really close to home....

This just landed this afternoon. 100 metres away at best. Didn't smash any windows but still pretty freaky...

Closer to home

Yesterday afternoon 3 mortars landed fairly close, one of them I think landed in the compound next door. I heard some debris falling on the roof of an abandoned half-built warehouse also next door. A rocket exploded at 4am that made the windows shake but wasn't as close as the mortars.

One of my staff's father was kidnapped this morning. From the information available so far, it sounds like this is a case of sectarian kidnapping which will not produce a ransom and release, as would be the case if it were a straightforward criminal kidnapping. That I think is as much a sign as anything about the return to sectarian killings rather than kidnappings designed for financial gain.

It's going berserk here, but there are a number of different civil war/insurgencies going on. Asking whether the departure of the troops will facilitate the return of order is meaningless. If the troops stay, there is less of one kind of violence but more of another. If they go, likewise. It's a no-win situation for Iraq in the near term.

I was disgusted by the run-up to the war, from as early as 2002 when it was clear to me what would follow. I was disgusted in 2003 when the invasion kicked off and I've been disgusted ever since that we kicked down the door of this country when the primary aim was never to "liberate" the people (as evident from the lamentable lack of post-invasion planning). But, but..... we're way past that now. Iraq and its neighbours have to take responsibility for what's going on these days.

For a while there, the surge looked like it was bringing a downturn in sectarian killings. Although there may be less bodies turning up in the Tigris or on the streets, bound and with signs of torture, the car bombings are getting really out of control.

It's up to the people here to stop it and sort their shit out, but the mentality of so many people has to change. There is no sign I can see of that at the moment. Blair and Bush should be strung up in my view for coming here in the first place, but they're not directly to blame for what's happening 4 years on.

One way traffic... the wrong way

Human Rights Watch released a paper today that highlights the difficulties now being faced by Iraqis fleeing the violence in search of asylum. It speaks volumes that some countries are not doing enough to seal their borders to stop suicide bombers entering Iraq, but are doing what they can to stop refugees leaving Iraq. What a place.

I heard another interesting thing today - since Sadr withdrew his cabinet members from the government yesterday, Ayad Allawi is trying to piece together another coaliton that would take over from this useless bunch of shits for a government. That's great news if he can pull it off. He's widely seen by many Iraqis as a puppet for the US, having spent some time as interim prime minister before this lot were elected. But they also see this lot as being puppets too, only this lot have been a complete waste of space. While many Iraqis don't see Allawi as the ideal choice of PM, he is by far the best of a bad bunch. (Sounds a bit like western leaders to me)

More on bombs and other stuff

Last Thursday that suicide bomber struck at the parliament buildings. Before that, there was a truck bomb that took out a bridge over the Tigris. Something that surprised me was the reaction of Iraqis I spoke to about that. To them, it wasn't any old bridge or just a means of getting across a river, but something more special than that. It had historical significance to them.



It was built by the British in 1920 and was damaged in 1991 by American bombing. Another bridge was hit by a suicide bomber on Saturday with 15 killed. Another 40 were killed in Kerbala, southwest of Baghdad on Saturday.

Yesterday 2 or 3 car bombs and a suicide bomb went off in quick succession in Baghdad, killing another 35-40. We heard the car bombs from here.

All of which raises the question, is the "surge" working? To answer that, I guess you have to ask what it is that the surge is trying to achieve. It certainly seems to be working in terms of reducing the number of dead bodies being found on the streets showing signs of torture. However, there are far too many car bombs going off now, most of which we hear. I've heard another few bangs this morning that sound like they were car bombs so no doubt there will be reports emerging in the next few hours about more today in Baghdad. It's hard to see what the surge can do to avoid that. The other, more predictable, effect of the surge is to push the violence out to other cities in Iraq. It's hard to see how that will all pan out in the near future. I think it's fair to say that, for now, the surge is working well in some ways but not in others, and in any case it will be another 2 or 3 months before it reaches its peak and can really be judged.

Also a few days ago a couple of UK helicopters apparently collided north of Baghdad. I'm not sure if I believe that's the real story. The amount of helicopter "collisions" that have happened here would point to pretty incompetent helicopter pilots being in charge of these multi-million dollar aircraft. I don't buy that generally, and even less in this case given that the helicopters were apparently there as part of a Special Forces operation. You wouldn't think the best of the best pilots are prone to mid air collisions.

