About Iraq

Cecil T asked:


I’m anxious to see how many of the Republican candidates will distance themselves from George W. Bush and the war in Iraq.

How many of the candidates are going to throw rhetorical fire-bombs at the Bush/Cheney administration?

Maureen

asked:


Mumbai, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is pleased to announce that it has executed two Production Sharing Contracts with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) covering petroleum exploration activities in the Rovi and Sarta Blocks in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

Under the terms of the contract, Reliance Exploration & Production DMCC, a wholly owned subsidiary of RIL, will serve as the operator.

Mr. Atul Chandra, President of International Operations, RIL, said, “We are pleased to reach agreement with the KRG on these two PSCs. We hope and believe this will be an investment that will provide long-term benefits to all the stakeholders.”

RIL established a local office in Erbil in 2006 and has undertaken extensive geological work over the past year in the Kurdistan region.

RIL has been actively pursuing petroleum exploration activities in the Middle East, particularly in Oman and Yemen, besides India, Asia Pacific Region and South America.

Reliance Industries Limited

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is India’s largest private sector company on all major financial parameters with turnover of Rs1,18,354 crore (US$ 27.23 billion), cash profit of Rs17,678 crore (US$ 4.07 billion), net profit of Rs11,943 crore (US$ 2.75 billion) and net worth of Rs63, 967 crore (US$ 14.72 billion) as of March 31, 2007.

RIL is the first and only private sector company from India to feature in the Fortune Global 500 list of ‘World’s Largest Corporations’ and ranks amongst the world’s Top 200 companies in terms of profits. RIL is amongst the 25 fastest climbers ranked by Fortune. RIL also features in the Forbes Global list of world’s 400 best big companies and in FT Global 500 list of world’s largest companies.

Dustin

Vicky V asked:


When his time in Iraq is over, how long does it take for a Marine to get home from Iraq?
Three days ago he sent his last email he was waiting on transportation out of Iraq and since then no mail, no nothing. What happend.

Matthew

Ozzie Freedom asked:


No matter what argument the USA government has put forward on why they had to do the Iraq war, it’s obvious that OIL is one of the reasons for the war. And because of this war in Iraq, US soldiers continue to die on a daily basis. And no matter how much you hate and scuff at the US government for the war, they didn’t have much choice. The people of USA need the oil and the government has to get it for them at ANY cost. Even at the cost of its soldiers’ lives. But do you know what is tragic? It’s the fact that such deaths from such wars as the Iraq war can be avoided! They can be avoided if we can reduce our dependence on oil. And we can reduce our dependence on oil by using alternative energy to power our vehicles and other such fuel consuming machines such as generators. As incredible as this sounds, it’s possible and even now a reality. we can do without all that oil that we consume on a daily basis, not only in the USA but all over the world. The oil we consume in powering our cars and other vehicles can be reduced drastically… … by powering our vehicles with WATER! Yes, you heard that right. We can now power our cars with water and by so doing reduce our dependence on oil. The less we get dependent on oil, the less we would need to get involved in such wars as that in Iraq. And the less we get involved in such wars, the less our soldiers will die! So, yes, you too can get involved in helping to save the lives of US soldiers in Iraq by powering your car with water and helping to spread the word about it.

Florence

Heyyygirlheyyy asked:


I hear that quadband phones should work. I have a quadband phone from AT&T. I am aware that prices will be higher, though. If I get an international roaming plan with that phone should that work out? Or could I atleast use a sim-card from Iraq? Please respond with helpful information.

June

James William Smith asked:


I had a disturbing dream about war, politics, and the result of the 2008 Presidential election the other day. Like many dreams, it was created from a combination of current events like the war in Iraq and the 2008 Presidential election mixed with a healthy dose of United States foreign policy insecurity.

It is interesting how the mind takes this combination of thoughts and creates a narrative and formulates a story. Let me share the dream with you, with the prospect that it will remain just a bad dream. Hopefully the next President of the United States will be very successful and the end of the war in Iraq will ensure a lasting peace in the Middle East.

