One Hundred Years In Iraq  

With John McCain looking the likely Republican nominee after his Super Tuesday wins and Mitt "nice hair" Romney's exit from the race, the SMH was suggesting that a Republican win is still on the cards, in spite of the abject failure of the Bush administration.

WITH George Bush as the most unpopular president since the invention of the opinion poll, it may seem perverse. But America is now at least as likely to vote another Republican into the White House as it is to vote for a Democrat. That's right. In spite of everything that has gone so wrong - the misadventure in Iraq, the looming downturn in the economy, sharpening inequality, the dreadful state of American health care - the Republicans are at least even money to win. Again.

Now McCain isn't as loathsome as most of the other Republican candidates were, but unfortunately he is still a crazed warmonger apparently itching to attack Iran and claiming he is content to occupy Iraq for another 100 years (which based on the rate of attrition over the past 5 years would leave the country completely depopulated), which had Ron Paul noting this had him out of step with most Americans and that his comments recklessly put Americans at risk.

Paleo-con Pat Buchanan reckons that McCain "Will Make Cheney Look Like Gandhi", while Dave Roberts is wondering if the media is going to give him a free pass on his lukewarm attitude towards action on global warming.

Back to the Iraq topic (which seemed to be of interest to a few readers this week - the best summary of my evolving view of Iraq is probably "Iraq, Oil, Law and Order" rather than the "Honest John" post which has been so popular lately), The Australian reports that Iraqi oil production is now at its highest level since the war began.

OIL production in Iraq is at its highest level since the US-led invasion of 2003, reaching 2.4 million barrels a day, thanks largely to improved security measures in the north.

The country’s Oil Ministry will shortly invite international oil companies to bid for contracts to help Iraq to boost output at its investment-starved “super-giant” oilfields. Production is expected to pass the prewar level of 2.6 million barrels by the end of the year, and Hussain al-Shahristani, the Iraqi Oil Minister, told The Times that he expected production to reach six million barrels a day within four years. ...

A new report from the US Inspector-General says that the Iraqi Government will receive a $US15 billion windfall to help its reconstruction efforts thanks to soaring oil prices.

Mr al-Shahristani said that the Government would not wait for Iraq’s fractious parliament to approve long-delayed legislation providing a legal framework for foreign investment in the oil industry. The Government is to invite foreign companies to help Iraq to develop new fields.

Jeroen van de Veer, the chief executive of the Anglo-Dutch oil company Shell, confirmed yesterday that it was “very interested” in new opportunities in Iraq, which sits on the world’s third largest proven oil reserves. “We have made various proposals to the Government,” he said.

Now obviously there is a lot more oil yet to pump from Iraq - which by my reckoning, has likely the largest oil reserves in the world rather than third largest.

The fact that the Iraqi administration seems to have given up on passing the hugely unpopular oil law (which hands over Iraq's "undiscovered" oil - or perhaps not so undiscovered, to those will a little knowledge of Iraqi history - to international oil companies) is interesting - apparently the 'democracy" thing is only going to be taken so far after all, which doesn't augur well for future stability in the country.

There is more spin at the FT, who note Shahristani's speech was at Chatham House in London, and trying to lay the blame on the Kurds.

The Iraqi government is inviting major oil multinationals to participate for the first time in the development of the oil industry, without waiting for the passage of crucial but controversial hydrocarbons legislation.

In a sign that the oil law the US has been pressing for is unlikely to be agreed by parliament any time soon, Hussain Shahristani, Iraq’s oil minister, said in an interview with the Financial Times that Iraq was now determined to push ahead with plans to raise production from a current 2.5m barrels per day to 6m bpd in five years.
Kirkuk crude from the north.

Speaking on the sidelines of a conference at Chatham House in London, he said major companies were registering to pre-qualify for oil development licences before the February 18 deadline. The process, he said, should lead next year to the award of the first contracts to develop oil fields across the country.

Meanwhile AFP reports that Baghdad is drowning in sewage. Apparently they haven't been told what a success "the surge" has been and how reconstruction is going swimmingly...

Baghdad is drowning in sewage, thirsty for water and largely powerless, an Iraqi official said on Sunday in a grim assessment of services in the capital five years after the US-led invasion.

One of three sewage treatment plants is out of commission, one is working at stuttering capacity while a pipe blockage in the third means sewage is forming a foul lake so large it can be seen "as a big black spot on Google Earth," said Tahseen Sheikhly, civilian spokesman for the Baghdad security plan.

Sheikhly told a news conference in the capital that water pipes, where they exist, are so old that it is not possible to pump water at a sufficient rate to meet demands -- leaving many neighbourhoods parched. A sharp deficit of 3,000 megawatts of electricity adds to the woes of residents, who are forced to rely on neighbourhood generators to light up their lives and heat their homes. "Sewerage, water and electricity are our three main problems," said Sheikhly, adding that many of these problems date back to the Saddam Hussein regime when not enough attention was paid to basic infrastructure.

Insurgency, sectarian violence and vandalism since the US-led invasion in March 2003 had further ravaged services in the capital, he added.

Alternet reports that while McCain might want to stay in Iraq for another 3 or 4 generations, some Americans are trying to bring National Guard troops home right now.

Five years ago, George Bush called the Guard into national service pursuant to the 2002 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) against Iraq. The AUMF, passed by Congress in its rush to war, established a limited mission: First, the removal of Saddam Hussein from power; second, enforcement of preceding United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding the elimination of alleged Iraqi WMDs and ballistic missiles. The Vermont bill recognizes that those two mission objectives are complete and that the national service of the Vermont Guard is over; the bill recalls the Guard to state control.