Also I read that the official death toll from that parliament bombing has been reduced to 1. Excuse me? Reduced? When does that ever happen?? True, initial reports may have been exaggerated. But I doubt it. All the time there is such a big propaganda war going on it's often hard to believe what you read and you just have to weigh up the likelihood of things. They found an IED ("improvised explosive device") or roadside bomb outside the British Embassy on Friday too. I doubt that made the news in London. Soon enough though one of these things will go off in the IZ and you'll hear about it.

A couple of reports (from the Red Cross and the Oxford Research Group) recently out about Iraq and the "war on terror". This column highlighted nicely how little the neocons had to say about them.

Paul Wolfowitz, head of the World Bank, is in the shit because he intervened to give his girlfriend a promotion and pay rise that was "grossly out of line" with the rules. Hope he gets stuffed for that. He was one of the architects of the Iraq mess so it would be nice to see him get out of a job I don't think he should ever have been rewarded with. Alberto Gonzales, the US Attorney General is also in the shit for his role in the firing of 8 prosecutors when they didn't act in accordance with Bush policies. (this is the man who said torture is fine) Slowly but surely, all those bastards that screwed Iraq, robbed their own tax payers and made everyone else less safe are getting their just reward and being discredited. About bloody time.

Suicide at parliament

It was only a matter of time before this happened. Today at lunch time a suicide vest was detonated in the cafe in the Iraqi parliament building. 2 or 3 MPs dead and more injured. The military found a couple of suicide vests sitting in an abandoned box in the IZ 2 weeks ago, presumably they were dropped by someone for another to come and collect them. There are rumours that a car full of explosives was found in the IZ as well but I'm not sure if that one's true. There will be more attacks like this I'm sure. It doesn't worry me too much in a personal safety kind of way as those things will always be detonated at places like the parliament or other high profile buildings. I don't tend to go those places and have never been to the parliament (though I have been next door on occasion).

What else? The 4th anniversary of the fall of Baghdad was 3 days ago and hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated against the occupation in Najaf. It must be getting harder for the UK and US politicians to insist that the continued presence of troops here is doing any good. Damned if I know - maybe in some places it is and in others it isn't. One of my staff has moved his family into the IZ because the US military set up a base in his neighbourhood and insurgents are always firing at it, so my employee was naturally worried his wife or son would be caught in the crossfire. Add to that he was injured (not seriously, to our relief) when a roadside bomb detonated on a street he was walking down with his family. I would still say that the troop surge was and is the right thing in Baghdad but it's less effective than it was and in any case, violence in other cities is in some cases off the scale.

I read today that John McCain, a probable candidate for US President next election, came to Baghdad and went on a walk around a market outside the IZ. In his media statement he bleated about how it was sign that the streets are getting safer. What he didn't mention was that he was surrounded by troops and went in a convoy of a dozen heavily armed and armoured vehicles. Dick.

Yesterday's rocket

You may have seen on the news that the UN secretary general was giving a speech here in Baghdad when a mortar landed yesterday. He shat it and ducked under the podium. Very amusing. It was very loud and sounded more like a rocket than a mortar. It made the news so we got loads of emails saying "are you ok?" which was nice and all, but this happens all the time so it's always a bit confusing when we get these are you ok emails.

Friday at last. Have a good weekend.

Cases closed!

You may have heard recently about one of the Guantanamo detainees - Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - "admitting" his role, indeed "confessing" to being the guy who organised, at least 30 terror plots against the US, including 9/11. Of course, the "confessions" took place under torture and the hearings are behind closed doors, so they don't remotely live up to the standards of transparency you'd expect from any civilised nation, let alone the one that shouts loudest about democracy and due process than any other. I'm pretty sure if I was being tortured I'd say anything to try and get them to stop. You get the impression the US doesn't give a shit whether he did them or not - as long as they've got somebody to pin the blame on they can shut the file and Americans can sleep safer at night "knowing" that someone has been brought to account.

Actually, I can sleep safer too. If that guy was responsible for everything they say he was (sorry, he says he was while 10,000 volts were going through his balls) then odds are he's the bastard who stole my bike when I was 13. I bet he also cut off the head of Jebediah Springfield and Bart just took the fall too.


Jebediah Springfield yesterday

Four years on

This week marked the 4th anniversary of the (latest) invasion. So much has happened in that 4 years I'm not going to attempt a summary of the highlights (are there any?) and the lowlights (too many to mention). Last weekend there were mass marches in several cities across the world to mark the event. In Baghdad there were a couple of car bombs and one day 3 trucks containing chlorine blew up.





