WASHINGTON (AFP) – A US military officer was charged Thursday with stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash intended for relief and reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Department of Justice said.
While stationed in Iraq between April 2007 and February 2009, 28-year-old Michael Dung Nguyen is alleged to have stolen more than 690,000 dollars in US currency, sending it back to his home in northwestern Oregon state, the department said in a statement.
The funds were swiped from the Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP), designed to empower local commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan to respond to humanitarian relief and reconstruction efforts.
After his return from Iraq, Nguyen is accused of opening new accounts at numerous banks, including Bank of America and Washington Mutual Bank, to deposit the cash.
After making the deposits "in a manner intended to avoid detection," according to the Justice Department, Nguyen allegedly attempted money laundering with the purchases of high-end goods.
He bought a luxury BMW vehicle and a 2009 model Hummer truck H3T, along with computers, electronic equipment and furniture, the indictment said.
Nguyen has been officially charged on three counts -- theft of government property, money laundering and structuring financial transaction -- and if convicted could face 30 years in prison and a 500,000-dollar fine.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090305/pl_afp/usiraqmilitarycrimetheft
vendredi 6 mars 2009
jeudi 5 mars 2009
Kerkuk Council Member Predicts Permanent US Base in Kerkuk
Juan Cole's Comment
http://www.juancole.com/
al-Zaman reports in Arabic that the arrival of United Nations counselors in Kirkuk with an aim of compiling a list of 'original' inhabitants of the city has provoked a wave of assassinations in the disputed city.
Meanwhile, the Kurdistan Alliance renewed its call for Article 140 of the constitution to be implemented (i.e. for a referendum to be held in Kirkuk Province on whether it should join the Kurdistan Regional Government.
It is thought that the Kurds, who control the security forces, have flooded other Kurds into the province, such that they are now about half of its population.
The other two major groups are the Arabs and Turkmen. They typically oppose the plan to join Kurdistan. Jala Naftji, a Turkmen member of the Kirkuk governing council, told Al-Zaman that he had been afraid of an increasing security vacuum in the province, but has been reassured since Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki sent an Iraqi Army unit up. He also expected that an enduring US base would be established in the city of Kirkuk.
He said that in the last meeting of the governing council with Gen. Ray Odierno, the latter had pledged that the US would not give up the security mission before the Kirkuk issue was resolved. The deputy governor of Kirkuk, Rakan Said al-Juburi, told the paper, "If there is not a joint administration [of Kirkuk Province] and balance throughout the security agencies among the various ethnicities in order to resolve the complicated problem of Kirkuk, I believe that conflict with break out once the Americans withdraw."
http://www.juancole.com/
al-Zaman reports in Arabic that the arrival of United Nations counselors in Kirkuk with an aim of compiling a list of 'original' inhabitants of the city has provoked a wave of assassinations in the disputed city.
Meanwhile, the Kurdistan Alliance renewed its call for Article 140 of the constitution to be implemented (i.e. for a referendum to be held in Kirkuk Province on whether it should join the Kurdistan Regional Government.
It is thought that the Kurds, who control the security forces, have flooded other Kurds into the province, such that they are now about half of its population.
The other two major groups are the Arabs and Turkmen. They typically oppose the plan to join Kurdistan. Jala Naftji, a Turkmen member of the Kirkuk governing council, told Al-Zaman that he had been afraid of an increasing security vacuum in the province, but has been reassured since Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki sent an Iraqi Army unit up. He also expected that an enduring US base would be established in the city of Kirkuk.
He said that in the last meeting of the governing council with Gen. Ray Odierno, the latter had pledged that the US would not give up the security mission before the Kirkuk issue was resolved. The deputy governor of Kirkuk, Rakan Said al-Juburi, told the paper, "If there is not a joint administration [of Kirkuk Province] and balance throughout the security agencies among the various ethnicities in order to resolve the complicated problem of Kirkuk, I believe that conflict with break out once the Americans withdraw."
mercredi 4 mars 2009
Kuwait receives $13bn in "compensation" from Iraq
March 4, 2009
Kuwait: Tuesday, February 24 -
Kuwait said on Monday it has received a total of 13.3bn in compensation from Iraq for the 1990 invasion and occupation of the emirate by Saddam Hussein’s forces. The Public Authority for Compensation said the figure represented the total received up to the end of last year and that Kuwait was pursuing tens of billions more.
