Iraqi oil and gas bill to pass despite protests

Sarah Price and Nizar Latif

YourMiddleEast.com. November 2012

A controversial oil and gas bill may soon pass in Iraq, despite the outcry of many parliamentarians that the bill is unconstitutional and transfers too much power to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Mouaid Tyib, a MP from the Kurdistan alliance, rejects the current draft of the bill. His objection is partly because there is no consensus yet between the political parties, but mainly because he feels it only really benefits Maliki.

“The power granted to the prime minister in this bill undermines the future of Iraq,” he says. “It's not in Iraq's best interest. There must be a compromise that satisfies all the political parties, or it won't pass.”

He says that Kurdistan supports a version of the bill in which the management of the oil reserves would be shared between the Kurdish region and the provinces, but that the current draft gives power to the oil ministry. According to Tyib, this is a violation of the constitution, which states that there must be partnership between the government and the regions.

“Also, article 5 of the draft transfers powers that belong to the Supreme Council for Oil and Gas to the prime minister and his deputy, Hussein al-Shahristani,” he says, “which, in itself, is scary.”

In a press statement, Iraqiya list spokesperson Maysoon al-Damluji said they would also not be voting for the bill.

“Our list does not intend to vote for the current draft of the law in parliament,” she says, “because it gives power to the prime minister, equal to the powers granted during the rule of the former Ba'athist regime in Iraq.”

But Saadoun Obeiad al-Shaalan, vice president of the provincial council in Anbar, says that in addition to this draft being a case of an unconstitutional power shift to Maliki, it is also an attempt to cut Sunnis out of any say in the oil dealings. As Anbar is rich in oil reserves, he sees the dismissal of input as particularly suspect, especially as the provincial council had not even seen the draft before it was passed through the Council of Ministers. He adds thatthe decision by Baghdad not to explore Anbar's oil fields also seems like a maneuver to keep them out of the discussion.

“The government is trying to deprive us of the federal council to participate in oil issues, by not exploring our fields,” he says. “As a result, our province doesn't produce oil, and therefore, we are not included in the considerations of the petro-dollar system.”

Anbar province is believed to have a potential of 100 billion barrels of oil. Approval of the exploitation of these fields would not only make Anbar the dominant source of oil in Iraq, it would put it in the top tier of crude resources in the world, with a market value around $6 trillion.

But despite overwhelming protest, al-Maliki list MP Ibrahim al-Rikabi says his bloc will go forward to approve it in parliament soon, and denies allegations that it gives undue power to the prime minister.

“The oil and gas law has been submitted to the parliament and it likely will undergo some amendments by specialists and consultants in the oil industry,” he says. “But the decisions are not made by one person, like Maliki. I was perplexed by the decision of some of the blocs not to pass the law. This law is the demand of the Iraqi people.”

A delegation representing Maliki recently met with Kurdistan president Massoud Barzani to discuss contentious issues in the bill, but al-Rikabi says they nevertheless intend to combine the three drafts of the law that have been written, and pass it as soon as possible.

“The oil and gas law has been enacted by specialists, experts and consultants in the field of oil, according to the limits of the constitution,” he says. “It does not regard one political bloc over the others; it is divided for each of the Iraqi people.”

By law, the ownership of the country's oil and gas is shared by all Iraqi citizens. Oil revenues make up approximately 95% of Iraq's budget, but the bill regulating the country's oil dealings has failed to pass since its introduction in 2007.

Corruption accusations slow Iraq-Russia arms deal

Sarah Price

YourMiddleEast.com. November 2012

Suspicions of corruption in Iraq's $4.2 billion arms deal with Russia have led Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to re-think the one-month-old agreement, although some officials say it is still on track.

Early statements that the deal had been canceled were soon clarified by the Iraqi government, which said that it was merely being reconsidered and claims of corruption investigated. But finger-pointing and contradicting statements by various government officials have led to further confusion.

