Iraq Oil Report

There’s optimism in Iraq, at least from a mysterious cadre called the Energy Fusion Cell, which for the past eight months worked to bring coherence to both U.S. and Iraqi initiatives in the oil, gas and power sectors — the backbone of its citizens’ quality of life and the bulk of the national budget.

It’s a U.S. creation for sure, spearheaded by Iraq-based units in the Defense and State departments to meet U.S., U.N. and international finance and banking agreements. But it’s now gotten active buy-in from a swath of Iraqi ministries in charge of building and protecting Iraq’s energy sector.

“We offer advice to them on their own expressions of what their national policy is and give them the forum to come together with the coalition forces and the government of Iraq entities,” one member told United Press International in a background conference call interview from Baghdad. “That wouldn’t have happened a year ago” was a common refrain by members of EFC, which has weekly scheduled meetings and “a couple of layers of meetings … led by the government of Iraq.”

Simplified, the EFC’s goal is two-fold.

Read the entire article HERE by UPI’s Ben Lando

Royal Dutch Shell Plc may spend $2.5 billion on a natural gas plant in southern Iraq to meet energy demand in the Middle East, where economies are growing 5.9 percent a year, according to a person involved in the plan, Kristian Rix reports for Bloomberg News.Shell met with Iraqi officials last week to propose building a pipeline that would link the Basrah region to a new terminal on the country’s coast, the person said. Shell would also build a facility that could freeze 16 million cubic meters of gas a day and ship it to Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, the person said.

The War Over the War: a Q & A between Washington Post associate editor Karen DeYoung and readers about the war in Iraq, and other wars.

Arlington, Va.: Ms. DeYoung — so when is The Washington Post going to complete its investigation of the real reasons for our invasion of Iraq? Although it seems like “old news” now, some of us are still interested in knowing whether access to Iraqi oil was a significant factor — or a determining factor — in the administration’s decision to send 100,000 American troops to Iraq. Is The Post going to investigate this, or is it simply going to report it when someone else decides it’s time for the American public to know the details?
Karen DeYoung: C’mon. Millions of trees already have died in the cause of figuring out why the administration did/thought what and when. Many billions more are sure to expire. Far be it from me to say that oil wasn’t part of the equation, but I’d rate it far below political hubris and a misunderstanding of cause and effect.

Americans were suspicious of oil motivations in the war machine in a poll taken a year ago, and it’s doubtful any sentiment has become less wary:

Most Americans think President Bush invaded Iraq at least partly because of its oil — a war more than half rate him as “poor” in handling and nearly all say has affected the price of gas at the pump, Ben Lando wrote for UPI. The UPI/Zogby International interactive poll of 6,909 U.S. adults Jan. 16-18 found 32.7 percent considered Iraq’s oil supply a “major factor” and 23.7 percent “not a factor” in the decision to invade the country. Another 40.7 percent were split somewhere in between while 2.9 percent were “not sure.”

And Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan didn’t help his ex-boss’ cause. Read “Iraq, Oil and Greenspan’s Gospel,” also by UPI’s Ben Lando: ““I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: The Iraq war is largely about oil,” Greenspan wrote toward the end of “The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World,” released Monday. Iraq has the world’s third-largest proven reserves and an unexplored potential to rival Saudi Arabia.”

The head of an Iraqi electricity plant ranted about lack of help from officials in faraway Baghdad. The local governor grumbled about being ignored on project planning, Bradley Brooks writes for The Associated Press. The four-hour meeting at a U.S. military base in northern Iraq was full of gripes, bitterness and blame trading. But it was just the sort of encounter Washington hopes will eventually jump-start jobs and public works to regions long neglected by Baghdad — and, along the way, possibly undercut the insurgency by showing that better days could be ahead.

Managing Director of West Region Power Company Abdolaziz Karimi said here Wednesday that 150 megawatts of electricity are exported to Iraq daily via a 230 kilovolt power post on Bazideraz region in Sarpol-e Zahab district in Kermanshah province, the Islamic Republic News Agency reports.

