A Catastrophe on the Way

In today’s papers and news websites, a new scandal and a predictable catastrophe are revealed to the world. The Iraqi corrupt government, which has done nothing positive since it came to power, wasted $27 Million which was supposed to be used for the reconstruction of the Mosul Dam. According to the BBC, a US watchdog said reconstruction of the dam had been plagued by mismanagement and potential fraud, and that among the faults were faulty construction and delivery of improper parts, as well as projects which were not completed despite full payments having been made.

Due to the corruption and misuse of the funds, the dam is now in serious danger of an imminent collapse that could unleash a trillion-gallon wave of water, possibly killing as much as 500,000 people and flooding two of the largest cities in the country, according to new assessments by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other U.S. officials, the Washington Post reported. Out of concern, the top US military commander in Iraq, Gen David Petraeus, and US ambassador Ryan Crocker then wrote to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki urging him to make fixing the dam a "national priority". Recklessly, the government ignored all the calls to save the city from a possible flood, Iraqi authorities say they are taking steps to reduce the risk and they do not believe there is cause for alarm.

This government and parliament need to be spat at for the failure of every thing. No water, no electricity, no fuel, no schools, no safe streets and neighborhoods, and now what? A broken dam! Damn!!! A possible flood! As if the number of Iraqis dying everyday is nothing! How are people in Mosul supposed to digest this news? Flood?! Where would they go? It’s even dangerous to go from one city to the other!

This government must be replaced. All these politicians need to be changed. None of them have even brought up the subject in the parliament session. You know why? Because they were busy fighting and spitting at each other.

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com

Working Class Hero

Awesome song...



They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
Till you're so ------- crazy you can't follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

[Working Class Hero lyrics on http://www.metrolyrics.com/]

Vote for the Lion of Mesopotamia

After the tremendous victory the Iraqi Soccer Team achieved in beating Saudi Arabia team and winning the Asian Cup in Soccer, the Iraqi team's captain Younis Mahmoud was nominated for the best-known footballer in the world.

Please take a look and cast a vote for the Lion of Mesopotamia to be the best-known footballer in the world.

Each year, the best footballer in the world (FIFA Player) is elected by national trainers and national team captains. Users of the IFFHS website can now for the second time elect the most popular footballer in the world who need not be the best one. The IFFHS has drawn up the following list of 55 currently active players from 31 countries in all six football continents from which you can cast your vote for the best-known footballer in the world. The result of the users poll will be announced in January 2008, the intermediate results on November 15th and on December 15th, 2007. Votes may be sent until January 3rd 2008.

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com

As If She Would Care Less!

Condoleezza Rice received a hostile greeting on Capitol Hill yesterday when an anti-war protester waved blood-coloured hands in her face and shouted "war criminal". Telegraph

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com

VP’s Party Supports, Praises Insurgents Move

On October 11, Six Iraqi insurgent groups took a step towards unifying the factions fighting the U.S. by announcing the creation of a political council. The six groups formed what is called “The Political Council of the Iraqi Resistance.”

The groups- whose attacks against the Iraqi civilians, the government and the American troops never stooped since the insurgency was formed- announced their complete rejection to the Iraqi law, and decided to continue attacks against the U.S. military there.

The groups who conducted attacks against Iraqi civilians and infrastructure was welcomed and supported strongly by the Iraqi Islamic Party, headed by the Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi. In a statement sent to journalists today, the IIP praised the groups’ step of establishing this umbrella organization.

The complete statement is translated below. For Arabic, see posted image.

Statement No. 159 issued by the Iraqi Islamic Party About the Establishment of the Political Council of the Iraqi Resistance:

After the establishment of the Political Council for the Iraqi national resistance groups, the Iraqi Islamic Party reviewed the Program of the Council, and announced its support to the project.