Sources in the National Alliance suggest that parliament members close to Maliki may be corroborating factors, a point that Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh says, contaminates the reputation of the entire government.

In defense of recent claims that Dabbagh was on a list of recipients of commissions from the arms deal, he claimed no involvement and said his interests lay only in the state's “sovereignty and dignity.”

"I was the first to warn the prime minister of the possibility of corruption in the deal, even before he went to Russia," he said, "and I am asking parliament to form a committee to investigate the details of the deal."

Prime Minister Maliki has denied Dabbagh's claims.

Parliamentary Integrity Committee member Jawad al-Shahyli says there are five senior Iraqi politicians involved, and that they will be brought to justice and removed from office.
Sources inside the Iraqi government claim that there are also other government parties involved, including a minister who had recently visited Moscow, but also added that the corruption is not only on the Iraqi side.

They also claim that Maliki was unsure of the deal from the beginning, but gave in to Iranian pressure to sign it.

The Iraqiya list, led by Iyad Allawi, Iraq's former interim prime minister, has demanded a report on the deal, in order to uncover all areas of corruption in it, according to Iraqiya MP Haider Mullah.

Mullah also questioned why it was important to spend so much money to send a delegation to Russia when, he believes, the deal could have been made in much more cost-efficient ways.

Iraq’s acting Defense Minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi has declared the deal “safe,” but added that he was subjected to political pressure and blackmail to end the deal.

Al-Dulaimi claimed that the only investigation being made is a committee inspecting the quality of the weapons Russia is offering, and that they are expected to give their opinion within a month.

Habib al-Tarfi, an MP from the National Alliance, insists that Iraq should go ahead with the Russian arms deal, adding that "Iraq needs diversity in its sources for armament.” He said that the country has a new committee working on the arms deal, and that he expects this will eliminate any problems of corruption.

Stanislav Ivanov, a researcher at the Center for International Security of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and an expert on the Middle East, said in remarks published by Russian media, that the arms deal between Iraq and Russia was still ongoing, and noted that Iraq "will need Russia in the field of armament, due to large amounts of weapons imported by the former Soviet Union, and the large number of Iraqi military experts who were trained during the Soviet era."

Ivanov added that the United States will remain the primary supplier of arms to Iraq, but that Russia's cooperation will also be increasingly important.

However, Ivanov has also been critical of Russia's methods of operating in arms deals, saying that they are making the same mistakes they did under Soviet rule, by seeking to sign as many contracts as possible, without a strategy for long-term plans.

“If we are going to sell to Iraq,” he said, “we need to prepare and formulate a program for the next 15-20 years, and not just make the immediate moment our main concern.”

But any deal between the two countries may still hinge on the findings of the details of this one, which seem to still be mired in confusion, threats and blackmail.

The Parliamentary Integrity Committee revealed last week that the committee chairman, Baha al-Araj from the Sadr list, had received serious threats from "a very senior official," in the wake of possible new accusations.

Moktada al-Sadr earlier described the arms deal with Russia as a sectarian deal and not in the interest of the nation, adding that it was a waste of Iraqi money, and called on parliament to open an investigation of it.

Nizar Latif contributed to this report from Baghdad.

Sarah Price is a freelance journalist, contributing reporter for Time Magazine and a regular contributor with Your Middle East. You can follow her on Twitter @LADreamr

At a challenging time for Iraqi men, Viagra saves the day

Sarah Price

YourMiddleEast.com, November 2012

One of the most surprising developments in Iraq in the past few years is not the spread of al-Qaeda, the stagnant economy or the power struggles with neighboring countries. It's Viagra. And it's everywhere.

Unlike other drugs, which are available but kept under wraps in Baghdad, Viagra – both authentic and pirated versions of the drug, which treats erectile dysfunction – is sold freely in the streets, along with accompanying sex toys. It is making dealers a lot of money; some have abandoned their other products to focus solely on this market.

