Clamor for change reaches Iraq

Clamor for political change across the Arab world has reached Iraq, where protests against poor government services have broken out in the capital and other cities.

On Saturday, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki vowed not to run for a third term, a day earlier he announced that he would cut his pay in half. Other officials agreed to decrease their salaries in a bid to stave off the kind of unrest erupting elsewhere in the region.

We will also enact a law that guarantees equilibrium between the salaries of officials and ordinary Iraqis," said lawmaker Abbas Bayati. "The current circumstances are pushing us to decrease expenses and salaries, and spend them on the low income classes."

The popular uprising that overthrew of the government of Tunisian strongman Zine el Abidine ben Ali helped spark the unrest that now threatens the rule of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. At a conference in Munich, Germany, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned Saturday of a "perfect storm of powerful" economic and demographic trends that could envelop the Middle East.

But the popular demands for change have played out differently in various countries. In Jordan and Yemen, authorities appear to be making compromises to stave of social explosions. With protests planned for Feb. 12, Algeria has vowed to end a years-long state of emergency that has restricted political liberties. Bahrain's state-run news agency said Friday that the government had increased food subsidies and vowed to widen social welfare programs. Protests there are scheduled for Feb. 14.

Some Iraqi officials earn tens of thousands of dollars a month and receive generous perks. One former official estimated that the president, prime minister and speaker of parliament earn between $500,000 and $700,000 a year. In comparison, President Obama's salary is $400,000.

On Friday, Maliki ordered the prime minister's salary to be decreased by 50% and the difference returned to the Iraqi state budget starting this month. A day later, he announced that he would not run for a third term even though he is not barred from doing so by law.

Maliki's Islamic Dawa Party, also issued a statement in support of a peaceful transition of power in Egypt, which has traditionally had enormous political, cultural and educational influence in Iraq.

Salaries of elected officials eat up as much as 20% of the Iraqi budget's operational expenses. An official inside the Iraqi parliament, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said officials decided to slash their pay after protests in the capital and the provinces against poor services and corruption.

Iraqis have also launched a campaign on Facebook and Twitter calling for cutting salaries. Some said the moves so far were little more than a publicity stunt."The problem is not with their salaries," said Sabah Saadi, former chief of parliament's integrity commission. "The problem is with the social welfare and the additional allowances they are getting."

He said that salary reductions were a superficial attempt to placate Iraqis without addressing public concerns. "We saw the demonstrations in some cities in Iraq yesterday," he said. "Nobody mentioned the problem of salaries."

Iraqi officials and clerics have long urged the government to cut salaries and perks for elected officials. Parliament is finally beginning work after a months-long deadlock. Abdul-Mehdi Karbalai, a representative of the influential Shiite religious figure Ayatollah Ali Sistani in the city of Karbala, has been preaching for months about the issue.

"There is a big difference between the salaries of Iraqi officials and the ordinary people," he said in a Jan. 7 sermon. "This new government should review all of that and reduce the difference to create balance in society."

By Salar Jaff and Raheem Salman are LA Times staff writers in Baghdad. Times staff writer Borzou Daragahi in Beirut contributed to this report.

Iraq PM cuts own salary

Amid growing unrest about poor public services and water shortages, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Friday agreed to cut his salary in half.

Protesters around Iraq have said recent popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia inspired their weeklong demonstrations for improvements in government services and their quality of life.

Thousands have rallied since Sunday across the country, railing against rampant poverty, a 45% national unemployment rate and shortages of food, electricity and water, including several hundred in three different parts of Baghdad on Friday.Al-Maliki said those concerns prompted his decision to axe his salary, which he said would "help reduce the differences in the living standards for different classes."

"Fifty percent of my monthly salary as prime minister will be reduced and returned to the government's treasury starting from the current month, as a contribution from me to reduce the difference in the salaries of the state officials," al-Maliki said in a statement released by his office and posted on his official website.

On al-Mutanabi Street in central Baghdad, nearly 200 people gathered Friday morning to show solidarity with those rallying against their governments elsewhere in the Arab world and voice domestic concerns.

Some shouted in support of "democracy and peace" in Egypt and Tunisia, and others cried, "Governments fall with the voice of righteousness" and "Don't prevent us from expressing. We demand change!" Marchers also carried banners saying, "Baghdad will not be Kandahar," referring to the recent crackdown by the Iraqi government on liquor sales.

"We stand in solidarity with the Egyptian people and their uprising in order to achieve their freedom and their independence from the dictatorship," protester Abdullah al-Rikabi told CNN. "We have not seen any changes in the past eight years, and we demand better basic services."

In Husseinya, a Shiite majority neighborhood in northern Baghdad, hundreds more demonstrators demanded improvements in electricity and water service. "We don't have a government but only a corrupted government!" some shouted.These demonstrations began right after Friday services in neighborhood mosques.

"Iraq has suffered a big deal under the tyranny of (deposed dictator) Saddam (Hussein), and it's still suffering from bad basic services, food and other things," protester Bassam Abdulrazaq said.Wiam Saber said "Iraqi people are fed up with things in Iraq," but the recent events elsewhere in the Arab world stirred them to publicly voice their concerns through demonstrations.