The Iraqi Islamic Party has long enough called the national [resistance] factions for the necessity of announcing their political project so that the pure blood wouldn’t go in vain, and to make these factions start their first step to end the occupation and achieve the sovereignty for Iraq and Iraqis and liberate [Iraq] from all kinds of occupation.

We hope that this council would be open to accept all factions who didn’t affect their Islamic and national reputation, and even include all political [movements] on the Iraqi soil to make this project a national comprehensive one.

We call for the Arab and Islamic governments, committees, and international organizations to cooperate with the political council and recognize it, as it is a representative of an important component in the Iraqi society. Supporting the council will be a factor in stabilizing the country and the restoration of its sovereignty.

We would like to announce that we support any national project that may rescue Iraq and serves its people and unity.

The Political Office

Although almost all of us know how supportive the IIP is to terrorism, but I’ve never expected them to have that nerve and announce their support this way.

So, the insurgents are going to rescue Iraq? Ha! What a joke.

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com

Click on picture to get a bigger size.

Are We Ready Yet?

Ammar al-Hakim, the son of the Shiite Muslim cleric and politician Abdul Abdul Aziz al-Hakim has been very active these days. The “second Uday,” as some Iraqis like to call him, is promoting for the foundation of the federal southern region of Iraq. On the first day of Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, Hakim Jr. led the Eid prayer at the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council’s Headquarter, a former government compound in Baghdad’s high-scale neighborhood of Jadriyah.

The turbaned young man, who apparently is preparing to take over his father’s leadership, stood behind a glass square-shaped podium and addressed hundreds of his party’s supporters. “I call on our people to form their regions, starting from the South of Baghdad Region to all other regions, as it is an Iraqi interest, decision and will.”

Let’s see if I can discuss this issue from different angels. Federalism has proven its success in several countries like the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Australia, Canada, Russia, etc. Iraq has already experienced a successful praise-worthy federal region in its Kurdish northern region, known as “Iraqi Kurdistan.” Looking at the successful experience, I keep wondering if this could be the same if applied in the other regions of Iraq. The other question I keep thinking about is whether this time is the right time to apply it.

Iraq is going through a strong sectarian division carried out by Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias whose main job is basically to kill and destroy the lives of the innocent civilians psychologically and physically. Amidst this horror, there are several things that are needed to be done prior to thinking about federalism, in order to think of how to shape the structure of the country in the next step. I believe that federalism needs a strong, loyal government, not like the one ruling Iraq now. Almost all the political parties have proved to all Iraqis that they have never felt loyal to their country. Instead, revenge and power seizing is what they came for from their exile.

The southern part of Iraq is dominated by Shiite Muslim parties. These parties which include the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, Fadhila Party and the Sadr Movement are in a high-level competition of who is going to control that region first. When Hakim Jr. called again for the federalism in southern Iraq, he was attacked by the other two parties who basically accused him and his party of “agreeing with the American partition plan,” according to Salah al-Ubaidi, the Sadr spokesman in the holy city of Najaf, in reference to the Biden resolution that was passed on Sept. 26. Fadhila Party who controls some oil-rich areas in southern Iraq, criticized Hakim’s decision which came in “an inappropriate time,” according to Basim al-Sharif, a leader in the Party.

Hakim’s opposition didn’t end at the Shiites' end. Ahmed Abu Reesha, the Anbar Awakening leader who succeeded his brother who was murdered by al-Qaeda a few months ago, declared his opposition to that call. Abu Reehsha’s opposition came as Hakim Jr. visited the former in Anbar province, a long with Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of the Badr troops militia. Some sources told al-Hayat newspaper that most of the conversation between Hakim and Abu Reesha was concentrated on establishing the “Western Iraqi Region and the Southern Region.”

Let’s suppose that all these factions sit down and agree on creating federal regions in Iraq. The question that comes to my mind is will there be a unified government that would be “central” and representative of the entire country? Will the oil and mineral wealth be distributed fairly to all regions without the exclusive income going to where they exist?