It does seem to be much better on the streets of Baghdad at the moment. There is the occasional car or truck bomb that goes off, and some bodies do turn up on the streets each day (I saw a couple in the Tigris a few days ago) but it's not dozens of bodies every day like it used to be. The extra troops on the streets and in the neighbourhoods are bringing a bit of stability that hasn't been there for a long time. The locals are pretty wary of it though. People think that the militias are just laying low and seeing what tactics the troops are using for now, and that when the troops pull out the militias will be back. That could take a while. The surge is expected to peak around July and last until at least November. If enough people can get into employment and the electricity and water supply gets more reliable, it might be that the militias find themselves with no grassroots support. Of course, it may be that the troops pull out and the militias do resume control of the neighbourhoods. Time will tell, and the locals are probably right to be sceptical.




There are really 2 things of equal importance that have to be sorted out for Iraq to have a hope of getting anywhere. The first is the obvious one - security. The second is corruption. Getting a company registered in Baghdad is more difficult if there's an element of non-Iraqi ownership. Whenever there's an application to register a company which will be partly or wholly owned by a non-Iraqi person or company, or which will have a non-Iraqi director, the application is referred by the Companies Registry to the Residency Office at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This is a rule that existed during Saddam's time to screen non-Arab shareholders to make sure they weren't terrorists or otherwise known to be unfriendly to Iraq. It should take no more than 3 days for the application to pass through the Residency Office before being signed off as cleared. These days, unless you pay a low level official a bribe, it takes around 4 weeks. We don't pay bribes under any circumstances, and I think that's the right way to operate, even in a place like Iraq. If we paid bribes we could get in the shit under Iraq's Penal Code. Funnily enough, people charged under the Penal Code often bribe their way out of the charges. Sam Allardyce would love this place. Bung heaven.






Take another example - private security companies (PSCs). These get a bad press, and sometimes rightly so. Some companies are cowboys and think they're above the law. They're usually the ones driving around like maniacs and who in the past had no qualms about killing civilians. Most PSCs are not like that, at least the ones I know. Most of them are very professional, courteous and focused on their proper job. They do an important job, protecting various ministries and ferrying Iraqi and Western officials and companies through dangerous places.



The process of obtaining an operating licence for security companies has been in a mess for a long while. They've been drafting a law to regulate the licensing and oversight of PSCs, which they really need to have in place to make the industry accountable and to weed out the bad from the good. The draft as it stands is crap and conflicts with various provisions in some other laws in Iraq. I gave a presentation to some government ministers and flunkies and 250 other people a few months ago telling them where the draft was in conflict with other laws. It didn't go down too well with the ministers. They have been quietly registering PSCs of their own and refusing operating licences for foreign owned PSCs. There was a flurry of activity at the start of the year when a dozen or so PSCs were given their operating licence. I know at least one of them flew the official at the Ministry of Interior that deals with this, and a mate of his, to Europe on a jolly with spending money (sorry, "to inspect the head office") and lo and behold he presented their operating licence to them when he was about to get on the plane back to Iraq. Now they're asking that lawyers don't go with the PSCs when they submit their file because they want a bribe to be paid and the lawyers not to see.




Someone who's in the know about such things told me last week that the Iraqi government is sitting on at least 40 billion dollars. This is because several signatures of government ministers are needed in some cases to get money paid out by the government. Sometimes the Shiites will sign off but the Sunnis won't, and vice versa.

So what can be done about this? If it is to stay in one piece and not break into three, Iraq needs a secular government. The obvious person to take control is Ayad Allawi, but even if he came in and a secular government is formed, it won't solve the whole problem. It would be a good start, but the corruption at low levels would still be there, if not the corruption higher up too. Unfortunately, if there was an election today, people would still vote along sectarian lines, despite the trouble that has caused so far. A total change in mentality is needed in Iraq, from the voters right up to the top of government. Otherwise things will keep going backwards.

From tuk tuks to tanks

I've just got back from a couple of weeks in Thailand. Great times with great friends and the small matter of my birthday too. I've been in Baghdad 6 months now and it strikes me how it's the kind of place I shudder at the thought of when I'm away but don't mind it so much when I'm here. Especially at the moment as well, with all the changes due to take place from the summer onwards. Due to the land in the IZ being transferred back to Iraqis, a lot of people are going to be leaving the IZ and moving out to a military camp near the airport. We'll not be able to do that as we are independent, but we do rent off an Iraqi landlord so we don't necessarily have to leave. It will be more a question of whether it's safe enough to stay if/when they knock down the outer walls to the IZ and open up the roads again. It used to stress me out but now I'm not too worried. I'll go with the flow, stay here as long as it's safe and hit the road when it's looking like getting dangerous.

