Just when it looked like Iraq was becoming a regional leader it decided to halt a $2 billion pre-paid oil supply deal with China's state-owned Zhenhua Oil Co. despite aims to strengthen ties with China.
Iraq decided to end a deal with Zhenhua and sell its crude supply to other customers as oil prices continue to rise. The deal with the Chinese company, that was agreed upon earlier this year, would have seen 4 billion bpd of oil supplied each month. The oil was expected to be destination free, meaning Zhenhua could sell it to other companies.
However, government officials in Iraq are making the countrys budget priority clear as the State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO) deputy director-general Ali al-Shatari stated, "For the time being we may say it is not applicable at this stage because of oil prices, which are high and we are in a better position and we are even generating additional profits in excess of what the Iraqi budget needs."
The end of the Zhenhua deal follows recent announcements of big oil backing away from Iraq. Earlier this month, oil super-major, BP, said it wanted to change its operations in Iraqs supergiant Rumaila oil field, to create a stand-alone company.
U.S. super-major ExxonMobilannounced its intention to withdraw from Iraqs West Qurna 1 oil field. And Royal Dutch Shell got out long ago, ceasing operations in Iraqs supergiant Majnoon oil field in 2017 and West Qurna 1 in 2018.
Related: U.S. Agrees To Lift Iran Oil Sanctions There are several reasons for the Western supermajors exit from Iraq, including the movement away from traditional oil and gas towards low-carbon projects, persistent corruption in Iraqs oil industry, and Chinas dominance of Iraqi oil.
However, we mustnt overlook the fact that oil prices in Iraq have been steadily increasing since the beginning of the year, as the government promises higher export levels. SOMOs crude was going for $65.842 a barrel in May, up 23.5% from January. And now Iraq is expecting as much as $80 a barrel, although no timeframe has been given for this confident prediction.
Iraqs oil exports have been strong in 2021, as the third-largest oil exporter to China, after Saudi Arabia and Russia, and the top supplier to India last month. Iraq has been setting its sights on China and India, as oil demand from the two Asian giants looks set to continue well into the next decade.
As the countrys Basrah Medium crude grows in popularity and production picks up after a recent agreement with OPEC+ on supply, export levels will steadily increase throughout the rest of the year. Iraq exported 1.013 million bpd of Basrah Medium in May, up from 891,000 bpd exported in January, around a 14% increase.
OPEC restrictions on output had limited Iraqs oil exports, but the easing of these constraints will allow Iraq to produce 4.016 million bpd in July, an increase from 3.954 million bpd in June and 3.905 million bpd in May.
Related: Rising Demand Closes The Gap Between WTI And Brent Prices
But Iraq will have to maintain its competitive position in the market if it wants to maintain its regional reputation as a key oil and gas exporter, with neighboring Iran expected to take center stage upon a nuclear agreement with the U.S.
Just this week, Iran announced that the U.S. had agreed to remove all oil sanctions on Iran, although Washington has not yet confirmed this move. If this were true, it would unlock Irans 208.6 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, allowing it to become a major international player once again.
As Iraq focuses its exports on China and India, following the distancing of Western supermajors from the country, it will have to foster these relationships well if it wants to maintain its competitive edge in the region before Irans oil operations get back into full swing.
A bomb-laden drone" attacked US forces at a base near Baghdad International Airport, according to sources in Iraq. This area is called Victory Base and has been targeted in the past. Official disputed the pro-Iranian claims, saying news of the attack was disinformation. The area allegedly targeted is called "Victory Base" by pro-Iranian groups and media, and has been targeted in the past. In fact Camp Victory closed down in December 2011 when Operation Iraqi Freedom ended. What is now at the Baghdad airport is the Department of State operated Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center (BDSC). Hundreds of US and coalition troops are co located at the BDSC.
Drone attacks on US forces in Iraq have been rapidly increasing over the last months. There are believed to have been 45 attacks this year on US forces in Iraq, and around seven of them have involved drones.
On Sunday, rockets were reportedly fired at US forces at Ain al-Asad Airbase in Iraq.
Sabereen News, a Telegram news channel associated with the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units, better known as Hashd al-Shaabi, reported that two fixed-wing combat drones laden with explosives had struck targets inside Victory base early on Tuesday, Irans Press TV reported.
The report added that C-RAM systems as well as AN/TWQ-1 Avenger missile systems deployed at the base were not able to intercept the aircraft, Press TV reported.
Press TV reported the attack on Tuesday, when it appears it happened on Monday.
The development came less than two days after an unnamed Iraqi security force said a Katyusha rocket had landed at Ain al-Asad Airbase in Iraqs western province of Anbar, located about 160 km. west of the capital Baghdad, without causing casualties, the report said.
The drone attack is the latest use of drones, which pro-Iranian militias have increasingly displayed at military parades. A drone was used to attack a secret CIA hangar at an airport in Erbil, according to reports in April. There have been numerous other attacks.
The US has reduced its footprint in Iraq in the last year and a half, with US forces only at a few locations, such as Victory and Union III in Baghdad, near the US Embassy, and at al-Asad and Erbil. All these locations have come under attack, as well as US contractors at Balad Air Base.
