Is civil war a possibility?

[salim]

http://www.wattan4all.org/printarticle.php?id=14005

 

قناة الحرة: الحزم في الحكم ايضاً يقارن باتهامات طائفية او شوفينية، كيف التوفيق بين هذا وذاك؟

رئيس اقليم كوردستان:صعب جداً ان ترضي الجميع، هناك مصلحة عامة وهناك ثوابت وطنية وهناك قوانين وعدالة وقناعة وجدانية وهناك قانون ودستور ونفذ القانون بقناعة وجدانية وبعدالة وبمنطلقات وطنية والذي يعترض فليعترض، اللصوص سوف يعترضون، ازلام النظام البائد سوف يعترضون وكذلك الارهابيون والتكفيريون سوف يندمون.

 

In arabic.. Kurd barazani interview with US governemnt sponsored AlHura TV. When asked about the dilema of once you being firm with terrorists, you got accused to be factionists or secterian.. Barazani relied firmly : "You can't satisfy every one, there are national interests and justice that need to be implemented, there are laws and constitution, those who oppose such firm measure might oppose . Theifs will oppose, sadamists will oppose also Terrorists, they all will feel sorry "

[Guest Guest]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/01/world/mi...st/01tapes.html

 

Some See Hints of Disharmony in Qaeda Tapes

 

The tactic could have been intended to soften the group's reputation. Many Iraqis who use violence to oppose the occupation began to turn away from Mr. Zarqawi after he openly called on fighters to kill Shiite civilians last fall.

 

So the question , if this the above is true, and I think it is, then how come a civil war be a possibility while iraqi Sunnis are turning away from this criminal beacuse of his factioninst calls?

[Guest Guest_layth_*]

http://radiosawa.com/article.aspx?id=843586

 

In Arabic.. Education Iraqi minister " A sunni Arab" denounce the Egyptian president sattement. Alrawee said, 99% of Shia in the south are Arabs, the president might get fooled by some one..He said that if there is a possibility for civil war then it might be happened three years ago.

Just an article about the Iraqi citizens taking issue with Egyptian president.

And Mubarak doing a little "damage control".

 

 

Thousands of Iraqi Shias demonstrate against Mubarak

(AFP)

 

15 April 2006

 

 

NAJAF, Iraq - Several thousand Shias demonstrated in Iraq’s holy city of Najaf Saturday to denounce remarks by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak questioning whether their loyality lay with Iran.

 

 

“Mubarak, traitor,” chanted the crowd assembed in the center of the city, also calling on Mubarak to “remove the Israeli flag”, a reference to the presence of an Israeli embassy in Egypt.

 

On Saturday, Mubarak tempered his April 8 remarks to Al Arabiya television that Shias were more loyal to Iran than their own countries, by explaining that he meant it in religious terms, rather than political ones.

 

“My remarks about Shias dealt with their religious loyalties and sympathies, without putting into question the patriotism of Shias in Iraq or any other country,” he told the government weekly Akhbar al-Yom.

 

The comments were denounced by the governments of both Baghdad and Teheran, while the Shia imams described the 77-year-old Egyptian president as “ignorant” and “nostalgic” for the previous regime.

 

Saturday’s demonstration follows on a smaller protest that came after Friday’s weekly prayers.

 

 

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle...ion=focusoniraq

[BahirJ]

نص وثيقة مكة المكرمة

 

الحمد لله رب العالمين ، والصلاة والسلام على رسول الله محمد وآله وصحبه أجمعين ، وبعد ..

 

بناء على ما آلت إليه الأوضاع في العراق وما يجري فيه يوميا من إهدار للدماء وعدوان على الأموال والممتلكات تحت دعاوى تتلبس برداء الإسلام والإسلام منها براء ، وتلبية لدعوة الأمين العام لمنظمة المؤتمر الإسلامي ، وتحت مظلة مجمع الفقه الإسلامي الدولي التابع للمنظمة.

