Iraq Oil Report

Iraq oil is steady at 2.3 million barrels per day, according to the International Energy Agency, the BBC reports. It’s a substantial output considering the country’s huge reserves and that it has averaged less than 2 million bpd production since 2003. But the increase in production is because the northern pipeline has been fixed and heavily guarded, which means all it takes is a success by insurgents – responsible for keeping the pipeline offline for much of the past 4½ years – to bring production back down.

Amid today’s tight crude markets, hundreds of thousands of extra barrels of oil have helped ease the strain. They are coming from a surprising source: Iraq, Hassan Hafidh reports for The Wall Street Journal.

The BBC story also includes a new poll of Basra residents, 85 percent of which say British troops in the southern oil-rich area were a negative. Fifty-six percent say the presence of troops has enabled militia violence there. More on Basra from another BBC story.

Saboteurs have blown up three high-voltage pylons linking power plants in the northern city of Baiji with Baghdad, the electricity ministry said, Ali al-Mawsawi reports for Azzaman.

More on attacks on Iraq’s power and oil sectors in the Dec. 7 edition of Iraq Oil Report, as well as a follow up Dec. 10.

Security, Society & Politics

Iraq’s Kurds want their own security pact with the United States, similar to the one initiated between U.S. and Iraq’s national leaders two weeks ago, Christina Davidson reports for IraqSlogger.

The Mahdi Army is using fear and the youth to consolidate power and control, Sudarsan Raghavan reports for The Washington Post.

On the first day of class, two male teenagers entered a girls’ high school in the Tobji neighborhood, clutching AK-47 assault rifles. The young Shiite fighters handed the principal a handwritten note and ordered her to assemble the students in the courtyard, witnesses said.

“All girls must wear hijab,” she read aloud, her voice trembling. “If the girls don’t wear hijab, we will close the school or kill the girls.” …

Abu Sajjad, a 44-year-old former Mahdi Army fighter, remembered seeing a rise in disaffected, jobless recruits at the time. “They were nothing before they joined the Mahdi Army,” said Abu Sajjad, who asked to be called by his nickname to protect his security. “The Mahdi Army will protect them better than their tribes or their families.”

The story, however, makes one think that the Mahdi Army is the only militia around and the sole source of trouble. Armed groups above ground are nearly as abundant as oil below. This includes, but is not even close to limited to, the Badr Brigade, the armed faction of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. A major part of the governing coalition in the government, ISCI’s leader was just in Washington meeting with the very top of U.S. officials.

Day of violence in Baghdad kills dozens, Paul von Zielbauer reports for The New York Times, and includes the bombings of two liquor stores seen as the enemy by religious fundamentalists.

Will Iraq’s Great Awakening Lead to a Nightmare?, Douglas Macgregor, a retired Army colonel and a decorated Persian Gulf War combat veteran, asks in Mother Jones.

Unidentified gunmen stormed government ware houses in the southern city of Basra and stole 375 government cars and 20 tons of lead, police sources say, Mustafa al-Hashemi reports for Azzaman.The robbery is reported to be the largest and most organized in the years since the U.S. invasion of the country.

Italy has promised to modernize the country’s museums which were looted and vandalized in the aftermath of the 2003-U.S. invasion, Amar Imad reports for Azzaman.

A new Iraqi Kurdistan press law is being panned by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

“The secrecy surrounding this bill is deeply disturbing, and reports that Kurdish officials have taken steps to push through a significantly harsher bill raises further alarm,” said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. “Officials assured CPJ that the press law would not hinder the work of the media, but the new bill is even worse than the old one. President Barzani should not sign it.”

More on it by Ardalan Hardi in KurdishAspect.com

As always, Leila Fadel, McClatchy Newspaper’s Baghdad bureau chief, delivers a must-read in her blog Baghdad Observer, on living in fear, amidst death and stray bullets.

Iraq’s Economy

Iraq has paid off its $470.5 million loan from the International Monetary Fund’s Emergency Post-Conflict Assistance program. Next week the IMF’s executive board will decide on a new stand-by agreement. This money comes not out of altruism; rather it’s a carrot and stick approach to help a dictator-then sanctions-then war ravaged country reform its economy in a way that the world’s wealthiest countries and institutions want. Iraq still owes tens of billions to Saddam-enabling countries with their knives to Baghdad’s throat.

America in Iraq

The U.S. watchdog over Iraq reconstruction, as well as its head, are being investigated by the FBI and Congress over how it spends its money and treats its employees, Robin Wright reports for The Washington Post.

Political Progress in Iraq During the Surge, a special report by Rend Al-Rahim Francke, a senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

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