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A second former executive of Monaco-based consultancy Unaoil has been jailed in the UK for his role in a multi-million-dollar bribery plot to secure oil infrastructure contracts in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Stephen Whiteley, 65, was jailed for three years on Thursday after being found guilty by a jury of paying bribes of more than $500,000 (Dh1.8 million) to secure a $55 million contract to build offshore moorings in the Arabian Gulf to allow tankers to load oil.

Whiteley, a former Unaoil territory manager for Iraq, and fellow ex-executive Ziad Akle, who was jailed for five years last week, said they plan to appeal against their convictions.

Unaoil acted as the middle-man for well-known companies vying for lucrative work after the chaos of the US-led war

The flagrant greed and callous criminality exhibited by these men undermines the reputation and integrity of British business on the international stage, said Lisa Osofsky, the head of the Serious Fraud Office, which investigated the case for four years. We will not cease in our mission to bring such people to justice.

A third Unaoil executive, Basil Al Jarah, pleaded guilty last year to paying bribes of more than $6m and will be sentenced in October.

British brothers Cyrus and Saman Ahsani who ran Unaoil struck a deal with prosecutors in the US where they last year admitted conspiring with companies to make corrupt payments of millions of dollars over 17 years from 1999 to government officials in nine countries.

Updated: July 31, 2020 03:19 PM

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Second former Unaoil executive jailed over Iraq contract bribe - The National

Thursday, July 30th 2020, 7:19 pm - The hot temperatures that were recently observed in Iraq were within one degree of an international record.

The Middle East has recently faced scorching temperatures as a heat dome sits over the region. The extreme weather is forcing millions indoors, straining electricity grids and breaking new temperature records.

Baghdad, Iraq reached a blistering 51.8C during the afternoon on July 28, which shattered its previous record high of 51C set on July 30, 2015. Little relief followed on July 29 when the city reached 51.1C, its second-highest temperature ever recorded.

Southeastern regions in Iraq saw even hotter temperatures on July 30 when weather stations in both Amara and Al Basrah peaked at 53.0C. Iraqs national temperature record is 53.8C, which was set in Basra in 2016, and is still the nations hottest temperature ever recorded.

The intense heat wave has also set record-breaking temperatures in other regions of Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

The Weather Network meteorologist Tyler Hamilton says that the sweltering conditions are courtesy of heat dome, which is a ridge of high pressure that has been stagnant over the Middle East.

The upper level atmosphere has created a sinking flow that has trapped hot air near the Earths surface underneath this dome.' High pressure systems also prevent cloud formation, which has allowed for clear skies and relentless sunshine in Iraq and resulted in unbelievably hot conditions.

The temperatures that were recently observed in Iraq were less than one degree shy from global records. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says that the hottest temperatures ever recorded on Earth are 53.9C ( 0.1C margin of uncertainty) in Mitribah, Kuwait on July 21, 2016 and 53.7C ( 0.4C) in Turbat, Pakistan on May 28, 2017.

Furnace Creek, Death Valley, California reached 56.7C on July,10 1913, but weather historians have questioned the accuracy of old temperature records and the meteorological technology that was used over a century ago.

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Several cities in Iraq reach 53C amid intense heat wave - The Weather Network

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a blue-ribbon commission and congressional committees uniformly blamed the U.S. national security apparatus for failing to connect the dots of evidence that might have exposed Osama bin Ladens plot.

Less than two years later, President George W. Bush launched a ruinous war in Iraq based on a far greater intelligence failure, one that saw the CIA, Pentagon and other agencies effectively make up the evidence that the White House sought to justify invading a country that had not attacked or even threatened to attack the United States.

The serial mistruths, mistakes and misperceptions about Iraqs supposed weapons of mass destruction and alleged support for al-Qaida are laid out in devastating detail in Robert Drapers authoritative new book, To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America Into Iraq.

This is well-trod history, but Draper mines newly declassified documents and tracks down previously unavailable CIA and Defense officials to flesh out the sordid story of the run-up to the March 2003 invasion, the start of a grinding conflict that would last eight years and claim nearly 4,500 American lives.

