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Internal Audit's Sarbox Role Institute spells out the tasks internal auditors should perform in a corporation's compliance with Sections 404 and 302 of the act. Stephen Taub, CFO.com August 06, 2004 The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) has trotted out a position paper recommending the role internal auditors should play in a corporation's compliance with Sections 302 and 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. While Sarbox spells out the roles of management, audit committees, and external auditors, it's silent on the parts internal auditors must play, the trade group stresses. The 13-page paper, available on the IIA's Web site, suggests that...

LONDON - The retired American general who headed the first occupation government in Iraq (news - web sites) says the decision to disband the Iraqi army was one of several major mistakes Washington has made in Iraq. AP Photo Latest headlines: · Pentagon Sending More Marines to Iraq AP - 51 minutes ago · US readies extra marines for IraqAFP - 56 minutes ago · Iraq's Shiites Oppose U.S. Election Plan AP - 1 hour, 47 minutes ago Special Coverage   The United States should also have put more more troops into Baghdad after the fall of Saddam Hussein (news...

<p>Iraq's American-backed administration failed in its first week to choose a president, abandoning that mission in favor of a weak, three-man rotating leadership. The top U.S. official in Iraq -- who hand-picked the Governing Council -- returned to Washington while an insurgency killed another American soldier Saturday.</p>

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's American-backed administration failed in its first week to choose a president, abandoning that mission in favor of a weak, three-man rotating leadership. The top U.S. official in Iraq — who hand-picked the Governing Council — returned to Washington while a violent insurgency killed yet another American soldier Saturday. The council, agonizingly shepherded into existence by L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator for Iraq, was announced last Sunday, saying its first order of business was the election of a president. When that did not happen after six days in session, officials of the Iraqi government told The...

The New Iraqi Press By MEMRIMEMRI.org | July 16, 2003 Since the demise of Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime in Iraq, and with it the state control of the media, dozens of new free and uncensored daily and weekly newspapers are available to the Iraqi public. Some of these dailies are independent, but most are organs of one of the burgeoning political parties and groupings. The following is the first in a series of reports issued by MEMRI's newly established office in Baghdad . The reports will provide a comprehensive overview of the new Iraqi press. Editorials 'The Negatives of Liberty...

<p>July 14 (Bloomberg) -- A car bomb blew up today outside the headquarters of the U.S.-led coalition in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, an unidentified U.S. military policeman told Agence France-Presse.</p> <p>Details of the attack weren't immediately available.</p> <p>Coalition forces began a crackdown on Saturday aimed at armed groups opposed to the U.S.-led occupation, arresting 226 people, as one American soldier was killed and six were wounded today in the latest attack on a military convoy, the U.S. Central Command said earlier today in e-mailed statements.</p>

BAGHDAD, Iraq Americans can be proud of the role their fighting men and women played in freeing Iraq of Saddam Hussein and his cronies. The people of Iraq are now on the road to political and economic independence.The first official step in this political transition at the national level occurs today, with the convening of the Iraqi Governing Council. This is the latest sign of progress. For the first time in decades, Iraqis are truly free. More than 150 newspapers have been started since liberation. All major cities and 85 percent of towns now have a municipal council where Iraqis...

CAMP BOOM, Iraq - U.S. forces launched a massive operation early Sunday to crush insurgents and capture senior figures from the ousted regime in a show of force designed to stem a wave of deadly attacks on U.S. troops. The operation, dubbed "Desert Sidewinder," is taking place in a huge swath of central Iraq stretching from the Iranian border to the areas north of Baghdad, and is expected to last for several days, military officials said. Americans arrested a man in Khalis, 45 miles north of Baghdad. He is suspected of recruiting young men to launch attacks on Americans, according...

The British military has ordered a suspension of weapons searches in the area of southern Iraq where six soldiers were killed, while a fundamental review takes place of the civilian population's right to carry arms. The Army has agreed to a two-month "cooling-off" period in the town of Majar al-Kabir, near Amara, and this may be extended to other areas in an effort to defuse the rise in anti-British sentiment. There is acknowledgement among defence staff that a lack of understanding of the local people contributed to the fatal confrontation on Tuesday in which six members of the Royal Military...