"The things that happened in Egypt and Tunisia was kind a motivation for us, so we started this just to let them know that we are not going to be silent, and we will talk about all the horrible things that happen in Iraq," he said.

CNN

Maliki Won’t Seek Another Term

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki said Saturday that he would not seek re-election as leader of the Iraqi government after his current term ends in 2014. The statement came a day after Mr. Maliki, who began his second term in December, said he would cut his pay in half.

Antigovernment protests have been sweeping the Arab world, but a spokesman for the prime minister said Mr. Maliki’s decisions had nothing to do with regional developments.

Mr. Maliki is simply keeping a campaign promise to implement term limits, the spokesman said.

“Don’t take it in the frame of the recent wave with Ali Abdullah Saleh and whatever is going on,” the spokesman, Ali al-Moussawi, said in an interview, referring to the leader of Yemen who said last week that he would not run for another term. “What the prime minister has done is about the democratic process.”

Under the Iraqi Constitution, the only top leader subject to term limits is the president, who is limited to two four-year terms. Mr. Moussawi said that Mr. Maliki would seek a constitutional amendment to impose the same requirements on the prime minister.

The pay cut, Mr. Moussawi said Friday, was aimed at reducing the vast income gap between high-ranking government officials and ordinary Iraqis. Mr. Maliki is believed to earn about $350,000 a year, although the precise amount has never been made public.

But opposition leaders said they thought regional developments were at play.

Fatah al-Sheikh, a member of the Iraqiya bloc, the mostly Sunni coalition led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, said that Mr. Maliki “saw what is going on the Arab streets and he knows the Iraqi street is not satisfied with what he has given them.”

He added, “A year has passed with his promises for services and security, and the situation is going to get worse.”

Iraqis have protested sporadically in the past six months over the lack of electricity and other services, and complaints that Mr. Maliki has become too powerful. However, those protests have not been as large or violent as the ones in Yemen, Tunisia and Egypt.

By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT, The New York Times. Zaid Thaker and Duraid Adnan contributed reporting.

Iraq Restores Saddam Monument

As hundreds of thousands in Egypt protested the iron rule of that country’s president, Iraq quietly began restoring a bronze fist of its former dictator, Saddam Hussein.

Without public announcement or debate, the authorities here ordered the reconstruction of one of the most audacious symbols in Baghdad of Mr. Hussein’s long, violent and oppressive rule: the Victory Arch, two enormous sets of crossed swords, clutched in hands modeled after his very own.

“Nuremberg and Las Vegas all rolled in one,” Kanan Makiya, an Iraqi-born author and architect called the monument in “The Monument: Art, Vulgarity and Responsibility in Iraq,” which was published in 1991 under a pseudonym to protect himself then, even in exile.

After years of neglect and a partial dismantling in 2007 that was halted amid protests after the panels of one fist and the pommels of two swords were removed, workers recently began to put back together the detritus of Mr. Hussein’s megalomania.The restoration represents a small but potentially significant act of reconciliation with a past that remains deeply divisive nearly eight years after Mr. Hussein’s government crumpled.

“We don’t want to be like Afghanistan and the Taliban and remove things like that,” Ali al-Mousawi, a spokesman for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, said, referring to the infamous destruction of the Buddha statues in Bamian, Afghanistan, “or to be like the Germans and remove the Berlin Wall.”

“We are a civilized people,” he added, “and this monument is a part of the memories of this country.”The work is part of a $194 million beautification project ahead of the summit meeting of Arab League leaders scheduled for March in Baghdad.

That meeting is already weighted with political significance simply because of its host: Iraq, a country at odds with many of its Arab neighbors before and after the war, but now seeking a pride of place in the international community. The turmoil sweeping the Arab world right now is likely to bring even more attention to the meeting.

At a minimum, the Iraqis appear eager to polish a capital still scarred by war and decades of disrepair.

In recent weeks, the government has begun rebuilding the road from the airport, not long ago a white-knuckled gantlet through insurgent badlands. Inside the heavily fortified Green Zone, where the monument is located amid embassies and government buildings, workers have removed many of the ubiquitous concrete blast walls erected to protect against mortar rounds and car bombs. It has planted flowers and trees along medians and traffic circles that Arab dignitaries are likely to pass.

The impetus for preserving the monument itself, popularly known as the Crossed Swords, was the destruction of another monument built by Mr. Hussein after Iraq’s defeat in the Persian Gulf war in 1991.

A concrete sculpture of clasped hands in western Baghdad — supposed to represent Arab unity after the war — was demolished last year to make way for a highway overpass, prompting angry protests that Iraq’s authorities were trying to rewrite all of the country’s past. Mr. Mousawi said that the prime minister, then in the middle of a re-election fight he ultimately won, ordered the Victory Arch to be preserved.