 

نحن علماء العراق من السنة والشيعة ، اجتمعنا في مكة المكرمة ، في رمضان من عام 1427هـ وتداولنا في الشأن العراقي ، وما يمر به أهله من محن ويعانونه من كوارث ، وأصدرنا الوثيقة الآتي نصها:

 

أولا : المسلم هو من شهد أنه لا إله لا الله وأن محمدا رسول الله ، وهو بهذه الشهادة يعصم دمه وماله وعرضه إلا بحقها وحسابه على الله. ويدخل في ذلك السنة والشيعة جميعا ، والقواسم المشتركة بين المذهبين أضعاف مواضع الاختلاف وأسبابه . والاختلاف بين المذهبين ـ أينما وجد ـ هو اختلاف نظر وتأويل وليس اختلافا في أصول الإيمان ولا في أركان الإسلام. ولا يجوز شرعا لأحد من المذهبين أن يكفر أحدا من المذهب الآخر. لقول رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم " من قال لأخيه يا كافر فقد باء بها أحدهما" ولا يجوز شرعا إدانة مذهب بسبب جرائم بعض أتباعه.

 

ثانيا : دماء المسلمين وأموالهم وأعراضهم عليهم حرام. قال الله تعالى "ومن يقتل مؤمنا متعمدا فجزاؤه جهنم خالدا فيها وغضب الله عليه ولعنه وأعد له عذابا عظيما" وقال النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم " كل مسلم على المسلم حرام دمه وماله وعرضه" وعليه فلا يجوز التعرض لمسلم شيعي أو سني بالقتل أو الإيذاء، أو الترويع أو العدوان على ماله أو التحريض على شيء من ذلك، أو إجباره على ترك بلده أو محل إقامته أو اختطافه أو أخذ رهائن من أهله بسبب عقيدته أو مذهبه ومن يفعل ذلك برئت منه ذمة المسلمين كافة مراجعهم وعلماؤهم وعامتهم.

 

ثالثا: لدور العبادة حرمة. وهي تشمل المساجد والحسينيات وأماكن عبادة غير المسلمين. فلا يجوز الاعتداء عليها أو مصادرتها أو اتخاذها ملاذا للأعمال المخالفة للشرع ويجب أن تبقى هذه الأماكن في أيدي أصحابها وأن يعاد إليهم ما اغتصب منها وذلك كله عملا بالقاعدة الفقهية المسلمة عند المذاهب كافة أن " الأوقاف على ما اشترطه أصحابها " وأن " شرط الواقف كنص الشارع " وقاعدة أن "المعروف عرفا كالمشروط شرطا" .

 

رابعا: إن الجرائم المرتكبة على الهوية المذهبية كما يحدث في العراق هي من الفساد في الأرض الذي نهى الله عنه وحرمه في قوله تعالى "وإذا تولى سعى في الأرض ليفسد فيها ويهلك الحرث والنسل والله لا يحب الفساد " وليس اعتناق مذهب، أيا ما كان، مسوغا للقتل أو العدوان ولو ارتكب بعض أتباعه ما يوجب عقابه إذ " ولا تزر وازرة أخرى ".

 

خامسا: يجب الابتعاد عن إثارة الحساسيات والفوارق المذهبية والعرقية والجغرافية واللغوية ، كما يجب الامتناع عن التنابز بالألقاب وإطلاق الصفات المسيئة من كل طرف على غيره، فقد وصف القرآن الكريم مثل هذه التصرفات بأنها فسوق قال تعالى " ولا تلمزوا أنفسكم ولا تنابزوا بالألقاب بئس الاسم الفسوق بعد الإيمان ومن لم يتب فأولئك هم الظالمون".

 

سادسا: ومما يجب التمسك به وعدم التفريط فيه ، الوحدة والتلاحم والتعاون على البر والتقوى وذلك يقتضي مواجهة كل محاولة لتمزيقها قال تعالى "إنما المؤمنون إخوة" وقال "وان هذه أمتكم أمة واحدة وأنا ربكم فاتقون" ومن مقتضى ذلك وجوب احتراز المسلمين جميعا من محاولات إفساد ذات بينهم وشق صفوفهم وإحداث الفتن المفسدة لنفوس بعضهم على البعض الآخر .

