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Wednesday, December 21, 2011. Chaos and violence continue, Nouri continues
targeting political rivals, Nouri says 700 more US 'trainers,' the White House
and the State Dept continue to be asked about what's taking place in Iraq, and
more.
Nouri al-Malik held a press conference today. Aswat al-Iraq reports, "Iraqi Premier
Nouri al-Maliki said that 700 US trianers will work to train Iraqi forces,
adding that the number of US embassy in Baghdad will not exceed 2000."
Meanwhile Dar Addustour reports that Nouri's also
agreed to allow US troops ('trainers') in the Kurdistan Regional Government. Li Hongmei (Xinhua) offered an analysis
yesterday which included " Iraq, however, remains dependent on
Washington, as it has no frontier force, navy or airforce. Neither police nor
army, now 800,000 strong, can ensure security or provide protection from
external attack or meddling. Meanwhile, there are Iraqi people who are, on the
one hand, celebrating the U.S. pull-out, and on the other, believe the U.S. exit
is not a withdrawal, but an act on a stage, in that the U.S. military presence
and clout would never recede with the withdrawal of its troops."
In other news, Arwa Damon and Wolf Blitzer (CNN) report that,
yes, indeed, CIA Director David Petraeus was just in Iraq. While there he spoke
to not only Nouri al-Maliki (prime minister and thugh) but also to Iraqiya
members Osama al-Nujaifi (Speaker of Parliament) and Rafie al-Issawi (Minister
of Finance). For the Tehran Times, Nosratollah Tajik offers
an exploration of whether or not the US is really leaving Iraq:
At a meeting with Obama at the White House on December 12,
al-Maliki was assured a second batch of 18 sophisticated F-16 fighter planes to
help rebuild the country's dilapidated air force, whose helicopters and missiles
the U.S. destroyed during the war which began in March 2003. The Iraqis have
already indicated that their military needs will include a total of 96 F-16
fighter jets in four separate orders. He told the Obama administration that his
country will depend on the U.S. not only for new weapons systems but also for
training under the U.S. International Military Education and Training (IMET)
Program.
There's going to be something called the Office of Security
Cooperation in Iraq after the pullout of troops. It's going to be under the
auspices of the U.S. embassy, so there's not going to be a military command in
Iraq. It's going to be a pretty small, 150-person office that will do training
-- things like helping the Iraqi air force how to operate the F-16s that the
U.S. will sell them. That's a pretty typical relationship for countries who have
bought American military hardware. So, now it is clear why the U.S. plans to
have the largest embassy in the world in Iraq. 18,000 people are going to work
for the embassy and very few of those will be diplomats. Others will be American
civil service workers and mercenaries of private security contractors: around
3,500 to 5,500.
I'm going to disagree with him on the issue of the Office of Security
Cooperation in Iraq.
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Senator Kay Hagan: Well with the drawdown taking place in less than
two months, what is your outlook for the ability to continue this training
process to enable them to continue to do this on their own?
General Martin Dempsey: Well they will be limited. They don't have
the airlift to deliver them to the target that we might have been able to
provide. They don't have the ISR target to keep persistent surveillance over the
top of the target. So they'll be limited to ground movement and they'll be
limited to human intelligence and we'll keep -- But part of the Office of
Security Cooperation provides the trainers to keep the training to develop those
other areas, but we're some time off in reaching that point.
Senator Kay Hagan: We'll, as we continue this drawdown of our
military personnel from Iraq, I really remain concerned about their force
protection -- the individuals that will be remaining in Iraq. So what are the
remaining challenges for our military personnel in Iraq in terms of managing
their vulnerabilities, managing their exposures during the
drawdown?
General Martin Dempsey: Senator, are you talking about getting from
24,000, the existing force now and having it retrograde through
Kuwait?
Senator Kay Hagan: The ones that will remain over
there.
General Martin Dempsey: The ones that will remain --
Senator Kay Hagan: Their protection.
General Martin Dempsey: Yes, Senator. Well, they will have -- First
and foremost, we've got ten Offices of Security Cooperation in Iraq bases. And
their activities will largely be conducted on these bases because their
activities are fundamentally oriented on delivering the foreign military sales.
So F-16s get delivered, there's a team there to help new equipment training
and-and helping Iraq understand how to use them to establish air sovereignty. Or
there's a 141 M1 Tanks right now, generally located at a tank gunnery range in
Besmaya, east of Baghdad and the team supporting that training stays on Besmaya
so this isn't about us moving around the country very much at all. This is about
our exposure being limited to 10 enduring, if you will, Offices of Security
Cooperation base camps. And doing the job of educating and training and
equipping on those ten bases. Host nation is always responsible for the outer
parameter. We'll have contracted security on the inner parameter. And these
young men and women will always have responsibility for their own
self-defense.