Mr. Hussein ordered the arch built in 1985 in a letter later inscribed on a tablet near one pair of the swords. (It has since been defaced, his name and that of Iran’s revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, scratched out.)

It was a propagandistic monument to a war against Iran that neither country won, despite savage losses on both sides. It was dedicated in 1989, barely a year before the invasion of Kuwait, another lost war and, in a way, the beginning of the end of his government.

The crossed swords, said to be forged from the weapons of fallen Iraqi soldiers, bracket a parade ground and viewing stand, where Mr. Hussein reveled in the glory he felt was due to him. It is one of the largest public monuments ever built, according to Mr. Makiya’s book. At its dedication, Mr. Hussein rode a white stallion through it, passing over the helmets of Iranian soldiers that are cemented into the bases of the thrusting swords.

Most monuments, murals and other manifestations of Mr. Hussein’s power were long ago removed, beginning with his statue in Firdos Square in April 2003. A committee reviewing monuments recommended dismantling the Victory Arch in 2007, but the work was aborted shortly after it began when some Iraqi and American officials complained. It has remained in limbo, however, weeds sprouting on the parade grounds between the arches and trash gathering in piles. Few ordinary Iraqis ever pass, let alone visit, because access to the Green Zone remains restricted.

Mr. Mousawi, the spokesman, said that unlike other monuments, the Victory Arch was not inextricably linked to the abuses of Mr. Hussein’s Baath Party dictatorship. “It does not impact the freedoms and rights of Iraqis,” he said.

For many, though, it remains an awkward subject.

“Talking about this now raises questions for me,” Mohammed Ghani Hikmat, one of Iraq’s most famous sculptors, who completed the work after the original sculptor died, said by telephone from Amman, Jordan. Surprised by news of the restoration, he said he was ill and declined to discuss the matter further. “Excuse me,” he apologized.

The work has proceeded largely unnoticed. Several lawmakers contacted about the restoration expressed surprise and in some cases anger. “It will bring back the bad memories to people,” said Samira al-Mousawi, a member of Mr. Maliki’s bloc in Parliament. “It is not acceptable to bring it back.”

The political movement led by the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr once led the campaign to demolish the monument. A leader of the movement, Hakim al-Zamili, suggested last week that the swords were an Arab symbol and should be preserved, but that the hands of a reviled dictator should not.

Mr. Makiya, who now lives in Cambridge, Mass., also expressed surprise, but satisfaction. “I am glad it is being restored, not because it is a great work of art but because it is such a perfect symbol of the Baathist experience,” he said in an e-mail. “It is vulgar, but vulgar in an unspeakably horrible, terrible — and therefore unique — way.”


Jehad Nga for The New York Times. Khalid A. Ali and Duraid Adnan contributed reporting.

A Tribute to Gamal Nasser

Gamal Abdel Nasser was loved by millions. Not only Egyptians but everyone in the entire Arab world. He had a dream, of making Egypt a dominate player in the middle east, a dream of secularism, and a dream of Arab Unity...

Museums on alert for Egyptian loot

International museums are on high alert for looted Egyptian artefacts and some archaeologists have even offered to fly to the country to help safeguard its ancient treasures, museums said Wednesday.

Egypt has been rocked by an unprecedented nine days of demonstrations against President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year-rule, and fears are high for the country's priceless heritage after looters broke into the Egyptian Museum in Cairo last week.

The spectre of the fall of Baghdad in 2003 looms large in the minds of Egyptologists, when thousands millennia-old artefacts were stolen or smashed by looters in the chaos following the fall of Saddam Hussein.

"The situation during the fall of Baghdad is the worst case scenario, but we think that's not going to happen because there is such a movement to protect the antiquities," said Karen Exell, chairwoman of Britain's Egypt Exploration Society and curator of the Egypt collection at the Manchester Museum.

Egyptologists have been heartened by the reaction of ordinary Egyptians to chaos and lawlessness.In Cairo hundreds of people formed a chain around the museum to protect it after looters broke into the museum Friday and destroyed two Pharaonic mummies, officials said.

Western museums are still urging vigilance.

"All of us who are friends of Egypt can help the efforts to stop looting of archaeological sites, stores and museums, by focussing on the international antiquities trade," London's Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology said in a statement.

Exell said an international alert had gone out to watch for looted items, as well as offers of help. One had been posted on a global Egyptologist electronic bulletin board by a team of Spanish archaeologists, offering to help catalogue artefacts.Egypt is home to one of the world's greatest ancient civilisations, which is also a major source of tourist income.

The British Museum, home to one of the world's top collections of Egyptian antiquities, including the famed Rosetta Stone, called for more protection of the country's heritage."It is a matter of the greatest concern that these irreplaceable objects should be fully protected to ensure their safety and survival for future generations," the museum said.

Many key ancient Egyptian works were allowed to leave the country in previous centuries and are stored in international museums. Some critics say this is because authorities did not recognise their true value when they were unearthed.

Exell said this is not the case now."It's been really heartening that ordinary people are protecting sites closest to them, they understand their value ... People do feel very proud of their heritage."