 

سابعا : المسلمون من السنة والشيعة عون للمظلوم ويد على الظالم ، يعملون بقول الله تعالى " إن الله يأمر بالعدل والإحسان وإيتاء ذي القربى وينهى عن الفحشاء والمنكر والبغي يعظكم لعلكم تذكرون " ومن أجل ذلك يجب العمل على إنهاء المظالم وفي مقدمتها إطلاق سراح المختطفين الأبرياء والرهائن من المسلمين وغير المسلمين . وإرجاع المهجرين إلى أماكنهم الأصلية

 

ثامنا : يذكر العلماء الحكومة العراقية بواجبها في بسط الأمن وحماية الشعب العراقي وتوفير سبل الحياة الكريمة له بجميع فئاته وطوائفه ، وإقامة العدل بين أبنائه ، ومن أهم وسائل ذلك إطلاق سراح المعتقلين الأبرياء ، وتقديم من تقوم بحقه أدلة جنائية إلى محاكمة عاجلة عادلة وتنفيذ حكمها ، والأعمال الدقيق لمبدأ المساواة بين المواطنين.

 

تاسعا : يؤيد العلماء من السنة والشيعة جميع الجهود والمبادرات الرامية إلى تحقيق المصالحة الوطنية الشاملة في العراق عملا بقوله تعالى " والصلح خير " وبقوله " وتعاونوا على البر والتقوى " .

 

عاشرا : المسلمون السنة والشيعة يقفون بهذا صفا واحدا للمحافظة على استقلال العراق ، ووحدته وسلامة أراضيه ؛ وتحقيق الإرادة الحرة لشعبه ؛ ويساهمون في بناء قدراتهم العسكرية والاقتصادية والسياسية ويعملون من أجل إنهاء الاحتلال ، واستعادة الدور الثقافي والحضاري العربي والإسلامي والإنساني للعراق.

 

إن العلماء الموقعين على هذه الوثيقة يدعون علماء الإسلام في العراق وخارجه ، إلى تأييد ما تضمنته من بيان ، والالتزام به ، وحث مسلمي العراق على ذلك. ويسألون الله وهم في بلده الحرام ، أن يحفظ على المسلمين كافة دينهم وأن يؤمن لهم أوطانهم ، وأن يخرج العراق المسلم من محنته وينهي أيام ابتلاء أهله بالفتن ، ويجعله درعا لأمة الإسلام في وجه أعدائها. وآخر دعوانا أن الحمد لله رب العالمين.

 

 

from www.alrafidayn.com

[salim]

رابعا: إن الجرائم المرتكبة على الهوية المذهبية كما يحدث في العراق هي من الفساد في الأرض الذي نهى الله عنه وحرمه في قوله تعالى "وإذا تولى سعى في الأرض ليفسد فيها ويهلك الحرث والنسل والله لا يحب الفساد " وليس اعتناق مذهب، أيا ما كان، مسوغا للقتل أو العدوان ولو ارتكب بعض أتباعه ما يوجب عقابه إذ " ولا تزر وازرة أخرى ".

 

اتمنى لو ان هذا الاعلان يتم تعميمه على كل دوائر الافتاء لدى المسلمين وان يكون الاعلان عن رايهم صريحا بشانه ومن دون لبس . خصوصا دار الافتاء في السعوديه و جامعه الملك عبد العزيز. ان عدم توقيع كلا الطرفين على الوثيقه وكما فعل الازهر الشريف قد يعطي القتله من التكفيرين نافذه يتسللون بها الى ضعاف النفوس كي يبرروا افعالهم الاجراميه . لذا فان موقفا حاسما وعلى مستوى الافتاء الاسلامي هو المطلوب لمساعده العراقيين للخروج من محنتهم الحاليه

[tajer]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15873863/

 

Revenge-seeking militiamen seized six Sunnis as they left Friday prayers and burned them alive with kerosene in a savage new twist to the brutality shaking the Iraqi capital a day after suspected Sunni insurgents killed 215 people in Baghdad's main Shiite district.

