Iraq bolsters Syria border force (click here)
Page last updated at 21:48 GMT,Friday, 4 September 2009
22:48 UK
Iraq has begun stationing thousands of extra police on its border with Syria to stop militants its says are crossing into Iraq to carry out bomb attacks.
Amid a growing row, the two countries have traded insults and recalled their ambassadors in recent weeks.
Baghdad says members of the Baath Party of former leader Saddam Hussein, hiding in Syria, organised two attacks in Iraq on 19 August which killed about 100.
Damascus has dismissed Iraq's claims as immoral and illogical....
Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Iraqis stir pot in Syria (click title to entry - thank you)
By: Samuel Segev
Posted: 08/9/2011 1:00 AM
TEL AVIV -- While the United States, France and Germany pledged to take more severe measures to punish Syrian President Bashar Assad for his cruel crackdown on his opponents, a new geo-strategic reality is quietly emerging in the Middle East.
Under strong Iranian pressure and without a public announcement, Iraq has reversed its attitude toward Syria and now supports Assad's rejection of Turkish and western pressures. In a public speech on Saturday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he had "lost patience" with Assad. He reminded the Syrian dictator of the fate of Saddam Hussein and of "a leader who was brought to court on stretchers and had to listen to his indictment while in bed and inside a steel box."
Erdogan also said Assad should be punished for the crimes he committed against his people.
The Turkish prime minister is sending his foreign minister, Ahmet Davotuglu, to Damascus today to verify the situation.
"Everything will be clear on Tuesday," Erdogan said. "We will know then if Assad honestly means to implement the reforms that he promised to implement so many times."
The Iraqi reversal of its attitude towards Syria also explains the sudden decision of Saudi Arabia to withdraw its ambassador from Damascus and the decision of the Gulf Co-operation Council to harshly criticize the Syrian regime…
Mon Sep 22, 2003 7:35 PM ET
By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The administration wants $100 million for an Iraqi witness protection program, $290 million to hire, train and house thousands of firefighters, $9 million to modernize the postal service, including establishment of ZIP codes.
A Bush administration document, distributed to members of Congress and obtained by The Associated Press, goes far beyond the details officials have publicly provided for how they would spend the $20.3 billion they have requested for Iraqi reconstruction.
The 53 pages of justifications flesh out the size of the task of rebuilding the country, almost literally brick by brick. It also paints a painstaking picture of the damage Iraq has suffered.
"The war and subsequent looting destroyed over 165 firehouses throughout the country. There are no tools or equipment in any firehouse," according to the report, written by the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-led organization now running Iraq.
The report's estimated cost of rebuilding Iraq's fire service, including hiring and training 5,000 firefighters: $290 million.
At another point, the report says the headquarters and three regional offices of the border police "will require complete renovation." Two thousand new recruits must be trained because the agency previously used conscripts, "almost all of whom deserted."
Reviving that and other border protection agencies should cost $150 million, the report said.
The proposal was part of the $87 billion plan that President Bush sent Congress on Sept. 7 for Iraq and Afghanistan. The biggest piece of that package was $66 billion to finance U.S. military operations in both countries and elsewhere....
Post-Saddam Iraq 'in a nutshell" (click here)
What you might say?
What indeed.
How about Iranian Gas Pipeline?
So much for economic sanctions. After all, Europe simply doesn't like fueling with the Russian gas pipeline.
| Written by Joao Peixe | |
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In July Iran, Iraq, and Syria signed a $10 billion contract for transiting Iranian natural gas from Iran's massive offshore South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf to Europe via a 3,100-mile pipeline crossing Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and subsequently submerging beneath the Mediterranean before surfacing in Greece, the EU’s first transit country. The pipeline is estimated to take 3-5 years to build….
