The Rag Blog

the Iraqi Medium Basic Salary = $300

A month is 30 days à $10 daily

20 Liters of Kerosene = $17 = enough for 12 hours of heating four kerosene heaters

20 liters of Gasoline = $12 = 120 km for a car and 8 hours for an 8Kv Generator

1 (16 Kg) LPG cylinder (cooking gas) = $ 20 enough for a week cooking

1 kilogram of tomatoes = $1.5

6 pieces of unleavened bread (Staple food) = $ 0.95

1 Kilo of Beef = $10

1 amp of hired street electricity = $9 for 7 hours a day/ per month of 185 Volts

Unrelated? Confusing?

If we understand that the national electricity grid provides is only two hours a “day” (one hour each 12 hours) then we conclude that electricity is useless in providing Heating, Water Boilers etc.

If we rely on hired electricity and a boiler works on 3500 Watts that means you need 15 Amps that’s $135 just for seven hours of Hot Water per month.

Kerosene for four heaters working Twelve Hours daily = $2040

Etc

Etc

Etc.

Al-Hayat this morning brings together three big Iraq stories: (1) Problems with the new security plan showing up before it even starts; (2) followup to the Syria-immigration story; and (3) the Najaf-Zarka debacle. Although the reporter doesn’t make the point in any explicit way, I think in conjunction with other recent events, these can be seen as signs of the end-times, if not for the world as a whole, at least for the Maliki administration.

(1) Security. The Al-Hayat reporter writes:

Iraqi security officials say the armed groups are changing strategy with each government announcement about the “new plan”. Interior Ministry spokesman…said “The terrorists’ strategy changes as the government’s strategy changes.” And he added: “It is the takfiiri groups that are primarily responsible for the collapse of security, and the Sadriya calamity is proof positive that these groups have very strong intelligence that lets them know about each change and alteration that the government makes together with its security ministries”.
What did he mean about “proof positive”? The following may or may not be relevant. The self-styled “Iraqi resistance reports” posted in English on Albasrah.net include this for last Saturday, after reporting on the truck-bombing at the Sadriya market:
Two days before Saturday’s truck bombing, the same building was raided by US occupation troops who arrested nine people and found and took away the bodies of two Sunni youths who had been detained on the second floor of the building, which served as a Shi‘i sectarian slaughter house for Sunnis.

Local witnesses said that the Americans also found Sunni prisoners being detained in the building. The Americans set the prisoners free and tuned the bodies of the two dead victims over to al-Yarmuk Hospital but made no further investigation or announcement about the Jaysh al-Mahdi death squad stronghold.

Of course it is possible that the government spokeman only meant that the truckbombers knew of the absence of checkpoints and so on. But that wouldn’t be “strong intelligence”.

Still on the security theme, the Al-Hayat reporter adds this:

Another military leader, insisting on anonymity, expressed skepticism about the possibilities for success of the new plan. He told Al-Hayat that terrorist operations are esclating ahead of implementation of the plan, and that in itself represents a setback, because the plan calls for eradication of these gangs.

And that reallly dovetails nicely [the reporter notes in conclusion] with what observers say about the latest US intelligence report [referring to the NIE] where it talks about the dangers of civil war, namely that it is an attempt to provide cover for the failure of the announced new security plan, at a time when there is this domestic American debate about the next strategy and the need to send more troops.

The Peace Movement Ups the Ante on Demands to Congress to Cut War Funding

“Senator Clinton, we’re blocking your door, until you cut this web of war!” was the chant heard through the halls of Congress outside Hillary Clinton’s office last Tuesday, where activists with the women’s peace group, CODEPINK, asked Hillary to stop supporting funding for the war in Iraq. 50 activists entered Hillary’s office and effectively wove themselves into a web of pink yarn and ribbons to symbolize the senator’s web of deception and the innocent people—Americans and Iraqis—caught in it. The group asked Hillary to pledge to fund college scholarships and healthcare, an issue the senator triumphs, not bombs and destruction. Activists held banners that bared slogans such as, “Hillary: Be a Woman for Peace” and “It takes an Invasion to Raze a Village,” and donned pink slips with the “Cut the Funding” message. After being forced out of Clinton’s office, six women were arrested while blocking Clinton’s door.

Those arrested included three Bay Area residents—Heather Box, Leslie Angeline, and myself. We were compelled to urge Senator Clinton to take leadership from our representatives, Lynn Woolsey and Barbara Lee, and stand up for peace. New York resident and arrested activist Sonia Silbert captured this sentiment when she said, “As young women we’ve been inspired by the powerful women who have paved the way and we’ve all been waiting to vote for a woman for president. But we want a woman who stands for values we can be proud of: the values of peace and justice, and healthcare not warfare.” Heather Box also stated, “I am here to represent my friends that are serving in Iraq because they cannot be here- and they want to be here. They want to come home and they want to be taken care of when they get here.”

The Justice Department is completing rules to allow the collection of DNA from most people arrested or detained by federal authorities, a vast expansion of DNA gathering that will include hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, by far the largest group affected.