The gruesome attack, which came despite a curfew in Baghdad

 

If there is a curfew , then how come they laft the Friday prayer? One might argue that these are local comunities where they can walk to near by Mosques. If that is the case then the Mosque is in a sunni neighbohood.."which is not" , then how these Shia criminals get into that neighborhood?

Every one in baghdad know that this is no more than a propaganda by Arab media to cover the acts of mass killing of Alsader city .. Have a look

 

But Imad al-Hasimi, a Sunni elder in Hurriyah, confirmed Hussein's account of the immolations. He told Al-Arabiya television he saw people who were drenched in kerosene and then set afire, burning to death before his eyes.

 

So , who is this guy? is he a known name or just some one called Alrabia TV. What credibility he got to make his allegation on main pages of westren media? What agenda this media ia holding for Iraq?

 

Many questions. No answers!

[BahirJ]

Inside Baghdad's civil war

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

'The jihad now is against the Shias, not the Americans'

 

As 20,000 more US troops head for Iraq, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, the only correspondent reporting regularly from behind the country's sectarian battle lines, reveals how the Sunni insurgency has changed

 

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

Saturday January 13, 2007

 

Guardian

 

One morning a few weeks ago I sat in a car talking to Rami, a thick-necked former Republican Guard commando who now procures arms for his fellow Sunni insurgents.

Rami was explaining how the insurgency had changed since the first heady days after the US invasion. "I used to attack the Americans when that was the jihad. Now there is no jihad. Go around and see in Adhamiya [the notorious Sunni insurgent area] - all the commanders are sitting sipping coffee; it's only the young kids that are fighting now, and they are not fighting Americans any more, they are just killing Shia. There are kids carrying two guns each and they roam the streets looking for their prey. They will kill for anything, for a gun, for a car and all can be dressed up as jihad."

 

Rami was no longer involved in fighting, he said, but made a tidy profit selling weapons and ammunition to men in his north Baghdad neighbourhood. Until the last few months, the insurgency got by with weapons and ammunition looted from former Iraqi army depots. But now that Sunnis were besieged in their neighbourhoods and fighting daily clashes with the better-equipped Shia ministry of interior forces, they needed new sources of weapons and money.

 

He told me that one of his main suppliers had been an interpreter working for the US army in Baghdad. "He had a deal with an American officer. We bought brand new AKs and ammunition from them." He claimed the American officer, whom he had never met but he believed was a captain serving at Baghdad airport, had even helped to divert a truckload of weapons as soon as it was driven over the border from Jordan.

 

These days Rami gets most of his supplies from the new American-equipped Iraqi army. "We buy ammunition from officers in charge of warehouses, a small box of AK-47 bullets is $450 (£230). If the guy sells a thousand boxes he can become rich and leave the country." But as the security situation deteriorates, Rami finds it increasingly difficult to travel across Baghdad. "Now I have to pay a Shia taxi driver to bring the ammo to me. He gets $50 for each shipment."

 

The box of 700 bullets that Rami buys for $450 today would have cost between $150 and $175 a year ago. The price of a Kalashnikov has risen from $300 to $400 in the same period. The inflation in arms prices reflects Iraq's plunge toward civil war but, largely unnoticed by the outside world, the Sunni insurgency has also changed. The conflict into which 20,000 more American troops will be catapulted over the next few weeks is very different to the one their comrades experienced even a year ago.

 

In Baghdad in late October I called a Sunni insurgent I had known for more than a year. He was the mid-level commander of a small cell, active against the Americans in Sunni villages north of Baghdad. Sectarian frontlines had been hardening in the city for months - it took us 45 minutes of haggling to agree on a meeting place which we could both get to safely. We met in a rundown workers' cafe.

