yeah, I wanted to address one of the points that you raised
as one of five points, which is the 6 to 10 million barrels of oil that
are expected, yet Iraq has failed to put together a hydrocarbon law in
place. What are you doing in terms of – how much progress has been made
in that area?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yes. So 6 to 10 million barrels a day is an estimate of where they --
QUESTION: An estimate --
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: -- could be in 10 years and that they have a lot of things they have to do to get there. But the potential is definitely there.
So
for example, when the Secretary was in Iraq in March, the President of
the Kurdistan Region, President Barzani and Prime Minister Maliki had
not seen each other face to face in two and half years. Since the
Secretary’s visit until now, they have both traded visits. Prime
Minister Maliki went up to Erbil, and President Barzani came down to
Baghdad. In terms of where this relationship has gone over the last two
years, that’s – this was a hugely significant development. It was
brokered largely by Iraqis, and Hoshyar Zebari had a very strong role in
that, but we also did what we could to encourage both sides to come
together and focus on a concrete agenda.
In those meetings, they
agreed on a seven-point roadmap with a number of issues that are still
outstanding between Baghdad and Erbil, one of which is revenue sharing
and a hydrocarbon law. They also agreed to committees on those seven
issues and who would be on the committees, and Hoshyar told me yesterday
that the committee on revenue sharing will meet very shortly.
This
is very significant. So you went from no engagement, zero, just
everything going the wrong direction, to a coming together, a meeting of
the minds on issues to resolve and framework for resolving them. Are we
going to get over the hurdle on this? I wouldn’t make predictions on
that. All I can say is we now have traction. All sides recognize that we
need to find a way forward on this. And for the first time really in
years, we have a very serious, concerted effort to try to get these
issues done. You can break them down into baskets: the revenue sharing,
hydrocarbon law are really two separate issues, and they’re going to try
to tackle them.
MODERATOR: Go ahead, yes.
QUESTION: (Off-mike.)
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Hi. How are you?
QUESTION:
Good. One of your five pillars, you mentioned the democracy piece of
this, and you mentioned the parliamentary elections next year. I have a
quick question related to that and then a larger question on Iraq and
stability in the region. But on the democracy piece, did you all talk to
the delegation today or have you been talking about the efforts to term
limit the presidencies to two terms, which I think would include Prime
Minister Maliki, who has gone back and forth on this issue several
times. Has that come up?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: That was not a topic of discussion, at least in these meetings.
QUESTION: Do you know where they stand on that? I mean, do you think that Maliki is going to not try to seek a third term?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:
I think this will really heat up, I think, in the fall as coalition
building starts, and that’s when we’ll know a little more. I think right
now, and what we’re trying to do with the Iraqis is say before you
really get into the heat of the political season, the silly season that
we also have here every four years, let’s take the next three – two to
three months to focus on getting some concrete things done, and one of
them was revenue sharing, for example. And that’s really where we’re
trying to focus the efforts before we get into the 2014 election season.
QUESTION:
Okay. And then secondly, you talked a little bit about Iraq and the
region, and I mean, you know better than many people I would think that
just the area is just a mess right now – you’ve got Syria, you’ve got
Egypt, you’ve got Jordan, all sorts of things. Can you kind of lay out
for us where Iraq sits in terms of trying to engage and to do new things
and to prioritize kind of all of things that are kind of blowing up in
the region?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I was – I mean,
I got – very honest, as you know well from living there for long, I
mean, Iraq is the cross-current of all of these very regional pressures,
and there’s centrifugal forces tearing at Iraq every day. And what
we’re trying to do is engage in an ongoing conversation with Iraqi
leaders of all political persuasions, of all political blocs, local
leaders and national leaders, to look to ways to mitigate those risks
and to focus the Iraqis on building their state to be able to mitigate
this.
In terms of their overall regional efforts, they have some
tools that a lot of countries around the world don’t have, and one of
them in particular is the energy resources. So right now all of Iraq’s
southern – the oil from the south in those Basra fields – those giant
super fields – all of it goes through the Straits of Hormuz. Over the
last six months, the Iraqis have engaged in very serious discussions
with the Jordanians to build a pipeline from Basra to Haditha in Anbar
province and then to Aqaba. That’s a very significant strategic
infrastructure development project. And as I mentioned, getting – having
a pipeline from Basra to Haditha to Baiji to Ceyhan would also link
those southern fields through Turkey, and Turkey has very serious energy
needs.
So these are the kinds of things that we try to – these
are long-term projects that we try to work with the Iraqis on and with
the regional neighbors on, on using strategic infrastructure to change
these very difficult geostrategic realities. And we have some experience
in this.