Iraq’s Economy

Member of the parliament and former Iraqi planning minister, Mahdi Al-Hafiz, considered the omission of anything about foreign grants and aids in the new Iraqi budget “a significant gap,” Iraq Directory reports.

The local development of Diwaniya started in early 2008 signing 35 billion dinars worth of contracts to implement reconstruction projects under the provinces development plan and speeding up the reconstruction projects,” Governor Hamed al-Khudari told the Voices of Iraq news agency.

The Planning Ministry has announced development projects in Basera, Sulaimaniya, Babel, Thi Qar and Missan provinces, VOI reports.

Security, Society & Politics

Statistics regarding the violence against women has been revealed, Kurdish Media reports. From 01 January 2007 to 31 December 2007, 313 crimes in Sulaimania and 104 crimes and incidents in the district of Garmian have been recorded. 69 of the crimes occurred due to family disputes, 58 of them were carried out by husbands and other by relatives of the husbands.

Every week, letters from Iraqi widows spill across Samira al-Moussawi’s desk. One wrote to ask whether she should spend what scant money she gets on her infant or on school books for her older son, Aseel Kami reports for Reuters.The member of parliament and head of a parliamentary women’s committee is at her wits’ end as to how to answer the desperate pleas from what could be as many as one to two million women.

Iraq President Jalal Talabani makes a surprise visit to Kirkuk, meets with its governor, Voices of Iraq reports.

Iraq: Politics Unfrozen, Direction Still Unclear, a briefing by Daniel Serwer and Rend al-Rahim of the U.S. Institute of Peace.

The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the criminal defamation lawsuitfiled by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani on Tuesday against the editor-in-chief of the independent Kurdish weekly Hawlati for translating and publishing a report written by a U.S. scholar. … Azad Jindyany, head of the central press office for Talabani’s party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, confirmed to CPJ today that the criminal defamation case was filed. By translating the report and publishing it, he said, Hawlati had promoted the defamation of Talabani and the other Kurdish leaders. The spokesman said Talabani would file a lawsuit against (American Enterprise Institute’s Michael) Rubin in the United States.

The Iraq Press Roundup, what the Iraqi editorialists are writing, by UPI’s Hiba Dawood.

Dr. Majed Kazem, deputy dean of Kufa University has said the location of the new university approved by cabinet to be built in Najaf province would be north city center with total area of 5 acres, Al-Sabaah reports.

Talking Iraq: Dissecting Iraq in President Bush’s State of the Union speech. Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! talks to Dahr Jamail (reporter for Inter Press Service and author of Dispatches from an unembedded journalist in Iraq) and Raed Jarrar (Iraq consultant with the American Friends Service Committee) about life on the ground in Iraq today, the appearance of U.S. policy changes toward Iraq, and the much-touted “surge” — including analysis of the US’s new Sunni “allies” in Al-Anbar province.

Violence Draws Veil Over Women in Iraq, by Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail for Inter Press Service.Conditions are particularly difficult for women in Baquba, despite the relative lull in violence. The city, about 40 km northeast of Baghdad, is capital of Diyala province, amongst the most troubled regions of Iraq in recent months.

America in Iraq

Soldier Suicides at Record Level: Increase Linked to Long Wars, Lack of Army Resources Dana Priest reports for The Washington Post. “I’m very disappointed with the Army,” Whiteside wrote in a note before swallowing dozens of antidepressants and other pills. “Hopefully this will help other soldiers.” She was taken to the emergency room early Tuesday. Whiteside, who is now in stable physical condition, learned yesterday that the charges against her had been dismissed.