Why now? Two decades on, there are no new headlines to be pulled from the toxic personal and policy disputes of the Bush era. But Draper has written a compelling narrative of just how calamitous an ideology-first approach to fact-finding can be in the White House, and why Americans were so badly deluded.

Unlike President Trump, who utters falsehoods daily, Bush was a true believer which is exactly what made him impervious to conflicting evidence or doubts about the supposed Iraqi threat.

That folly has given Americans just cause to question U.S. intelligence estimates and, perhaps worse, has gifted Trump with a regular foil for jabs at experts and specialists even in his own administration. The erosion of trust that fueled his base is just one of the many poisonous after-effects of the war.

The road to that war began a few days after the 2001 attacks, when Vice President Dick Cheney led his aides to CIA headquarters in Virginia. The nations top spy agency was frantically searching for a follow-up assault by bin Laden, who was based in Afghanistan.

But Cheney insisted the CIA needed to focus on Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, despite the CIA briefers conviction that there was no evidence of Iraqi involvement in the attacks. As one later said, it was like asking, Did Belgium do this?

Over the next year, Cheney and other ideologues would push their bogus theory, as well as increasingly dire but equally false claims that Hussein had secretly produced and stockpiled an arsenal of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

The Pentagon created its own so-called intelligence shop to funnel unsubstantiated reports to Cheney and Bush, many from informants with little credibility. Led by a deferential George Tenet, the CIA quickly fell in line, repeatedly strengthening its cautious assessments of the Iraqi threat to help the White House convince the public of an urgent danger.

Bush needed little convincing: he had ordered up Iraq war plans only two months after the Sept. 11 attacks. As Draper writes, the rush to war was driven by fear, not hard intelligence, and by imagination, not facts. It was thus difficult for critics to push back when Bush warned, in October 2002, that we cannot wait for the final proof the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.

Yet Iraq had no nuclear program, no poison gases, no shells filled with deadly viruses. U.N. inspectors had scoured the country for months, but their failure to find illicit weapons was viewed in Washington only as proof that Iraq had cleverly hidden them.

Draper has written the most comprehensive account yet of that smoldering wreck of foreign policy, one that haunts us today.

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The lies and mistakes that led us into Iraq, laid out in a new book - Wyoming Tribune

For the people of Iraq, the fallout from the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 continues to this day, sometimes in unexpected and violent ways. That is the message that the Iraqis featured in FRONTLINEs Once Upon a Time in Iraq emphasize time and again. The documentary recounts their stories of life under Saddam Hussein, the war, the occupation, and the years of chaos that followed from sudden explosions during the days of sectarian violence, to mass killing under the brutal reign of ISIS.

Some of them shared what has happened in their lives and in Iraq since they filmed with FRONTLINE.

In the documentary:

Sally Mars was six years old when the U.S.-led invasion began in March 2003. In the documentary, she recalled hearing shooting and explosions. I remember that a missile hit very close to our house, she said. And my mom, she threw herself on top of us, me and my brothers. The house was shaking, we thought it would come down on us.

Whats happened since?

I really feel like Ive changed since we filmed the interview, Mars said. I feel like Im 50 years older now.

In October 2019, mass demonstrations erupted in Iraq as people rallied against corruption, lack of services, and high unemployment rates. It was a main turning point, she said.

The protests were met with a violent response. Bodies were dropping on the streets and the firing just continued with smoke everywhere, while blood flowed from the victims like waterfalls.

Angry and resolved, Mars joined the protests on Oct. 26. Everything inside me changed as I walked on my own through the demonstrations, she said. People she didnt know gave her water and a mask for tear gas. She saw people cooking food for the protesters and helping the injured. From that point, she said: I learned what it meant to be someone that loves their country, and what it means to fight for your rights, and for your freedom in the face of death.

The Iraq war changed the entirety of our society for the worse and destroyed Iraqis as individuals, Mars said. Our generation started rebuilding the strength in personality of the Iraqi individual by reclaiming our original roots and culture.