In a country that is secular, but whose rights are often still dominated by religious sects, the openness to sexual drugs and devices is a relatively recent turn. But the popularity of Viagra has also grown out of necessity.

The war has left the country with tens of thousands of widows, and more men are taking multiple wives, something recently improving wages in certain industries in Iraq is making more feasible.

Military officer Ali Bashir says that the soldiers are some of the biggest buyers of the drug.
“I have many colleagues in my unit and different units around Baghdad who have married two or three wives,” he says. “Military officers are paid well, and besides nowadays in Iraq single women and widows are the majority. Surely, it's better for them to be married.”

Hashim Hameed works at a southern Iraqi oil company and says that good salaries and improved work conditions have encouraged many Iraqis to remarry. Hashim married a new wife after ten years with his first, and says he needs the help.

“I have to provide attention to both wives, and must show them both a lot of caring and love in the same way,” he says. “But I'm 45 and need the extra energy to push me. I've become a very well-known customer!”

However, while there are many happy consumers, doctors are concerned. About 80% of the country's pharmaceuticals are brought in from India, and there is no method of testing the authenticity and safety of the drugs.

Dr. Sajid Khadam says he has come across multiple cases of high blood pressure and heart attacks amongst regular users, and warns against taking the drugs, as they may not be real Viagra but copies manufactured by companies that are not trustworthy.

“These companies understand that Iraq has security problems and they take advantage of that, and spread these drugs all over the country,” he says. “They make Iraqi men their test subjects.”

But despite the warnings, men continue to come from miles away to buy it.

Suhail al-Hasani, a vendor at the popular Baghdad market Bab al-Sharqi, has been nicknamed “the king” by the other vendors, because he has customers from as far away as Basrah in the south, and Mosul in the north.

Suhail says selling Viagra has changed his life. Before, he had no money and had to live with his family. Now he not only has a home, he just bought a 2010 Jeep.

“I have many special customers,” he says, “and I am making a lot of money. I'm buying all the expensive things I can.”

"We're losing many men in terror attacks, and there are a lot of widows left behind,” says Ali, who is 26 and unmarried. “So I promised myself I'd marry a widow."

Then he adds, “...maybe two.”

Nizar Latif contributed to this report from Baghdad.

TEDxBaghdad focuses on women

Sarah Price and Nizar Latif

For Iraqi women, financial circumstances, religious and tribal rules, and social mores can be obstacles to fulfilling their dreams. At last week's TEDxBaghdad, a group of exceptional Iraqi women shared stories of how they overcame their hurdles.

The TED conferences began in 1984 as a way to bring people of different backgrounds together to share ideas. Since then it has spawned TEDGlobal, which focuses on international issues, and the TEDx community conferences in cities around the world. Last week, people from all over Iraq arrived in Baghdad for TEDxBaghdad, which for the first time focused on women.

Yahay AlAbdeli, chairman of TEDxBaghdad, opened the event by talking to the audience about the importance of TED and the significance of women's efforts in Iraq.

“I won't talk too long, though,” he said. “I want to leave the time and words for the women who put this all together.”

The speakers came from diverse backgrounds, but spoke of a similar theme: the importance for women to know what they can achieve – regardless of what stands in the way, which for Iraqi women is not only financial circumstances, but religious and tribal rules, and social mores. In a country where women are still often marginalized, this was a conference of women who had reached their goals anyway, and were determined to help others do the same.

Dr. Luqa'a Finjan, a university professor and a researcher of women studies, launched the day by speaking about the role of women in Iraq's long history, including their roles during war and conflict, particularly the revolts against the British in 1920 and 1941, during which they supported the men and defended their land.

“But, the partnership between Iraq's men and women is now inactive and unequal,” she said. “Women are becoming leaders in Iraq. All Iraq's women need to be able to more easily pursue their education.”
One of the speakers was Zaman Al-Saadi, a schoolteacher with a degree in Arabic literature who became blind due to illness soon after her birth and is now trying to open a school for the blind. She talked about the difficulties adjusting to the world around her as a blind child, experiences she now wants to use to help others in similar situations.