Senator Kay Hagan: So we'll have contracted security on the
inner-paramenter?
General Martin Dempsey: That's right.
On to an anniversary . . .
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It was 365 days ago today
Thug Nouri got his way
Today's vote in the Council of Representatives is a significant
moment in Iraq's history and a major step forward in advancing national unity.
I congratulate Iraq's political leaders, the members of the Council of
Representatives, and the Iraqi people on the formation of a new government of
national partnership.
Yet again, the Iraqi people and their elected
representatives have demonstrated their commitment to working through a
democratic process to resolve their differences and shape Iraq's future. Their
decision to form an inclusive partnership government is a clear rejection of the
efforts by extremists to spur sectarian division.
Iraq faces important
challenges, but the Iraqi people can also seize a future of opportunity. The
United States will continue to strengthen our long-term partnership with Iraq's
people and leaders as they build a prosperous and peaceful nation that is fully
integrated into the region and international community.
There was nothing there to praise. Not only had the process been corrupted
-- by the US government -- but the results did not indicate a bright future for
Iraq. First of all, not one of the cabinets had a female head. While the White
House was preparing their statement, Shashank Bengali and Mohammed
al-Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) were reporting not one of the
ministers approved was a woman. Did that bother the White House, this step
backward? Not a bit, not a bit. In 2006, Nouri had been able to name women.
In 2006, there were 31 Cabinet ministers. In order to keep his promises
(bribes) he had to expand the Cabinet to 42 in 2010 and yet women disappeared.
Again, the White House was not worried. On that same day, Liz Sly and Aaron C. Davis
(Washington Post) reported, "Maliki appointed himself acting
minister of interior, defense and national security and said the three powerful
positions would be filled with permanent appointees once suitable candidates
have been agreed on." Did that bother the White House? Not a bit, not a
bit.
And all this time later, there is still no Minister of Interior, Minister
of Defense or Minister of National Security. Not because Parliament wouldn't
approve the nominees but because Nouri al-Maliki never nominated anyone lending
credence to those who charged in real time that thug Nouri was making a power
grab.
In many, many ways, the White House violated the Iraqi Constitution and the
will of the Iraqi people when they backed Nouri (2010) for a second term. (In
2006, the Bush administration backed Nouri and nixed the choice of the
Parliament.) Trudy Rubin (Philadelphia Inquirer via
San Jose Mercury News) points to the multitude of mistakes by the
Bush and Barack administrations in her latest column but we'll zoom in on her
commentary about 2010:
The White House followed a hands-off policy on Iraqi politics,
allowing Maliki to slip back into sectarianism and the eager embrace of Iran's
ayatollahs.
When Maliki cracked down on Sunni candidates before March 2010
elections, a visiting Vice President Joe Biden gave him a pass. When a Sunni
coalition called Iraqiya edged out Maliki's party and he used Iraq's politicized
courts to nullify some Sunni seats, U.S. officials didn't push back.
When Maliki failed to honor a power-sharing deal the United States
had brokered between his party and Iraqiya, we failed to press him.
Ambassador Feisal Istrabadi The critical mistake the Obama
administration made occurred last year when it threw its entire diplomatic
weight behind supporting Nouri al-Maliki notwithstanding these very worrisome
signs which were already in place in 2009 and 2010. The administration lobbied
hard both internally in Iraq and throughout the region to have Nouri al-Maliki
get a second term -- which he has done.
Istrabdi was a guest on The NewsHour (PBS) last night as the
program devoted two segments to the political crisis in the country. In the
first segment, Judy Woodruff went over the basics of what's been taking place
since Friday. Judy Woodruff noted (link is
text, audio and video), "An arrest warrant was issued for Vice
President Tariq al-Hashemi on charges that he had run death squads during the
sectarian bloodbath of 2006 and 2007. As proof, the purported confession of a
man named Ahmed was broadcast. He said Hashemi spoke to him through an
intermediary." The second segment on this story
(again, text, audio and video) found Judy exploring the events with
former Ambassador Feisal Istrabadi and Abbas Kadhim. Excerpt:
FEISAL ISTRABADI: Well, let me start with the
proposition that what Iraq needs is a strong leader. With all respect to my very
good friend, I think that what we need are rulers in Iraq who are dedicated to
the principles of constitutional democracy. Their strength lies not in the
elimination or in the harassment of political adversaries, but, on the contrary,
in encouraging constitutional discourse. What has been happening in Iraq in the
last 24 hours cannot be seen in isolation. For the past 12 months, Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki has refused to appoint a permanent minister of defense.