To compete in the global information war played out on Web sites and e-mail, soldiers in Iraq should upload videos of their experiences in the combat zone to YouTube and post their personal stories online, a top Army general said recently, Greg Grant reports for Government Executive, a recommendation that appears to run counter to Pentagon policy.
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Plus:
*Iraq stops auctions, starts term contracts for Kirkuk oil
*Iraq oil flow north to Turkey stopped, storage capacity blamed
*One of three major Iraq refineries working
*Oil Ministry reaffirms blockade of firms who sign with Kurds
*Fight for Mosul escalates
*Political tensions mount
*Much more…

Turkey has launched a feasibility study for a natural gas pipeline connecting northern Iraq’s fields to the Turkish port, parallel to the oil pipelines. Iraq has large natural gas reserves but the sector is undeveloped, with much of the associated gas burned with nowhere to go. United Press International reports Turkey is eyeing Iraq’s gas as it further solidifies its role as a main transport hub for the world’s hydrocarbons.

Iraq’s Oil Ministry Sunday stopped auctioning its Kirkuk oil and began selling term contracts as production from the north has increased, UPI reports. The ability to continue such an output — considering the threat of attacks on the infrastructure and other sector-related problems – isn’t a sure bet. Iraq’s production has been increasing slowly, to about 2.3 million barrels per day last month.

Iraqi crude oil exports from northern Kirkuk oil fields to Turkey’s Ceyhan port have been suspended since Friday, a shipping agent at the terminal Monday told Dow Jones Newswires’ Hassan Hafidh. The agent said Kirkuk crude oil pumping to Ceyhan was suspended at 2000 local time Friday. Iraq only resumed the flow last Wednesday after a two-week suspension on a fault that occurred at one point of the export pipeline. Reuters reports the stoppage is due to storage capacity.

Only one of Iraq’s three major refineries is working after fires and electricity supply cuts took their toll in the winter cold, UPI reports.

The Iraq Oil Ministry reiterates its blockage of oil to SK Energy over a South Korean deal to look for and produce oil in Iraqi Kurdistan. SK has until Jan. 31 to decide whether to back out of the Kurdistan Regional Government deal or forego Iraqi oil, which had provided a hefty part of the country’s imports. The Ministry has given the ultimatum to all the KRG deal firms, it says. Reuters has the latest.

Security, Society & Politics

The fight for Mosul appears ready to escalate. It’s already a key issue of dispute between Kurds and Arabs as part of the “disputed territories.” The “surge” that at least temporarily cleared al-Qaida and other insurgents from Anbar and Baghdad provinces fled north and have been wreaking havoc in Mosul.

Iraqi army units reached the northern city of Mosul on Sunday in preparation for what the government said would be a major offensive there against Al Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni militants, Ned Parker writes in the Los Angeles Times. Dozens have been killed in attacks there, and the Kurdistan Regional Government has dispatched humanitarian aid, Voices of Iraq reports.

Forty-five of the 12,000 displaced families in Babil province are pressing the Iraq Parliament to intervene in a Defense Ministry order of redisplacement. The families were given one week to leave a former military camp south of Baghdad, according to the U.N. humanitarian affairs office.

Politicians calling for more support for the thousands of children orphaned by the conflict, Hazim al-Shara’ reports for the Institute for War & Peace Reporting.

The Iraq Press Roundup, a recap of the day’s best editorials from Iraqi newspapers, by UPI’s Hiba Dawood.

Kurdish leaders pushed on all sides, colunist Ilnur Cevik writes in The New Anatolian.The leaders of northern Iraq’s Kurdish administration are facing tough days ahead. The Iraqi Arabs both Sunni and Shiite seem to unite against the Kurds who seem to be pushing for more autonomy.

Tensions are building between Kurdish leaders and Arab Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government in Baghdad, threatening to divide two of Iraq’s strongest political allies, Wrya Hama-Tahir reports for the Institute for War & Peace Reporting. Rifts over oil, Kirkuk and Peshmerga threaten alliance between Kurdish authorities and central government.

Bush may have to withdraw his support for Nouri Maliki if the prime minister continues to slow progress, Bing West and Max Boot write in a Los Angeles Times op-ed.