Last year, Iraqis cut the ribbon on these floating
terminals in Basra. Each one increases their export potential by about
900,000 barrels a day. That was a – I remember very well General
Petraeus and Ryan Crocker coming to the Iraqis saying this is something
that would really help you. It’s going to be very difficult; these are
mine-infested waters. It’s going to be expensive. And actually, from an
engineering perspective it looked almost impossible at the time. But the
Iraqis took ownership of that project, we helped them a little bit in
the early days, but then it finally came online five years later. And
when you see the increase in Iraqi export numbers it’s because of that
project.
So that’s the kind of thing we work with the Iraqis very
quietly on. You’re not going to see a dramatic change overnight. It’s
something that takes years. But if Iraq does develop its overall
strategic export infrastructure and its energy resources, it’ll harness
itself and align mutual interests with a number of different states in
the region. So it’s the kind of thing that we’re talking about.
QUESTION:
But what you’re describing is something that the Iraqis are doing or
that Iraq is doing with its, kind of, regional partners, and less so
with American help or guidance or oversight, as it was, for the last
decade. So, I mean, I guess what I’m trying to get to is how much of a
hand does the United States have on Iraq’s situation at this point, and
how much guidance is it giving, how much time does it eat up in terms of
the overall regional strategy?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:
I would just say if I were to go through the last six months of
engagement, I think you’d be amazed. I mean, we do this very quietly,
but it has been constant ongoing engagement. And we have had a number of
quiet meetings throughout the region – trilateral meetings, ourselves,
the Jordanians, the Iraqis, meetings with the Turks, the Iraqis,
meetings with the Emiratis – to try to focus on these very serious,
mutual, concrete interests.
There’s all sorts of political
differences, and you can argue political differences all day and night,
but very concrete – steel, nuts and bolts, dollars and cents – of how
mutual interests can align. We have been very actively engaged in this,
particularly since the Secretary’s visit in March, until now.
QUESTION: Thanks.
MODERATOR: Indira.
QUESTION:
Hi, I’m Indira Lakshmanan from Bloomberg News. I wanted to follow up on
Michael’s question, because when we were told about that only two
planes had been inspected, we were also told by that official that it
appeared that the Iranian authorities had advanced notice of that and
that there was nothing but humanitarian supplies in those two shipments.
So
what I want to know is: You said there’s been significant improvement
since March. Can you tell us how many planes have been inspected, has
anything been intercepted, or are they still just plain old humanitarian
shipments? And if the latter is the case, then what reason do we have
to believe that things are being transshipped? The Foreign Minister
himself pledged in his public remarks today that Iraq is not the
transshipment point for either arms or jihadists to Syria. So I’m sure
there was a discussion about that. Can you tell us, does the U.S.
disagree with that statement he made? And give us a little more detail.
Plus,
I missed what you said that there was – that you had informed Congress
about some piece of equipment that you’re going to give them to help
them with the air – monitoring their air. Could you say what that was
again?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yeah. I’ll break it down. I think there are kind of three points to your question.
QUESTION: Thanks.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:
First is the – it’s an integrated air defense system. It’s a $2.6
billion integrated air defense system which will allow Iraq, really for
the next 30 years, to maintain full sovereign control of its skies.
Also, they are going to get a shipment of F-16s in the fall of next
year. That’s already been done. Their pilots are in training. In fact,
their pilots just graduated our basic F-16 training school. So this is
all part of allowing the Iraqis to maintain full sovereign control over
their skies.
In terms of fighters, there’s no question Iraqis –
Sunni, Shia, and even some Kurds – are making their way into Syria to
fight on various sides of this ongoing conflict. The question the
Foreign Minister was answering was: Is there any government support for
this? Frankly, we have not seen any. And so we work with the Iraqis very
closely on this in trying to monitor the frequency in which people are
traveling to Syria. But it’s very, very difficult when our forces are
being targeted by 70, 80 suicide bombers a month – all of whom are
coming in from Syria – and we had 160,000 troops there. It’s very hard
for us to police the borders and figure out what was happening. It’s a
very difficult, complicated situation.
In terms of the flights, I
will try to get you numbers on inspections. And I don’t think I said
there’s been a dramatic improvement. I said there’s been a – I tried –
there’s been a disruption in the overall frequency and number of what we
suspect is illicit cargo. But – so there’s been a disruption from March
until now, but I – we have a lot of work to do on this issue. And it
has to do with constant, daily conversations with the Iraqis and
figuring out how we can share information appropriately.
QUESTION: So it sounds like the cargo has been intercepted, then.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No. No – no. None has been intercepted.