Her studies were difficult because of the lack of tools to help blind students, but she worked hard and earned her degree. Then she faced the next hurdle: finding a job.

“I didn't want my degree to be a piece of paper on my wall at home,” she said, and after three years of jobsearching, she found a job as a teacher.

Many people have asked her how she has managed to achieve so much. Being blind was the motivation to work so hard, she said, and now her struggle motivates her students to work hard, too.

“I'm glad to be an excellent example to my students,” she said. “To be smart and achieve more than I have. I'm blind, but I saw the future. I want to build this school to help other blind children see theirs.”

Noor Jawad completed her higher education, but after finding herself in an area unrelated to her degree she married and started a family. She enjoyed her life until the death of her mother, after which she lived two years in depression. Then her aunt encouraged her to do something for herself.

“My aunt asked me: what are you able to do? What are you creative with? And I said, I am creative with women's accessories,” she told the audience.

From that point, Noor Jawad started watching videos about making accessories, particularly gold jewelry. She said she always incorporates Iraqi culture into her designs, and displayed two of her pieces: a necklace she designed with inspiration from the waterfalls in Kurdistan, and a shawl designed to look like a garden with water pools.

She said she now uses the social media, in which she wanted to build a career, to display the career she has built.

Azhar Omran Al-Tiraihy holds a Master's degree in microbiology and is an advocate of women's development. She spoke about the common problems among Iraqi women, particularly for those who are widowed or divorced, and are trying to support big families on their own.

She decided to start a support group that would meet in a cafe in her hometown of Najaf. Starting with just three participants, she found the biggest challenges to keeping the group going were the religious, tribal and social groups who told them this was a waste of time that took them away from the responsibilities of their families. But they were able to continue, and the number of women coming to the group grew. And so did the number of professionals in it, who could really help the other struggling women.

“We discussed our common problems, and advised each other,” she said. “And some of the women in the group were doctors and lawyers.”

She added that the main problem is that “many women in Iraq don't know their rights.”

She has turned her cafe group into a center for advice and counseling, and as the numbers have grown, so has the diversity of the women, ranging from the very religious to the very well educated.

But for some, higher education seems like an unreachable dream. Suzan Hameed Majeed told the audience how she always enjoyed school, but when she married at 16 she had to leave it. She still had the passion to finish school, but at age 17, became the mother of triplets.

Suzan dedicated herself to raising and teaching them, but one day one of her daughters said something that made her want to return to school.

“She said that at school, sometimes they are asked, what is your mother's degree? And they have no answer. This made me feel deep sorrow and made me more eager to finish my education.”

With her husband's help and support, and an Iraqi program that allows students to study at home and just take the final exams, she was able to work toward her high school diploma.

But the challenges of studying for exams while raising three small children were compounded by one more: her fourth child was on the way. And while she was taking her final exams, she went into labor. But despite the pain, she finished the exams, and later also finished college.
Suzan, who began working for a women's rights organization after graduating, said she wants to be an example to Iraqi women who believe that because they have children they can’t have their degree.

Iraqi oil smuggling leads to confusion and violence

Sarah Price and Nizar Latif
YourMiddleEast.com, November 2012

Iran's growing influence in Iraq and the country's notoriously porous borders are being blamed for the recent increase in reports of oil smuggling.

Many members of parliament claim that the problem is that Iraq has a declining amount of control over its own borders, particularly where it involves Iran, while others fight over who is doing it, and for whose benefit. They have addressed the issue with the government, stating that tighter control of the borders is vital, in order to maintain the national wealth.

Qays al-Shather, an MP from the Iraqiya list cites “official reports,” and claims they prove there are “operations in place to smuggle crude oil abroad to Iraq's neighboring countries, with the assistance of private companies.” He is calling on the government and Iraq's Oil Police to stop the practice.
A source in one of the oil transport companies, who are paid four to five thousand dollars per 30-40-ton tank, said that Tehran transfers large amounts of Iranian oil to Syria through Iraq, with the consent of the Iraqi government, using side roads. Once inside Syria, the oil is protected by army guards.

