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Multiple foreign corporations that have bypassed or attempted to bypass United States and European Union sanctions against Iran are funding the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank chaired by defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel. One council sponsor, Italian oil company Eni, has vehemently defended its trade with Iran, saying it was “proud” of its cooperation with the regime. “Given the existence of foreign pressures, implementation of most projects in Iran is challenging and complicated,” Eni’s Executive Vice President Guido Michelotti told reporters during a 2011 visit to Iran. “Yet, we have always been interested in cooperation with the Iranian side...

It's 5 AM in Qatar, where we landed an hour or so ago. Yes, the Iraq portion of this trip is over. Not without a few final twists and turns, naturally. We got into the Green Zone Monday night and camped out in a media lounge. Standing outside in the parking lot the following morning, a very sharp explosion could be heard, but that's not enough to stop people from going about their business here. Gulf Reconstruction Division official and host par excellence Tommy Clarkson had arranged interviews with a number of senior officials. There is a major disconnect between...

My son, who was with the 82nd Airborne, and spent 8 months in Iraq during Gulf War I, was scheduled to be shipped to either Iraq or Afghanistan this January 06. I decided to do some research on Iraq and discovered that very little has been done to restore the vast marshes at the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Saddam Hussein decided to destroy this haven for freedom fighters by draining and drying the marshes. He succeded in driving all but 50,000 of the original 300,000 population of this giant wetland away. He transported many to cities in...

Despite bombs, Baghdad stock exchange thinks big 22 Nov 2005 12:25:03 GMT Source: Reuters By Deepa Babington BAGHDAD, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Bomb blasts around Baghdad routinely shake the trading room and it takes 10 days for an investor to receive proof of a stock order, but Iraq's fledgling stock exchange is thinking big. Operating out of a heavily protected building in a residential sidestreet, the Iraqi Stock Exchange's 50 brokers write up their prices on white boards but there are plans to introduce electronic trading by next summer. Despite the technological challenge of running a virtual exchange in...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The former US-led Coalition Provisional Authority headed by American Paul Bremer lost track of nearly nine billion dollars it transferred to Iraqi government ministries to a black hole of fraud, kickbacks and fund misappropriation, according to Time magazine. In a report to hit US newsstands Monday, Time reports that the CPA left "large portions of the 8.8 billion Iraqi treasury open to fraud, kickbacks and misappropration of funds," citing a US inspector general's audit. The report was written by the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction Stuart Bowen, a high-powered lawyer from Texas, it said. Time said Bowen's...

The "Baghdad blogger", whose weblog gave the world a rare insight into the lives of ordinary Iraqis in the run-up to the US-led invasion, says fair elections are the only way to end the violence in Iraq. Salam Pax told the BBC's Newsnight programme: "Maybe, just maybe, once we have elections and we have a group of people who truly represent us all, this could be our ticket out of the mess we're in now." He also warned the coalition against a hasty withdrawal from the region before a credible government took control in Iraq, fearing flawed elections would mean...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A Pentagon (news - web sites) e-mail said Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) coordinated a huge Halliburton government contract for Iraq (news - web sites), despite Cheney's denial of interest in the company he ran until 2000. The March 5, 2003 e-mail, from an Army Corps of Engineers official, said that top Pentagon official Douglas Feith got the job of shepherding the contract, according to the newsweekly Time that hits newsstands Monday. Feith had approved the multi-billion-dollar deal "contingent on informing WH (the White House) tomorrow. We anticipate no issues since action has been...

One year after coalition forces swept into Baghdad, there is tangible evidence of progress, but security issues continue to dominate on the ground in Iraq and in the international press. "Many believe that we are engaged in a cataclysmic battle," says Lt. Gen. Robert S. Flowers, outgoing chief of the Army Corps of Engineers. "If we can stand up democracy here in Iraq and Afghanistan, we will shorten the global war on terror considerably." Flowers visited the region late last month for the "sixth or seventh time" and says conditions are improving "little by little. The key is infrastructure–power, water...

Russian President Vladimir Putin says Russian companies are prepared to invest as much as $4 billion in Iraq and expect to be active in rebuilding the country. At the start of talks in Moscow Monday with the current head of Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council, Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, Mr. Putin noted that Moscow and Baghdad have historically had good relations and he expects those relations to continue. Mr. al-Hakim leads a delegation from Iraq's Governing Council that is meeting with Mr. Putin and other top Russian officials. The discussions will include the Iraqi debt to Moscow and Iraq's existing multi-billion-dollar contracts with...

This list has appeared in numerous venues, including Free Republic. Its contents are based upon the October 9, 2003, Press Conference of Paul Bremer, Coalition Provisional Authority Administrator -- The Editors.Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...the first battalion of the new Iraqi Army has graduated and is on active duty·    Since President  Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1... over 60,000 Iraqis now provide security to their fellow citizens. Since  President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...nearly all of Iraq’s 400 courts are functioning.  Since President Bush declared...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Pity the Iraqi businessman. After more than 40 years languishing in a state-run command economy, Iraqi entrepreneurs who've finally won the freedom to start businesses now face a new threat: competition, especially from well-heeled foreigners given virtually unrestricted access to the Iraqi market. "Most Iraqi investors aren't millionaires," said Ihsan al-Titenchi, membership director of the Iraqi-American Chamber of Commerce and Industry. "They want to know what's going to happen to them. Are they going to stay in business? Or is someone from the outside going to arrive and put them out of business?" The anxiety...

A post-war pot of gold Apr 15th 2003 From The Economist Global Agenda Even before the fighting began, the Bush administration had secretly invited bids for work to rebuild Iraq’s battered roads, power plants, oil wells and so on. Now, as that work begins, non-American companies are worried that all they will get is the crumbs AP What do you mean the contract's void? THE Bush administration has long been accused of waging war on Iraq for its own commercial reasons. Many outsiders suspected that the Texan oilman in the White House was interested principally in the country’s oil reserves,...

UPDATE THURSDAY 4/9 NPR Drumbeat for UN Hegenomy Gets Frantic One day after the dawning of Iraqi freedom- NPR continues it's relentless campaign to put the worst possible light on events from the front. The moment, which encapsulated the truth that Iraqis were receiving the US coalition troops as liberators rather than conquerors, was the pulling down of one of the giant statues of Saddam and dragging the head through the streets of Bagdad. NPR managed to present even this epic event with as negative a spin as possible- through the audio-taped perspective of an Iraqi woman who had lost...

France's Opposition to War Gives Momentum to Boycott of French Products Mar 22, 2003 (The Washington Times - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News via COMTEX) -- The economic backlash includes a Cincinnati restaurateur who banned French wines and cheeses from his menu, a Chicago grocery-store chain that refuses to sell Evian water and Dijon mustard, and members of Congress who have renamed french fries "freedom fries." "We feel that the French aren't supporting our government, so why give them money for their country and their products?" asked Rory Hancock, manager of the Garden Fresh Market in the Chicago suburb of Wheeling....