QUESTION:
Did you agree on anything for the – on short-term help to help the
capabilities of the government to fight al-Qaida and to decrease these
terrorist attacks?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: This is
important, and let me just – on the – but on the weapons, again, also
from our own experience how difficult this is when our young men and
women were being attacked by EFPs and weapons that we knew were
manufactured in Iran, we never found a shipment coming in despite our
best efforts. It’s very difficult. But the Iraqis have an obligation
here. They recommitted to us again, and it – I think it gives us a new
platform to push even harder than we have.
In terms of AQI, you
saw our statement on Saturday, which I think was very clear about how we
see this network and where we see the leadership of the network. The
Secretary said today we see the leadership of AQI – many of them are now
in Syria. They are flush with jihadi recruits which are coming into
Syria, and we think they are sending a number of them into Iraq. So if
you look at the number of suicide bombers, for example, which we look at
– we try to be very empirical in trying to understand the situation,
which remains very complicated. But suicide bombers is a very empirical
data set.
Over the last two years, we’ve had an average of about 5
to 10 suicide bombers a month, in 2011 and 2012. We had – our
assumption had been that’s going to be a low-level, steady state of
violence probably for the next 5 to 10 years, because once you get into a
low-boil-type insurgency, historically speaking, they take about a
decade or so to peter out. We’ve seen over the last 90 days the suicide
bomber numbers approach about 30 a month, and we still suspect most of
those are coming in from Syria.
So what that shows is a fairly
sophisticated al-Qaida network, and what we want to help the Iraqis do
is have the information to be able to map the network, to get at its
financing, and to be very precise in its targeting, because Iraqi forces
are under threat and they’re liable to make mistakes such as going at
the threat in a symmetrical way, rounding up too many people, targeting
the wrong person, which makes the whole problem worse. So we are working
this at the diplomatic level, our military-to-military ties, saying we
face a real problem here, it’s a mutual interest of ours to get after
it, and don’t make the same mistake we made in some years, in which we
would treat this very asymmetrical threat with symmetrical means.
And
the Secretary also really stressed in the meeting today, we’re going to
help you with this problem, we’re going to help with information
sharing and intelligence sharing, but long term, this can only be
addressed both with security and intelligence but also with political
outreach, which is critical, and with economic outreach.
So all I
would say is the discussion today was coming up and focusing with the
Iraqis on a joint plan for getting after this very serious problem.
QUESTION:
(Off-mike) Egyptian daily newspaper. You mentioned the extremist
fighters and – as an issue. How big is this issue? I mean, it was raised
by Secretary Kerry, American side, or the Iraqi side? Second, and
related to it, you mentioned some components – you mentioned the
radicalized youth, and then you mention Sheikh Qaradawi. I mean, how you
make – brew them together to have, from your understanding, a extremist
fighter? And this is a threat to the Syria or other region, too?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:
It’s a threat to the whole – I mean, here’s what we see. When I’m in
Iraq and talking to the Iraqi leaders, but also civil society leaders,
and just regular Iraqis, our sense of it is just within the ferment of
this society, you have a very youthful population, you have an
underemployed population, and they are watching this conflict unfold
through Facebook and Twitter and the internet and YouTube. And depending
on where they are, they’re seeing two totally parallel conflicts.
So
Sunnis say, “Did you see this video of a SCUD missile collapsing a
building and babies were being pulled out?” And they can all cite with
specificity these terrible images on YouTube. Young Shia I’ve talked to
talk about, “Have you seen the beheading videos?” And they all have seen
the same things. And it has the potential to really radicalize this
very young population. We know the Marji’iya in Najaf is a real moderate
pillar of Shia Islam and is trying to keep some of this in check, and
also the Sunni leadership both locally and nationally in Iraq is trying
to keep this in check.
But it’s a very serious problem, and so
part of the conversation today was about bolstering overall moderate
forces, and the Secretary talked – spoke fairly eloquently about what
we’re trying to do in Syria to bolster moderate forces of the
opposition, both to put pressure on the Assad regime, and also to put
pressure on the extremist groups within the opposition.
QUESTION:
But my question is more – to be more specific: Is this something
brewing, or just it’s already there are people who are taking the arms
and going?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No, but (inaudible).
QUESTION: And the number? You have a certain number? Big? Thousands? Hundreds?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Not thousands.
QUESTION: Hundreds?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Hundreds.
MODERATOR: Hold on, let’s go to people who haven’t gotten a question. (Inaudible.)
QUESTION:
Paul Eckert of Reuters News Agency. You touched on the political
component, the political outreach component of that, and many would see
Sunni discontent at certain policies of the government. How much was
that covered today and what sort of things are you recommending under
the guise of – under the rubric of political outreach?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:
It was discussed, and as I said, under the framework of the SFA,
political issues are part of the jurisdiction. So it’s part of our
bilateral agreement to work with the Iraqis on this issue. And the
Secretary explained in some detail, as I think I mentioned, we’ll help
with the intelligence-sharing and trying to map this very dangerous
al-Qaida network, but the long term, and we know from our own
experience, we were relentlessly kinetic in terms of our special forces,
what they were doing back in those days, but it was also a lot of local
political outreach. And so you drain the environment in which these
groups can operate.