The cost of the war in Iraq has ballooned, in part, because of the dearth of trained acquisition professionals assigned to the theater and the failure of federal agencies to establish a uniform set of procurement policy guidelines, a pair of government watchdogs testified this week, Robert Brodsky writes for GovernmentExecutive.com.Defense and State Department officials, meanwhile, said that while slow out of the gate, they have altered many of their policies and are well on their way to reasserting control of contractors that work alongside military personnel.

A U.S. basketball coach opened the first women’s basketball school in Sulaimaniya city in an attempt to revive the sport and boost its popularity, Iraq’s basketball federation chief said on Saturday, Voices of Iraq news agency reports.

The Iraqi Football Federation (IFF) said on Friday that Iraqi midfielder Nashaat Akram’s move to British Premier League club Manchester City failed because it contradicts with the regulations set by the British Football Association (BFA), VOI reports.

Five years later, a look at Editor & Publisher’s special issue with George Bush on the cover that raised troubling issues about the administration’s case for war. The simple cover line told it all: “Unanswered Questions.”

“Reality Is Totally Different”:Iraqis on “Success” and “Progress” in Their Country, by Dahr Jamail, reporter for Inter Press Service and author of the new book “Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq.”

A former Russian top spy says his agents helped the Russian government steal nearly $500 million from the U.N.’s oil-for-food program in Iraq before the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, John Heilprin reports for The Associated Press.
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Plus:
*Iraq oil exports up last year
*But the northern pipeline is down
*And last week production dropped
*Oil Minister in Davos says OPEC output OK
*Babil province talking tough over blackouts

Despite rumors that oil law negotiations were going to restart, it appears not so, United Press International reports. The Kurdistan Regional Government and the national government have not come to terms on how the law will distribute control over the oil fields. The KRG has gone forward unilaterally, passing their own regional law and signing dozens of deals with foreign firms. And you can imagine that the national government is not happy. All of this was to be discussed.

And there were talks of a top level U.S. State Department official would return to Baghdad to help facilitate. That also is not happening.

Iraq’s crude oil exports averaged 1.63 million barrels a day in 2007, some 9.2% more than in 2006, the Iraqi oil ministry said Thursday, Hassan Hafidh reports for Dow Jones Newswires. The south, where most of the oil is and most of the exports head to market, remained steady amidst intra-Shiite fighting. A new security plan guarding the northern pipeline also started working in the last months of 2007. The increase in exports doesn’t necessarily reflect a large growth in production, or realistic capacity. In December there were outages in the refineries, so oil production usually destined to become fuel in Iraq was instead redirected to exports.

There’s now a new report that the northern pipeline has been shut because of damage and reserves of Kirkuk oil in the Turkish port are low.

Iraq oil production averaged 2.10 million barrels per day last week, according to the State Department’s Iraq Weekly Status Report. Iraq averaged 2.3 million bpd in December. United Press International reports there are some questions as to how much oil Iraq is producing and exporting.

Iraq’s Oil Minister, speaking from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, said there’s no need for OPEC to increase production as oil prices have started to settle, Reuters reports. OPEC production actually increased from November to December. Ironically, the production figures came out the day President Bush was in the Middle East asking OPEC to produce more.

Iraq’s national power outage has prompted the head of Babil province to send Baghdad an ultimatum: Give us electricity or we’ll take it, UPI reports. Babil is not alone. The entire country suffers from a lack of fuel and electricity.

The leading Democratic presidential candidates and their allies on Capitol Hill have launched fierce attacks in recent days on a White House plan to forge a new, long-term security agreement with the Iraqi government, complaining that the administration is trying to lock in a lasting U.S. military presence in Iraq before the next president takes office, Michael Abramowitz reports for The Washington Post. Iraq’s Parliament, as well, doesn’t like the deal. Both countries’ leaders are trying to sign the security pact without consulting their legislative branches. And both legislative branches say their respective constitutions don’t allow that.

Up to 25 million land mines, or almost one for every Iraqi, remain buried in thousands of minefields across Iraq and are hampering development of rich oil deposits, officials said on Wednesday, Reuters reports.Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the mines were spread across about 4,000 minefields left across Iraq after the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, the first Gulf War in 1991 and the 2003 U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.