 

Kidnapped

 

"Its not a good time to be a Sunni in Baghdad," Abu Omar told me in a low voice. He had been on the Americans' wanted list for three years but I had never seen him so anxious; he had trimmed his beard in the close-cropped Shia style and kept looking towards the door. His brother had been kidnapped a few days before, he told me, and he believed he was next on a Shia militia's list. He had fled his home in the north of the city and was staying with relatives in a Sunni stronghold in west Baghdad.

 

He was more despondent than angry. "We Sunni are to blame," he said. "In my area some ignorant al-Qaida guys have been kidnapping poor Shia farmers, killing them and throwing their bodies in the river. I told them: 'This is not jihad. You can't kill all the Shia! This is wrong! The Shia militias are like rabid dogs - why provoke them?' "

 

Then he said: "I am trying to talk to the Americans. I want to give them assurances that no one will attack them in our area if they stop the Shia militias from coming."

 

This man who had spent the last three years fighting the Americans was now willing to talk to them, not because he wanted to make peace but because he saw the Americans as the lesser of two evils. He was wrestling with the same dilemma as many Sunni insurgent leaders, beginning to doubt the wisdom of their alliance with al-Qaida extremists.

 

Another insurgent commander told me: "At the beginning al-Qaida had the money and the organisation, and we had nothing." But this alliance soon dragged the insurgents and then the whole Sunni community into confrontation with the Shia militias as al-Qaida and other extremists massacred thousands of Shia civilians. Insurgent commanders such as Abu Omar soon found themselves outnumbered and outgunned, fighting organised militias backed by the Shia-dominated security forces.

 

A week after our conversation, Abu Omar invited me to a meeting with insurgent commanders. I was asked to wait in the reception room of a certain Sunni political party. A taxi driver took me to a house in a Sunni neighbourhood that had recently been abandoned by a Shia family. The driver came in with me - he was also a commander.

 

The house had been abandoned in a hurry, cardboard boxes were stacked by the door, some of the furniture was covered with white cloths and a few cheap paintings were piled against a wall. The property had been expropriated by the local Sunni mujahideen and we sat on sofas in a dusty reception room.

 

Abu Omar had been meeting commanders of groups with names like the Fury Brigade, the Battalions of the 1920 Revolution, the Islamic Army and the Mujahideen Army, to discuss options they had for fighting both an insurgency against the Americans and an escalating civil war with the Shia.

 

Abu Omar had proposed encouraging young Sunni men to enlist in the army and the police to redress the sectarian balance. He suggested giving the Americans a ceasefire, in an attempt to stop ministry of interior commandos' raids on his area. Al-Qaida had said no to all these measures; now he wanted other Iraqi insurgent commanders to support him.

 

'Do politics'

 

A heated discussion was raging. One of the men, with a very thin moustache, a huge belly and a red kuffiya wrapped around his shoulder, held a copy of the Qur'an in one hand and a mobile phone in the other. I asked him what his objectives were. "We are fighting to liberate our country from the occupations of the Americans and their Iranian-Shia stooges."

 

"My brother, I disagree," said Abu Omar. "Look, the Americans are trying to talk to us Sunnis and we need to show them that we can do politics. We need to use the Americans to fight the Shia."

 

He looked nervously at them: suggestions of talking to the Americans could easily have him labelled as traitor. "Where is the jihad and the mujahideen?" he continued. "Baghdad has become a Shia town. Our brothers are being slaughtered every day! Where are these al-Qaida heroes? One neighbourhood after another will be lost if we don't work on a strategy."

 

The taxi driver commander, who sat cross-legged on a sofa, joined in: "If the Americans leave we will be slaughtered." A big-bellied man waved his hands dismissively: "We will massacre the Shia and show them who are the Sunnis! They couldn't have done anything without the Americans' support."

 

When the meeting was over the taxi driver went out to check the road, then the rest followed. "Don't look up, we could be monitored, Shia spies are everywhere," said the big man. The next day the taxi driver was arrested.