The new forensic DNA sampling was authorized by Congress in a little-noticed amendment to a January 2006 renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, which provides protections and assistance for victims of sexual crimes. The amendment permits DNA collecting from anyone under criminal arrest by federal authorities, and also from illegal immigrants detained by federal agents.

Over the last year, the Justice Department has been conducting an internal review and consulting with other agencies to prepare regulations to carry out the law.

The goal, justice officials said, is to make the practice of DNA sampling as routine as fingerprinting for anyone detained by federal agents, including illegal immigrants. Until now, federal authorities have taken DNA samples only from convicted felons.

The law has strong support from crime victims’ organizations and some women’s groups, who say it will help law enforcement identify sexual predators and also detect dangerous criminals among illegal immigrants.

“Obviously, the bigger the DNA database, the better,” said Lynn Parrish, the spokeswoman for the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, based in Washington. “If this had been implemented years ago, it could have prevented many crimes. Rapists are generalists. They don’t just rape, they also murder.”

Peter Neufeld, a lawyer who is a co-director of the Innocence Project, which has exonerated dozens of prison inmates using DNA evidence, said the government was overreaching by seeking to apply DNA sampling as universally as fingerprinting.

“Whereas fingerprints merely identify the person who left them,” Mr. Neufeld said, “DNA profiles have the potential to reveal our physical diseases and mental disorders. It becomes intrusive when the government begins to mine our most intimate matters.”

Immigration lawyers said they did not learn of the measure when it passed last year and were dismayed by its sweeping scope.

BAGHDAD, 4 February (IRIN) – Fatah Barakat, 10, will never forget getting caught in crossfire between Iraqi militia fighters and US-led forces in Sadr City, a suburb of Baghdad, a year ago. A grenade that exploded near him blew off his right leg. Now, Fatah has a habit of holding onto his left leg.

“Since I lost one of my legs, I like to make sure that the other one is still here. My mother tells me that I have to stop doing this. But it is hard for me, knowing that I will never be able to play like other children and play football as I used to do every day,” Fatah said.

Fatah’s life has changed dramatically since the tragic incident. His mother has stopped him from going outside because she does not want him to get injured and he is shy about having only one leg.

“Once, I was out in shorts and my friends started to laugh at me saying that I was a useless boy and could only play dominos,” he said.

Fatah’s mother has been frantically looking for some form of assistance for her son but all she got so far is five kilos of rice from an NGO.

“When I ask NGOs or the government for a wheelchair for my child, or to pay for surgery or even an artificial leg, they just answer me by saying that people are dying every day and others getting displaced and they don’t have time to worry about just one child,” Rand Muhammad, Barakat’s mother, said.

As opposition grows in America to the failed Iraq adventure, the Bush administration is preparing public opinion for an attack on Iran, its latest target, by the spring.

The United States is planning what will be a catastrophic attack on Iran. For the Bush cabal, the attack will be a way of “buying time” for its disaster in Iraq. In announcing what he called a “surge” of American troops in Iraq, George W Bush identified Iran as his real target. “We will interrupt the flow of support [to the insurgency in Iraq] from Iran and Syria,” he said. “And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.”

“Networks” means Iran. “There is solid evidence,” said a State Department spokesman on 24 January, “that Iranian agents are involved in these networks and that they are working with individuals and groups in Iraq and are being sent there by the Iranian government.” Like Bush’s and Tony Blair’s claim that they had irrefutable evidence that Saddam Hussein was deploying weapons of mass destruction, the “evidence” lacks all credibility. Iran has a natural affinity with the Shia majority of Iraq, and has been implacably opposed to al-Qaeda, condemning the 9/11 attacks and supporting the United States in Afghanistan. Syria has done the same. Investigations by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and others, including British military officials, have concluded that Iran is not engaged in the cross-border supply of weapons. General Peter Pace, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said no such evidence exists.

As the American disaster in Iraq deepens and domestic and foreign opposition grows, “neo-con” fanatics such as Vice-President Dick Che- ney believe their opportunity to control Iran’s oil will pass unless they act no later than the spring. For public consumption, there are potent myths. In concert with Israel and Washington’s Zionist and fundamentalist Christian lobbies, the Bushites say their “strategy” is to end Iran’s nuclear threat.

In fact, Iran possesses not a single nuclear weapon, nor has it ever threatened to build one; the CIA estimates that, even given the political will, Iran is incapable of building a nuclear weapon before 2017, at the earliest. Unlike Israel and the United States, Iran has abided by the rules of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which it was an original signatory, and has allowed routine inspections under its legal obligations – until gratuitous, punitive measures were added in 2003, at the behest of Washington. No report by the International Atomic Energy Agency has ever cited Iran for diverting its civilian nuclear programme to military use.

The IAEA has said that for most of the past three years its inspectors have been able to “go anywhere and see anything”. They inspected the nuclear installations at Isfahan and Natanz on 10 and 12 January and will return on 2 to 6 February. The head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, says that an attack on Iran will have “catastrophic consequences” and only encourage the regime to become a nuclear power.