Mohammed Abbas, Reuters with Editing by Jon Hemming.

Crocodile tears over Egypt

"We pray that the violence in Egypt will end, and that the rights and aspirations of the Egyptian people will be realized, and that a better day will dawn over Egypt," President Barack Obama solemnly intoned at the beginning of his remarks to the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday morning.

This annual celebration of official righteousness is, appropriately enough, convened by the Fellowship Foundation, a shadowy, politically connected group with a long record of organizing "prayer circles" that bring together foreign dictators, American politicians and military contractors. Defending the practice, the group’s organizer noted, "the Bible is full of mass murderers."

Obama’s prayer follows a series of White House and State Department statements "deploring" the violence in Egypt and expressing moral indignation over the attacks by the regime of President Hosni Mubarak on peaceful protesters and the media.

Who do they think they are kidding? For 30 years, US administrations, Democratic and Republican alike, including that of Obama, have backed Mubarak precisely because of his ability to impose policies supported by Washington against the overwhelming opposition of the Egyptian people. That this required systematic and relentless violence was well understood.

If Obama is crying crocodile tears now over the violence that has left hundreds dead and thousands wounded in the streets of Cairo, Alexandria, Suez and across Egypt, it is only because this violence has stopped working, and the Egyptian people continue to resist and struggle.

He wasn’t crying when he delivered his speech in Cairo in June 2009, which included not a word of criticism of the Mubarak regime. Instead, he praised the Egyptian dictator as a "stalwart ally" and a "force for stability and good in the region."

Like his predecessors at the White House, Obama has sent an estimated $2 billion annually—second only to US aid to Israel—to prop up Mubarak’s dictatorship. The vast bulk of this money has gone to the army and police forces for the purpose of repressing the people of Egypt and the entire region.

That the president and other top US officials were hardly unaware of the violence carried out daily by the regime has been substantiated by documentary proof thanks to the secret diplomatic cables from the Cairo embassy released by WikiLeaks. A cable sent to Washington by the US ambassador in Cairo just months before Obama’s speech noted matter-of-factly that police brutality in Egypt is "routine and pervasive", with "literally hundreds of torture incidents every day in Cairo police stations alone."

This was hardly news. The Egyptian government has ruled through a virtually uninterrupted state of emergency over the course of Mubarak’s entire presidency. This allowed administrative detention without trial, the criminalization of strikes and the outlawing of any non-sanctioned gathering of five or more people.

In practice, this has meant that workers who have dared to strike have been met with riot police and troops, subjected to mass arrests and beaten with clubs and rifle butts. Leaders of workers’ protests have been hunted down, jailed and tortured. Those who the regime has bothered bringing to trial have frequently been hauled before special state security courts supposedly meant to deal with cases of armed terrorism.

Neither Obama’s nor any other US administration has found these actions troubling. They have helped create the most profitable conditions for the Egyptian bourgeoisie and transnational banks and corporations. Certainly no US official suggested withholding a single cent of US aid over the brutal repression of the Egyptian workers.

While Washington is now expressing its indignation over the arrests and intimidation of US and other foreign journalists covering the events in Egypt, it took no action against its client Mubarak as his regime arrested, tortured and "disappeared" journalists over the years, including for such offenses as "misquoting" his ministers, raising questions about his own health or writing derogatory reports about his son and chosen successor, Gamal.

The US viewed with approval the rounding up and detention without charges of thousands of members of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups.Washington likewise made no issue over the barbaric forms of torture meted out against thousands upon thousands of political prisoners, which ranged from burning people on their chest and legs to attaching electrodes to their tongues, nipples and genitals, to hanging them upside down to beatings and rapes.

On the contrary, the US government and its intelligence agencies viewed Mubarak’s torturers as a resource. It is likely that CIA officials watching the televised coverage of the goon squads attacking the protesters in Tahrir Square would have recognized some of their ringleaders, having rubbed shoulders with them in the torture chambers of Cairo’s Lazoughli Street secret police headquarters or Maulhaq al-Mazra prison.

Under an "extraordinary rendition program" begun under the Clinton administration in the 1990s, alleged terror suspects abducted by the CIA elsewhere in the world were flown in hoods and shackles to Egypt for the express purpose of being interrogated under torture. This grisly arrangement, which established a seamless unity between the Egyptian torture regime and US imperialism’s intervention in the Middle East, was worked out between US intelligence and the head of Mubarak’s secret police, Omar Suleiman. Recently named as vice president, Suleiman has been in regular telephone discussions with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden and other US officials.

Moreover, the role of the Egyptian regime as the "stalwart ally" of both the US and Israel has facilitated massive violence, from the US invasion of Iraq to the Israeli wars in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.This is the objective and historical context in which Obama’s prayer for an end to violence and his crocodile tears over the repression in Egypt must be evaluated.

Behind its pseudo-democratic posturing, the US administration is playing for time. Within ruling circles and the US military-intelligence apparatus, there no doubt exist divisions and conflicting assessments over whether Mubarak can succeed in suppressing the masses or whether immediate steps must be taken to refurbish the regime.