SAMARRA, Iraq -- U.S. military commanders have ordered a halt to local elections and self-rule in provincial cities and towns across Iraq, choosing instead to install their own handpicked mayors and administrators, many of whom are former Iraqi military leaders. The decision to deny Iraqis a direct role in selecting municipal governments is creating anger and resentment among aspiring leaders and ordinary citizens, who say the U.S.-led occupation forces are not making good on their promise to bring greater freedom and democracy to a country dominated for three decades by Saddam Hussein.

The huge effort to restore Iraq's oil industry begins every day two hours south of the Iraq-Kuwait border, at the lavish Crowne Plaza Hotel in Kuwait City. No sooner does the lobby restaurant open at 5 a.m. than a line of middle-aged men in jumpsuits, golf shirts and identical tan caps forms at the breakfast buffet, eschewing the mezzeh and labneh for French toast, home fries and beef bacon. Outside, a couple of dozen silver S.U.V.'s are lined up, and after a quick breakfast the men are off in a swift northbound convoy, each car marked with the sideways V...

Iraq's 1st Public Poll Backs U.S. June 19, 2003 Attackers fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a U.S. military ambulance in Iraq on Thursday, killing one U.S. soldier and injuring two others, the military said. It was the fourth attack in 24 hours on Americans in Iraq, and the third with deadly results either for Americans or Iraqis. The Pentagon has been playing down the attacks, saying they don't indicate widespread resentment on the part of the Iraqi people. Now, reports CBS News Correspondent Elizabeth Palmer, Iraq's first-ever public opinion poll seems to back that up. Sixty-five percent of Iraqis...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq (news - web sites)'s state oil marketing company SOMO on Thursday awarded its first post-war tender to sell 10 million barrels of crude held in storage but only one U.S. company was among the six winners. The tender was won by Spanish refiners Repsol and Cepsa, Turkish Tupras, Italian ENI and French Total while ChevronTexaco was the only U.S. company. Of the 10 million barrels sold from storage in Turkey, 5.5 million will go to the European market and four million to the U.S., the remainder left for "tolerance," SOMO Director-General Mohammed al-Jibouri told reporters. Total...

Saudi Nationals have joined the Sunni insurgency against United States Troops in Iraq. At least one US Soldier daily has been killed over the past few weeks.Meanwhile a US based Saudi opposition organization has reported that two Saudi Nationals have been killed in the sporadic fighting Middle East Newsline reported. Last week, the US Armys Third Division sent its 2nd Brigade to launch an operation in several Sunni cities to quell the insurgency.US Officials confimed that Saudi nationals have financed and participated in the Sunni insurgency. They said elements in Saudi Arabia view the US Military presence in Iraq as...

I'm started to get irked with this nonsense of S*itbird Iraqis killing American soldiers. I'm starting to get irked with this nonsense of not slamdunking anyone shooting at Americans. This touchy feely BS needs to end. Clean out the remaining opposition....not with UN style patrols....clean'em out with CIA payrolled spies and quick strikes carried out by Green Berets, Navy Seals and Recon Marines. Buld a friggin Guantanamo out in the Western Desert and stick every single Arab with a frown on his face in there until the Iraqi Government can be set up. Let them deal with them later. ...and...

Iran warned off 'meddling' in Iraq Bremer admitted he still had a tough task ahead of him The US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, has accused neighbouring Iran of actively attempting to subvert the coalition mission in the country.Mr Bremer said he did not welcome "interference" from Iran while US-led forces in Iraq were engaged in the "process of reconstruction and democratisation." "The message is very clear: the Iranians know they're doing it and they know we're unhappy about it and they ought to stop it," he said. Iran has been critical of the delay in government being put...