Iraq must pay five percent of its oil revenues into a fund created by the UN Security Council to pay reparations for war damage during the seven-month occupation of its neighbour, reported AP.
http://www.ameinfo.com/186068.html
IT IS HIGH TIME FOR IRAQIS TO CLAIM COMPENSATION FROM THE U.S. AND ITS ACCOMPLICES FOR THE INVASION, DESTRUCTION AND OCCUPATION OF THEIR COUNTRY!!!
Kuwait: Tuesday, February 24 -
Kuwait said on Monday it has received a total of 13.3bn in compensation from Iraq for the 1990 invasion and occupation of the emirate by Saddam Hussein’s forces. The Public Authority for Compensation said the figure represented the total received up to the end of last year and that Kuwait was pursuing tens of billions more.
Iraq must pay five percent of its oil revenues into a fund created by the UN Security Council to pay reparations for war damage during the seven-month occupation of its neighbour, reported AP.
http://www.ameinfo.com/186068.html
IT IS HIGH TIME FOR IRAQIS TO CLAIM COMPENSATION FROM THE U.S. AND ITS ACCOMPLICES FOR THE INVASION, DESTRUCTION AND OCCUPATION OF THEIR COUNTRY!!!
mardi 3 mars 2009
Conference: What Future for Iraq?
What future for Iraq?
Hosted by Luisa Morgantini
Vice-president of the European Parliament
18.03.2009 14h-18h · Room PHS 7C50
14.00 Iraq - a humanitarian disaster
15.00 The question of oil
16.30 What future for Iraq?
With Abdul Ilah Albayaty, political analyst
Tareq Al-Duleimi, author and journalist
Faleh Al-Khayat, oil expert
Omar Al-Kubaisy, cardiologist
Shannon Meehan, IRC director for advocacy
Moderated by Hana Al Bayaty
Press contact: Hana Al Bayaty - hanaalbayaty@gmail.com +32 (0)488871408
before March 10
Organized by The BRussells Tribunal - http://www.brusselstribunal.org/
in cooperation with Vrede, 11.11.11, Intal, Halles de Schaerbeek, and the Beursschouwburg
Occupation year 7
What future for Iraq?
18-20 March 2009
Organized by the BRussells Tribunal, in cooperation with Vrede, 11.11.11, INTAL,
the Halles de Schaerbeek, and the Beursschouwburg.
European Union Parliament
Belgian Federal Parliament
Les Halles de Schaerbeek
Beursschouwburg
The BRussells Tribunal are intellectuals, artists and activists who denounce the logic of permanent war promoted by the American government and its allies, affecting for the time being particularly one region in the world: the Middle East. It started with a people’s court against the PNAC and its role in the illegal invasion of Iraq, but continued ever since. It tries to be a bridge between the intellectual resistance in the Arab World and the Western peace movements.
Muslim NGOs to sue Israeli generals in European courts
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=print&link=168482&yazarAd=
A Turkey-based union of nongovernmental organizations from Muslim countries will seek action in European courts against Israeli commanders and politicians for Israel's treatment of Palestinians, representatives of the organization have said.
"We want to make sure that Israeli commanders will not even dare to set foot into other countries," Necmi Sadıkoğlu, the Turkish secretary-general of the Union of NGOs of the Islamic World (UNIW), told Today's Zaman. UNIW, founded in 2005 at a conference in İstanbul, brings together 139 NGOs from 40 Muslim countries. The organization has its headquarters in İstanbul.
Eleven European countries, including Britain and Belgium, have national legislation giving their courts jurisdiction to punish crimes against humanity, irrespective of where they are committed.
Israel incited outrage in Turkey and throughout the Muslim world when it launched a deadly offensive in Gaza in late December. The 22-day offensive left over 1,300 Palestinians dead. The operation also caused a diplomatic crisis between regional allies Turkey and Israel, with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accusing the Jewish state of committing crimes against humanity and saying it should be barred from the UN.
Mubarak Mutawwa, a deputy secretary-general of the UNIW from Kuwait, recently announced that the UNIW would press for charges against some 70 Israeli politicians and commanders over their involvement in the latest Gaza operation. These 70 figures include the chief of general staff of the Israeli military and the country's foreign minister.
Union officials say they have contacted representatives of NGOs in several European countries to assure them that any action they bring against the Israeli commanders and politicians will have the backing of the UNIW. Mohammed Naieem Akbeek, a member of the UNIW council from Syria, has said the organization will provide legal assistance to NGOs in Europe to make sure their appeals to European courts are successful.