In the documentary:

When Ahmed Albasheer first saw American soldiers in Iraq, he said he felt hope. I had this dream that my country is becoming one of the good countries in the Middle East, or maybe in the world. But as the occupation continued, he saw the rise of sectarian division, with people carrying two pieces of identification one for Sunni checkpoints and one for Shia checkpoints. In the documentary, Albasheer said America did two major bad things in Iraq: the first was the invasion, and the second was withdrawing before Iraq was ready.

Whats happened since?

Albasheer said he felt the height of hope last October when massive anti-government protests began. The young men took to the streets to challenge the government and to demand a homeland I would say that my hopes were very high at that point, he said. I believed that everything was possible then.

Since then, he fears that the militias have grown even more politically influential, and its become dangerous and nearly impossible for young people who want to change the system. Protesters, he said, are not only facing a corrupt political system but super powers.

I cant see a clear future for Iraq at the moment, Albasheer said, noting that hundreds of protesters have been killed.

Anyone who wants to express their opinion will either be killed, bribed, or get death threats, escape the country, and speak from exile like me and many others do, he said.

In the documentary:

In Once Upon a Time in Iraq, Um Qusay recalled that life in her town under Saddam Hussein meant hunger and war. We used to eat chicken feed, she said. There was no rest, we were always at war. Wars that were not even necessary. Um Qusay also lived through the bloody and brutal reign of ISIS. She told the story of how she and fellow townspeople helped hide Iraqi army cadets who were being targeted by ISIS. When asked why she risked her life to protect those men, she said, The reason was that first of all, they are Iraqi.

Whats happened since?

Since she filmed the interview, Um Qusay said that Iraq is getting worse and worse by the day. She said, Theres a lot of pressure on regular civilians murder, massacres, demonstrations I dont know how to explain this, but we have no hope.

Um Qusay added: There needs to be complete oversight on those governing Iraq, so that its made sure that theyre doing whats right for the country.

In the documentary:

Tahany Saleh was a university student when ISIS took over the Iraqi city of Mosul in June 2014. Then, her life came to a standstill. I stopped going to university. We stopped going into the street, she said. As the Iraq army and the anti-ISIS coalition fought ISIS, Saleh was among the civilians caught in the cross fire. The army was bombing and ISIS was bombing. And we were right in the middle.

Whats happened since?

Saleh was interviewed for Once Upon a Time in Iraq shortly after the war to retake Mosul from ISIS. I perceived life in an indescribably intense way, she recalled. I had an overwhelming sense of survival. I had a lot of hope for change. There was a sense of possibility that we were going to revive the country, bring the city back, be safe, be stable.

Since that time, she has found herself disappointed. Things are very difficult now, very difficult, because we feel extremely let down as Iraqis, she said. Violence has increased, along with the power and influence of militias. Those who call for change are targeted for assassination, she said. I dont feel safe. I dont feel like my family and friends are safe, she said. I fear looking at my phone because I cant handle finding out that another person has been assassinated for speaking out, for trying to improve the country.

Ultimately, Saleh wishes for a better future and for Americans to better understand Iraqis. I hope that things change and that we can go back to dreaming again, she said. I just want to be able to hope.

Vanessa Bowles contributed reporting.

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Four Iraqis on Searching For Hope 17 Years After the Iraq War - FRONTLINE

The clocks struck 8.19pm on 6 July when Hisham al-Hashemi pulled his white Jeep Cherokee up outside his house in the eastern Baghdad neighbourhood of Zayouna.

It seems the prominent specialist in jihadist groups and star of Iraqi satellite news channels paid no attention to the motorcyclists parked approximately 20 metres from his home.

As Hashimi turned his car towards the front door of his house, the biker closest to him, hooded and dressed all in black, ran over to the car and attempted to fire his automatic rifle. The Kalashnikov only fired a single bullet, but it was enough to paralyse Hisham's movement, a senior police officer involved in the investigations told Middle East Eye.

Surveillance camera footage shows the gun jamming, and the gunman pausing briefly as he tried to fix the defect. Eventually, he instead pulled a handgun out of his jacket, ran towards the drivers window, fired several bullets towards Hashimi and withdrew.

Hashimis murder took less than a minute. In many respects, it resembled dozens of assassinations carried out in Baghdad and the central and southern provinces against activists, journalists and influencers over the past three years.

But it was different.