In the dream, the front page of the New York Times, on this warm late August morning of 2009, is full of murky Middle East headlines. It is very apparent that the Middle East is on the verge of a full scale regional war. The prospect of war in the region has already doubled the price of a barrel of oil to near $200. For the first time, the word depression is openly being used in Washington and London to describe the potential impact of rapidly escalating oil prices to the economies of countries in the western world.

In Iraq, the situation has rapidly become untenable since the withdrawal of most the United States military in July. In fact, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki resigned yesterday amid growing chaos and instability in the country. Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi army of 10,000 militia now openly control the streets of Baghdad.

In fact, the front page of the New York Times shows the picture of al-Sadr as he declares his allegiance to the country of Iran. Meanwhile, an Iraqi civil war between Shia Muslims and Sunni Muslims has been ongoing for the last two months. Hardly a day now goes by that a new atrocity is not reported by the worldwide press. It is also being reported that Iranian troops are consolidating near the Iraq border. An invasion of Iraq by Iran may now be only days away.

In Saudi Arabia, the House of Saud is in trouble. Shia Muslims are in open revolt while pledging loyalty to the new dominant power in the Middle East and their Shia brethren in Tehran. Al- Qaeda’s influence in the country is growing as evidenced by the increasing unrest. The terrorist group is actively looking for an end to the reign of the ruling Saudi royal family.

Iran has been even more belligerent than usual in the last several days. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad states that he will declare war on Israel if they bomb any Iranian nuclear facility. He repeated his previous vow to wipe the Zionist entity Israel off of the map and again insisted that the cancerous growth called Israel would soon disappear.

Numerous intelligence sources have indicated that, irrespective of three United Nations resolutions containing sanctions, Iran may now be only less than two years away from having a nuclear bomb. Despite these disturbing intelligence reports, the United Nations will not support additional sanctions to stop Iran from acquiring weapons of mass destruction. Iran continues to receive support from Russia and China in the United Nations Security Council. The New York Times reports that an effort to introduce further sanctions initiated by the United Kingdom and the United States has just failed..

Iran has also been bolstered by its recent public alliance with Syria and its President Bashar al- Assad. Even though Syria has been aiding Iran for years by supporting the terrorist organization, Hezbollah, the declared public alliance between the two countries is alarming indeed. In a war to come, Syria would like to take the Golan Heights from Israel as a fresh water source and strategic security point for Damascus.

In Israel, rumors abound that the new Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is about to bomb strategic Iranian nuclear facilities both above and below ground. Israel has been in a constant state of attack for months from the Iranian sponsored terror groups of Hamas and Hezbollah. Last week for the first time a Hezbollah rocket reached into Tel Aviv. Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah has referred to Israel again as a “temporary country.”

I finished reading the newspaper stories in time to watch the televised press conference of United States President Barack Obama concerning the escalating crisis in the Middle East. The young President has been severely criticized in recent days for his inexperience in the affairs of United States foreign policy. Many think honoring his Presidential election campaign pledge of immediate military withdrawal from Iraq has greatly contributed to this escalating crisis.

However, there were additional factors that led to the United States military withdrawal. American troops in Iraq were needed to stabilize the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan where NATO forces have failed to secure peace. The truth is the nations of western Europe never made the necessary troop commitment in the country.

In addition, American’s had grown weary of spending all of the country’s treasure in support of the administration of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. His unstable, dysfunctional government was never very effective in creating a governing consensus among the various ethnic factions in Iraq.

In the press conference, President Obama read a statement about the need for dialogue with all the different leaders in the region and about the power of hope. It is clear that this Middle East crisis is about to get worse. In retrospect, the invasion of Iraq by George Bush (43) may turn out to be a military blunder of historic proportions.

The stark reality is that after our recent military withdrawal from the region that it is too late for dialogue to avoid war in 2009. As for hope, it sounded great in last November’s 2008 Presidential election sound bites. However, like Republican John McCain’s dubious, costly, open-ended plan which may have required the military to be in Iraq for the next fifty to one hundred years, “hope” was never a realistic strategy for peace in Iraq or the Middle East.

