Free Republic

ASRA, Iraq, June 6 — Standing under the merciless sun outside his office, surrounded by employees shouting angrily about pay, Jabbar Ali al-Leaby, the director general of the South Oil Company, lost the little patience he had left. "Be satisfied with what you got," he told the men. "Do you know what I went through to get even this money for you?" It was only three hours into the workday, but Mr. Leaby's frustrations started, as they do every morning, when he arrived around 8 to the lone refurbished office in a complex of buildings so thoroughly ransacked that...

New Hampshire On the face of it, Jordan’s election this month would seem to be a lively affair. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve driven the length and breadth of the country. Well, not the length, but the breadth — from the Allenby Bridge across from the ghastly Arafat squat on the West Bank over to the eastern desert and the Iraqi border post at Trebil. And in every town you pass through there are handmade banners strung across the streets proclaiming the merits of a zillion candidates. Nothing fancy, just dense text on white sheets. But lots of...

There's no dysentery or cholera, no sign of a human catastrophe, the roads and medical centres are empty and the countryside charming. Yes, writes Mark Steyn, there's no place like Iraq for a holiday I've spent the past couple of weeks on a motoring tour of western and northern Iraq, and I can't recommend it highly enough. The roads are empty except for the occasional burnt-out tank and abandoned Saddamite limo. You can make excellent time, because it will be several months before a deBa'athified Iraqi highway patrol squad is up and running and even longer before they replace the...

<p>BAGHDAD--"This is my brother," cries a man. "This is not my husband," wails his sister-in-law. They are arguing over a bag of bones, and it is hard to tell whether he is over-eager for closure or she in denial. The man says he recognizes his brother's dishdasha, or robe, but admits that he could be more certain if there were a skull and dental work to look at. Hundreds of identical plastic bags, likewise filled with the remains of Shiites who rose up against Saddam in 1991, litter the ground nearby.</p>

CAIRO - The United States stepped up moves this week to revive Iraq's war-battered economy, temporarily lifting tariffs to boost cross-border trade and business and announcing plans to set up a major credit facility. With a UN Security Council resolution on May 22 ending 13 years of international sanctions on Iraq, the United States and Britain have now taken the reins of Iraq's economy, controlling notably its key oil revenues to fund rebuilding efforts. The Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) announced that a tariff holiday would be applied in a few days to boost commerce and relieve Iraqi...

May. 29, 2003 US raids Palestinian mission in Baghdad By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Baghdad US troops raided the Palestinian Authority's mission in Baghdad and arrested 11 members including its top diplomat after ransacking the building, Palestinian officials said Thursday. A top US general said only eight people had been arrested. "They even took all of our water bottles and food cans," said Mohamed Abdul Wahab, a mission official. "They behaved like common thieves." Although US troops have conducted numerous sweeps against suspected criminals and loyalists of Saddam Hussein's regime, Wednesday's raid was the first such action against a foreign diplomatic...

U.S. administrator Paul Bremer Wednesday reported "troubling" Iranian activity in Iraq and said it could result in serious problems if it went too far. "We have seen a rather steady increase in Iranian activity here, which is troubling," Bremer said in the interview with ABC News, excerpts of which were released Wednesday. His comments were the latest in a series of critical U.S. statements about Iran, lumped by President Bush in an "axis of evil" with North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in remarks published Tuesday the United States would not allow Iraq's neighbors to...

2:26PM US lifts sanctions against Iraq by Rex Nutting The U.S. government has lifted most economic sanctions against Iraq that have been in place for 12 years, as called for by the U.N. Security Council on Friday. U.S. companies and individuals will be able to trade with and invest in Iraq. "The Iraqi people can look forward to an end to the crippling deprivation," said U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow. Trade with Baath Party leaders, weapons trade and commerce in stolen cultural artifacts are still prohibited. The Treasury also said $570 million in Iraq Central Bank assets has been discovered...

May 26, 7:39 PM EDT U.S. Fires Baathist Police Chief in IraqBy JIM KRANEAssociated Press Writer BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- The top U.S. official in Iraq fired a Baghdad police chief because of his Baath Party membership, despite the help he provided American forces in rebuilding the capital's ravaged police force.West Baghdad police chief Abdul Razak al-Abbassi was dismissed Sunday, said Lt. Col. Richard Vanderlinden, commander of the U.S. Army's 709th Military Police Battalion.Al-Abbassi was found to have had full membership in Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, disqualifying him from any of the three top positions in an Iraqi government bureaucracy,...

