Israel: We destroyed Iraq... Iraq must stay divided and isolated... The Oil of Northern Iraq will flow into Israel!

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Israel: We Destroyed Iraq.. Iraq must Stay Divided and Isolated… The Oil of Northern Iraq will Flow into Israel!
http://windowintopalestine.blogspot.com/2010/05/israel-we-destroyed-iraq-iraq-must-stay.html?sms_ss=email&at_xt=4d475a3b180b5410%2C0
Wednesday, May 26 2010

Jouhaina News,

Avi Dichter, the Israeli Internal Security Minister, said in a lecture at the ‘Israeli National Security Research Center’ “about the Israeli role in destroying Iraq after it was occupied in 2003 “we achieved in Iraq more than we expected and plan!”

Dichter confirmed that keeping Iraq weak and isolated is an Israeli national interest.“Weakening and isolating Iraq is no less important than weakening and isolating Egypt,” he said. Weakening and isolating Egypt done by diplomatic methods while everything is done to do achieve a complete and comprehensive isolation to Iraq”, Dachter added.“Iraq has vanished as a military force and as a united country. Our strategic option is to keep it divided,” he added.

“Our strategic goal is not to allow this country (Iraq) to take its regional and Arabic role back. Iraq must stay divided and isolated from its regional environment” he said.

About the role of the Kurdish parties in facilitating occupying Iraq Dichter said “the top goal for Israel is to support and provide the Kurds with weapons and training and to make them our partners in security in order to establish a Kurdish independent state in the northern part of Iraq where it can control Kirkuk’s and Kurdistan’s oil,” he added.

“The Kurdish leadership guaranteed to put the oil pipeline from Kirkuk to IBC line through Jordan. We did primary negotiations with Jordan and we reached an agreement with the Kurdish leadership in this regard. If Jordan withdrew his promises we have the substitute: Turkey. We finished putting the plans and studies to establish pipelines for water and oil with Turkey and from Turkey into Israel,” he added.

The full transcript of the lecture is below:

Nobody can ignore what we had achieved on this field (Iraq). What was achieved was beyond what we had planned. We have to recall back our primary goals in Iraq since we started interfering in it at the beginning of the seventies of the last century.

Our top goal was supporting the Kurds getting benefit from their feeling that they are persecuted ethnicity who have the right to self determination and to enjoy freedom as all other peoples. At first our colleagues in Israel- who planned for (destroying) Iraq as uri Librani the previous advisor of the ex-prime minister and our ambassador to Turkey and Ethiopia and Iran- defined the core plan for the Israelis to support the Kurds.

Our (Israeli) support to the Kurds was humble at the beginning. It was limited to a political support, mentioning the Kurds issue in the international meetings and conferences. We provided the Kurds also with money, but this was limited.

In 1972 this support had taken a security dimensions: providing the Kurds with weapons through Turkey and Iran and receiving Kurdish groups and gorillas for training in Israel and in Turkey and Iran. After the Kurdish “resistance” fall apart as a result of the agreement with Iran, the Kurdish leadership went to Turkey, Syria and Israel.

Israel for morale reasons had to stay beside the Kurds and support them till they got their national aim in achieving the self-rule in the first stage and the full state independent later on.

I won’t talk long but I have to say that now in Iraq there’s an independent Kurdish state. This state has people, land, authority, army, economic, oil. This state aims not to limit itself to Kurdistan only but to annex the northern of Iraq also; Kirkuk first, then al-Musel and may be SalahEddin city in addition to Jlolaa and Khankin.

The Kurds cant’ imagine what had achieved thanks to our support.Iraq which was in our strategic view the most dangerous challenge after it became a very huge military force. Suddenly Iraq falls apart as a military force and as a country!

Iraq, the country which was united, suddenly became divided geographically, and its people is divided, it has now a civil war which led to the death of hundreds of thousands of the Iraqis! If we watch Iraq since 2003 we would find ourselves in front of more than one perspective:

Iraq is now divided into three areas in spite of the existence of the central government.