I've never said what I do here but may as well spit it out. I'm a lawyer working for a small independent company that was set up in 2003 here in Baghdad. We do all sorts of stuff, from registering companies, helping PSCs get their operating licences, advising international and Iraqi banks on issues arising from Iraq debt and guarantees, some corporate work such as advising on joint ventures or share transfers, litigation advice and representation, plus some oil and energy related work, and advice to various governments.

Since I've been here I've noticed the commercial climate get increasingly difficult. Petty corruption within government departments is rife and getting worse. We don't pay bribes which makes it hard but our clients appreciate that we do things the right way rather than the easy way. It's a hell of an eye opener but it makes me really angry to see these people all on the take rather than helping to get their country back on its feet. To be fair, though, I can also see it from the Iraqis' point of view. The US and UK steamed in here nearly 4 years ago and re-wrote a bunch of laws to open the country up to foreign investment. The Iraqis can be forgiven for thinking that the rug has been pulled from under their feet. But we are where we are. The same can be said of the security situation.

Whatever your views on the invasion and the manner of occupation, we're at a point now where it is the responsibility of the Iraqi government to deal with the violence that has escalated since last February when a shrine in Samarra was bombed. There have been some interesting comments from various places about whether this is or is not a civil war. It seems that the violence has all the hallmarks of a civil war, not least the massive displacement of people, but what is really happening is a bunch of mini civil wars. There's violence between Shia and Sunni, between each of them and the Coalition/occupation forces and, more recently, within competing Shia factions and within Sunni factions that are for or against the insurgency. The last of those seems to be a very recent trend. A lot of Sunni tribal leaders, particularly towards the west (Anbar province) have had enough and want to rid the country of terrorists streaming in from the Syrian border, Al Qaeda in Iraq in particular. That's an encouraging sign.

While I was away, the new clampdown started to take effect. It seems to have had instant results. From a selfish point of view, there seems to be a lot less rockets and mortars landing in the IZ now. Bombings and killings in the red zone are significantly down on what they were in December and January. There have been a couple of high profile, very lethal attacks, but still I think overall the results have so far been very good. The best thing is, the full force level hasn't even arrived yet. From March 11 we won't be able to eat at the dining facility we usually go to because there will be 1,000 more troops in that base alone. Which is a pain in the arse for me food-wise but must mean that more troops are coming to back up those already on the ground. A lot of arms caches have been found which is good news. Many of those contain materials for the relatively new and vastly more lethal weapon - EFPs ("explosively formed penetrators") which are like the common or garden roadside bomb (IED or "improvised explosive device") but can penetrate armoured vehicles. EFPs are said to originate in Iran, which doesn't help the political situation between Iran and the US.

However, a couple of days ago, the US agreed to come to the table with Iran and all other neighbours and the UK among others, to discuss ways to fix Iraq's problems. It can't be underestimated how significant this is. We did a major project advising the US Government on something, and whenever we mentioned Iran you could see body language stiffen and lips tighten. Iran was taboo and the thought of anything that could be considered an overture towards it was implicitly if not expressly forbidden. So let's see how that pans out.

Further potentially good news was that last week a final draft hydrocarbon law was approved by the the Iraqi Cabinet and will be referred to Parliament for a vote. This has been long-awaited and was supposed to be produced by the end of 2006. It could change everything. Basically, the issue is that the oil rich south of Iraq is populated mostly by Shiites, and the oil rich north is populated mainly by the Kurds. There's a referendum soon on whether the oil-rich city of Kirkuk will be brought within Kurdistan or remain in Iraq. I understand the expected result is that it will go Kurdish. All of which could leave the Sunnis with little or no revenue from the oil, as the middle of Iraq (which they mainly populate) hasn't got oil fields that are ready for drilling. So the primary issue the hydrocarbon law had to address was revenue sharing. And the draft seems to have done the right thing: all revenue from Iraqi oil gets pooled, and then shared out on the basis of population. In other words, all Iraqis will benefit, whether they live on an oil field or out in the desert. So far, so good. There is a potential significant problem, however, with the manner in which it (the oil) can be exploited. Production Sharing Agreements ("PSAs") are permitted by the draft law. This basically means that foreign companies can come in, produce the oil and take around 70% of the revenue. This report from globalsecurity.org sets out why PSAs might be considered inappropriate for Iraq, and the gist of it will be why the draft law may not be approved. Even if it is approved, there may be continued violence in objection to it. With any luck, though, it will be accepted and people will get on with rebuilding their lives and society.