Mohammed Mulla Hassan, the mayor of Khanaqin, in Diyala province, has accused the Iraqi government and the Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Affairs, Hussain al-Shahristani, of turning a blind eye to Iran stealing from one of Iraq's oldest oil fields, Naft Khana, located in the disputed Kurdish area.

Naft Khana, which is shared between Iran and Iraq, has a production capacity of up to 16,000 barrels a day, but according to oil officials production is currently down to 5,000. Of its 42 oil wells, only four are being used. Hassan says that resuming the extraction of oil from the area would make it harder for Iran to take it, but he says his requests to do so have been ignored.

The shared fields are estimated to have approximately 14 billion barrels of crude oil.

One official, who asked to remain anonymous, said that the oil Iran is taking from Naft Khana is being sent to Syria, in support of the regime.

The government in Baghdad has yet to pass an oil and gas bill that was drafted in 2006, causing confusion and loopholes in the decisions on how to deal with and utilize the resources. Prime Minister Maliki angered Kurdish officials in July when he accused them of smuggling oil. Kurdish officials responded that their oil export practices were within the law, and that they could not wait for Baghdad to pass legislation.

Deputy Parliamentary Speaker Arif Tayfur of the Kurdistan Democratic Party says that the silence of the government and the oil ministry is equivalent to a green light for Iran to sell all the oil as it sees fit. Protests from officials and locals alike have fallen on Iraqi government deaf ears thus far.

Besides the state-approved removal of oil by Iran, smuggling has also become rampant among gangs, siphoning the oil out of Iraqi pipelines to neighboring countries through the Persian Gulf. This not only deprives Iraq of much-needed revenue for job creation and infrastructure rebuilding, it is also a source of violence and terrorism due to turf wars.

Iraqis who feel forgotten weigh in on US elections

Sarah Price
YourMiddleEast.com, November 2012

Since the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq in December 2011, US politics as a regular topic of conversation among Iraqis has waned.

Conversations in clubs and cafés, which used to revolve largely around US politics and the involvement between the two countries, have now turned to matters of Iraqi security and political issues, which are widely believed to have grown worse since the withdrawal.

The United States has played a large role in Iraq since Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent war. But Washington and Baghdad became allies after the 2003 overthrow of the Ba'ath Party regime, and the political involvement between the two countries has been designed to continue this on path.

However, some Iraqis are skeptical since the withdrawal and are growing more hopeless that the rebuilding of their country that they felt had been promised will not happen at all now, and that maybe their best interests are not being considered.

Many now feel deserted by the US, citing their continued lack of infrastructure, jobs and security as a sign that they have been left with a mess they can't fix, and a formidable foe next door, against whom they cannot defend themselves alone.

"Iraq has a weak government now, so the outcome of the American election tells the future of our country,” says Dara Jabar, a Kurd from Erbil. “The next American president will say whether Iraq becomes a strong, independent country, or whether our neighbor countries have power over us.”

High school teacher Yussief al-Jbouri finds US foreign policy to be weak regarding this issue, and wants to see a change, regardless of who takes office next.

“My biggest fear is that the next American president will be as weak as Obama was toward foreign policy,” he says, “and that Iran will have a way to dominate us. They want our country, they want to limit Sunni power, and they want us as a backyard to do whatever they want.”

Adnan al-Sarag, a former military officer, agrees that the limits on Iran have not been strong enough, but thinks Pres. Obama can do a good job, if there is more focus on Iraq's economy and independence.

“I hope we can build a strong economic relationship with the US, so we can rebuild our country,” he says.

Preference from Sunnis in the north and west leans toward Governor Mitt Romney as the next US president, as many of them believe he will limit Iranian power in Iraq.