The US civil administration paid out the first government wages to Iraqis since the US-led war, giving wages to thousands of Baghdad electricity workers. It hopes the payments - set eventually to reach about 1.4 million civil servants and ranging from $80 to $400 a month - will send a signal that normal life is returning to the country after weeks of chaos and deteriorating security conditions. "Its a start, a good start and the rest will get paid through the rest of the week," said Jay Garner, the outgoing director of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA)....

A few days ago, a group of students from Baghdad's Hurriyyah (Freedom) neighborhood complained to their parents about Ismail Shahade Meshadai, much-hated school principal at the Nahr el-Khalid high school. An activist in Saddam Hussein's Baath party, Meshadai, along with his wife (a teacher), has not only been terrorizing the neighborhood for some years, but was also known to regularly report to Iraqi mukhabarat on "suspect" students and families. Still, the principal did not make it to the top of anybody's agenda until last week, soon after schools reopened. When a teacher removed a picture of Saddam, the principal burst...

WASHINGTON -- Call it the curse of crude. The 11 countries that comprise the OPEC cartel amassed nearly $180 billion in oil revenues last year. None is a thriving democracy. Coincidence? Oil wealth hinders development of a tax-paying middle class, the very segment of society most likely to agitate for a voice in government, political economists say. Bountiful crude reserves also discourage the kind of diversification needed for a successful capitalistic economy. This is the dilemma the Bush administration must confront if it hopes to plant democracy in Iraq. In fact, the White House is pondering a radical approach. To...

BAGHDAD: Western administrators may ban from public office between 15,000-30,000 die-hard Saddam Hussein loyalists of Iraq's dissolved Baath Party, senior officials said on Friday. But Iraqi intellectuals said the United States risked emulating Saddam by purging the Iraqi bureaucracy in favour of loyalty to America as criteria for hiring civil servants as it restores government to Baghdad. Two senior officials of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) -- which runs Iraq until an Iraqi interim authority takes over -- told reporters they recognised the risks of such a vetting process in a society where up to 700,000 people...

<p>It's true that more Iraqis in Basra have power than ever before, but most of Baghdad is dark at night, and that simply wasn't the case until three days into the war.</p> <p>The rules of engagement - which have not changed - always allowed troops to fire on looters or any armed person if they feel threatened. The only change - an overdue one - is that they have been ordered to be more aggressive in their policing duties.</p>

US sacks its woman in BaghdadWashington replaces its team for the anarchy-hit capital after failures Ewen MacAskill in Baghdad Monday May 12, 2003 The Guardian The US yesterday sacked one of its most senior envoys to Iraq after only three weeks, in an admission that the task of running the country is proving tougher than expected. With Baghdad still in a state of chaos, there was a whiff of panic about Washington's removal of the top layer of its team responsible for reconstruction. There was also a hint that it is being forced to rethink its post-war strategy. Barbara Bodine,...

THERE are few more dramatic periods in human history than the toppling of a brutal tyranny and dictatorship. When the fighting ends, and the world and media spotlight dims, a less-noticed period unfolds. In the case of Iraq, it is the job of getting a punch-drunk and war-weary country back on its feet. That is the reality in the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance — the most complex and challenging job I have faced in more than 30 years of military service. This is not just a country damaged by conflict but by 30 years of systematic intimidation and...

As Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim, the 63 years old leader of the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq (SAIRI) is preparing to leave for his hometown of Najaf, a double conflict is surfacing, pitting senior Iraqi and Iranian Shi’ite leaders and their respective rival religious circles (hawzeh) of Qom in Iran and Najaf in Iraq against each other. Hundreds of Iraqi clerics who had escaped to Iran the inferno Saddam Hoseyn has created for the Shi’as have already left the Iranian religious of Qom, where they were teaching and learning, for their native Iraq, most of them assuring...

WASHINGTON - Bush names career diplomat to be top U.S. civilian in Iraq. No Info yet. Searching!!

Parties, plunder, and prayer in liberated Baghdad Matthew Gutman May. 5, 2003 In Sadr City, the lawless and impoverished district in east Baghdad formerly known as Saddam City, the US has found a friend. The Shi'ite residents and their powerful clerics have thrown their support behind American troops, grateful that they rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein and hopeful that the US might drag them out of dire poverty. "We were the living dead under Saddam," said Said Fathen al-Yasser, a metal trader who specializes in pillaged Iraqi tank and artillery shells. "Now we are free. For the first time...

<p>BAGHDAD — Nawwas, a clerk in the literature department of the University of Baghdad, was feeling more agitation than excitement this week in anticipation of the $20 she would soon receive from the U.S. government.</p> <p>The money, a one-time cash gift, is aimed at helping civil servants tide over until the transitional administration can sort out the salary structure and resume payments.</p>