What concerns every section of the US ruling elite, however, is what Senator John McCain referred to recently as the "Lenin scenario", i.e., that the mass demonstrations against Mubarak will develop into a direct revolutionary challenge to imperialist domination and capitalist rule in Egypt.

All the talk from Washington about a "transition to a democratic regime" is aimed at forestalling this threat. Such a US-backed "transition" has no credibility whatsoever. It sole purpose would be to re-stabilize the existing military dictatorship so that it can continue enforcing policies that benefit US imperialism and a narrow and corrupt Egyptian financial elite, while subjecting the masses of workers and oppressed to unemployment, poverty and repression.

Egyptian workers and youth should reject both Obama’s hypocritical expressions of concern and US promises of a "democratic transition" with the contempt they deserve. The burning need is for the development of an independent revolutionary movement of the working class to effect the transfer of power to the workers and the oppressed and organize the socialist transformation of Egyptian society. A genuine democratic transformation of Egypt, an end to oppression and social inequality, can be achieved only by means of socialist revolution.

Bill Van Auken, WSWS

Yemen 'Day of Rage'

More than 20,000 Yemenis filled the streets of Sana'a on Thursday for a "Day of Rage" rally, demanding a change in government and saying President Ali Abdullah Saleh's offer to step down in 2013 was not enough.

Further anti-government protests were expected across Yemen, which Saleh has ruled for over three decades, and supporters of the president were driving around the capital urging Yemenis over loudspeakers to join pro-government counterdemonstrations.

But by early morning, anti-government protesters had already gathered the largest crowd since a wave of protests hit the state two weeks ago, inspired by protests that toppled Tunisia's ruler and threaten Egypt's president.

"The people want regime change," protesters shouted as they gathered outside Sana'a University. "No to corruption, no to dictatorship."Saleh, eyeing the unrest spreading in the Arab world, indicated on Wednesday he would leave office when his term ends in 2013, and promised his son would not take over the reins of government, among a host of other political concessions.

It was his boldest gambit yet to stave off turmoil in Yemen, a key ally of the United States against Al Qaida, as he sought to avert a showdown with the opposition that might risk sparking an Egypt-style uprising in the deeply impoverished state.

Wael Mansour, an organiser of the Thursday rally, said Yemenis were not satisfied with Saleh's concessions."Today will bring more, fresh pressure on President Saleh, who will have to present further concessions to the opposition," he said, without specifying what those concessions might be.

Reuters

Iraq not immune from Arab anger

Iraq is not immune to protests elsewhere in the Arab world because it is a democracy, and its leaders must work to fight corruption and promote social justice, clerics said in Friday sermons.

Their warnings came as protests in Egypt against President Hosni Mubarak reached an 11th day, while smaller protests have been held in Yemen and Jordan, after an uprising in Tunisia ousted that country's long-time leader.

"All governments, even democracies, must study the main reasons that have led to this public anger against their regimes, which started in Tunisia," said Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalai during Friday prayers in the shrine city of Karbala.

"A lot has changed in Iraq... but there is no social justice," said Karbalai, the representative in Karbala for Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani."The political blocs in Iraq must give priority to public issues over private interests."

'It will not end'

He added: "There are many outstanding issues - we are not sure that what happened in Arab countries will not happen in Iraq, even though it is a democracy."Sheikh Mohammed al-Juburi, imam of the Abu Bakr al-Saddiq mosque in the ethnically-mixed northern city of Kirkuk, echoed Karbalai's views, warning: "It started in North Africa and it will not end."

"Iraq's politicians must take care to serve their people and to not give opportunities to the corrupt and those who further foreign agendas," he said, adding: "We may see a spark in Iraq just like the spark sweeping Arab countries."

The imam at the main mosque in Kufa, twin city to the holy Shi'ite city of Najaf, condemned police reaction to a demonstration in southern Iraq on Wednesday, when they opened fire to disperse protesters, leaving four wounded.

"The demonstrators did not ask to change the government like what is happening in Egypt or Tunisia, they only asked for improving basic services," Dhia al-Shawki said."Are those illegal demands? Do they not know that the time of fear is over?" he said, an apparent reference to the fall of Saddam Hussein as a result of the US-led invasion.

- AFP

Iraqis protest shortages

Iraqi police opened fire on Thursday to disperse hundreds of angry residents protesting against shortages of power, water and other services near the southern city of Diwaniya, wounding three, officials said.

The crowd of about 1,000 tried to force its way into a local council building in the al-Hamza district south of the Diwaniya provincial capital, demanding improved food rations and more power and water.

Diwaniya is a poor, largely Shi'ite province that has suffered serious shortages. Protesters accused Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of breaking promises to improve services.

"The protesters threw stones at police. Police opened fire at them, wounding three," said Raad al-Zaidi, an adviser to Diwaniya Governor Salem Hussein."There was no reason to open fire. It doesn't matter if they tried to raid the place or threw stones."