 

By December Abu Omar's worst fears were being realised. The Sunnis had become squeezed into a corner fighting two sides at the same time. But by then he had disappeared; his body was never found.

 

Baghdad was now divided: frontlines partitioned neighbourhoods into Shia and Sunni, thousands of families had been forced out of their homes. After each large-scale bomb attack on Shia civilians, scores of mutilated bodies of Sunnis were found in the streets. Patrolling militias and checkpoints meant that men with Sunni names dared not venture far outside their neighbourhoods, while certain Sunni areas came under the complete control of insurgent groups the Shura Council of the Mujahideen and the Islamic Army. The Sunni vigilante self-defence groups took shape as reserve units under the control of these insurgent groups.

 

Like Abu Omar before him, Abu Aisha, a mid-level Sunni commander, had come to understand that the threat from the Shia was perhaps greater than his need to fight the occupying Americans. Abu Aisha fought in Baghdad's western Sunni suburbs, he was a former NCO in the Iraqi army and followed an extreme form of Islam known as Salafism.

 

Jamming

 

Deep lines criss-crossed his narrow forehead and his eyes half closed when he tried to answer a question He seemed to evaluate every answer before he spoke. He claimed involvement in dozens of attacks on US and Iraqi troops, mostly IEDs (bombs) but also ambushes and execution of alleged Shia spies. "We have stopped using remote controls to detonate IEDs," he volunteered halfway through our conversation. "Only wires work now because the Americans are jamming the signals."

 

On his mobile phone he proudly showed me grainy images of dead bodies lying in the street, their hands tied behind their backs . He claimed they were Shia agents and that he had killed them. "There is a new jihad now," he said, echoing Abu Omar's warning. "The jihad now is against the Shia, not the Americans."

 

In Ramadi there was still jihad against the Americans because there were no Shia to fight, but in Baghdad his group only attacked the Americans if they were with Shia army forces or were coming to arrest someone.

 

"We have been deceived by the jihadi Arabs," he admitted, in reference to al-Qaida and foreign fighters. "They had an international agenda and we implemented it. But now all the leadership of the jihad in Iraq are Iraqis."

 

Abu Aisha went on to describe how the Sunnis were reorganising. After Sunni families had been expelled from mixed areas throughout Baghdad, his area in the western suburbs was prepared to defend itself against any militia attack.

 

"Ameriya, Jihad, Ghazaliyah," he listed, "all these areas are becoming part of the new Islamic state of Iraq, each with an emir in charge." Increasingly the Iraqi insurgency is moving away from its cellular structure and becoming organised according to neighbourhood. Local defence committees have intertwined into the insurgent movement.

 

"Each group is in charge of a specific street," Abu Aisha said. "We have defence lines, trenches and booby traps. When the Americans arrive we let them go through, but if they show up with Iraqi troops, then it's a fight."

 

A few days later Rami was telling me about the Sunni insurgents in his north Baghdad area. A network of barricades and small berms blocked the streets around the car in which we sat talking. A convoy of two cars with four men inside whizzed past. "Ah, they are brothers on a mission," Rami said.

 

Like every man of fighting age, Rami was required to take part in his local vigilante group, guarding the neighbourhood at night or conducting raids or mortar attacks on neighbouring Shia areas.

 

But he paid $30 a week to a local commander and was exempted.

 

According to Rami and other commanders, funding for the insurgents comes from three sources. Each family in the street pays a levy, around $8, to the local group. "And when they go through lots of ammunition because of clashes," Rami said, "they pay an extra $5." Then there are donations from rich Sunni businessmen, financiers and wealthier insurgent groups. A third source of funding was "ghaniama", loot which is rapidly becoming the main fuel of the sectarian war

 

'A business'

 

"Every time they arrest a Shia, we take their car, we sell it and use the money to fund the fighters, and jihad," said Abu Aisha. The mosque sheik or the local commander collects the money and it is distributed among the fighters; some get fixed salaries, others are paid by "operations", and the money left is used for ammunition.