Romney says he wants to back Israel's use of force to stop Iran's nuclear armament, while Obama wants to engage in talks with them. Many are worried that Iraq is going to become a war field between Iran, Israel, and the US.

In the meantime, many Iraqis just want to see that the US is on their side.

“We don't want more destruction to our country,” says al-Jbouri. “But right now, there is no one to help us.”

Nizar Latif contributed to this report from Baghdad

Scars of War Lead to Depression and Drug Abuse Among Iraqi Women

By Sarah Price

YourMiddleEast.com, October 2012

Decades of violence in Iraq have taken their toll on the country and its citizens, leading many to do things out of necessity for survival that otherwise would never be an option.

For some men this means joining militant groups because they pay when there is no other work to be found, while women may have to turn to prostitution to help support their families.

But for most women, the threat of violence on the streets has made them prisoners in their own homes, with little contact outside of their families. The religious and tribal norms make it very difficult to talk about, much less get help for, the depression many of them now suffer. As a consequence, drugs have become an underground escape.

Areej Mohan is a 33-year-old housewife. Although married for five years, she has no children and finds herself alone most of the time. Her husband doesn't allow her much time with family and friends, and the feelings of loneliness and forced solitude have led to depression, and about a year ago, drug addiction. The advice of her family is to stay in the marriage, as divorce still brings tribal and societal shame to families there.

Areej started using drugs when a friend who was also having trouble at home began using them to ease the stress, and advised her to do the same.

“I started taking the pills, but after a few months, my husband started to notice strange behavior from me, and wanted to know what was wrong,” she says. “But I refused to tell him what I was doing, and he beat me.”

Thinking she had an illness, he sent her to a doctor, who told him her behavior was the result of drug use. He put further restrictions on Areej’s time outside of the house, trying to prevent her access to more drugs. However, when he was away for long periods of time she would still find a way to get to her friends and continue taking the pills.

Areej now says that she is trying to break the addiction and get healthy, but that it is hard to do as the causes of the addiction have not changed. She still feels very lonely, like it is just her and four walls.

19-year-old Baghdad University student Hajer Raheem's drug addiction started a year and a half ago, when she was still in high school. She says it is becoming common among Iraqi girls, as they have to stay out of the public so much. The socializing that would normally relieve stress in their lives is not only unavailable as an option, but could also be dangerous.

In the past two years, Hajer lost her father and brother in separate terrorist attacks.

“My life is school and home, maybe a few friends, but nothing more,” she says. “Since I was a kid, there has been nothing but killing and terrorist action around me.”

Hajer’s mother is now the sole support for her and her three sisters. She says that since terrorism has taken her family members, drugs are the only way to forget her sorrow. When she and her friends are able to see each other, they smoke hashish and talk.

She says that people seem to think all the weight and troubles are on the men's shoulders, but that the women are carrying that too.

“We share those men's lives, and we take on more responsibilities and suffering than they do.”

Um Zaydon is a well-known dealer in some Baghdad districts, and has access to a wide variety of drugs. Because of a system of drug imports from Iran, she is also well protected by police and politicians. But when asked about this, she quickly changes the subject. Her business involves only women, selling and buying, and she says that the use is becoming more common and widespread.

“I have several hundred clients, and it is growing. I do it to help them have some happiness out of all the rough times they are going through.”

Dr. Mushtaq Talib, the director of an anti-drug program in the health ministry, says there is no reliable figure for the number of women with drug addictions, saying that due to tribal customs and traditions, it is hard to get an accurate number.

“The families often don't report it, because they believe it will bring shame and dishonor to their families and tribes,” she says. “But some women are starting to come forward, and are seeking help.”

“My whole life, I've been raised to be careful about terrorists,” says Hajer. “It has threatened me since I was a child. I believe I am going to die from a terrorist attack one day. I would rather be high when it happens, so I won't have to feel it.”

Nizar Latif contributed to this report from Baghdad