So, all in all, very interesting times right now. Some days I am optimistic, others I am not. Today's a "glass half full" day.

Big Scrap

Yesterday there was a big battle in Najaf in which it's reported that at least 250 insurgents were killed. They were there to carry out a mass killing against Shia clerics who were going to Kerbala for an important Shia religious festival. An alarming element of this is that it was both Shia and Sunni who were there to attack the Shia. Those Shia that were involved have differences of religious opinion which I guess are pretty extreme. Also there were Egyptians and Sudanese terrorists too. A US helicopter was shot down in the fighting, which is apparently still going on.

In Baghdad five school girls were killed after mortar rounds were fired into their school. What can you say about that? It's like so much here. Yesterday an Iraqi colleague told me that a couple of days ago they had witnessed a guy get pulled from his car, then the terrorists stuck an explosive belt on him and stuck some explosives in his car and got him to drive towards an Iraqi army checkpoint where they detonated the explosives by remote control. The guy was apparently driving really slowly and shouting at the guys on the checkpoint to get out of the way, which they did so it only killed a couple of soldiers. Insane. This colleague of mine had gone to their neighbourhood to check on their house. Many of the houses on their street have been deserted for a while but now people are just moving in to the houses. And once they're in, that's it. House is good as gone for the people who once owned it. So my colleagues are trying to find someone to house sit for them but not having much joy at the moment. Can you imagine it? You've saved all your life for your house and then some other bastard just moves in and effectively confiscates it because you had to leave after someone told you you'd be killed if you didn't leave the following morning. Pack an overnight bag and leave your life behind.

There's been a lot of rockets and mortars fired into the IZ in the last 7 days. Yesterday was quiet but before that the US Embassy and one of the compounds that houses a lot of people working on reconstruction were taking a fair few hits. And I think the UN compound had something that went in as well. Nobody died as far as I know but one guy at the US Embassy might lose his leg after getting hit by shrapnel. Luckily for me we're in a safe bit of the IZ, rockets don't tend to land too near our place, though it has happened on the odd occasion.

I went on a tour of Saddam's bunker a few days ago, it was really interesting. First we climbed up to the top of a watchtower and got some amazing 360 degree views of Baghdad. From up there if you cast your eye out beyond the T Walls it looked like a normal city. Deceptive... Then we went into the bunker. A palace was built over the top of it (the Believers Palace) and the bunker was underneath. The palace had been hit by a couple of bunker buster bombs which came in through a point in the dome and detonated when they hit the floor of the main room. The place looked like a student house after a full on party, only bigger. I'll get some pictures up soon.

Adventure tourism

It's going to be a pretty interesting few months in the IZ. The plan is for pretty much all of it to be handed back to Iraqis by next January. The only bits that are due to be under ongoing US control are the new US embassy and something else (which I forget for now). It will be a gradual process too. Initially (and this is already happening) companies and compounds are leaving and the T Walls are coming down inside the IZ. It will take several months but you can see the beginnings of it now. Around the end of the year the external walls will come down and there will be no IZ! It's a scary prospect and as you can imagine my eyes are fixed on the exit big time. I'm sure it will be fine until after the end of summer, but then how many people will be sticking around (me included) will depend totally on the situation outside and how that develops. Those companies that stay will have beefed up security arrangements so it will be interesting to see how they work out.

Today I've had to escort a few staff in and out of the IZ. This involves going close to the other side of whichever checkpoint they're coming in at and getting them through the inside search points where they hand in their passports. They collect them on the way back out. Usually I don't have to do this but my staffs' IDs have expired and we need to wait a while for them to be renewed. It's mildly scary going to the checkpoints at all but going towards the other end of them quickens the heart a fair bit. Not something I plan on making a habit of that's for sure. I took a photo going over the Tigris to one of the checkpoints today, facing away from the IZ. I'll try and get one looking back towards the IZ on the next suicide run. I think you can just see smoke from one of the bombs today in there.



On which point, here's a report from Al Jazeera:
"At least 17 people have been killed and nearly 50 wounded in a series of car bombings in Baghdad.

In a market in the southern district of Dora, three bombs in quick succession killed at least 10 people and wounded 30 on Thursday, Reuters reported.

Three more died in a car bomb in the east of the city.

Earlier, four people were killed and 11 wounded when a car bomb hit a police patrol near a cinema on Baghdad's central Sadun Street. Two of the dead were policemen.

A fifth car bomb exploded in eastern Baghdad, killing three people and wounding seven."

Pretty nuts. While there's so much to say about this you feel at the same time like there's nothing to say. Seems the baddies are getting it in before the extra troops arrive.