Protesters set tires ablaze, hurled stones and tried to storm the local police station, witnesses said.Some of the demonstrators held bundles of tea and sugar, while others carried small oil lanterns, to demonstrate the lack of staples and power, witnesses said.

"We have to buy everything, water, electricity and food staples because of the acute lack of these materials and services," said protester Lazim al-Khazali, a taxi driver."We have had no water for three days and because sewage flooded the city streets as a result of heavy rain, I could not work for a few days."

Similar protests were held last June in the southern oil hub of Basra, where police opened fire to disperse several thousand protesters demanding the resignation of Electricity Minister Karim Waheed. Two protesters died.Dozens also demonstrated over lack of services in Baghdad's Husseiniya district on Monday.

Maliki's new government has been in place for just over a month, following nine months of tense negotiations between political factions after an inconclusive election last March. Lack of electricity supply is one of Iraqis' chief complaints.

Nearly eight years after the U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein, the national grid supplies only a few hours of power per day, driving up costs for businesses and compounding summer heat, when temperatures reach above 50 degrees Celsius.

Iraq has big plans to install turbines and capture gas at oilfields to ramp up electricity production, and needs to spend $77 billion to improve the power sector by 2030, according to a master plan.

Iraqi clerics urge government to learn lessons of Egypt or face similar uprisings in Iraq

Iraqis are seizing on Egypt's unrest to protest what they call corruption in their own security forces, rampant unemployment and scant electricity and water supply.

There have been small scattered demonstrations across the capital as Sunni and Shiite clerics warned in Friday prayers that poverty, oppression and corruption could spark similar uprisings in Iraq.

Sunni Sheik Abdul-Sattar Abdul-Jabar urged Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to leave office peacefully and "leave the people to decide their destiny."

In the Shiite holy city of Karbala, a top representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said governments across the Mideast must learn the lessons of Egypt and Tunisia or be prepared to face unrest at home.

Reuters

Three shot as Iraqis protest

Iraqi police opened fire on Thursday to disperse hundreds of angry residents protesting against shortages of power, water and other services near the southern city of Diwaniya, wounding three, officials said.

The crowd of about 1,000 tried to force its way into a local council building in the al-Hamza district south of the Diwaniya provincial capital, demanding improved food rations and more power and water.

Diwaniya is a poor, largely Shi'ite province that has suffered serious shortages. Protesters accused Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of breaking promises to improve services."The protesters threw stones at police. Police opened fire at them, wounding three," said Raad al-Zaidi, an adviser to Diwaniya Governor Salem Hussein.

"There was no reason to open fire. It doesn't matter if they tried to raid the place or threw stones."Protesters set tires ablaze, hurled stones and tried to storm the local police station, witnesses said.Some of the demonstrators held bundles of tea and sugar, while others carried small oil lanterns, to demonstrate the lack of staples and power, witnesses said.

"We have to buy everything, water, electricity and food staples because of the acute lack of these materials and services," said protester Lazim al-Khazali, a taxi driver."We have had no water for three days and because sewage flooded the city streets as a result of heavy rain, I could not work for a few days."

Similar protests were held last June in the southern oil hub of Basra, where police opened fire to disperse several thousand protesters demanding the resignation of Electricity Minister Karim Waheed. Two protesters died.Dozens also demonstrated over lack of services in Baghdad's Husseiniya district Monday.

Maliki's new government has been in place for just over a month, following nine months of tense negotiations between political factions after an inconclusive election last March. Lack of electricity supply is one of Iraqis' chief complaints.

Nearly eight years after the U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein, the national grid supplies only a few hours of power per day, driving up costs for businesses and compounding summer heat, when temperatures reach above 50 degrees Celsius.

Iraq has big plans to install turbines and capture gas at oilfields to ramp up electricity production, and needs to spend $77 billion to improve the power sector by 2030, according to a master plan.

(Editing by Jim Loney)

Iraq operating 'secret prison'

Security forces linked to Iraqi premier Nouri Maliki are operating a "secret detention site" and elite teams are torturing detainees at a separate facility, Human Rights Watch (HRW) charged on Tuesday.

The New York-based watchdog's claims come a week after the Los Angeles Times reported some detainees at a prison in the Iraqi capital's heavily fortified Green Zone had been abused and held without charge for up to two years, charges Baghdad denies.

HRW said that in late November, Iraqi authorities moved nearly 300 detainees to a secret site within a military base known as Camp Justice in the Kadhimiyah neighbourhood of north Baghdad, citing interviews it had conducted and classified government documents it obtained.

"The hurried transfers took place just days before an international inspection team was to examine conditions at the detainees' previous location at Camp Honour in the Green Zone," HRW said in a statement."The Iraqi government should immediately close the facilities or regularise their position and make them open for inspections and visits," it added.

The rights group said it had obtained 18 documents on the subject, and cited a letter dated December 6, 2010, from the prosecutor's office at a top Iraqi court asking Maliki to stop barring prison inspectors and relatives from visiting.

It said it had also obtained a January 13, 2011 letter from the justice minister to Maliki, addressed to the premier in his role as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, stating that human rights ministry prison inspectors had been prevented from visiting the site.

