Eid Milad Sa’eed! Aswat Al Iraq – Happy Birthday and congratulations on four years of exemplary journalism and bravery to bring the world the truth from Iraq. You can show your support and send messages at Aswat’s new Facebook page. (h/t GorillasGuides)

Here in the US, the right wing blogosphere declared yesterday Victory in Iraq Day (no links) and many even on the left have been celebrating what as been reported as the finalization of the SOFA, but Iraqis are not ready to celebrate – and perhaps not ready to sign.

The US press has been reporting on the Iraqi parliament debate of the text – but as far as I could tell only one US paper, the Mankato Free Press, noticed that an English version has not been made available here as well:

The administration has declined to make public the 20-page agreement, leaving U.S. experts on these things to use only a rough English translation of the Iraqi agreement.

Some members of Congress are decrying the secrecy as “incredible” and “bizarre.” Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Howard Berman, D-Calif., told Reuters: “There is something bizarre about the text being disseminated to the Iraqi people and we are being told we cannot distribute the English language version of the agreement.”

On Saturday we learned that the vote in Iraq will be delayed until Wednesday even as more reports begin to surface that passage is not assured. In fact the Speaker of Parliament, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, said it has only a “50-50” chance of passing. A close vote will not meet Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani’s warning that the agreement must have a "national consensus" demonstrated through passage by “a big majority.”

Maliki’s government is ratcheting up pressure for passage – Abdel Qadar Jassem Mohammed al-Obeidi “Iraq’s defense minister warned Saturday that the government would declare a state of emergency if there was no agreement to keep U.S. forces in the country past the end of the year.” He followed this warning with another which is rather creative:

“Coalition forces are currently protecting the Gulf, and our navy will not receive its first ships until April 2009,” Abdel Qader Jassem Mohammed al-Obeidi told a press conference in Baghdad. If those forces “withdraw precipitously, our gulf will become like the Gulf of Aden, where there have been 95 acts of piracy,” he said. …. The minister did not enlarge on his remarks or explain how the Gulf would become prey to pirates when one of its littoral states, Bahrain, is home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet.

The Gulf, which supplies the bulk of world oil imports, is also bordered by Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Iran, all of whose navies patrol the waterway.

While the SOFA debate and warnings continue, the security of Christians in Mosul remains precarious. Maliki’s government has made a show of sending additional security forces to the region, three more Christians have been

killed:

The mother of two sisters killed in Mosul last week has died from injuries sustained during the attack on her family home. The funerals were celebrated yesterday.

November 12th last, a band of armed youths stormed the Siro-Catholic family’s home in the Alqahira quarter of the city killing the sisters Lamia and Walàa Sobhy Salloha. They then turned on the mother with a knife. The father and another son who escaped during the moment of the attack are safe. Initially the wounds sustained by the mother, Selma Giargis did not appear to be grave. But in the hospital in Mosul her condition worsened also because of a lack in basic medicine.

The situation of Mosul’s Christians is increasingly tragic. In the month of October 16 faithful were killed and 2 thousand families forced to flee their homes. Over the past few day san estimated 700 families have returned, reassured by government promises of improved security. 52 year old Imad Hanna, told Ankawa, that he had fled to Karakosh, Kurdistan, 50-60 km north of Mosul. “What made me return – he said – wasn’t the security situation, but material need”.

Meanwhile, US President George W Bush “said in a pre-recorded interview broadcast on a Japanese television network on Sunday” that “ the Iraq war has been successful and (he) is "very pleased" with what is happening there.

"People have been able to take their troops out of Iraq because Iraq is becoming successful. I’m very pleased with what is taking place there now," he said… "So there will be a US presence for a while there at the request of the Iraqi government… The United States is willing to continue to help. Most countries there within a very broad coalition have come home but we want to help this government," he said without further elaborating.

Maybe George has been reading Little Green Footballs again?


Related posts:

  1. Maliki vs. Odierno: Who Blinks First?
  2. US Contractors Held in Iraqi Jail for Green Zone Murder
  3. Spinning the Death of a 12 Year Old – Journalism Fail
  4. Changing of the Guard: US Troops Withdraw from Iraqi Cities; Maliki Declares “Sovereignty Day”
  5. In Iraq, As in So Many Contexts, Withdrawal is Victory