Another interesting thing today, Bush had a meeting with the new secretary general of the UN and actually asked him to increase the UN's presence in Iraq. It was only a matter of time, this. Having undermined or ignored the UN systematically during his shitty tenure, Bush is now grovelling for help. I was always troubled by his attitude to the UN. For all its failings, and yes there are many, it still remains the most legitimate body to deal with much of the trouble in the world. Instead of ignoring or undermining it for their own political and economic gain, the major countries should be seeking to making it stronger for everyone's benefit, including updating the permanent members to reflect the changes internationally that have happened since 1945. It's good that Bush belatedly realises that the UN is the only external body that can come here longer term and have any chance of keeping some sort of peace.

I forgot to mention something that made me laugh - Bush once called himself "the decider" which is funny enough (oddly similar to his description of "suiciders") but now, in response to the response to his new new new new Iraq plan, the "educator in chief". Ha ha !! This from a real clever bastard!

Master plan

By now you'll probably know that Bush has at last announced the new new new new strategy for Iraq. It's been pretty much universally panned from what I can tell. I'm not quite sure what to make of it. On the one hand, here is a guy who is doing what his electorate clearly don't want him to be doing. The Democrats did so well in November's congressional elections largely on the basis of their Iraq opposition and their argument in favour of getting US troops out of Iraq. So it doesn't say much about the health of their democracy is you've got this cowboy carrying on with doing things his way. The Iraq Study Group's report also backed a troop withdrawal, but Bush kept waiting until he got a report that supported his wish to carry on and, it seems, even escalate the number of troops.

On the other hand, and I doubt I will ever say this about Bush and Cheney again, I think this is the right plan, if it is carried out properly and also with a degree of reliance on luck. It seems to me to be the least bad option and with good fortune might help to improve things here in the long run. It might of course make matters here no better, but that seems to be what any other plan's guaranteed outcome would be. All the headlines have been about the troop numbers, but that's only a part of what is happening this time. If anything, they should probably send at least 30 or 40 thousand more, but that was always unlikely. There are 2 reasons this plan might work: first, this time there is a real desire to deal with the militias, in particular the Mahdi Army. Whether that is going to happen depends entirely on the Iraqi government. They've shown no inclination to deal with it before, but it's pretty clear that if they don't do something about it then their days as a government will be numbered. They're losing support from the US and, importantly, from their own people, so this is really their last chance to pull finger and do it. The other reason I think this is a starter is that at the same time as they're (hopefully) dealing with the militias, they're also trying to get factories open and Iraqis back into work. If there is work for desperate men that means they won't have to rely on the militias, then the militias can be dealt with by lack of recruits as well as depriving them of political power.

Of course, it's a long shot. But early signs are potentially encouraging. Mahdi Army are apparently going to be keeping a low profile when the extra troops arrive. If the most can be made of that (presumably) more stable time to get the factories up and running and even electricity production increased, then by the time the troops leave there will be less chance of the militias operating as they have been. Maybe this is just wishful thinking, but it makes better sense to me than anything else that's been tried.

For now, though, it's still going ape shit out there. Yesterday 70 people were killed and twice as many injured when two bombs went off at Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. I heard that Sunnis were being blamed for that but that doesn't make much sense. For one, the Sunnis are if anything more affiliated than anyone else at universities, and it was Sunnis who had the vast majority of the teaching jobs at universities in Baghdad before the invasion. Most of them have now fled to Jordan. Also I think the Ministry of Education is Sunni controlled as well, and when you hear about universities or academics being the target of violence, they're usually Sunnis that get killed. This time it was a mixture of Sunni, Shia and Kurds, so it may well be that terrorists from outside Iraq were responsible. At least that's the theory in a logical place but Baghdad tends to defy all logic these days.

This afternoon a couple of bombs went off, the one below in Sadr City killing 15. I saw the plumes of smoke and wondered what the hell it was. It doesn't take long to log on and find out. I remember when I first came to Baghdad I saw some plumes of smoke and wondered whether they were from bombs or simply fires. I don't tend to question it anymore.

Gunfight at the Baghdad Corral

We heard this last night. There were 2 almighty explosions, one was a rocket and the other maybe mortars not long after, that landed in the IZ. Not too close to us but still very loud. Then we heard the small arms fire after that and it was in the direction of Haifa Street, just outside the IZ. There might be a few of these things in the coming days as Maliki has announced a crackdown and the militias (primarily al-Sadr's Mahdi army) will be trying to flex their muscles. I am 50/50 between scepticism and hope that Maliki really will try and crack down. The next few days should be very interesting.