Russell

Richard Stoyeck asked:


It looks like President Bush is going to announce a “temporary increase” in the number of American troops serving in Iraq. The President is adding complexity to a series of wrong decisions he has made since the beginning of the invasion. It is difficult to imagine how a surge in American troops can fix a self-created problem?

We have made the same mistake that five star General Douglas MacArthur warned about with regard to Asia, “Never get involved in a land war in Asia.” Presidents Kennedy and Johnson didn’t heed the advice, and the rest is history. Now once again, we have a President who has involved us voluntarily (the US was never attacked directly or indirectly by the evil Saddam Hussein) in a land war in an Arab country where suicide bombers are as common as a cup of coffee.

The basis of General MacArthur’s advice was that life is cheap in Asia. Our country will tire, and the public will to continue the effort will wane before the opposition will tire of losing lives. The same advice applies to the Middle East as it did to Asia. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and the Mullah’s Iran lost several hundred thousand men in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980’s, and neither felt the loss. The United States openly backed Saddam Hussein during the war, and prevented an Iranian victory by stepping in with arms and intelligence information.

Our President on the other hand continues to get very bad advice from the same people that initiated this effort. Let’s look at history to understand what’s going on. Saddam Hussein was a tyrant just like all the other tyrants in that section of the world. Goggle “Hama Massacre”, and you will see how the Syrian leadership killed tens of thousands of their own people in 1982. When the Mullahs took over Iran and deposed the Shah, perhaps several hundred thousand people died as a result.

The history of the entire region is one of violence, instability, anarchy, and uncertainty. In that simple sentence you will understand why our President’s desire to install a democracy in Iraq cannot work. Every country in the Middle East has an unstable regime ruling a society whose members have low tolerance for one another, and are inherently volatile. Even if our President were successful in forcing our democratic principles on the people of Iraq, the whole system would of necessity fall apart in a matter of months to a year or two, as a new equilibrium would be formed among the warring factions.

This is not George Bush’s fault. He has simply allowed himself to be misguided as to the reality of the day to day situation in Iraq. His advisors have failed him miserably, and he has failed America in not changing his advisers quickly enough to understand what he is dealing with.

The primary goal of all American Presidents and not the Congress is to determine for our country what our interests should be. The President then must create policy to advance our interests. It is not a coincidence that the first invasion of Iraq in 1990 took place shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union. Our Middle East policy up until that point was to prevent Soviet penetration, and domination of the OIL RICH Middle East.

With the fall of the Soviet Union, our policy became to PREVENT any one country in the region from creating hegemony over the region (the reason being OIL). This was Saddam’s SIN. He attempted to control the oil wealth of the region by invading Kuwait, and therefore neutralizing Saudi Arabia. This had to be prevented at all costs. In 1990, the cost was a US led coalition to remove Saddam as a threat to the oil stability of the region, and that is why the first President Bush never marched to Baghdad. Saddam’s removal from Kuwait was enough to insure that hegemony would not be created.

Somehow the current President Bush got it into his mind Saddam still represented a threat to the stability of the region, and therefore invaded again. In doing so, he has opened Pandora’s Box. Once that box was opened, no one can predict with any accuracy how this is going to play out. We have certainly done a number of things, none of which play to our favor:

1) We have strengthened and emboldened Iran. We are no longer in a position to threaten Iran with invasion for continuing its nuclear program. We do not have the force structure to back up our threats.
2) We have strengthened Syria in the same way as Iran.
3) We have aggravated the Arab-Israeli situation by weakening our own image as an honest third party to the conflict.
4) We have destabilized Iraq as a country, and as a functioning state, with no endgame in mind.
5) We have placed our prestige on the line, and are at the lowest level of respect in our allies’ eyes since World War II.
6) Our position as the moral guiding force of this planet is in jeopardy.
7) We have started a war that we do not know how to finish.

What the President must do RIGHT NOW is recognize where we are at. This is why he lost the Congress in the last election. Americans are never sitting stay, or watch idly. We are an active nation. If the President isn’t moving fast enough, the people will elect others who will?