The UNIW will hold an international symposium in İstanbul to discuss the situation in Palestine in May.
03.03.2009
News
A Turkey-based union of nongovernmental organizations from Muslim countries will seek action in European courts against Israeli commanders and politicians for Israel's treatment of Palestinians, representatives of the organization have said.
"We want to make sure that Israeli commanders will not even dare to set foot into other countries," Necmi Sadıkoğlu, the Turkish secretary-general of the Union of NGOs of the Islamic World (UNIW), told Today's Zaman. UNIW, founded in 2005 at a conference in İstanbul, brings together 139 NGOs from 40 Muslim countries. The organization has its headquarters in İstanbul.
Eleven European countries, including Britain and Belgium, have national legislation giving their courts jurisdiction to punish crimes against humanity, irrespective of where they are committed.
Israel incited outrage in Turkey and throughout the Muslim world when it launched a deadly offensive in Gaza in late December. The 22-day offensive left over 1,300 Palestinians dead. The operation also caused a diplomatic crisis between regional allies Turkey and Israel, with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accusing the Jewish state of committing crimes against humanity and saying it should be barred from the UN.
Mubarak Mutawwa, a deputy secretary-general of the UNIW from Kuwait, recently announced that the UNIW would press for charges against some 70 Israeli politicians and commanders over their involvement in the latest Gaza operation. These 70 figures include the chief of general staff of the Israeli military and the country's foreign minister.
Union officials say they have contacted representatives of NGOs in several European countries to assure them that any action they bring against the Israeli commanders and politicians will have the backing of the UNIW. Mohammed Naieem Akbeek, a member of the UNIW council from Syria, has said the organization will provide legal assistance to NGOs in Europe to make sure their appeals to European courts are successful.
The UNIW will hold an international symposium in İstanbul to discuss the situation in Palestine in May.
03.03.2009
News
Iraq plans census to map ethnic divisions
Khalid al-Ansary and Missy RyanReuters North American News Service
Mar 02, 2009
BAGHDAD, March 2 (Reuters) - Iraq will hold a nationwide census in October, its first in 22 years, mapping ethnic divisions in a survey which could encourage reconciliation or fan the feuds threatening its fragile calm.
The census, the first including Iraq's Kurdish north since 1987, will take place over the course of one or two days, said Mehdi al-Alak, who heads Iraq's Central Organisation for Statistics and Information Technology (COSIT).
Alak is planning to send at least 250,000 schoolteachers to homes across major cities and dusty hamlets to shed light on the true makeup of Iraq's diverse population.
Questions on ethnicity and religion promise to make the census a charged affair in a country emerging from years of sectarian violence and still gripped by disputes over political power, disputed territory, and oil. Six years after the U.S.-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, Iraq's population is believed to be around 28 million, an estimate obtained via distribution of state food rations.
But after years of bloodshed prompted millions of Iraqis to flee their homes, in addition to Saddam-era policies that packed strategic areas with fellow Arabs, the composition of sensitive areas is far from clear.
Such murkiness has made for easy political manipulation across the country. Perhaps the best example of where demography has fuelled discord is the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.
Kurds, believed to be around a fifth of Iraqis, claim a majority there and want to make it part of their semi-autonomous northern region, an idea rejected by its Arabs and Turkmen.
The breakdown of Kirkuk's population will be decisive if and when officials hold a referendum on the city's future.
A clear snapshot could be telling in other disputed areas, like Diyala and Nineveh provinces, where the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is looking to assert central government authority at the expense of Kurdish authorities in Arbil.
"We will not allow political, religious or ethnic interference. Our work is simply technical," Alak said.
The census might also alter allocation of the budget, 17 percent of which goes Kurdistan based on population estimates.
NO SECTARIAN BREAKDOWN
Preliminary results, a simple population count, should be ready several days after the census, but more detailed data on ethnicity and religion are not expected until late July 2010.
Alak said religion questions will not delve into sect, so the census will not provide data on the breakdown between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims, who have fought a bloody feud since 2003.
The census will count those displaced within Iraq at their current residence, but will note where they lived previously.
It will also seek to include, through outreach by Iraqi embassies, the millions of people who have fled the country.
Alak said a national curfew would be imposed on census day to ensure the survey can be carried out in country where violence is still a fact of daily life.
Even the safest of Iraqi cities are girded by concrete walls and soldiers rumble down the streets in heavily armed vehicles.
The northern city of Mosul, like several other restive areas, is still under siege. In the city, where minority Kurds have controlled the government since 2005, Sunni Islamist insurgents stage car bomb attacks and assassinate police.