CENTCOM:   June 10, 2003Release Number: 03-06-39 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE TASK FORCE "IRONHORSE" LAUNCHES OPERATION PENINSULA STRIKE CAMP DOHA, Kuwait -- During the early morning hours of June 9th, Task Force Ironhorse soldiers conducted a series of raids to eradicate Ba’ath Party loyalists, paramilitary groups and other subversive elements located on a peninsula along the Tigris River, northeast of Balad, Iraq. The raids signaled the start of Operation Peninsula Strike. The operation took place in two major stages. The first stage of the operation involved moving soldiers and equipment into strike positions, intelligence gathering, and coordination with local police. During...

Wednesday June 11, 00:36 AM US warns of prolonged Iraqi resistance as violence flares again US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned that coalition forces in Iraq will need many more months to eliminate armed resistance from fighters loyal to former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, as hostile fire wounded four more US soldiers.The dangerous disorder still prevailing over two months after the fall of Saddam's regime was further highlighted when three Iraqis were killed in a munitions explosion.Speaking in Lisbon at the start of a four-day tour of Europe, Rumsfeld blamed the attacks that have claimed mounting US casualties on former...

MOSUL, Iraq -- A soldier with 2nd Battalion, 44th Air Defense Artillery, 101st Airborne Division, assembles an AK-47 rifle with a soldier from the Joint Iraqi Security Company, left, and a translator, center, June 5. The 2-44 ADA  is training Kurdish and Iraqi forces to become the first self-sufficient Iraqi military force. Photo by Pfc. James Matise/U.S. Army. 2-44 ADA Trains Joint Iraqi Security CompanyIraq's First Military Security Force is Made Up of Iraqis From Across the Countryby Pfc. James Matise101st Airborne Division writer MOSUL, Iraq (June 6, 2003) – The soldiers gathered inside the dilapidated building were certainly...

ASRA, Iraq, June 6 — Standing under the merciless sun outside his office, surrounded by employees shouting angrily about pay, Jabbar Ali al-Leaby, the director general of the South Oil Company, lost the little patience he had left. "Be satisfied with what you got," he told the men. "Do you know what I went through to get even this money for you?" It was only three hours into the workday, but Mr. Leaby's frustrations started, as they do every morning, when he arrived around 8 to the lone refurbished office in a complex of buildings so thoroughly ransacked that...

New Hampshire On the face of it, Jordan’s election this month would seem to be a lively affair. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve driven the length and breadth of the country. Well, not the length, but the breadth — from the Allenby Bridge across from the ghastly Arafat squat on the West Bank over to the eastern desert and the Iraqi border post at Trebil. And in every town you pass through there are handmade banners strung across the streets proclaiming the merits of a zillion candidates. Nothing fancy, just dense text on white sheets. But lots of...

There's no dysentery or cholera, no sign of a human catastrophe, the roads and medical centres are empty and the countryside charming. Yes, writes Mark Steyn, there's no place like Iraq for a holiday I've spent the past couple of weeks on a motoring tour of western and northern Iraq, and I can't recommend it highly enough. The roads are empty except for the occasional burnt-out tank and abandoned Saddamite limo. You can make excellent time, because it will be several months before a deBa'athified Iraqi highway patrol squad is up and running and even longer before they replace the...

May. 29, 2003 US raids Palestinian mission in Baghdad By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Baghdad US troops raided the Palestinian Authority's mission in Baghdad and arrested 11 members including its top diplomat after ransacking the building, Palestinian officials said Thursday. A top US general said only eight people had been arrested. "They even took all of our water bottles and food cans," said Mohamed Abdul Wahab, a mission official. "They behaved like common thieves." Although US troops have conducted numerous sweeps against suspected criminals and loyalists of Saddam Hussein's regime, Wednesday's raid was the first such action against a foreign diplomatic...

U.S. administrator Paul Bremer Wednesday reported "troubling" Iranian activity in Iraq and said it could result in serious problems if it went too far. "We have seen a rather steady increase in Iranian activity here, which is troubling," Bremer said in the interview with ABC News, excerpts of which were released Wednesday. His comments were the latest in a series of critical U.S. statements about Iran, lumped by President Bush in an "axis of evil" with North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in remarks published Tuesday the United States would not allow Iraq's neighbors to...