Two top Democrat Congressmen are urging President Bush to increase the budget for Iraq’s millions of displaced persons.

Meanwhile, another tranche of 350 million Iraqi dinars (about US$290,000) has been allocated by the Iraqi parliament to cope with the needs of internally displaced persons (IDPs), a lawmaker said on 23 January, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. “This amount will help displaced families living in makeshift camps and compounds which, for many reasons, did not receive enough aid from government and non-governmental organizations [NGOs],” said Abdul-Khaliq Zankana, head of parliament’s displacement committee.

Jeffrey Goldberg writes in The Atlantic on the faults and follies of U.S. and Western attempts to define and redefine boundaries in the Middle East, especially Iraq. He starts with the Kurds: “Not long ago, in a decrepit prison in Iraqi Kurdistan, a senior interrogator with the Kurdish intelligence service decided, for my entertainment and edification, to introduce me to an al-Qaeda terrorist named Omar. “This one is crazy,” the interrogator said. “Don’t get close, or he’ll bite you. …”

What’s in Iraq’s editorial pages? Find out in the Iraq Press Roundup by UPI’s Hiba Dawood.

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Plus:
*Iraq Oil Ministry, Big Oil to meet in Jordan this week
*Deadline to register for upcoming oil tenders delayed
*2008 budget delayed, Kurd vs. Arab continues
*Iraq Press Roundup
*Is the surge working? A worthless question.
*and more…

You can’t have one without the other, but with many of Iraq’s power plants shut and refineries stopped, Iraqis have neither fuel nor electricity.

Iraq’s Electricity Ministry is blaming the Oil Ministry for cutting fuel supplies and Turkey for ending electricity imports.

The Oil Ministry says continuous power to its refineries will lead to continuous supplies of fuel.

“We hear a lot of promises but we see nothing,” Baghdad resident Amjad Kazim told Gulf News. Blackouts and long lines at the fuel stations are increasing as subsidized, state-controlled supplies run dry and the black market boosts prices.

Read the entire piece by Ben Lando for United Press International. Click HERE.

An Iraqi Oil Ministry delegation will meet in Amman later this week with senior executives from five oil majors to discuss the possibility of signing technical support agreements to help develop five oil fields, an Iraqi oil ministry spokesman said Tuesday, Hassan Hafidh reports for Dow Jones Newswires.

Iraq’s Oil Ministry has pushed back the Jan. 31 registration deadline for oil companies wanting consideration for projects to be awarded this year, Ben Lando reports for UPI.

The Future Importance of Iraqi Oil in The International Oil Market, by Oil Consultant Ali Hussain in the Middle East Economic Survey. “In the future, Iraqi oil can play a very important role in the oil market to the extent that its production, and hence exports, may prove to have a positive impact on the global economy. This will happen provided that the Iraqi oil industry is developed efficiently and the authorities adopt the right and effective policies. In order for the Iraqi oil industry to develop rapidly and oil production to increase substantially this industry must go through two important phases simultaneously, namely rehabilitation and expansion.”

Iraq’s 2008 budget has been delayed as disagreements between Iraqi Kurd and Arab politicians exacerbate. At issue is the funding of the Peshmerga, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s security forces, IraqSlogger.com reports. Of course, the two sides have been escalating animosity for more than a year, as the struggle over who controls Iraq’s oil continues.

Most of the unease, however, stems from a decision to allocate 17 percent of the budget to the oil-rich autonomous Kurdish region and on top of that to pay for its peshmerga security force from the national defense budget, AFP reports.

More from the Alsumaria Iraq TV Network. Also, you can check out Monday’s Iraq Oil Report. Of course, if you’re a regular reader of Iraq Oil Report, you already know what’s going on.

Addax Petroleum Announces Update to Continued Appraisal Program at its KRG field Taq Taq, according to a company statement.