(Editing by Dominic Evans)
Source: Reuters North American News Service
Mar 02, 2009
BAGHDAD, March 2 (Reuters) - Iraq will hold a nationwide census in October, its first in 22 years, mapping ethnic divisions in a survey which could encourage reconciliation or fan the feuds threatening its fragile calm.
The census, the first including Iraq's Kurdish north since 1987, will take place over the course of one or two days, said Mehdi al-Alak, who heads Iraq's Central Organisation for Statistics and Information Technology (COSIT).
Alak is planning to send at least 250,000 schoolteachers to homes across major cities and dusty hamlets to shed light on the true makeup of Iraq's diverse population.
Questions on ethnicity and religion promise to make the census a charged affair in a country emerging from years of sectarian violence and still gripped by disputes over political power, disputed territory, and oil. Six years after the U.S.-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, Iraq's population is believed to be around 28 million, an estimate obtained via distribution of state food rations.
But after years of bloodshed prompted millions of Iraqis to flee their homes, in addition to Saddam-era policies that packed strategic areas with fellow Arabs, the composition of sensitive areas is far from clear.
Such murkiness has made for easy political manipulation across the country. Perhaps the best example of where demography has fuelled discord is the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.
Kurds, believed to be around a fifth of Iraqis, claim a majority there and want to make it part of their semi-autonomous northern region, an idea rejected by its Arabs and Turkmen.
The breakdown of Kirkuk's population will be decisive if and when officials hold a referendum on the city's future.
A clear snapshot could be telling in other disputed areas, like Diyala and Nineveh provinces, where the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is looking to assert central government authority at the expense of Kurdish authorities in Arbil.
"We will not allow political, religious or ethnic interference. Our work is simply technical," Alak said.
The census might also alter allocation of the budget, 17 percent of which goes Kurdistan based on population estimates.
NO SECTARIAN BREAKDOWN
Preliminary results, a simple population count, should be ready several days after the census, but more detailed data on ethnicity and religion are not expected until late July 2010.
Alak said religion questions will not delve into sect, so the census will not provide data on the breakdown between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims, who have fought a bloody feud since 2003.
The census will count those displaced within Iraq at their current residence, but will note where they lived previously.
It will also seek to include, through outreach by Iraqi embassies, the millions of people who have fled the country.
Alak said a national curfew would be imposed on census day to ensure the survey can be carried out in country where violence is still a fact of daily life.
Even the safest of Iraqi cities are girded by concrete walls and soldiers rumble down the streets in heavily armed vehicles.
The northern city of Mosul, like several other restive areas, is still under siege. In the city, where minority Kurds have controlled the government since 2005, Sunni Islamist insurgents stage car bomb attacks and assassinate police.
(Editing by Dominic Evans)
Source: Reuters North American News Service
lundi 2 mars 2009
Iraqis say NO TO OCCUPATION
(AFP/File/Ali Yussef)IRAQIS WANT ALL US TROOPS OUT
Iraqis from the Sadr Movement hold a banner protesting US occupation in Baghdad.
dimanche 1 mars 2009
Was kann Europa tun? What can Europe do in Iraq?
What can Europe do in Iraq?
Recommendations for a
new U.S.-European collaboration
Edited by the Heinrich Böll Foundation
· Download the complete publication as pdf (96 pages, 851 KB)
Recommendations for a
new U.S.-European collaboration
Edited by the Heinrich Böll Foundation
· Download the complete publication as pdf (96 pages, 851 KB)
Almost six years after the invasion of Iraq by US-led Coalition forces it is high time for a fundamental political debate in the European Union and in Germany about the conflict, its consequences, and Europe’s own interests. It should lead to a consistent Iraq policy for the years to come. The process of stabilization and democratization of Iraq is of key importance to the region, to global security, and to the transatlantic alliance. But a new transatlantic chapter could only be opened when Europe itself started co-writing the story, telling where and how to meet the United States halfway.
This publication describes a new start of cooperation between Europe, the United States, and regional partners in the Middle East to tackle the challenges in Iraq and to help bring peace, stability, and sustainable development to the wider region.
Please click on:
http://www.iraqoilreport.com/KorskiGowaninSeriesDemocracy_Vol11_Europe_in_Iraq_2009.pdf
Was kann Europa tun? Empfehlungen für eine neue europäische Irak-Politik
Im Deutsch:
http://www.boell.de/
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