Our current troops should be used only to train Iraqi forces, both police and military, and not act as combatants in a country whose government we already defeated. If the President finds it mandatory to deploy additional troops, again these additional forces should only be used to train Iraqi forces, not to intervene. This is no CIVIL WAR, with Moslem pitted against Moslem, and sect against sect. This is not about Catholic versus Protestant, or Jew versus Arab. This is all taking place within the context of the same religion. It is even taking place within the same sects. Sunni is also killing Sunni, and Shia is killing Shia. We could never hope to be able to intervene against such wanton killing.

We are after all a democracy, the beacon of light in world where there is much darkness. Our continued efforts in Iraq may weaken this country so much more that it could result in potentially nuclear Iran creating the regional hegemony that we tried to prevent Iraq from creating. Wouldn’t that be a sad state of affairs? We replace one monster with another.

Goodbye and Good Luck

Gerald

Proskyneo asked:


And, in effect, cause a situation where the Cold War will now resume? So, in effect, did the USA let its guard down and ignore the real threat it faces, as an expense for the pursuit of war against Iraq?

Oscar

Donnie2020 asked:


I don’t like the fact that troops are in Iraq but I recognise we can’t cut and run now the choice has been made.

The problem I have is there is no way to know what success in Iraq looks like. It has never been quantified.

Benchmarks would mean we would know what to look out for.

It would mean that the Iraq War is not open ended and has specific goals.

It would also mean that they would have to focus their efforts on meeting the benchmarks they have made public or they would face criticism.

Until benchmarks are created many more troops will die in this endless war.

Benchmarking will save lives and it needs to happen.

The goals will eventually be reached and the public will see an end in sight for this disaster.

More importantly Iraq may have a chance of peace one day.

What do you think?

Tanya

Catherine Harvey asked:


There are many reasons that people choose to invest in foreign property. For most it can mean the start of a whole new life, often somewhere hot and relaxed and the chance to live out their dream. It then becomes a cheap holiday spot for friends and family who will descend on you at all times of the year and you will never be alone. Never!

So, where to invest in a foreign property that will stop all but the keenest of family visiting? Well, how’s this for an idea? Buy a foreign property in Iraq.
Why would you want to buy a property in a country that has seen nothing more than war and terrorism for the last thirty years? Why, when there are reports in the paper everyday of the trouble and strife in Iraq would you want to invest in it, let alone move your family out into the centre of it?

Surprisingly, Iraq has a lot going for it. The Seventies saw a real tourism boon for Iraq. It has beautifully hot weather, amazing scenery, lush greenery and a unique contrast between its ancient history and archaeological interests and all the mod cons of today. Some of these sites have suffered massively during the turbulent years but these are a relatively happy and forward thinking people and are doing everything they can to restore the country to its former glory and encourage people to visit again.

But this is exactly what makes it the up and coming place to buy a foreign property. Places can still be snapped up while the country struggles to regain its composure and will leave you with a property worth much more than you paid for it along with a beautiful place to live. In fact, one area of Iraq, The Tarin Hills, have had vast amounts of the country’s money poured into it to build a whole community that is both beautiful and safe.

The Tarin Hills project covers 16 million square meters of land and encompasses its own golf course surrounded by houses that exude luxury and convenience. The complex is gated and secure and comes fully equipped with health centre, business park, schools, retail complexes, water and theme parks, craft centre, art complexes and business hotels. For accommodation, you can choose a country style lodge, villa, townhouse or apartment depending on your budget.

So, what’s not to like? The obvious concern is the fighting but Iraq is a big place and even the locals in the war torn zone live by the rule that life goes on. However, The Tarin Hills are far from this area and all you need to see is beautiful, lush scenery, perfectly constructed buildings and a community that all aims for peace and stability. This is a little haven in amongst a place that has a bad reputation.

All modern amenities are in place such as high speed wireless internet services and you get everything that you could enjoy from a community where everybody wants the same thing. Business prospects are good in the area, investment opportunities are all around and the government are doing all they can to pick up the tourism trade. The country has always had tourists, particularly the religious type, and this is being expanded to encourage anybody that would want to see a beautiful part of the world that they would normally not consider.

Julie