As all these issues continue to lash out, the living circumstances of people have gone into a sharp decline, which resulted in an almost complete deprivation of electricity, fuel and clean water which are considered simple life requirements provided in any country including Iraq itself under Saddam’s tyrannical regime. The Americans have become crippled and unable to make all these politicians whom they brought from exile to agree on anything. The US Senate passed a resolution to divide Iraq into three ethnic federal regions believing that without this solution they “will have no chance for a political settlement in Iraq and, without that, no chance for leaving Iraq without leaving chaos behind.”

Federalism is a good thing, yet I believe that Iraqis are not ready for accepting it at the meantime. They will be if the surroundings are changed. The Iraqi politicians need to put hand in hand in order to rebuild their country. They need to get rid of their personal interests and start thinking about the interest of the country as whole. They need to be united in order to defeat terrorism and bring security back. If these things happen, people will be able to think, learn and be aware of federalism and its advantages, because by that time they will trust their leaders and will understand what federalism means. However, if non of this happen, no peace, no stability, no federalism will ever be seen in the near future.

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com

Iraqi Anthem Through History

Over and Over and Over

It seems it won’t be over, will it? After all these screams and criticism against the trigger-happy mercenary contractors, after all the mayhem Iraqis are going through, and after all the failure the government proved, another attack against innocents takes place.

Baghdad… Downtown, hot, grim, scary, miserable, bloody… And yet a brave woman, a simple Iraqi defeated the daily fear and the terrorists’ threats against her gender. Marony Ohanis took to the streets, driving her car in the booby-trapped roads. She was the breadwinner. The only one for her family.

Three daughters, some of them teenaged, were left motherless when mercenaries opened fire on their mother’s car, ripping off her life in the middle of the day. Drilled with bullets, her head was scattered like pieces of shrapnel on the ground. She was gone for ever, like hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who lost their precious lives in the “new, free Eyrak.” Her daughters are left in a merciless life, in a place were terrorism against civilians hovered over every house.

The scene was more horrifying, more detailed by The Washington Post:

"Iraqi police and witnesses at the scene gave differing accounts. Some said the Oldsmobile kept driving toward the convoy while others said it had stopped a safe distance away. They agreed that the car posed no threat to the security guards.

The gunfire sparked chaos on the crowded street as pedestrians ran for cover. A horse pulling a cart, used for selling black-market cooking gas, galloped away without its owner. Traffic policemen believed insurgents were attacking.

"A vehicle got close to them, and they opened fire on it randomly as if they were in the middle of a confrontation," said Ahmed Kadhim Hussein, a policeman at the scene. "You won't find a head. The brain is scattered on the ground."

He added: "I am shaking as I am trying to describe to you what happened. We are not able to eat. These were innocent people. Is it so natural for them to shoot innocent people?"

The Oldsmobile was shot first in the radiator as it passed a plumbing supply shop, employees said. The shooting continued and the car came to rest about 50 yards away, next to a yellow and white median curb marked by broken glass and blood."

I thought we got used to such news, but no. Hell no! This cannot be got used to. This is life. Time flies by quickly. No return. When will time stops? I mean this time, the bloody time, the death-hungry time, the misery, the darkness? Isn’t it enough?

I always thought of these mercenaries as blood-thirsty. I hated them every time I saw them in the streets scaring people. They are no different than al-Qaeda and the militias. They all share a common motto: Kill the Innocent. Eventually, they will run away unexecuted. Their laws give them the right to rob the lives of people. But why? Why won’t they be subjected to death penalty? Haven’t they killed innocents? Why should they enjoy life while they rip off the others’? Is it fair?

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com

Peaceful... Beautiful... Full of Joy...

I received these beautiful photos of Baghdad at night before the war from a friend by email.

Peaceful... Beautiful... Full of Joy...



I miss you my old Baghdad... Damn you Bush. May you never feel peace...

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com

3indi Watan