2:26PM US lifts sanctions against Iraq by Rex Nutting The U.S. government has lifted most economic sanctions against Iraq that have been in place for 12 years, as called for by the U.N. Security Council on Friday. U.S. companies and individuals will be able to trade with and invest in Iraq. "The Iraqi people can look forward to an end to the crippling deprivation," said U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow. Trade with Baath Party leaders, weapons trade and commerce in stolen cultural artifacts are still prohibited. The Treasury also said $570 million in Iraq Central Bank assets has been discovered...

<p>BAGHDAD, Iraq — While acknowledging that the situation in Iraq remains far from ideal, the U.S. civilian administrator said Monday that occupying forces have done a great deal to re-establish stability and will be pushing to help the nation rebuild its economy.</p>

As Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim, the 63 years old leader of the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq (SAIRI) is preparing to leave for his hometown of Najaf, a double conflict is surfacing, pitting senior Iraqi and Iranian Shi’ite leaders and their respective rival religious circles (hawzeh) of Qom in Iran and Najaf in Iraq against each other. Hundreds of Iraqi clerics who had escaped to Iran the inferno Saddam Hoseyn has created for the Shi’as have already left the Iranian religious of Qom, where they were teaching and learning, for their native Iraq, most of them assuring...

WASHINGTON - Bush names career diplomat to be top U.S. civilian in Iraq. No Info yet. Searching!!

Parties, plunder, and prayer in liberated Baghdad Matthew Gutman May. 5, 2003 In Sadr City, the lawless and impoverished district in east Baghdad formerly known as Saddam City, the US has found a friend. The Shi'ite residents and their powerful clerics have thrown their support behind American troops, grateful that they rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein and hopeful that the US might drag them out of dire poverty. "We were the living dead under Saddam," said Said Fathen al-Yasser, a metal trader who specializes in pillaged Iraqi tank and artillery shells. "Now we are free. For the first time...

Reds under the ruinsBy Paul Belden BAGHDAD - He still calls himself Abu Ayad, but that's only because old habits die hard. "It's my secret name," he explains with a smile, wiping his professorial spectacles against the sleeve of his neat, nerdy, button-down yellow shirt. This secret-named, hardened political fighter is, it turns out, a shy man at heart. Shy - but not embarrassed. The name and the reason behind it, may seem to be holdovers of a different era, but they were once the dead-serious necessities of political activism in this land where even the suspicion of such an...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration has chosen L. Paul Bremer, a former head of the State Department's counterterrorism office, to become civilian administrator in Iraq and oversee the country's transition to democratic rule. Bremer's selection, disclosed Wednesday by a senior U.S. official, will put him in charge of a transition team that includes retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner and Zalmay Khalilzad, the special White House envoy in the Persian Gulf region. Bremer left the State Department, where he was an assistant to former secretaries William P. Rogers and Henry Kissinger, to join Kissinger Associates, a consulting firm...

NEW DELHI APRIL 29. NDTV brings you a world exclusive from Baghdad. Did the people of Iraq welcome the American troops or not? Does the ordinary Iraqi want the Americans to stay or go back now that Saddam Hussein is dethroned? If Saddam Hussein is found do the people of Iraq want to see him punished or not? Is this war all about oil or not? With the embedded Western media being widely accused of bias there appear to be no reliable answers to many of these questions. In order to cut through the cacophony of opinions and views, NDTV...

QUM, Iran, April 26 — A black-turbaned Iraqi cleric, his belongings packed in a small blue bag sitting at his feet, led about 50 clerics in prayer. Kneeling on red Persian rugs, the men, many of whom who had spent the last two decades in Iran, gathered to catch the train that would take them to Iraq. "I am going first to Kazemein for a pilgrimage and then will go to Baghdad to find a home for my family," said Muhammad Hassani, a 52-year-old mid-ranking cleric, who had lived in Iran since 1980. Mr. Hassani, the father of 10, had...