Le Kurdistan irakien indépendant en 2016? par Gilles Munier

Le Kurdistan irakien indépendant en 2016?
Par Gilles Munier (Afrique Asie – février 2011)

Massoud Barzani ne croit pas que les Arabes et les Turcomans accepteront de rattacher Kirkouk au Kurdistan irakien, ou les territoires qu’il revendique dans les régions de Mossoul et de Diyala.

Le 11 décembre 2010, au congrès du Parti Démocratique Kurde qu’il dirige – en présence de Nouri al-Maliki et de Iyad Allaoui - il a déclaré que le Kurdistan avait « droit à l’autodétermination », c'est-à-dire, tout le monde l’a compris, à l’indépendance.

Parag Khanna, ancien conseiller de Barack Obama en matière de gouvernance mondiale - et des forces spéciales en Irak en 2007 – avance même une date : 2016. Ainsi, dit-il, les champs gaziers du Kurdistan irakien - dont la production est estimée à 9 milliards de m3 par an – pourront être raccordés au futur pipeline Nabucco destiné à réduire la dépendance de l’Europe à l’égard de la Russie. Avec ses 45 milliards de barils de brut de réserve, l’Etat kurde serait alors le 6ème producteur de pétrole mondial.

En attendant, fin décembre 2010, le Gouvernement régional kurde (KRG) a envoyé 10 000 peshmergas à Bagdad pour protéger Jalal Talabani et les officiels kurdes, en cas de coup d’Etat.

Iraq photos 1909 - Gertrude Bell Archives

Please click on the link below:

http://www.gerty.ncl.ac.uk/photos_in_album.php?album_id=12&start=0

No hydropower from Iraq's Mosul dam: official

By Anwar Faruqi
http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sidANA20110127T155731ZOUC11/No%20Hydropower%20From%20Iraq

BAGHDAD, Jan 27, 2011 (AFP) - Record low water levels at Iraq's largest hydroelectric dam have ground turbines there to a halt, amplifying a power shortage that led to riots last summer, a top official said on Thursday.

Adel Mahdi, advisor to the electricity minister, said water levels at the Mosul dam on the Tigris River had fallen to 298 metres (977 feet) above sea level.
"It is the first time since 1984 when the dam was built that water levels have fallen this low," Mahdi told AFP.
"The installed power generation capacity of Mosul's hydroelectric plant is 1,175 megawatts, but the current production is zero, because the turbines need a minimum water level of 307 metres (1,007 feet) to operate," he added.

He said half of the water to the dam was coming from Turkey, and the rest from Iran and the mountains of Iraq.
The Tigris and Euphrates which gave Iraq its ancient name of Mesopotamia, meaning "land of two rivers," reach Iraq through Turkey.
The Tigris flows directly from Turkey, and the Euphrates goes from Turkey through Syria, then flows to Iraq. Water projects in the two countries have had a severe impact on Iraq.

Mahdi said Iraq also was eyeing with extreme worry Turkey's controversial Aliso dam on the Tigris, work on which began in 2006.
"If Aliso is completed, it will finish with the Tigris in Iraq completely," Mahdi said.
Mahdi said hydropower from Iraq's Haditha dam on the Euphrates was also operating at less than 50 percent of capacity because of water shortages due to irrigation and dam projects in Turkey.

He added that Iraqis will have to endure power outages next summer as well, because additional supply would be matched by an expected 10 percent rise in demand, leaving Iraqis with an average of eight hours of power per day.

Mahdi said the situation would not improve before 2013, when projects in the pipeline now would add another 10,000 megawatts to the grid.

He put overall Iraqi electricity demand at 15,000 megawatts, and supply at 8,500 megawatts.
Due to the shortfall, homes and businesses nationwide suffer daily cuts and rely on private generators to fill the gap, as the war-ravaged country struggles to boost capacity.

Angry Iraqis staged violent demonstrations last summer in several southern cities over power rationing as temperatures reached 54 degrees Celsius (130 degrees Fahrenheit).
Iraq's infrastructure was devastated during the 2003 US-led invasion and more than a decade of sanctions that preceded it.
afq/psr/al

Through the desert to a country with no name, by Wayne Madsen

Through the desert to a country with no name
By Wayne Madsen

Online Journal Contributing Writer

(WMR) – WMR’s Middle East sources are pointing to a looming battle that will be waged for control of the life-sustaining waters of the Nile River when southern Sudan, or whatever it’s name will be, achieves independence from Sudan following the ongoing independence referendum.