And so the Iraqis have a lot of work to do,
both on the national level – we talked about, for example, a package of –
the protest movement that’s been going on in Iraq for the last six
months, one development of it has been a package of laws which were
developed to address some of the protester demands, which passed the
Iraqi cabinet and they’re now sitting in the parliament. So part of the
conversation was to say, well, how can we now broker a political deal to
get these agreement – these laws actually passed before the election
season heats up in a couple months.
But it’s very important, I
believe. If the Sunni population in Iraq feels totally discontented,
then there’s an environment for extremists to take advantage. The local
elections in Anbar and Nineveh were very important. I think if you look
at the election results very closely, you can kind of see how the trends
break down in those provinces, and we’re encouraged that there now are
provincial councils in those two provinces, and that gives a central – a
connection with the central government and distributing resources to
just try to drain the environment from these extremist networks. But
this is very hard work.
MODERATOR: Who hasn’t had a question yet? We’ll go – oh, Ros. Go ahead. Yeah.
QUESTION:
Hi. Ros Jordan, Al Jazeera. When you talk about the very young
population and efforts to improve education, and when you also talk
about the need to further develop the energy sector, is there a risk of
having a type of vacuum economically if you don’t have a broad-based
economy, not just an energy-centered economy, which could lead to the
possibility of corruption or political dissatisfaction? Did that come up
at all, just that long-term vision for a vibrant Iraqi economy?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:
It’s a really – it’s an excellent question. It did not come up today,
but there is an economic committee which meets under the Strategic
Framework Agreement, and the fact that we are very focused on ensuring
and helping the Iraqis think through how to make sure that they don’t
have an economy which is totally dominated by oil revenues, in which you
get a very bloated public sector and you get a very un-dynamic –
especially when you have a very youthful population. So that’s one
reason we’re trying to – we’ve – we’re working with them very closely on
just their overall market environment and forming a company.
I
mean, I have a statistic – it’s not at the top of my head – but Iraq 18
months ago was ranked almost at the bottom of the World Bank survey of
what it takes to form a company. We worked with them to pass a number of
regulations, and they moved – they’ve moved, like, way up the charts to
the top 20 or something like that. I’d have to get the specific
numbers. So just to answer your question: Again, these are long-term --
QUESTION: Right.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:
-- things to focus on. Iraq, 10 years ago, went through a total change
in terms of how it was running, and so this is still very much something
that we work with them every day. But making sure that as oil revenues
increase, that they don’t simply look to a very bloated public sector to
solve every problem is an ongoing, constant part of our dialogue.
QUESTION:
And a quick follow-up because I know that you have to go. Does this
also help with also the long-term goal of trying to prevent the
broad-based radicalization of the youth of Iraq?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:
Sure. Without economic opportunities, just, these extremists are able
to prey on these kids. I mean, there was a somewhat poignant exchange
today about the fact that all of our efforts – I mean, Beth Jones has
known Hoshyar Zebari for decades, when Hoshyar was in the opposition.
We’ve been working on this and working with these guys for decades. And
all of that work, and all those who have known people who served in
Iraq, known people who lost their lives in Iraq, it’s about giving a new
generation a better chance, and a better chance to actually live in the
global economy and be a part of it. That is why the fact, when you see
foreign elements coming in and recruiting young Iraqis to go fight in a
foreign war and becoming cannon fodder, it is something that is not only
heartbreaking to the Iraqis but also to us. And so we want to try to
help them to get after this problem. But without economic opportunities,
educational opportunities, it becomes a lot harder. I think we issued a
document today on all the things we’re doing with Iraq which are –
these are just the day-to-day, but educational programs – it’s very
difficult to get these programs with a new state really, which Iraq is,
off the ground – to get visas working, to get Iraqis to understand how
to apply to our universities, to get accepted into our universities.
We’ve increased over the last year by about 31 percent the number of
Iraqis studying in U.S. colleges and universities. There’s about 800
now.
So this is an ongoing work in progress, but your question is a very good one and we’re focused on it as much as we can.
MODERATOR: Okay, last question and it needs to be a quick one.
QUESTION:
Yes. Will they be getting anything in the short term to increase their
capability to do the inspection, as what you are asking for?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: We’re going to be doing everything we can to share as much information to try to --
QUESTION: Oh, the information.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: -- to try to --
QUESTION: Okay.
MODERATOR: Thank
you guys so much. I really appreciate it. Again, Senior Administration
Official. Let me know if you have any follow-ups or other questions.
PRN: 2013/1009
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