Submitted by: 15th MEU Story Identification Number: 200342534427 Story by Cpl. Anthony R. Blanco AN NASIRIYAH, Iraq(April 25, 2003) -- Marines and Sailors of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) are working together with local law enforcements to restore law and order in an area where it has been absent since the start of the war. Some of the first steps in re-establishing the legal system is to clean up the courthouse, institute a police force and start a penal system to help Iraqi's transition from a United States military presence to a local one. To kick things...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 25 — A religious edict issued in Iran and distributed to Shiite mullahs in Iraq calls on them "to seize the first possible opportunity to fill the power vacuum in the administration of Iraqi cities." The edict, or fatwa, issued on April 8 by Kadhem al-Husseini al-Haeri, an Iraqi-born cleric based in the Iranian holy city of Qum, suggests that Shiite clerics in Iraq are receiving significant direction from Iran as they try to assert the power of Iraq's long-oppressed religious majority. It is not yet clear how much popular support Mr. Haeri and other clerics emerging...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. forces on Sunday arrested an Iraqi exile who had proclaimed himself Baghdad's mayor, saying he was exerting authority he didn't have. Mohammed Mohsen al-Zubaidi was arrested at 5 p.m. in downtown Baghdad "for his inability to support the coalition military authority and for exercising authority which was not his," said U.S. military spokesman Capt. David Connolly, speaking in Baghdad. Soldiers arrested seven others found with al-Zubaidi, Connolly said without identifying them. Al-Zubaidi, who has cast himself as a volunteer to help Iraq (news - web sites) get back on its feet, never discouraged widespread rumors that...

<p>Carolyn McIntyre can hardly wait to go back to Iraq.</p> <p>The Middle East director for San Francisco adventure travel company Geographic Expeditions last saw Baghdad in the late 1970s, just as Saddam Hussein was taking over and long before the first Gulf War and trade sanctions put Iraq off-limits for U.S. companies.</p>

ISTANBUL, Turkey - Turkey's foreign ministry summoned the U.S. ambassador Friday to explain a reported reference by the U.S. official in charge of rebuilding Iraq to a northern Iraqi city as Kurdish. Turkish media reported that retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner had characterized Kirkuk as a "Kurdish city" during talks in northern Iraq earlier this week. Ambassador Robert Pearson told reporters he discussed the issue with officials at the foreign ministry Friday. Pearson said he did not know if Garner had made such a statement, but reiterated U.S. assurances that the city, that sits in one of the world's richest...

The United States will next week appoint a former head of Shell Oil to run Iraq's oil industry, it was reported today. "The US Government is setting up Iraq's oil industry to run much like an American corporation, with a chief executive and management team vetted by US officials who would answer to a multinational board of advisers," the Wall Street Journal Europe reported.The advisory board would be chaired by Philip J Carroll, a former chief executive of Shell Oil, the US unit of the Dutch-British oil giant Royal Dutch/Shell, the newspaper reported.Mr Carroll would work closely with an Iraqi...

Baghdad - Once every hour the new radio station set up by the United States forces has been telling its listeners over recent days that they "have started a new life in a liberated Iraq thanks to the coalition troops". But at the home of Sahar, a Baghdad teacher, nothing has changed. In the corner of her small living room a photograph of President Saddam Hussein holding a rifle still stands in its accustomed place of honour. "We want our Saddam back," she says with anger in her voice. In this neighbourhood of Sunni families living along the narrow alleyways...

Over 70% of Iraq's population are Shiite Muslims. The fanatic Shiite movement was founded in Muslim terrorist Iran, where Shiite spiritual leaders reside to this day. Indeed, Iraq's Shiite ayatollahs and imams are still living in Iran, although they are now promising to return to Iraq. Last week, tens of thousands of Iraqi Shiites held mass demonstrations in Baghdad, Basrah and other Iraqi cities, demanding the immediate withdrawal of the "infidel" American occupation forces from the "Muslim soil of Iraq." Brutally suppressed for decades by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Iraq's Shiite majority is now free to demand what they have...

The top American civilian administrator for Iraq met today in northern Iraq with the two main Kurdish leaders and called for a new Iraqi government to be a "mosaic," fairly representing all Iraqis. The official, Jay Garner, a retired Army lieutenant general, received a notably warmer greeting in the north than he had the day before in Baghdad, with cheers, hugs and a shower of flower petals reflecting his efforts in the early 1990's to help create the thriving Kurdish autonomous area of northeastern Iraq. "The new government of Iraq will have one leader, one army, one government," General Garner...