Security, Society & Politics

Violence in the southern – and oil-rich – areas of Iraq spiked, but there have been little definitive answers as to who the perpetrators are. Fierce clashes have been raging in the cities of Basra, Nasiriya and Diwaniya for the third consecutive day, Abed Battat reports for Azzaman, with the government giving conflicting versions for the causes leading to the upsurge in insecurity.

Some 276 people were killed, wounded or captured by government forces fighting a millenarian Shia cult in southern Iraq over the past three days, the Iraqi Ministry of Defence said in Baghdad yesterday, Patrick Cockburn reports for The Independent.

The southern Mahdists speak for themselves, writes Norwegian Institute of International Affairs research fellow Reidar Visser at historiae.org.In an interesting statement, the Adherents of the Mahdi, the group targeted in recent security operations in the southern Iraqi cities of Nasiriyya and Basra, have explained the conflict from their own point of view.

Iraq’s government must rapidly raise its game to cement the country’s fragile new peace, the United States ambassador in Baghdad has declared, Martin Fletcher of The Times reports.

Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish lawmaker, has an ax to grind with the United States. He’s sick of watching American officials make statements on television every time the Iraqi parliament makes a move, reports McClatchy Newspapers Baghdad Bureau Chief Leila Fadel.“They talk about it as if we are children and they are directing us,” he said, exasperated. “When we passed the accountability and justice law, after one hour Bush said publicly we congratulate you so that everybody will say ‘we told you this is an American law.’”

Read what the Iraqi editorial writers are saying. The Iraq Press Roundup by UPI’s Hiba Dawood.

Rethinking the Future: The Next Five Years in Iraq, a symposium organized by The American University International Law Review and the Public International Law and Policy Group,February 11-12, 2008 in Washington, D.C.

Is the surge working? A worthless question.

The U.S. military has announced the 26th member killed so far this month, Iraq Coalition Casualty Count is reporting. So ends the monthly decrease since August 2007. And there are nine days left in January. Violence in the rest of the country is increasing as well.

Over the past few months, as the numbers of U.S. armed forces killed in action dropped, the common refrain was (a paraphrase) “see, the violence is dropping, the surge is working.” So, if you apply that to this new statistic, one must say “the surge is not, or is no longer working.”

But this is an obtuse debate – held by current presidents and those who aspire to be next year, members of congress and the pundits. It’s one of tunnel vision, lacking context, and puts all of Iraq’s history and U.S. time and money and blood into a time span of days and months.

It reduces Iraqis and their country to terms of armed resistance. And it takes the eyes of everyone – regardless of position on the war – away from the overall goal of long-lasting peace in Iraq. The extent that the U.S. should be involved in Iraq should not be judged by a simple “the surge worked/it didn’t work, pull the troops out/leave them in” debate. It should be judged by establishing a goal based on the moral requirements of starting this war.

As long as there is debate on the efficacy of the surge, the longer it is until real discussions on the future of Iraq – currently not taking place in the White House, the Capitol Buildings or the campaign trail – are ignored.
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Plus:
*Oil Ministry cracks down more on oil firms signing deals with Kurds
*Kirkuk pipeline cutting short planned oil sales
*Oil refineries, power plants have a bad week
*Much, much more…

Iraq’s Oil Ministry spent $558 million on capital projects in 2007 to improve its struggling oil sector. Or $500 million. Or only $270,000.

A new report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office isn’t sure. Its attempt to measure the Iraqi government’s ability to put its capital budget into motion was frustrated by “widely disparate” numbers from the U.S. State and Treasury departments and the Iraq Ministry of Finance.

The State Department said Iraq’s central government spent 24 percent of its capital budget through July 15, 2007. The Treasury Department pegs it at 4.4 percent through August.

“The disparity between the different sets of data calls into question their reliability and whether they can be used to draw firm conclusions about the extent to which the Iraqi government has increased its spending on capital projects in 2007, compared with 2006.”

Read the entire story by Ben Lando for United Press International. Click HERE.