And Vermont is not alone. State legislators in Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island plan to sponsor similar legislation. And legislators in several other states, including Maryland, Maine and Wisconsin, have openly declared that they are examining the issue and considering following suit.

This latest chapter in Democracy v. Empire illustrates one of the most significant and perhaps most underreported aspects of the tragedy which is the occupation of Iraq: The wisdom of the American people. For a public that has all but given up hope for congressional action to end the war, this new state-based legal approach takes advantage of a surge of another kind ...

In the runup to the ill-fated U.S. invasion of Iraq in March of 2003, nearly 200 municipalities passed symbolic resolutions stating all of the reasons that the United States should not invade: The war would be too costly; it was the wrong priority for federal funds that could be better spent in our own crumbling communities; there was no evidence of an imminent threat from Iraq; there was insufficient evidence of WMDs; U.N. weapons inspectors needed time to finish doing their job; hope lay with multilateralism, not unilateralism; and above all, the potential was great for devastating and unnecessary loss of life on all sides.

Unfortunately, the wisdom from Main Street U.S.A. proved vastly better than the "intelligence" propagated by 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

In these last five years of occupation, we have seen estimates of the war cost rise to between $500 billion and $3.5 trillion, depending on the source. Four thousand U.S. soldiers and over half a million innocent Iraqi civilians -- men, women and children -- have lost their lives; hundreds of thousands of others have been seriously wounded. Iraq no longer exists as an independent or intact nation.

In the face of the horrific war toll, world and domestic public opinion have turned sharply against both the foolish presidency and the cowardly Congress. Over 300 cities, towns, counties and states have expressed opposition to continuing the war. Fully half of the U.S. population either affirmatively voted in popular referenda for withdrawal from Iraq, or are represented by elected city councils, town boards or state legislatures that voted for withdrawal. The wisdom of the American people continues unabated.

Now, with the Vermont legislation, the public wisdom may become a reality. Those same legislators who passed anti-war resolutions can now cast votes recalling the Guard from Iraq. Vermont has, once again, led the way.

Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stones has a disgruntled look at "The Chicken Doves" of the Democratic party - "Elected to end the war, Democrats have surrendered to Bush on Iraq and betrayed the peace movement for their own political ends".

Quietly, while Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been inspiring Democrats everywhere with their rolling bitchfest, congressional superduo Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have completed one of the most awesome political collapses since Neville Chamberlain. At long last, the Democratic leaders of Congress have publicly surrendered on the Iraq War, just one year after being swept into power with a firm mandate to end it.

Solidifying his reputation as one of the biggest pussies in U.S. political history, Reid explained his decision to refocus his party's energies on topics other than ending the war by saying he just couldn't fit Iraq into his busy schedule. "We have the presidential election," Reid said recently. "Our time is really squeezed."

There was much public shedding of tears among the Democratic leadership, as Reid, Pelosi and other congressional heavyweights expressed deep sadness that their valiant charge up the hill of change had been thwarted by circumstances beyond their control — that, as much as they would love to continue trying to end the catastrophic Iraq deal, they would now have to wait until, oh, 2009 to try again. "We'll have a new president," said Pelosi. "And I do think at that time we'll take a fresh look at it."

Pelosi seemed especially broken up about having to surrender on Iraq, sounding like an NFL coach in a postgame presser, trying with a straight face to explain why he punted on first-and-goal. "We just didn't have any plays we liked down there," said the coach of the 0-15 Dems. "Sometimes you just have to play the field-position game...."

In reality, though, Pelosi and the Democrats were actually engaged in some serious point-shaving. Working behind the scenes, the Democrats have systematically taken over the anti-war movement, packing the nation's leading group with party consultants more interested in attacking the GOP than ending the war. "Our focus is on the Republicans," one Democratic apparatchik in charge of the anti-war coalition declared. "How can we juice up attacks on them?"

The story of how the Democrats finally betrayed the voters who handed them both houses of Congress a year ago is a depressing preview of what's to come if they win the White House. And if we don't pay attention to this sorry tale now, while there's still time to change our minds about whom to nominate, we might be stuck with this same bunch of spineless creeps for four more years. With no one but ourselves to blame. ...

While almost all the Iraq related news is bleak, TreeHugger has managed to find one positive glimmer, reporting on an "Intrepid Group Sowing Seeds of Environmental Awareness Among Iraqi Youth".

With all of the chaos going on in Iraq it’s a surprise to learn that somehow there is someone thinking about the education of Iraqi children when it comes to environmental issues. And while it’s just a start, the truth is that the longest journey begins with a single step.

Which sounds like precisely the reasoning behind the “Children’s Bird Guide of Iraq” a new book being released by BirdLife International to introduce Iraq’s children to their local birds using their own language.

In total, the book provides enough information to enable kids to properly identify more than 35 species of birds in Iraq that can be commonly seen in wetlands, deserts and arid lands, mountainous areas, towns and gardens.

As Mike Rands, the CEO of BirdLife points out, “This is a major step in developing the future of nature conservation in Iraq. Once you know and can identify the biodiversity you coexist with, you are far more likely to care about its fate.”

And while it’s probably going to be a long road for a lot of things in Iraq, I think this tiny positive step in the right direction is definitely worth celebrating.