Independence for southern Sudan has long been a goal of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and her god-daughter, current U.S. ambassador to the UN Susan Rice. The splitting of Sudan has long been in the interests of Israel, which has yearned for a client state in southern Sudan that could put the squeeze on the supply of the Nile’s headwaters to Egypt and northern Sudan. For Rice, a vitriolic hatred for Khartoum and its majority Arab population, has helped the cause of the southern Sudanese. Rice’s views on southern Sudan and Khartoum were partly influenced by two members of the Israeli Lobby who had direct control over U.S. policy toward Sudan as counter-terrorism officials in the Bill Clinton National Security Council: Steven Simon and Daniel Benjamin.

The late southern Sudanese leader, John Garang, was one of Albright’s celebrated ex-Marxist “beacons of hope” for Africa, along with other U.S. client dictators in the region as Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, and Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia. Congo’s Laurent-Desire Kabila and Garang were among Washington’s “red princes” until they got cross-wise with the CIA and U.S. corporate plans for their respective nations and were removed in assassinations plotted by Langley.

Southern Sudan has not even settled on a name for the new nation. However, any of the proposed names raises the specter of ambitions by the Israelis and other external actors vying for influence in central Africa. One name proposed is the Nile Republic but that would immediately send an alarm to Cairo and Khartoum concerning the long-term control of the Nile’s waters by the new pro-U.S. and pro-Israeli government with its capital in Juba in southern Sudan. Another proposal would call the country “Nilotia,” again, problematic, because of the reference to the Nile River.


Another proposed name, Cush, is taken from the Jewish Bible and refers to an ancient kingdom extending from the Horn of Africa to southern Egypt. There is some informed speculation in the region that the Mossad was behind the recent Christmas car bombing outside an Egyptian Coptic church in Alexandria, Egypt in order to stir up tensions between Egypt’s ten percent Coptic minority and its majority Muslim population. Some Middle East commentators pointed out that remotely-controlled car bombs are virtually unknown in Egypt but have been carried out by Mossad in Lebanon, where they are then blamed on Hezbollah.

Mossad is reportedly recruiting agents from the hundreds of southern Sudanese in Israel who have migrated to Israel for employment opportunities. Many of these southern Sudanese refugees, mostly found in Tel Aviv, are expected to return to their new nation.
Southern Egypt, the land that supposedly once included Cush [Cush was the mythical grandson of Noah], is a center for Egypt’s Copts and wider irredentist claims in the region by an independent Cush [or “Kush”] in southern Sudan could further inflame tensions along the entire stretch of the Nile River.

Another proposed names for the new nation in southern Sudan, New Sudan, may stir up tensions on the disputed oil-rich territory on the border of old Sudan and “New Sudan,” the Abyei region. Continued use of “South Sudan” or “Southern Sudan” would give the impression of a divided country like South and North Korea or South and North Yemen. Continued use of Sudan in the name may also create friction as seen in the Balkans between Greece and Macedonia. Greece has insisted that Macedonia be referred to by the United Nations as “FYROM: former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” because of what it believes are irredentist claims by Macedonia on northern Greece.

However, it is the ambitions of Israel that may pose the greater problem for the land of the Nile headwaters. Israel’ expansionist government is fond of using the collection of ancient folk lore and myths known as the “Old Testament” to drive claims to land in the West Bank [which are referred to by the arcane biblical names of Judea and Samaria] but also, increasingly to lands in northern Iraq. On January 28, 2008, WMR reported: “Israeli expansionists, their intentions to take full control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and permanently keep the Golan Heights of Syria and expand into southern Lebanon already well known, also have their eyes on parts of Iraq considered part of a biblical ‘Greater Israel.’ Israel reportedly has plans to re-locate thousands of Kurdish Jews from Israel, including expatriates from Kurdish Iran, to the Iraqi cities of Mosul and Nineveh under the guise of religious pilgrimages to ancient Jewish religious shrines. According to Kurdish sources, the Israelis are secretly working with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to carry out the integration of Kurdish and other Jews into areas of Iraq under control of the KRG.

