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IRAQ WARS
Iraq vote in fresh doubt as new bill faces veto

Tension between British, US military leaders in Iraq: report
London (AFP) Nov 23, 2009 - Hostility between US and British military leaders in Iraq ran deep, with one describing his US counterparts as "group of Martians," a newspaper reported Monday, citing leaked government documents. The top British commander in the country, Major General Andrew Stewart, said "our ability to influence US policy in Iraq seemed to be minimal" in the first year of the conflict, according to documents published by the Daily Telegraph. Britain's chief of staff in Iraq described as difficult attempts to communicate with senior US military commanders, "a group of Martians" for whom "dialogue is alien," the newspaper said. "Despite our so-called special relationship,' I reckon we were treated no differently to the Portuguese," the chief of staff, Colonel JK Tanner, said.

The statements were made in official interviews conducted by the Ministry of Defence with army commanders who had just returned from Iraq during the first year of peacekeeping from May 2003 to May 2004. Transcripts of the interviews, leaked to the newspaper, were revealed one day before an independent inquiry into Britain's role in Iraq begins public hearings on Tuesday, with the aim of learning the lessons from the conflict. British troops ended their mission in Iraq in July. The probe will reopen debate over what remains a highly controversial campaign, in which 179 British troops lost their lives.

A leaded army analysis published by the newspaper on Sunday showed Britain had no effective plan for what to do after coalition forces overthrew leader Saddam Hussein following the 2003 invasion. According to Monday's report, General Stewart bluntly said that "incredibly," there was not even a secure communication link between his headquarters in southern Basra and the US commander in Baghdad. A US decision to try to capture a key lieutenant of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in a British-run area "was not co-ordinated with us and no-one (was) told that it was going to happen," a commander said. Colonel Tanner said: "The whole system was appalling. We experienced real difficulty in dealing with American military and civilian organisations who, partly through arrogance and partly through bureaucracy, dictate that there is only one way: the American way."
by Staff Writers
 Baghdad (AFP) Nov 23, 2009
 Iraq's upcoming general election will be delayed, a top MP warned, because an amended electoral law agreed on Monday is likely to be vetoed for a second time by the country's Sunni vice president.

The deal increases the number of parliamentary seats in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region compared with an earlier version of the bill, which Tareq al-Hashemi vetoed, but reduces the figure for Sunni areas.

"I want to tell all Iraqis inside and outside Iraq that the election will be soon, and it will be postponed for a few days for technical reasons," said Baha al-Araji, the head of parliament's legal committee.

"All Iraqis, inside and outside Iraq, will be able to vote in their provinces as if they were inside Iraq."

He added: "I must give you a very important notice: his excellency (Hashemi) will veto this again, but this will be considered his second veto."

If a second veto is used, lawmakers can overturn it by passing any election law with a 60 percent majority. An alliance of Shiite and Kurdish MPs would surpass that threshold with around 30 votes to spare in the 275-seat assembly.

The original text of the bill was passed on November 8 after numerous delays.

But it ran into problems last Wednesday when Hashemi used his veto to demand a greater say for minorities and Iraqis who fled the country after the fall of dictator Saddam Hussein in the 2003 US-led invasion.

The Sunni community, which was dominant before Saddam's ouster led to a takeover by the nation's majority Shiites, puts the number of Iraqis abroad at around four million.

MPs on Monday opted to increase each province's seat allocation by 2.8 percent over the number allotted in the last general election in 2005.

As a result, Kurdish provinces will see increases in their number of seats compared with the number allotted in the bill which Hashemi vetoed, but Sunni provinces will have fewer seats.

Shiite provinces will also broadly have fewer seats but retain a substantial majority in parliament.

Sunni lawmakers came out against the new bill after the deal was announced, with Usama al-Nejaifi telling reporters that an article in the proposal was unconstitutional.

"This article contradicts the constitution and takes seats from the provinces of Nineveh, Kirkuk and Salaheddin and gives them to (Kurdish) provinces in the north," he said.

"This is illegal. ... We will seek a veto of the law."

The country's three-member presidential council, composed of President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and Vice Presidents Hashemi and Adel Abdel Mehdi, a Shiite, has 15 days to veto the new text.

Only one of the trio needs to veto the bill for it to be sent back to parliament.

Iraq's electoral commission has warned that continued delays over the law threaten to leave too little time to complete preparations by the scheduled polling date, currently slated for the second half of January.

Parliament is in recess until December 8 because of the Muslim Eid al-Adha festival, meaning there will probably be insufficient time to organise the polls for January even if MPs do approve a third version that day.

Under Iraq's constitution, the general election -- the second since Saddam was toppled -- must be held by January 31.

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IRAQ WARS
Britain begins Iraq war inquiry with spotlight on Blair
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 An independent inquiry into Britain's role in the war in Iraq begins public hearings on Tuesday that will culminate in the eagerly-awaited testimony from former prime minister Tony Blair. Military chiefs, diplomats, ministers and senior officials will all be called before the five-member committee as it looks into what lessons can be learned from the controversial war. The inquiry ... read more






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