HRW said that the facility was run by the Iraqi army's 56th brigade, known locally as "the Baghdad brigade", and the counter-terrorism service, both of which report directly to Maliki.The rights group said the site was located within a legitimate detention facility located within Camp Justice.

Deputy Justice Minister Busho Ibrahim denied that there was any such secret site, telling AFP: "All the sections of the prison are available to us - there are no secrets. ... There is no secret prison there."

HRW also said that former detainees had told it they were subjected to abuse at Camp Honour. The LA Times said last week that detainees at the camp, a facility in a defence ministry compound within the Green Zone, were abused and not provided regular access to lawyers or their families.

AFP

Lawmakers warn Obama of cuts

The Obama administration needs to make a compelling case for investing billions more taxpayer dollars in Iraq as the nearly 8-year-old conflict recedes from the public's mind and the remaining 50,000 U.S. troops leave by year's end, top Senate Republicans and Democrats warned military and diplomatic officials on Thursday.

Amid fresh Republican promises to slash spending, members of the Senate Armed Services Committee cautioned U.S. Ambassador to Iraq James Jeffrey and Gen. Lloyd Austin, commander of the U.S. military in Iraq, of the intense pressure to cut dollars for Iraq.

Under the November 2008 security agreement between President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, all U.S. military forces will withdraw from Iraq at the end of December and the operation will shift to a civilian-led effort by the State Department. Persuading budget-conscious lawmakers to back foreign aid for Iraq, rather than military money, makes the task harder, said several committee members.

"Failure is not an option in Iraq and we must be prepared to bear the cost to ensure success, including the costs of our civilian operations and development programs, which will be substantial however this transition plays out," said Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the top Republican on the committee. "Congress cannot shortchange this mission now."

Since the March 2003 invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime, more than 4,300 Americans have died and the U.S. has spent some $750 billion on the war. Republicans now in charge in the House and tea party-backed newcomers are clamoring for deep spending cuts and have signaled that military dollars and foreign aid should be part of the calculation.

In a pre-emptive move, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has proposed a $78 billion cut in future spending. And even before he makes his case for the Defense Department budget later this month, Gates met at the Pentagon early Thursday with several of the newest members of the Senate — Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Republicans John Hoeven of North Dakota and Jerry Moran of Kansas.

Manchin said he is trying to get a sense of whether the U.S. investment matches the demands faced overseas.

"All the resources that we put into this, the restructuring that we're doing, trying to build an economy for them and we get no return on that," he said in an interview. "That's a hard thing for me and West Virginia to understand."Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said that as the Iraq mission shifts from the military to the State Department it will be difficult to persuade lawmakers to fund the operation.

Jeffrey estimated the cost would be around $5 billion for the effort in the next budget, down from around $75 billion the U.S. spent this year on the military effort. Still, it would amount to the single largest program in the State Department budget and would compete with demands from Afghanistan and other foreign aid.

"If we don't sustain this effort, then we have invested a lot of blood and lives and material in an effort that could be frustrated. That would be a tragedy," Reed said.

The volatility in the region also makes a concerted U.S. effort imperative, lawmakers said."We disregard Iraq at great peril," McCain said."Iraq will continue to need support in building its capabilities to meet internal and external threats for years to come after 2011," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the committee.

Austin said the United States is on track to withdraw its military forces by year's end. That would leave a diplomatic mission of about 17,000 people at 15 sites throughout the country, including three air hubs and three police training centers as well as consulates, embassy offices and Office of Security Cooperation sites.

Several Republicans, including McCain, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Roger Wicker of Mississippi, expressed concern about leaving the civilian operation without U.S. military protection. Jeffrey and Austin indicated that the Iraqis have made progress in ensuring their own internal security but external defenses are lacking.

"Would it be wise, from an Iraqi-U.S. point of view, that that vacuum not be completely — that we not create a complete vacuum?" Graham pressed the officials.

Jeffrey and Austin were reluctant to speculate as the 2008 agreement has set the stage for U.S. withdrawal and the Iraqis have given no indication that they want Americans to remain."We are always happy to have U.S. military security," Jeffrey said.

By DONNA CASSATA, Associated Press

US okay after troops leave Iraq

The US ambassador to Iraq assured lawmakers Thursday that the American diplomatic mission there will remain well protected even after the withdrawal of US troops in late 2011.

A private security force some 5,500 strong will remain to protect the large US diplomatic presence, US Ambassador James Jeffrey told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Jeffrey and General Lloyd Austin, the commander of US military forces in Iraq, both said they were confident that the force was adequate, and that Iraq will remain stable once US troops have departed.

"We face a critical moment now in Iraq, where we'll either ... finish the job and build upon the sacrifices made, or we will risk core US national security interests," Jeffrey told the senators.He described it as "a historic opportunity and a critical window to help Iraq emerge as a strategic partner and a force for stability and moderation in a troubled region."