That was supposed to be one of the portfolios that went to the Iraqiya
coalition. They have nominated six people for that position. Each one of them
has been rejected. He has appointed a member of his own coalition, the prime
minister's own coalition, as acting minister of defense. He is acting as
minister of the interior. And one of his cronies is acting minister of state for
national security. He has cashiered career officers and appointed cronies to
senior officer positions in the armed and security forces in Iraq. In other
words, the prime minister has under his control as we speak all the
instrumentalities of state security in Iraq. I'll remind your viewers that, in
the early 1970s, this is precisely how Saddam Hussein came to power at the time.
What we -- I think Iraqis, with our history, we have to be overly cautious when
we see similar actions occur as have occurred in our relatively recent past.
Strength in the new Iraq must be through constitutional democracy, and not
through harassment and intimidation.
The story was ignored by the other three networks as noted this morning. Also see Rebecca's "smelly scott pelley and the sucky
cbs evening news."
Jim Muir (BBC News) explains,
"Iraq's most senior Sunni Arab politician, Tariq al-Hashemi, is effectively a
fugitive. While he hides out under Kurdish protection in the north, the entire
al-Iraqiyya political bloc to which he belongs has pulled out of both parliament
and the cabinet." (Jim Muir offers a detailed analysis here.) Al Rafidayn reports
that Nouri al-Maliki, prime minister and chief thug of Iraq, has held a press
conference in Baghdad today insisting that Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi
leave the KRG and come to Baghdad to stand trial for charges (brought by Nouri)
of terrorism. Nouri says that Tareq al-Hashemi must not leave the country and
that he should not fear a trial because Saddam Hussein was given a trial. It was
fair, Nouri insists. Fair? That's in dispute. The outcome is not. Saddam Hussein
was put to death. As noted in yesterday's snapshot,
the sentence for the charges (Article IV terrorism) if found guilty are either
life in prison or execution. As Anne Barker (AM, Australia's ABC, link is text and audio)
explains, "The charges were made by Iraq's Interior ministry, which
comes under the control of the Shiite prime minister and al Hashemi's long-time
rival Nouri al-Maliki." The charges were made by the ministry -- not the
minister because there is no Minister of Interior. Nouri refused to nominate
someone to Parliament. So Nouri retains (illegal) control over the
ministry.
Yesterday, the White House released the following statement:
The White House
Office of the Vice
President
For Immediate Release December 20, 2011 Readout of Vice
President Biden's Calls to Iraqi Leaders
The Vice President today spoke on
the phone with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and separately with Iraqi
Council of Representatives Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi to discuss the current
political climate in Baghdad. The Vice President told both leaders that the
United States is monitoring events in Iraq closely. He emphasized the United
States' commitment to a long-term strategic partnership with Iraq, our support
for an inclusive partnership government and the importance of acting in a manner
consistent with the rule of law and Iraq's constitution. The Vice President also
stressed the urgent need for the Prime Minister and the leaders of the other
major blocs to meet and work through their differences
together.
At the White House today, Nouri's attacks again resulted in questioning
during the press briefing by White House spokesperson Jay Carney.
Q On Iraq, the Vice President made a couple of phone calls
yesterday, and I guess I'm just wondering, is the President -- has the President
or has Vice President Biden spoken with the Vice President of Iraq? What is --
what was the point of those calls? How does President Obama feel about the
arrest and the charges against this Vice President? And what, if anything, at
this point can the U.S. do about it? Are you considering pulling aid? If
you're not -- if we're not --
MR. CARNEY: Well, Margaret, let me stop you there. First of
all, I think we read out some of the calls that the Vice President made.
Separately, this kind of political turmoil has been occurring in Iraq
periodically, as they have taken steps forward and, occasionally, steps
backward, but generally made progress towards political reconciliation, towards
democracy, and away from the use of violence in pursuit of political ends. That
has been progress, but it has often been hard won. That will continue. We
certainly expect that there will be difficult days ahead in Iraq. But the
progress has been substantial. What is utterly nonsensical is the suggestion
that somehow we should have left troops in there, and that would have had any
impact on the political disputes. Because maybe folks weren't paying attention,
but political disputes have been happening while there were 40,000 troops,
80,000 troops, 150,000 troops. The key metric here is that those political
disputes have increasingly been resolved through negotiation, not through
violence, and elections were held, a government was established -- these are all
signs of important progress -- all while violence declined
significantly.
