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07/17/2005:

"Ramping up the Fear"

Iraq suicide bomber kills 98; Saddam indicted
MUSAYYIB, Iraq (Reuters) - Stricken townspeople swept away the wreckage of a fuel truck bomb that killed 98 people south of Baghdad and three more suicide car bombers hit the Iraqi capital on Sunday in a devastating new campaign.

The tribunal empowered to try war crimes issued its first charges against Saddam Hussein and said it would announce within days when the ousted dictator will stand trial for his life.

The overnight attack in the highway town of Musayyib was the most lethal since the Iraqi government took power in April and the second deadliest single bombing since the war began in 2003.

It prompted denunciations of the authorities in parliament and calls for local militia to take up arms.

Some 15 suicide bombers have struck within just over 48 hours in the capital and along the main road south in what al Qaeda's Iraq wing has declared is a campaign to seize Baghdad.

In Saturday's attack a suicide bomber blew up a fuel truck near a crowded vegetable market outside a Shi'ite mosque in Musayyib, in a lawless area U.S. troops call "the triangle of death." In addition to the 98 killed, hospital sources said 75 people had been wounded, 19 of whom were in serious condition.

"After the bomb I went over there and found my son's head. I could not find his body," said Mohsen Jassim of his son, 18.

Khatami hails new era in relations with Iraq
TEHRAN (AFP) - Iranian President Mohammad Khatami hailed a "turning point" in relations with Baghdad as Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari made a historic visit to Tehran aimed at strengthening ties after decades of enmity.

Following talks with the first Iraqi head of government to visit Iran since the fall of Saddam Hussein, Khatami said on Sunday that Iran was prepared to do anything it could to help its one-time foe, with whom it fought a devastating eight year war.

"The visit of the Iraqi prime minister to Iran is a turning point in the historic relations between the two countries. It will allow us to plaster the wounds and repair the damage caused by Saddam Hussein through joint cooperation," said Khatami, quoted by the official IRNA agency.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran will do everything it can to assure the reconstruction, security and stability of Iraq," said Khatami. "The strategy of Iran is to support a free Iraq, independent and developed."

Jaafari is heading a large delegation on the visit and is expected to sign a number of deals aimed at aiding his war-torn country to meet its growing energy needs.

"We know the evil wrought by Saddam Hussein on the peoples of the region but he does not represent the Iraqi people," IRNA quoted Jaafari as saying after the talks.

"Putting security and stability in place in Iraq will benefit all the countries in the region," he added.

Although serious sources of friction have remained, the two neighbours have embarked on a major process of reconciliation whose success has worried the United States and some Arab countries.

Iraq's Shiite-led government is the first such in an Arab country for centuries and should be a natural ally for the theocratic regime in Iran, an almost entirely Shiite country.
Not to mention Syria.

Why Iraq oil money hasn't fueled rebuilding
WASHINGTON – First, the good news: With oil prices at record highs, Iraq is on track to bring in $20 billion or more in oil revenue this year.
That may sound like a lot of petrodollars, especially for a war-torn country with tremendous needs in infrastructure repair and services delivery.

But the bad news is that very little, if any, of that money will actually be used in the country's stalled reconstruction - despite past lofty predictions that oil-rich Iraq would be financially self-sufficient by now.

Dealing with Iraq's insurgency is a chief reason for the gap between oil revenues and improving living conditions. But another reason for the lag is a growing problem of income loss from smuggling and outright theft of the revenues.

One worrisome consequence of the inability to turn higher oil revenues into street-level improvements is the impact on the Iraqi public's faith in the country's new government and direction.

"The insurgents know that oil is the lifeblood of the Iraqi economy, and that keeping it from improving daily life is key to building up the frustration and sense of helplessness and lack of faith in the new government - all of which they are out to encourage," says Gal Luft, codirector of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security in Washington. "Unfortunately, I don't see the government taking advantage of what should be a good time for an oil-producing country to make some money and move forward."

As the country with the world's second-largest known oil reserves, Iraq should be sitting pretty at a time of $60-a-barrel oil, analysts say. But they quickly add that Iraq's potential has been tamped down by a continuing failure to invest in renewing the country's decrepit oil infrastructure and an ill-conceived strategy of placing exports above oil-field modernization.

Any 'ill-conceived strategy' issues straight from Washington. The issue is outlined in the previous article on Iran. It is not in US interests for there to be any semblance of 'building' in Iraq. Whatever else this "Al Quaeda in Iraq' might be, it dovetails exquisitely with American and European aims. As does Hamas in Palestine. As do the 'religious schools' in Pakistan. As does all this endless ocean of human blood.