Iraqi Kurds vs. Baghdad heats up over oil deals … Kirkuk vote unclear … Unspinning the Surge … Remembering Basra

Iraqi Kurds issued a scathing rebuke of Iraq's oil minister, who has warned companies signing deals in the north will be kept out of the rest of the country.

"Our contracts with the (international oil companies) are both constitutional and legal within the framework of the Kurdistan Oil and Gas Law, the only existing framework regulating our oil industry in the post-Saddam era," the Kurdistan Regional Government said in a statement Tuesday.