Hanging update

I heard a couple of interesting things yesterday. I can't verify their truth but I was talking to someone who tends to be in the know about this kind of thing.

The first one is that the original "team" who were supposed to oversee the hanging were "replaced" at the last minute by members of al Sadr's militia (the Mahdi army). Hence the way his name was said by the executioners. Apparently the way they put the noose around his neck (at the side rather than from the back) is another giveaway. Apparently that was the way the British used to do it as well.

The other thing is that Maliki actually tried to resign last Wednesday, but the Iraqi President and the US wouldn't accept it / urged him to stay on. That suggests to me that they're still just trying to get a few things in place so that when his successor comes in he'll have less problems with militias to deal with initially. The extra US troops will presumably have getting rid of the militias as their top priority. I don't think the US has done a great deal properly here and obviously I think they shouldn't have invaded in the first place, but I have to say I think this is the right idea. For once, Bush might have got it right, but that will depend on how the thing is done. They're also now trying to get factories working again (mainly goods like textiles and concrete) so that they can get men back to work. This is crucial in sorting the violence out. It might take a little while to really start working but it's good that they're really starting to focus on "soft" ways to resolve the violence as well as the "hard" option which is coming. If the State department and the Pentagon had worked together in the first place maybe we'd have been at this point 3 years ago....

They say there are 2 potential candidates to replace Maliki, but the smart money has to be on Iyad Allawi. You may remember him from such Iraq interim prime ministerships as 28 June 2004 to 7 April 2005. More about him here. He may have been a CIA stooge but it's widely felt, most importantly by Iraqis themselves, that he is the only person who can hold some sort of government together and get a genuine process of reconciliation moving. Watch this space...

Just thought I'd comment on one more thing. The British Education Secretary, Alan Johnson said "I agree with John Prescott's remarks about the way it was handled and I am an opponent of the death penalty. But it was a matter for the Iraqi people to make that judgment. What happened shouldn't detract from the terrible crimes that Saddam committed. I knew the trade union leader he sentenced to death for organising a trade union in Iraq." I don't think that's the full story. One of the things that has stunned me as I have looked at some Iraqi laws is how progressive they were. The Labour Code, which is still in force today, actively encourages trade unions, and disciplinary action in some cases can't be taken against an employee unless a trade union representative is present. So whoever it was that was sentenced to death by Saddam was probably up to something else. British politicians should check their facts. Nothing new there then...

maybe there's hope....

So Maliki wants to step down. That's a relief. Well, a good start anyway. Maybe. There must be a whole lot more than just the poster boy who need to go. Could be a false dawn when he goes, but it might force a shift of behind-the-scenes power for the better. Here's hoping.

Two Very Different Deaths

One former leader who died last week laid in state and was given an ex President's funeral. Another was taunted and hanged and his body only released to his family and tribe after pressure from the US. Gerald Ford and Saddam Hussein couldn't have been buried under more different circumstances.

I have read with interest much of what has been written in the days after Saddam's execution. Some of it regarding the trial and how it was conducted, some of it about the death penalty generally, some about the timing. It's clearly an issue that fascinates people as much as it divides them. The Italian prime minister suggested yesterday that they'd push for a global ban on the death penalty, though it's difficult to see much support for that on the security council.

Anyone that was in any doubt about whether this was "victors' justice" should by now be sure that this was exactly that. The taunting of Saddam and the evocation of Moqtada al-Sadr's name say it all. We already knew the Iraqi government was fizzing at the clopper to get him hanged by the end of last year. Now they have extended the Eid holiday from 4 to 7 days because of the hanging. If that all doesn't add up to victor's justice, I don't know what does. This government has no interest in reconciliation. Maliki depends on Sadr and others' militias for support and the notion of national unity is a sick joke.

Looks like, contrary to the ISG Report recommendation, there will be no chatting to Syria or Iran, at least not publicly. I thought initially that they'd need to do that to get anywhere. More recently I started to think that Maliki and his corrupt bunch were the root of the problem and now that seems pretty clear.

So, the US will send in 30,00 more troops and try to get the Iraqi security services trained properly. Trained to do what exactly? Kill more of their countrymen? Run more criminal rackets? Until you root out the core of the problem the whole army and police will be rotten, from the top down.

The Democrats resume control of Congress in the US tomorrow and Bush will be under a lot more scrutiny in terms of his strategy for Iraq (if there ever was one). During this year I think they'll start handing over checkpoints (the legitimate ones, that is) to the Iraqis. As soon as they start that, I'm getting the hell out of here. The country is carving itself into pieces, and the people that live in it too. I don't fancy being part of that process.