Unlike its two nemeses, the US and Israel, Iran has attacked no other countries. It last went to war in 1980 when invaded by Saddam Hussein, who was backed and equipped by the US, which supplied chemical and biological weapons produced at a factory in Maryland. Unlike Israel, the world’s fifth military power – with its thermo nuclear weapons aimed at Middle East targets and an unmatched record of defying UN resolutions, as the enforcer of the world’s longest illegal occupation – Iran has a history of obeying international law and occupies no territory other than its own.

Three former high-ranking American military officers have warned against any military attack on Iran. They said such action would have “disastrous consequences” for security in the Middle East and also for coalition forces in Iraq.

They said the crisis over Tehran’s nuclear programme must be resolved through diplomacy, urging Washington to start direct talks with Iran.

The letter was published in Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper.

It was signed by:

* Lt Gen Robert Gard, a former military assistant to the US defence secretary

* Gen Joseph Hoar, a former commander-in-chief, US Central Command

* Vice Adm Jack Shanahan, a former director of the Center for Defense Information

“As former US military leaders, we strongly caution against the use of military force against Iran,” the authors said.

They said such action would further exacerbate regional and global tensions.

WASHINGTON — Bush administration officials acknowledged Friday that they had yet to compile evidence strong enough to back up publicly their claims that Iran is fomenting violence against U.S. troops in Iraq.

Administration officials have long complained that Iran was supplying Shiite Muslim militants with lethal explosives and other materiel used to kill U.S. military personnel. But despite several pledges to make the evidence public, the administration has twice postponed the release — most recently, a briefing by military officials scheduled for last Tuesday in Baghdad.

“The truth is, quite frankly, we thought the briefing overstated, and we sent it back to get it narrowed and focused on the facts,” national security advisor Stephen J. Hadley said Friday.

The acknowledgment comes amid shifting administration messages on Iran. After several weeks of saber rattling that included a stiff warning by President Bush and the dispatch of two aircraft carrier strike groups to the Persian Gulf, near Iran, the administration has insisted in recent days that it does not want to escalate tensions or to invade Iran.

Feb. 4, 2007 — The price tag for the Iraq War is now estimated at $700 billion in direct costs and perhaps twice that much when indirect expenditures are included. Cost estimates vary — Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz puts the total cost at more than $2 trillion — but let’s be conservative and say it’s only $1 trillion (in today’s dollars).

As a number of other commentators have recently written, this number — a 1 followed by 12 zeroes — can be put into perspective in various ways. Given how large the war looms, it doesn’t hurt to repeat this simple exercise with other examples and in other ways.

Different Monetary Units

There are many comparisons that might be made, and devising new governmental monetary units is one way to make them. Consider, for example, that the value of one EPA, the annual budget of the Environmental Protection Agency, is about $7.5 billion. The cost of the Iraq War is thus more than a century’s worth of EPA spending (in today’s dollars), almost 130 EPAs, only a small handful of which would probably have been sufficient to clean up Superfund sites around the country.

Or note that the annual budget for the Department of Education is about $55 billion, which puts the price tag for Iraq at about 18 EDs. Just a few of these EDs would certainly have put muscle into the slogan “No child left behind.”

And since the annual budgets of the National Science Foundation and the National Cancer Institute are $6 billion and $5 billion, respectively, the $1 trillion war cost is equivalent to 170 NSFs and 200 NCIs. No doubt a couple of those NSFs could have been used to develop cheap hybrid cars and alternative fuels. Scientific progress is by its nature unpredictable, but some extra NCIs might also have lead to breakthroughs in cancer treatment.

The success of the Bush administration’s new Iraq strategy depends on a series of rapid and dramatic political and economic reforms that even the plan’s authors have little confidence will work.

In the current go-for-broke atmosphere, administration officials say they are aware that failure to achieve the reforms would result in a repeat of last year’s unsuccessful Baghdad offensive, when efforts to consolidate military gains with lasting stability on the ground did not work. This time, they acknowledge, there will be no second chance.

Among many deep uncertainties are whether Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is up to the task and committed to spearheading what the administration foresees as a fundamental realignment of Iraqi politics; whether Maliki’s Shiite-dominated government and its sluggish financial bureaucracy will part with $10 billion for rapid job creation and reconstruction, at least some of it directed to sectarian opponents; and whether the U.S. military and State Department can calibrate their own stepped-up reconstruction assistance to push for action without once again taking over.

A pessimistic new National Intelligence Estimate released Friday described the Iraqi government as “hard-pressed” to achieve sectarian reconciliation, even in the unlikely event that violence diminishes. Without directly mentioning Maliki, it noted that “the absence of unifying leaders among the Arab Sunni or Shia with the capacity to speak for or exert control over their confessional groups limits prospects.”

Several senior officials involved in formulating the political and economic aspects of the administration’s strategy, along with a number of informed outsiders, agreed to discuss its assumptions and risks on the condition that they not be identified by name. Other sources refused to be even anonymously quoted, describing the administration as standing on the brink of an intricate combination of maneuvers whose outcome is far from assured.

The foundation of the strategy is not new — U.S. policy since the March 2003 invasion has been to use American military might, money and know-how to foster a peaceful Iraq with a unified government and a solid economy. The strategy incorporates major elements of last year’s “clear, hold and build” plan, whose “hold and build” parts never got off the ground.