Kurdish, Iraqi Sunni Muslim, and Turkmen have noted that Kurdish Israelis began to buy land in Iraqi Kurdistan after the U.S. invasion in 2003 that is considered historical Jewish ‘property.’ The Israelis are particularly interested in the shrine of the Jewish prophet Nahum in al Qush, the prophet Jonah in Mosul, and the tomb of the prophet Daniel in Kirkuk. Israelis are also trying to claim Jewish ‘properties’ outside of the Kurdish region, including the shrine of Ezekiel in the village of al-Kifl in Babel Province near Najaf and the tomb of Ezra in al-Uzayr in Misan Province, near Basra, both in southern Iraq’s Shi’a-dominated territory. Israeli expansionists consider these shrines and tombs as much a part of “Greater Israel” as Jerusalem and the West Bank, which they call ‘Judea and Samaria.’”

Oil is also a major factor in the independence of southern Sudan. The new country is rich in oil and with Africa’s oil and other resources now highly sought after by competing nations like the United States, China, and Japan, the traditional strictures issued by the Organization of African Unity upon its founding in 1963 against changing Africa’s colonial borders through secession have been overtaken by new realities and a new organization, the African Union, which has now permitted two nations to secede from established nations: Eritrea from Ethiopia in 1993 and now southern Sudan or whatever it will call itself, from Sudan in 2011.

Several nations point to Somaliland, the former British Somaliland that declared itself independent from Somalia in 1991, as the next state in line to achieve recognition. Israeli diplomats have reportedly been in Hargeisa, the Somaliland capital, to talk about Israeli recognition of the state. However, it will be the United States and Britain, both of which favor recognition, that will spur Somaliland’s quest for international recognition and UN membership.

After Somaliland, two other parts of Somalia, Puntland and Jubaland, will likely follow suit.
Some Africa policy habitués of the Council on Foreign Relations and other fronts for the global banking elites are already floating the idea that the Sudan solution may be applied to Africa’s other north-south and Islamic-Christian flash points like Nigeria and Ivory Coast. They reason that if majority Christian south Sudan can separate from largely Muslim north Sudan, why not majority Muslim north Ivory Coast from largely Christian south Ivory Coast and Muslim north Nigeria from Christian south Nigeria? And the Democratic Republic of the Congo has long been seen as a prime candidate for “Balkanization” by the Corporate Council on Africa and its affiliates at the Kissingerian Center for Strategic and International Studies.

As for southern Sudan or whatever it will be, after the likes of John Kerry and George Clooney depart from the photo ops in Juba, they will be replaced by non-governmental organization and international aid agency faceless international bureaucrats, the foot soldiers of the global “misery industry” who migrate from killing fields to war zones in search of new tax-free income, walled compounds with servants and Land Rovers, and duty free shopping gigs. Southern Sudan’s “independence” will be in name only, with the aid agencies and NGOs calling the shots as they do in Haiti today.

Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.
Copyright © 2011 WayneMadenReport.com
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_6813.shtml, Jan 18, 2011

Hasan Turan, a Turkmen councillor calls for semi-autonomy in Kerkuk

http://www.zawya.com/story.cfm/sidZAWYA20110126090738


By Ammar Ali

Kirkuk - A Turkmen Councillor in Kirkuk said on Tuesday that the Turkmen project to apply for semi-autonomy in the oil-rich, multi-ethnic region under Article 119 of the Iraqi Constitution would resolve the territorial debate being waged between Baghdad and the Kurdistan region.

Hasan Turan told AKnews that he believes the project will win the support of all ethnic components and political blocs on both regional and national levels."This province can become a region...and be a model of economic well-being in Iraq and of peaceful coexistence between the ethnic components found within it," he said.

Kirkuk has long been the subject of a territorial debate between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government. The region is believed to be sitting atop four percent of global oil reserves and is attractive to foreign investors, but exploration has been blocked by security concerns.

Human Rights Watch World Report 2011

World Report:

http://www.hrw.org/en/world-report-2011?tr=y&auid=7674654

Download Full Report > [PDF, 4 MB] Introduction

This 21st annual World Report summarizes human rights conditions in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide. It reflects extensive investigative work undertaken in 2010 by Human Rights Watch staff, usually in close partnership with domestic human rights activists.