Iraq’s Oil

The Iraqi Oil Ministry has decided to stop cooperating with international oil companies participating in production-sharing contracts with the Kurdish regional administration in northern Iraq, an official said Thursday, Dow Jones Newswires reports. The Oil Ministry appears to be making good on threats it would respond to the Kurdish oil deals not by stopping the Kurds, but forcing oil companies to choose between having anything to do with Iraq’s oil sector as a whole or the KRG area specifically.

One of the companies who has signed with the KRG but not Baghdad – though its top management was trying to sweet talk Baghdad at a conference last fall in Dubai – is the Norwegian firm DNO. It’s global production was up 40 percent from 2006 to 2007, buoyed with good returns on their Kurdish investment.

Canada’s Addax Petroleum also is involved in the KRG dealings, Eric Reguly reports for the Globe and Mail,and has seen proven and probable reserves up 26 percent.

Iraq may face oil sale shortfall, Gulf Daily News reports. A halt in crude oil pumping along Iraq’s northern pipeline to Turkey raises doubts about Baghdad’s ability to meet commitments to sell more than 300,000 barrels per day, traders said yesterday.

Fueling Iraq

Production has halted at two major Iraqi refineries leading to unprecedented fuel and power shortages in the country, by Abdulatif al-Mawsawi for Azzaman.

Police forces foiled an attempt to smuggle large amounts of oil derivatives in eastern Muthanna city, a local police chief said, Voices of Iraq reports.

Powering Iraq

Electricity cuts that blacked out Iraq’s northern oilfields and main refinery this week were a timely reminder that its hopes of boosting oil production rest on something it does not have — a dependable power supply, Ross Colvin reports for Reuters.

The halt of Turkish exports of electricity to Iraq and a lack of fuel for power stations is to blame for the blackouts hitting Iraq’s northern oil fields, the Electricity Ministry said on Thursday, Reuters reports.

Security, Society & Politics

Read what’s in Iraq’s editorial pages. The Iraq Press Roundup, by UPI’s Hiba Dawood.

Iraq’s Shiites between Sectarianism, Iraqi Nationalism, and Mahdism, by Reidar Visser at Historiae.org

In 2008, both these two themes – Iraqi nationalism and Shiite sectarianism – are in evidence among the Shiites of Iraq. On the one hand, projects that clearly have a sectarian edge to them are still favoured by some – such as the idea of a single Shiite federal region, as sponsored by the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI). It is deeply ironic that its leader Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim should use the occasion to claim that the process of national reconciliation in Iraq has been “delayed” by the pet projects of individual politicians: ISCI’s own ideas about a single Shiite federal entity is arguably the clearest possible example of such projects, and Iraqi national reconciliation could have made great strides if this divisive scheme had simply been taken off the table. Similarly, there is unwillingness by some (but not all) Sadrists to accept concessions associated with the Sunnis like the new de-Baathification law. Its recent adoption in the Iraqi parliament was hailed by a few vocal Sadrist MPs, but thoroughly condemned on websites that express a more sectarian Sadrist view such as Nahrainnet, which has highlighted negative reactions to the bill among some of the lower-ranking clergy of the Shiite holy cities.

Reidar Visser is also research fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. He’ll be at the U.S. Institute of Peace at the end of this month, one of four speakers on a panel titled Iraq’s Mystery Men: Insurgents, Tribes and Sadrists.

Iraq National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie argues for Federalism, Not Partition: A System Devolving Power to the Regions Is the Route to a Viable Iraq, in a Washington Post op-ed.

An Iraqi “National Project,” without Kurds! Any such “project” will only be detrimental to Kurdish demands, Qassim Khidhir writes in The Kurdish Globe. He’s referring to the large swath of disaffected political parties who signed a pact decrying the KRG oil deals and other perceived threats to Iraqi national sovereignty.

Iraq’s parliament has finally passed a long-awaited new law aimed at allowing former Baathists to return to government jobs. Amb. Feisal al-Istrabadi, one of the “founding fathers” of the new Iraq, is optimistic about the legislation and says Iraqis are just undoing mistakes made by the United States. Seven Questions on the De-Bremerification of Iraq in Foreign Policy.

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