Christmas in Baghdad

Interesting times in Iraq. The question of whether the British operation against the serious crimes unit in Basra was right or wrong should exist independently of whether invading Iraq was right or wrong. I was dead against invasion in 2003 but think it was, on balance, probably right that they took down the station last week. This is part of Operation Sinbad to try and root out the worst elements of the security forces in Iraq. I understand that western troops and private security companies have committed many disgraces, some reported but most not, but the simple fact is (probably) that dozens of people were saved from torture and execution by this operation. Isn't that a good enough end in itself? Taking down the building itself I think was right as well, why not remove what for many in Basra would have been a symbol of corruption and murder.

I was surprised to see Saddam's death sentence upheld so soon. They weren't bound by the constitution to issue an appeal decision within any time limit, so they could have stuck it on the shelf for a couple of months. Maliki's keen as mustard to get Saddam hanged so I wouldn't be surprised to see the sentence carried out within the next week. Some of my Iraqi friends are very, very worried that this is really going to make the violence escalate. Of course there's a perverse asymmetry to this - to remove a negative symbol in the shape of the police station in Basra might well improve things down there but removing one in the form of Saddam in Baghdad is going to lead to more death and destruction.

Aaaanyway. Christmas in Baghdad has been great fun. Hopefully I'll have a couple of days off before the round of New Year parties kicks in. My liver needs a break.

Here's wishing you and yours a safe and happy Christmas, and all the best for 2007 wherever you are.

S

Back to Baghdad

It's never easy flying Iraqi Airways. I had problems with them when I left Baghdad to go on leave and was flying back in from Kurdistan the other day. We boarded the flight 2 hours after it was scheduled to depart, which was fine. We expected that and 2 hours isn't too bad for this airline. So then we sat there for a while and nothing happened until they asked everyone to get back off the plane again to check the luggage. They'd lined all the bags up on the tarmac and we had to go and identify them to get them put back in the hold. Nothing to do with security measures - just plain incompetence. It puts you in the mindset that you are back in Iraq though, so it's not all bad.



Being back isn't that bad, though it's much tougher to come back after leave than it is to come here in the first place. You get used to normal life and seeing friends and family again and then it's back to this madness. One of our guys' brother was shot and killed 3 days ago, the cleaner whose husband was kidnapped (and has now disappeared altogether) had a brother murdered 2 weeks ago, and another guy saw someone dragged out of his car and shot in the head yesterday outside his front door. This place is much worse than it was when I left and the sense of fear is palpable. The main obstacle for security is the government. They are a total disaster for the people of Iraq. Many Iraqis think even talking to Syria and Iran won't make any difference now. Maliki and his corrupt, partisan government should be overthrown as soon as possible. I wouldn't lose too much sleep if they were kidnapped tomorrow.

As for today's suicide bombing that killed over 50 people looking for work and injured 3 times as many, it will be blamed on Sunnis. I'm not so sure though because Iraqis aren't usually suicide bombers - Arabs are. So my guess is the suicide bomber this morning was Syrian or in any case a foreign terrorist. Not that that will stop the Shiites going on a sectarian death squad jolly though.

In other news gunmen stole USD 1 million from a bank truck in Baghdad. That probably translates into a lot of rockets, so soon, in a sense, it will be raining money.

Something didn't smell right......

This is pretty funny. Lighting your farts when you're a kid is one thing, but this takes the cake. Presumably her farts didn't smell like sulphur in the first place...

So the long awaited and much leaked Baker report came out yesterday. Already Bush is ruling out direct talks with Iran and Syria. Well clearly he's got it right so far, so why follow the advice of the Baker Commission? If it wasn't so tragic it would almost be funny. Any plan that doesn't involve Iran and Syria is doomed to failure. The Iraqi police and army are so corrupt that without Iranian and Syrian involvement they will never be able to function as they should. The big difference between the Iraqi army and the army in Kurdistan is that the former are easily bought but the latter are not. You wouldn't ask prisoners to police the streets of the US or the UK, so why do it here? Simply embedding another 20,000 troops with the Iraqi security services won't make a blind bit of difference if you're not getting the neighbours involved. The borders are more leaky than England's middle order so unless you contain the problem you're always treading water. If the Iranian and Syrian borders are sealed and the weapons and terrorists stop coming in, then you can at last begin to deal with a finite quantity of shit. But Bush seems more content to piss in the wind. He must rate the size of his bladder...