With increasing frequency, governments that might exert pressure for human rights improvement are accepting the rationalizations and subterfuges of repressive governments, favoring private “dialogue” and “cooperation” over more hard-nosed approaches. In principle there is nothing wrong with dialogue, but it should not be a substitute for public pressure when the government in question lacks the political will to respect rights. Human Rights Watch calls on governmental supporters of human rights to ensure that the quest for cooperation does not become an excuse for inaction.

Browse chapters by country:

http://www.hrw.org/en/world-report-2011?tr=y&auid=7674654#countries

Turkey’s National Library included in EU digital project

Turkey’s National Library included in EU digital project

ANKARA - Anatolia News Agency Tuesday, January 25, 2011The National Library has become the first Turkish institute to be included in Europe’s digital library project, Europeana. Thanks to the project, Europeans can see many priceless manuscripts and other objects online. ’Inclusion in Europeana is also significant for Turkey’s promotion abroad,’ says the National Library General Director Tuncel Acar

Turkey’s National Library has become be the first Turkish institution included in the European Union’s digital library project, Europeana, the director of the National Library has announced. Nearly 27,050 manuscripts and 10,000 magazines from the National Library’s digital collection will now be available through the database.

The Europeana project aims to integrate the databases of cultural institutes and libraries from around Europe. The project, which began in 2008, is based in the National Library of the Netherlands and receives funding from the European Commission.

National Library General Director Tuncel Acar said Europeana officials contacted with Hacettepe University and asked to include Turkey in the project. The university then held a meeting with the National Library to initiate work on the project, Acar said.

Europeana largely focuses on historic artworks that were digitized in libraries, museums, and research and development centers, according to Acar. “Some 27,000 manuscripts were in the digital platform, but we were not included in Europeana’s website,” he said. “This was a deficiency.” The National Library signed a protocol with Europeana a few days ago and its works are now included in the system, the library director said.

The Turkish artworks and documents included in the database are unique and could prove very important to researchers, Acar said. “These objects do not have copyrights. We have digitized them and shouldn’t other people in the world see Turkey’s priceless manuscripts?”
Acar added that inclusion in the project is prestigious for the National Library. “But the fact that we are the first Turkish institute in the system, this is more prestigious for us. I am sure that other institutes will be included in it following us,” he said.

In addition to manuscripts, printed works will also be digitized for Europeana, said Acar, who pointed to the example of a book of letters from Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror to the Vatican in 1475. “This book is as valuable as a manuscript because it was printed 600 years ago,” he said.
While European researchers may not be familiar with the Turkish National Library’s website, they know Europeana, according to Acar. “When people enter this website, they will also see our manuscripts. This is a big advantage for us,” he said. “Turkish language will also be included in the website. This is why we give importance to Europeana.”

Significant for Turkey’s promotion
Acar emphasized that the National Library’s inclusion in Europeana is significant for Turkey’s promotion abroad. “Imagine that the works at the Topkapı Palace are included in Europeana,” he said. “It would be great.”

He suggested that access to information about Turkey would encourage people to visit the country. “Because what you see on the Internet is just a small object, regardless of its magnificence.”

The only problem with digitization is copyrights, Acar said, adding that publishers oppose digitization because it hurts their profits.
“As soon as you put a best-selling object on the Internet, the sales of this object stop. This is why publishers want copyrights, but this system is not well established in Turkey yet,” he said, unlike in Scandinavian countries where the state pays copyright fees for researchers. “In this way, the right of the writer is protected by the state.”

Acar added that publishers also make contracts for digital copies when they publish books. “Such e-book companies only began appearing in Turkey recently.”

What is Europeana?
Europeana was launched in 2008 with the goal of making Europe's cultural and scientific heritage accessible to the public. The project is funded by the European Commission. The website, with some 2 million works, enables users to benefit from Europe’s cultural and scientific heritage. It offers content including images, paintings, maps, voice records and newspapers.
The National Library gives visitors a password to access the digital archives. In accordance with protocol, visitors pay for printing to contribute to the library’s funding.

Europeana can be accessed at http://www.europeana.eu/.
© 2009 Hurriyet Daily News URL: www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=0124102043618-2011-01-24