The 47-year-old was an expert in Sunni militant groups in Iraq and had helped the Iraqi security services and US forces dismantle or neutralise dozens of them over the past 13 years.

Because of this, hed made many enemies. However, few in the popularmedia and political circles, including those close to Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, believed the Islamic State group and its ilk were responsible.

Instead accusations have been pointed at Shia armed groups, in particular Kataeb Hezbollah, Iraqs powerful Iran-backed paramilitary and one of Kadhimis fiercest and most aggressive opponents.

Those close to Kadhimi believe Hashimis killing was only the harbinger of more to come and a direct challenge to the prime minister himself.

Intelligence sources told MEE that more of the prime ministers entourage are in the assailants sights.

The assassination, an adviser of the prime minister told MEE, was a message of intimidation to Kadhimi and his teams members from the gang of Katyusha, a nickname for Kataeb Hezbollah referencing the rockets used by the group to attack US interests in Iraq.

"The message clearly suggests that they can reach us any time, and that he [Kadhimi] is too weak to protect his people, the adviser said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

However, two more of Kadhimis advisers insist it is too early to confirm that Kataeb Hezbollah lies behind the killing, preferring instead to describe the culprit as a radical Shia group.

'We know that our names are all on the list, and that each of us must think that he is the next'

- Kadhimi adviser

We believe that they will target the members of Kadhimis inner circle with the aim of challenging him and dragging him into a traditional confrontation, which they have all the tools to win at this stage, one said.

"We know that our names are all on the list, and that each of us must think that he is the next.

Hashimis assassination and the danger now posed to his allies is an existential threat for the premiers fledgling two-month rule.

All of Kadhimis supporters and opponents, inside and outside Iraq, are wondering how he will respond.

Recent history suggests it may be confrontational.

Journalists and politicians who worked with Kadhimi or met him in exile in the 1990s describe him as a moderate, ambitious, very polite, a good listener and a man who does not tend to verbally or physically clash with his critics or opponents.

The prime minister tended to mix with intellectuals and writers. He built a reputation as someone who excelled at documenting violence against victims of the Baathist government, and managed to enjoy good relations with all parties involved in local and regional conflicts.

Since the 2003 toppling of Saddam Hussein, these characteristics have mostly stayed the same, according to a number of former colleagues who worked with him to establish the state-owned Iraqiya Media Network and magazine The Weekly.

Although Kadhimi helped establish many media projects, including the international website Al Monitor, he did not draw attention as a journalist or as a thinker, according to a prominent Iraqi journalist who has known the prime minister since their days working in the opposition against Saddam.

'A man of conviction': Grief and fury greet assassination of Iraqi analyst

Even during his four-year period as head of the intelligence service, Kadhimi avoided clashes with all of the Shia, Sunni and Kurdish political forces or Iranian-backed armed factions.

A Shia paramilitary commander close to Kataeb Hezbollah told MEE he managed this "despite having information proving that most of them were involved in criminal, economic and intelligence crimes", which would be enough to put them in jail or at least politically terminate them.

Yet since assuming the premiership, the man once known for operating sensitively from the shadows has taken several provocativestances.

He has surrounded himself with a number of researchers, journalists and activists who led or supported the protest movement that toppled his Iran-backed predecessor Adel Abdul Mahdi.

Among them are Hisham Dawood, a researcher in political anthropology;Harith Hasan, a political researcher;Mushreq Abbas, a journalist; Kadhim al-Sahlani, an academic and activist;Aqeel Abbas, an academic;Ahmed al-Mulla Talal, a TV anchor; and Ahmed al-Rikabi, a journalist.

Munqith Dagher, CEO of the Baghdad-based Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society Studies think tank, describes Kadhimi as an expert in the game of media, which is why he has surrounded himself with media personalities.

His entourage, Dagher says, has been assembled in a parallel prime ministers office, with Kadhimi wary of shunting Abdul Mahdis staff aside.

He is a compromise man, so he did not make any major changes in the old prime minister's office staff, but he also created a small parallel office to which his special team, his group, and his advisers joined, Dagher says.

However, the prime ministers circle is seen by the Iran-backed factions as hostile to them, seeking revenge and keeping them from power, according to one of Kadhimis advisers.