Jay Carney's head has apparently gotten as fat as his ass (keep stress
eating, Jay, you look awful). This is not about US troops staying or going.
This is about the White House backing Nouri al-Maliki for a second term. Take
accountability for that. Yes, Senator John McCain is calling out the White
House. And calling them out for taking out the bulk of US troops (not all
troops). That's not the only criticism but focusing on that criticism does
allow you to ignore the critical failure of the Barack Obama administration with
regards to Iraq. And the elections were a joke and became that when the US
government refused to respect the results of the elections -- that's under
Barack Obama. Jay's a disgrace.
Jay Carney: We will continue to have a robust and important
relationship with Iraq. We will continue to have frequent, I'm sure,
discussions with Iraqi leaders. And we will continue to weigh in and encourage
Iraqi leaders to make smart decisions as they continue to move forward with the
development of their democracy. I wanted to -- as long as we're on foreign
policy, I just want to be clear on a question that Kristen had about
Afghanistan. I just want to say, on 2014, the President will make his decisions
on the size and shape of our post-September 2012 presence, after the reduction
of the surge forces, at the appropriate time in consultation with our Afghan and
NATO partners. Any post-2014 presence would of course be at the invitation of
the Afghan government, and would ensure that we will be able to target
terrorists and support a sovereign Afghan government so that our enemies cannot
outlast us. I just want to be clear about that. But the framework that I
discussed at the top was laid out at Lisbon. I think I owe you -- yes,
Lesley.
Q Can I ask a quick question, following on Margaret's
question? Do you have any reaction to the Prime Minister's sort of suggestions
today that he wants to shed some of the members of the coalition government that
he might not sort of get along with?
MR. CARNEY: Look, we have -- I
would refer you -- I don't have it in front of me -- to -- we did a readout of
the Vice President's calls, yes -- to that statement. And we have worked, the
Vice President has and other members of the President's team have, with Iraq on
the political process. It is very important, and has been, and will continue to
be, that Iraqi leaders pursue a representative government so that everyone's
interests are properly represented. And beyond that, I would just refer you to
the statement we put out.
Q He also said that the U.S. has asked him
to free some of the Hashimi guards that he had jailed.
MR. CARNEY: Who
did?
Q He said that the U.S. government had asked him to free some
--
MR. CARNEY: Maliki did? I don't -- I just don't have anything more
on that for you today.
Cordesman believes that the US has mistakenly "tied itself to
exiles whose claims and ambitions were not in line with the hopes and needs of
the Iraqi people, and were often linked to Iran".
He also points out that the Obama administration has not provided
"any picture of the strategy it now intends to adopt in the Gulf region as a
whole, or how it will deal with any aspect of the threat posed by Iran".
HDS Greenway (GlobalPost) argues the current
events can be seen through the prism of the war itself, "What the invasion of
Iraq did do was unleash all the pent-up rivalries that had been suppressed,
Sunni versus Shia, and Kurds against the rest. And despite almost a decade of
occupation, none of these issues have been resolved. Sunnis still long for their
lost ascendency. Shiites want to consolidate their new-found power, and the
Kurds still want to be masters of their own region without interference from
Baghdad. The current accusations against Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi are a
case in point. Either he did organize death squads, as charged, or the case
against him is trumped up to intimidate Sunnis. Either way Iraq's fragile
power-sharing arrangements suffer."
Iran's Fars News
Agency notes, "Commander of Baghdad Police Operations
Brigadier General Qassem Ata called on the security officials of the Iraqi
Kurdistan region to extradite the country's Vice-President, Tariq al-Hashimi, to
Baghdad to be tried for accusations of masterminding the recent bomb attacks on
a number of parliamentarians." Aswat al-Iraq adds, "Kurdish Alliance MP [Shwan
Mohammed] described the charge against Vice-President Tariq al-Hashimi as
'political, not criminal'."