Starting in 2012, the US presence in Iraq will consist of up to 20,000 civilians at sites that include two embassy branches, two consulates, and three police training centers. The figures includes armed private security personnel, support staff and diplomats.

Currently there are 2,700 armed security contractors in Iraq, Jeffrey told the senators.Austin said that US military advisers and trainers will stay to support the Iraqi military with US-made equipment such as M1A1 tanks, military aircraft and patrol ships. He did not give a figure, but said they would not include combat troops.

Both Austin and Jeffrey said they were confident that Iraq's military and police could maintain order once the US troops exit. The Iraqi security forces "have a good capability" to confront Shiite extremist groups and Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Austin said.

Austin and Jeffrey also said they had no indication that the Iraqis want the US military to remain beyond 2012.Republican Senator John McCain said that he was "very concerned" about the activities of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his close ties with Iran.

Sadr came to Iraq in early January after four years of self-imposed exile in Iran, but stayed for only two weeks and returned to Iran, officials with his group said in Iraq.The fiery Sadr gained widespread popularity among Shiites in the months after the 2003 US-led invasion, and his Mahdi Army militia battled US and Iraqi government forces in several bloody confrontations.

But in August 2008, Sadr suspended the activities of the Mahdi Army after major US and Iraqi assaults on its strongholds in Baghdad and southern Iraq in the spring.Just 50,000 US troops remain in Iraq, down from a peak of more than 170,000 and ahead of the full withdrawal in late 2011.

by Carlos Hamann, AFP

A worms eye view of revolution

The worms of the earth are finally turning across the Middle East and while the outcome of events within Tunisia, Jordan and Egypt have yet to be determined, the roots of these protests and revolutions lie in one common factor, which is the shared experiences of millions of people in an already turbulent region.

A joint study by the Arab League and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) indicated that in most Arab countries young people constitute 50 per cent of the unemployed - the highest rate in the world, while official figures place unemployment in the Arab world at 15 per cent but many economists believe the real rate is far higher than government statistics suggest.

According to the same report, rates of poverty remain high - "reaching up to 40 per cent on average, which means that nearly 140 million Arabs continue to live under the poverty line", with worse news being, the region seeing no decrease in rates of poverty in the last 20 years.

While Arab countries like Jordan have been working to create an open-market economy that would see a greater flow of foreign capital into a resource-barren country, already dependent on U.S. aid, the foreign debt is estimated at around $15 billion, about double the amount reported three years ago, while the economy saw a record deficit of $2 billion this year, with inflation rising to 6.1 percent just last month alone.

Like in Egypt and Tunisia, in Jordan rampant unemployment and poverty is estimated between 12 and 25 percent, with local residents complaining that "The government buys cars and spends lavishly on its parties and travel, while many Jordanians are jobless or can barely put food on their tables to feed their hungry children," said one civil servant and father of three, who earns $395 a month.

It was not until the global economic crisis that the Arab world started to witness the recovery of popular opposition - first materialising in Egypt in 2007 and 2008, where strikes and protests were the first indications of a return to organised protests against political repression and poverty inducing policies.

These movements, while in the past have either gained concessions or been unsuccessful, they did lay the foundations which brought the students and workers together to challenge the apathy and disdain of the ruling elites.

According to Firas Al-Atraqchi, a lecturer at the American University in Cairo, “In an unprecedented show of civil disobedience and open revolt, young Egyptians have clearly and forcibly delivered a message that is still resonating in the Middle East and North Africa: Authoritarian rule in the region is over“.

The protesters have been dismantling archaic forms of government, in which the ruler is considered beyond reproach and where economic policies are determined by his self-preserving allies. They are demanding equality in the distribution of wealth, an end to state corruption, greater employment opportunities and a curb to rampant inflation.

Yet when street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi poured flammable liquid over his body and set himself on fire in Tunisia, his act of protest cemented a revolt that would ultimately end President Ben Ali's 23-year-rule and send the region into flames.

Bouazizi was only 10 years old when he became the main provider for his family, selling fresh produce in the local market. He stayed in high school long enough to sit his baccalaureate exam, but did not graduate. He never attended university, contrary to what many news organisations have reported but as his mother stated to Al-Jazeera; "He didn't expect to study, because we didn't have the money“.

He later applied to join the army but was refused, as were other successive job applications and with his family dependant on him, there were few other options than to continue working at the market and nearly everyday, he was bullied by local police officers, "Since he was a child, they were mistreating him”, even claimed one close friend.

Apparently the abuse took many forms, mostly petty bureaucratic bullying that millions of Arabs know all too well, with incidents including Police confiscating his produce, fines for running a stall without a permit and even six months before his death, police fined him 400 dinars ($280) – the equivalent of two months earnings.

So while people may debate the rights and wrongs of what is taking place on their TV screens, the sound of the young angry Arabs who are leading this regional revolution, conjures up in my mind one poem by Maya Angelou, who wrote:

"Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise."

Hussein Al-alak is a journalist, campaigner and chairman of the Iraq Solidarity Campaign UK. You can read more articles by Hussein on his blog http://www.totallyhussein.blogspot.com/