Meanwhile, Kataeb Hezbollah has made no secret for its disdain for the man they hold responsible for the death of the armed factions founder, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was killed by a US drone strike alongside Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in January.

Ignoring Irans request to support - or at least permit - Kadhimis premiership, Kataeb Hezbollah has missed no opportunity to attack him through their media outlets, and stepped up the rate of rocket attacks targeting US assets in Baghdads Green Zone and Iraqi military bases.

In response, Kadhimi last month ordered the Counter-Terrorism Squad to raid one of the factions headquarters and arrest its fighters there.

It was a startling escalation-one that led to Kataeb Hezbollah vowing to teach Kadhimi a lesson because he "dared to storm one of its headquarters and arrest a number of its fighters", a commander of the armed group told MEE.

While Kadhimi's opponents were busy digging up the past of his entourage and plotting massive media campaigns to discredit and question their loyalties, the prime minister busied himself with elevating figures free from Iranian influence.

Over the past six weeks, he has issued a raft of decrees that have shaken up the militarys leadership and eased Irans grip on Iraqs security forces.

He assigned Lieutenant-General Abdul Amir Yarallah as chief of staff of the army, Lieutenant-General Abdel Amir al-Shammari as deputy of the commander of joint operations, and Lieutenant-General Abdul Wahab al-Saadi as commander of the Counter-Terrorism Squad. He also appointed Major-General Fayez al-Mamouri as director of military intelligence.

Not satisfied with those positions alone, Kadhimi removed Faleh al-Fayadh, head of the Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitary, from his roles as the national security adviser and in the National Security Service, which he had run by proxy since 2009.

The Baghdad raid that put Kadhimi and Kataeb Hezbollah on a collision course

Lieutenant-General Abdul-Ghani al-Asadi was made head of the National Security Service, and Qassim al-Araji, the former interior minister, national security adviser.

Kadhimi also drew a clear line between combat forces on the one hand and military intelligence directorate and the agency tasked with probing military violations on the other. The National Security Agencys database was separated from the Iran-backed paramilitaries own security directorate, and he ordered the intelligence service to take command of the security of communications and information.

Suddenly, Kadhimi had a level of control over Iraqs military and security agencies unseen in years, and retained effective command of the intelligence agency he had just vacated.

All those military leaders are known for not being subject to the influence of the Iran-linked factions, a prominent former Iraqi intelligence officer and a friend of Kadhimi, who declined to be named, told MEE.

"Kadhimi is Iraqs boldest prime minister, and quickly rearranged the militarys house. All the prime ministers who preceded him were not able to identify the defects in the military, but Kadhimis work in intelligence over the past years helped him identify the deficiencies.

These figures are Kadhimis true team, the former officer said, describing it as a military government that the prime minister may soon use with effect.

As for the team of journalists and researchers, he used them to distract his opponents. He threw them to his opponents to busy themselves, and went to work elsewhere without disturbances, he said.

Kadhimi currently surrounds himself with two of the most dangerous forces in Iraq, the media and the military.

This has provoked his opponents, especially the forces linked to Iran.

They say that he mimics Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was also an intelligence officer, and that he seeks to strike his opponents unilaterally while in power, including the armed factions leaders and fighters.

The raid on Kataeb Hezbollahs headquarters last month and the arrest of its fighters, in addition to the changes in military staff, have intensified the suspicions of Kadhimis opponents that he is targeting them, and enflamed tensions.

Hashemis assassination was one of the consequences of this tension, one of Kadhimis advisers told MEE, adding that the premier does not seek to emulate Putin's personality, but he wants the law to have teeth.

This political system has reached the brink and will not produce anything after today, and therefore he [Kadhimi] is convinced that the moment of real change has arrived. But unfortunately it came at a very critical time and coincided with a severe financial crisis, a major collapse in oil prices, and a deadly pandemic, the adviser added.

He seeks to empower the law, and as such, he tries to bite into the chaos that engulfs the country, whenever an opportunity exists. But the resources and capabilities of the supporters of anarchy are still far greater than the state's supporters."

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The Iraqi power struggle behind a murder in Baghdad - Middle East Eye