Al Mada
notes that the Parliament is calling for a meeting with
Nouri's Cabinet. In addition to going after Tareq al-Hashemi, Nouri is also
targeting Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq. Both al-Hashemi and
al-Mutlaq are Sunnis and members of the Iraqiya political slate. The Telegraph of London notes,
"Legislators are also due to consider a call from Maliki to sack Sunni Deputy
Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlak, who has decried the Shiite-led national unity
government as a 'dictatorship'." Al
Mada reports that Parliament decided Monday that they would
not consider Nouri's motion to dismiss al-Mutlaq until after the next year. Al
Mada quotes Iraqiya head Ayad Allawi pointing out the
al-Mutlaq's position was part of the power sharing agreement and that attempts
to remove him besmirch the agreement. Dar Addustour reports there is now
a move to request that confidence be withdrawn from Nouri.
However, U.S. officials were aware of at least one previous attempt by
Iraqi security forces to coerce confessions that implicated Hashimi, a longtime
Maliki critic. A November 2006 diplomatic cable obtained by WikiLeaks reported a
meeting between U.S. officials in Iraq and a former Iraqi prisoner named Ahmed
Mohammed Sami, who said he'd been tortured with electric shocks and other
methods while in Iraqi army custody in Diyala province.
"In total he counted seven times that he lost consciousness during
episodes of torture in which he was told to agree to statements implicating Vice
President Tariq al-Hashimi ... and Deputy Governor of Diyala Auwf Rahoumi
al-Rabai ... in terrorist activities," the cable reports. The cable didn't
specify U.S. officials' reaction to the comments.
If the White House -- under either administration -- had given a damn
about Iraqis, they wouldn't have backed Nouri for a second term. Especially
after knowing he was repeatedly torturing and running secret prisons. The
article also notes that Nouri elected to air the 'confessions' on Iraqiya TV --
that's not related to the Iraqiya political slate -- it's Nouri's own personal
channel, as it demonstrated in the 2010 parliamentary campaigns. From Deborah
Amos' "Confusion, Contradiction and
Irony: The Iraqi Media in 2010," Harvard's Joan Shorenstein
Center:
[Immediately after the March 2010 elections] Prime Minister Maliki
charged widespread fraud and demanded a recount to prevent "a return to
violence." He pointedly noted that he remained the commander in chief of the
armed force.
Was Maliki threatening violence? Was he using the platrform of
state-run media to suggest that his Shiite-dominated government would not
relinquish power to a Sunni coalition despite the election results? His meaning
was ambiguous, but his choice of media was widely understood to be part of the
message. Iraq's state-run news channel, Iraqiya, is seen as a megaphone for
Shiite power in Iraq, which is why Maliki's assertion of his right to retain
power raised international concerns.
The issue of Iraq was also raised in today's US State Dept press
briefing by spokesperson Victoria Nuland:
QUESTION: (Inaudible) about Iraq?
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: Prime Minister Maliki's news conference today? In talking
about the Vice President, he said if Kurdish authorities don't release him or if
he were to manage to flee the country that there may be problems, I think is how
he put it. Is that not sort of a threatening tone? What was the readout here on
that?
MS. NULAND: Well, as you know, the [US] Vice President [Joe
Biden] did have good conversations yesterday. I think the White House reported
on those yesterday. We do note what the prime minister said in his press
conference, and I would say that he also spoke about the need for the parties to
get together. I think he called it a summit of political leaders that he wanted
to have to discuss the political process and discuss power sharing, and we
continue to urge all the sides in Iraq to work through their differences
peacefully and within international standards of the rule of law. That's the
message that we've given to the prime minister; it's the message that we're
giving to all of the political actors in Iraq.
QUESTION: Does the Ambassador continue to make phone calls and meet
with the various parties?
MS. NULAND: He does.
QUESTION: Do you know when the last meetings or talks were and who
they were with?
MS. NULAND: He had more talks today. I don't have a list here with
me, but as the White House reported, the Vice President spoke to Prime Minister
Maliki and Speaker al-Najafi yesterday. I think that Jim Jeffrey -- Ambassador
Jeffrey -- over the last couple of days has seen the -- seen or spoken to the
leaders of every major group in Iraq.
QUESTION: Do you have any position on the prime minister's demand
that the Kurds essentially return the vice president? Do you think that's the
right way to go?
MS. NULAND: They need to work this out within the rule of law. They
need to respect the Iraqi constitution on all sides. If there are charges, they
need to be processed appropriately within the Iraqi judicial system, as we said
yesterday, and all sides need to cooperate in that.
QUESTION: But would releasing the Vice President be -- as the prime
minister has requested, be essentially doing that, working within the Iraqi
legal framework?
MS. NULAND: I think there are conversations going on inside Iraq
that we're not going to get into the middle of about how this process ought to
move forward. It's --– release implies that he's being held or prevented from
fulfilling the demands of the court, and I don't think that's the stage we're at
right now.