 

"It has become a business, they give you money to kill Shia, we take their houses and sell their cars," said Rami. "The Shia are doing the same.

 

"Last week on the main highway in our area, they killed a Shia army officer. He had a brand new Toyota sedan. The idiots burned the car. I offered them $40,000 for it, they said no. Imagine how many jihads they could have done with 40k."

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329684808-103550,00.html

 

[salim]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/19/world/mi...9oilfields.html

 

 

Iraqi Sunni Lands Show New Oil and Gas Promise

 

 

Article Tools Sponsored By

By JAMES GLANZ

Published: February 19, 2007

 

KARABILA, Iraq, Feb. 18 — In a remote patch of the Anbar desert just 20 miles from the Syrian border, a single blue pillar of flanges and valves sits atop an enormous deposit of oil and natural gas that would be routine in this petroleum-rich country except for one fact: this is Sunni territory.

Skip to next paragraph

Reach of War

Go to Complete Coverage »

 

Huge petroleum deposits have long been known in Iraq’s Kurdish north and Shiite south. But now, Iraq has substantially increased its estimates of the amount of oil and natural gas in deposits on Sunni lands after quietly paying foreign oil companies tens of millions of dollars over the past two years to re-examine old seismic data across the country and retrain Iraqi petroleum engineers.

 

The development is likely to have significant political effects: the lack of natural resources in the central and western regions where Sunnis hold sway has fed their disenchantment with the nation they once ruled. And it has driven their insistence on a strong central government, one that would collect oil revenues and spread them equitably among the country’s factions, rather than any division of the country along sectarian regional boundaries.

 

Though Western and Iraqi engineers have always known that there are oil formations beneath Sunni lands, the issue is coming into sharper focus with the new studies, senior Oil Ministry officials said. The question of where the oil reserves are concentrated is taking on still more importance as it appears that negotiators are close to agreement on a long-debated oil law that would regulate how Iraqi and international oil companies would be allowed to develop Iraq’s fields. [Page A6.]

 

The new studies have increased estimates of the amount of oil in a series of deposits in Sunni territory to the north and east of Baghdad and in a series of deposits that run through western Iraq like beads on a string, and could contain as much as a trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The revised figures, though large, would not mean that deposits in Sunni territories could challenge the giant fields elsewhere in the country.

 

And while it would take years actually to begin pulling gas and oil out of the fields even if the area soon became safe enough for companies to work in, energy corporations have been excited about the area’s potential, even if it falls short of reserves in the Shiite south and Kurdish north.

 

The analysis, still little known outside a small circle of specialists, is important enough that on Friday, Brig. Gen. John R. Allen of the Second Marine Expeditionary Force, who is deputy commanding general of Multi-National Force-West, which has responsibility for Anbar Province, made the long trip into the desert to visit the blue wellhead. General Allen’s duties include promoting the economic development of the province.

 

The deposit beneath is the Akkas field, one of the beads on the string that runs from Ninewa Province in the north to the border with Saudi Arabia in the south.

 

“It’s phenomenal standing here,” General Allen said. “What this does is it gives Anbar and the Sunnis an economic future different from phosphate and cement,” he said, referring to products of some of the aging factories in the area.

 

“This gives them a future and a hope,” he said. Nearby, a few pieces of laundry flapped in front of one of the only structures in sight, a cinder-block shack probably belonging to a shepherd.

 

.

[salim]

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/arti...05fa_fact_hersh

 

THE REDIRECTION

Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?

by SEYMOUR M. HERSH

Issue of 2007-03-05

Posted 2007-02-25

 

 

A STRATEGIC SHIFT

 

In the past few months, as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated, the Bush Administration, in both its public diplomacy and its covert operations, has significantly shifted its Middle East strategy. The “redirection,” as some inside the White House have called the new strategy, has brought the United States closer to an open confrontation with Iran and, in parts of the region, propelled it into a widening sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.