<p>BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 22 (UPI) -- The Kadhimain Mosque is crowded with devout Shiite Muslims at noon prayer. Sayed Hussein Al-Hayderi greets his non-Muslim visitors with soft handshakes and a welcome to the mosque the Shiites consider the most holy in Baghdad. Speaking softly through a translator, the leader of this mosque –- who is accepted by Muslims as a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed –- calls on the American and British forces to work hard to rebuild Iraq -– and then to leave.</p>

WASHINGTON — There's nothing scarier than conservatives in transports of social and political engineering. The Republicans strain to appear diffident in Iraq, not wanting to be cast as overbearing imperialists. (Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, the new American viceroy, affects a Dockers look while meeting Arabs in jackets and ties.)The Bushies pretend that we don't want an all-access pass to Iraqi bases (we do); that we are not interested in influencing the disposition of Iraqi oil (we are); that we will stay out of Iraqi politics, even if they go fundamentalist (we won't); and that we will leave Iraq soon (we...

Saudi TV to Launch Telethon for Iraqis on Saturday P.K. Abdul Ghafour, Arab News Staff JEDDAH, 23 April 2003 — Saudi Television will launch a fund-raising campaign on Saturday to collect money for the Iraqi people, it was announced yesterday. The telethon was ordered by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people hit by the US-led war. In an appeal carried by the Saudi Press Agency, King Fahd urged Saudis and expatriates to cooperate with the campaign to make it a success. The fund will be used to meet the...

<p>April 23, 2003 -- BAGHDAD - They're tough, seasoned and lethal when they need to be - and they're working secretly in Baghdad, masking their identity by wearing U.S. Army uniforms and traveling in U.S. military vehicles.</p> <p>Fortunately, they're on our side. They're members of Britain's elite, highly secretive SAS, the special operations group that inspired the Army's counter-terrorist Delta Force.</p>

The words popularly used to characterize the war in Iraq were "cakewalk" and "victory." From the beginning, war supporters here liked to say it would be a cakewalk, which it wasn't, but also a victory, which it surely was. Our military men and women deserve great credit for their courage, imagination and decency in a wildly ambivalent theater of war. But there is a new word to apply to the next phase of the war, and it is an elusive one. The word is "legitimacy," and the success of occupation will depend upon its political application within Iraq. Consider the...

When Will Iraq Go Pop? by Jason Gay They now have Americans troops patrolling their neighborhoods, American-supplied radio on their airwaves, and pretty soon they’ll have Tom Brokaw, too, stentorially rhapsodizing on their rabbit-eared televisions. But is Iraq ready for Seinfeld? The American media campaign in Iraq is well underway, of course, even without Jerry. It began with psychological-warfare radio messages urging Iraqi soldiers to lay down their weapons and surrender. After Baghdad fell, a specially outfitted military aircraft continued to fly over the region, broadcasting public-service announcements and reassuring, look-into-your-eyeballs addresses from President George W. Bush and British Prime...

U.S. Probes Fortune in Cash Found in Iraq By JEANNINE AVERSA .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - Piles of U.S. currency, hundreds of millions of dollars so far, are being found in Iraq, even though the country has been under economic sanctions for nearly 13 years. Investigators - on the ground in Iraq and in the United States - are trying to track the money back to where it came from, a Herculean task, both officials and outside experts say. The experts say there are plenty of possibilities, including oil and cash smuggling schemes, illegal trade deals, sham businesses...

By David Rennie in Washington(Filed: 22/04/2003) Senior Bush administration officials yesterday called for American forces to leave Iraq within months in the face of political and financial constraints on a lengthy occupation.White House and Pentagon officials played down what America could or should try to achieve before handing over power to a local administration.In contrast, before the war, the State Department sent Congress a plan for rebuilding Iraq setting deadlines of six and 12 months for such tasks as providing basic health care to all Iraqis, and repairing 6,000 schools. More loftily, the State Department promised to move Iraq towards...