QUESTION: And just a final one: Also, apparently the prime minister
has extended the Camp Ashraf deadline by six months.
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: Did they let you know about this formally, and what's
your -- do you think that's a good thing?
MS. NULAND: We do think it's a good thing. We do think it's a good
thing that the Iraqi Government is engaged. We're encouraging those living in
Ashraf to also be engaged. The UN, as you know, is in the process of trying to
broker an agreement where the residents of Ashraf could be moved safely and
securely to another location and where they could take advantage of some of the
international offers for resettlement. And so, obviously, that process is going
to take a little bit more time. So we're gratified to see that the Iraqi
Government's going to give it a little bit more time, and that they are
particularly cooperating well with the UN process.
QUESTION: And are you confident that the six months would be a
sufficient time to get that agreement done?
MS. NULAND: Well, we would certainly hope so, and we are
encouraging all sides to keep working on it.
QUESTION: Well, what's your understanding of that extension? When
did it take effect? Because he seemed to suggest that he had actually done this
in November.
MS. NULAND: Well, as of two days ago, we were still understanding
that we had a December 31st --
QUESTION: So you guys didn't know anything about it until today? Or
maybe not when he spoke, but today was the first time you knew of an
extension.
MS. NULAND: Well, it was one of the options that we had been
discussing, was to extend the deadline that the UN had also been discussing to
buy more time for this. In terms of an actual decision of the Iraqi Government
and a public announcement of it, I think we became aware shortly before the
public announcement.
QUESTION: So your understanding is that this six months expires six
months from now and not six months from November, when he said that
--
MS. NULAND: Yeah. I don't have a sense of the final calendar time.
But again, the UN is working assiduously to try to come up with a roadmap for
the residents of Ashraf. In the best case scenario, it won't take six months,
and we'll be able to get them settled in before.
QUESTION: Right. And then the other thing, you said that there were
outstanding offers for resettlement for these residents? Are you -- can you --
are you aware of any specific -- can you provide names of countries that have
offered to take in -- other than Iran, which would like to see some of them back, I'm
sure?
MS. NULAND: The UN is working on this issue with a number of
countries in Europe. I think there is an issue of whether some of the residents
of Camp Ashraf would be willing to take up those offers, particularly some of
them who have relatives abroad.
QUESTION: Victoria?
MS. NULAND: Yes.
QUESTION: As a matter of fact, European countries, many of them
refuse to repatriate -- many of these people are their citizens and, in fact,
they failed time and again a UN suggestion that they should return to their
countries in the Netherlands and Germany and other places. Are you urging the
European countries to take at least their own citizens that are in Camp
Ashraf?
MS. NULAND: Again, the UN has the lead on this. They are working
both with – they are working with the Iraqis, they are working with the
residents of Ashraf, they are also working with some of these other countries of
citizenship. So we are obviously looking for a settlement that gives these folks
a better quality of life and security while maintaining international peace and
security. Please.
QUESTION: On Vice President al-Hashimi, are you concerned about his
safety? Or has he contacted either Ambassador Jeffrey or any other U.S. official
expressing concern about his own safety considering that the immediate members
of his family were actually assassinated three or four years ago?
MS. NULAND: I'm not aware of conversations of that kind of concern.
There is a question about how and whether these Iraqi judicial processes will be
carried out.
QUESTION: Has there been any discussion with President Talabani of
Iraq and President Barzani of Kurdistan as to the safety or maintaining safety
and security for Vice President Hashimi?
MS. NULAND: Well, the Ambassador has been in touch with both of
those leaders in the -- in recent days. I'm not going to speak to the details of
those conversations.
QUESTION: Just a follow-up on Vice President Hashimi: You just said
that it should be solved through Iraq judicial system and rule of law. So does
it mean you have confidence in the rule of law if he were to go back, and do you
think that there''s going to be a fair trial? You have that
confidence?
MS. NULAND: We went through this conversation exhaustively
yesterday. I don't think we need to go through it today.
QUESTION: It was (inaudible).
MS. NULAND: It was pretty exhaustive, so -- all
right.
Turning to reported violence, Reuters notes a Baghdad sticky bombing
claimed the life of 1 Sahwa leader, an attack on a Baquba mayor left him
injured, 2 Kirkuk sticky bombings claimed the life 1 judge and left the judge's
son injured and, dropping back to last night, an attack on a Samarra police
checkpoint left two police officers injured. Aswat al-Iraq notes 1 man was shot dead
in Mosul.
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