The US returned to Iraq in 2014 to help fight ISIS. However, tensions with Iran have led to calls for the US to leave. Those calls began to increase in 2017 and have rapidly grown.
Iran has moved drones and ballistic missiles to Iraq in recent years. Drones have been flown from Iraq to attack Saudi Arabia, and Iraq is a conduit for weapons trafficking to Syria and then on to Hezbollah.
During Operation Guardian of the Walls, the May conflict between Israel and Hamas, a drone piloted from Iraq or Syria flew into Israeli airspace. Hamas used Iranian-style drones to try to attack Israel. The Iron Dome air-defense system shot at least one of them down.
On Monday, Israel showcased a new laser that can be used to shoot down drones, although it will take years for it to become operational.
WASHINGTON (AP) The Democratic-led House, with President Joe Biden's backing, passed legislation Thursday to repeal the 2002 authorization for use of military force in Iraq, a step that supporters said was necessary for Congress to reassert its constitutional duty to weigh in on matters of war. Detractors worried it would embolden militias or terrorist groups.
The repeal was passed overwhelmingly, 268-161. Forty-nine Republicans voted for the bill. Only one Democrat, Rep. Elaine Luria of Virginia, voted against it. In the Senate, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., intends to bring the measure to the floor this year.
Supporters said repeal would not affect U.S. military operations around the world, but could prevent a president from relying on the 2002 authorization to conduct unrelated military actions. The White House says there are no ongoing military activities reliant solely upon that authorization.
The authorization was directed against the government of Iraq's Saddam Hussein, authorizing the necessary and appropriate use of force to defend U.S. national security against the continuing threat posed by Iraq and to enforce all relevant" U.N. Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.
Repeal is crucial because the executive branch has a history of stretching" the authorization's legal authority, said Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. It has already been used as justification for military actions against entities that had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein's Baathist dictatorship simply because such entities were operating in Iraq."
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said he agreed the authorization was outdated, but he argued that Congress should not repeal it without also approving a replacement.
We should not encourage any president to go it alone without Article I congressional authorization," McCaul said.
The action follows years of debate over whether Congress has ceded too much of its war-making authority to the White House. Many lawmakers, particularly Democrats, say passage of the 2002 authorization was a mistake, and some Republicans agree the authority should be taken off the books. Some lawmakers say the 2001 resolution to fight terrorism, passed after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, should be reexamined as well.
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As a senator in 2002, Biden voted for the resolution that President George W. Bush used to invade Iraq the following year. Biden was not considered a leading critic of that 2003 military operation at the time, despite his claims as a presidential candidate in 2020.
Biden faced considerable criticism for the vote during the Democratic primary campaign. He and his aides, including now-Secretary of State Tony Blinken, initially defended the vote by saying the Bush administration wanted more leverage against Hussein and that Biden hadnt intended his vote as a blank check. Biden eventually called the resolution a mistake.
Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee of California, the bills sponsor, said that 87% of the current members of the House were not in Congress in 2002 and that the authorization for military force passed at that time bears no correlation to the threats the nation faces today. She also was the lone vote against the 2001 auhtorization following Sept. 11.
To this day, our endless war continues costing trillions of dollars and thousands of lives in a war that goes way beyond any scope that Congress conceived or intended, Lee said.
Schumer had said on Wednesday that the Iraq War has been over for nearly a decade and that the authorization passed in 2002 is no longer necessary in 2021.
The White House said Biden is committed to working with Congress to update the authorization with a narrow and specific framework appropriate to ensure that we can continue to protect Americans from terrorist threats."
Schumer said he wanted to be clear that legislation terminating the use of force in Iraq does not mean the U.S. is abandoning the country and the shared fight against the Islamic State group. He said the measure would eliminate the possibility of a future administration reaching back into the legal dustbin to use it as a justification for military adventurism.
He cited the Washington-directed drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassim Soleimani in January 2020 as an example.
The Trump administration said Soleimani was plotting a series of attacks that endangered many American troops and officials across the Middle East. The national security adviser at the time, Robert OBrien, told reporters that President Donald Trump exercised Americas right to self-defense and that the strike was a fully authorized action under the 2002 authorization to use military force.
There is no good reason to allow this legal authority to persist in case another reckless commander in chief tries the same trick in the future, Schumer said.
In the Senate, key lawmakers are working on a bill that would repeal not only the 2002 authorization, but also the 1991 authorization for use of force in Iraq, which remains on the books. The 1991 authorization gave President George H.W. Bush the authority to use force against Iraq to enforce a series of Security Council resolutions passed in response to Iraqs invasion of Kuwait.
The Senate and House would have to work out any differences in their bills and vote on a final product before it can go to Biden's desk to be signed into law.
In the end, legislation terminating the 2002 authorization will need 60 votes in an evenly divided Senate to overcome procedural hurdles. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he opposes the effort to terminate the authorization.
We used it to get Soleimani and there might be another Soleimani out there," Inhofe said.
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Associated Press writer Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.
Colonel David Williams is the chief coalition liaison with Kurdish forces in the north. The coalition has provided intensive training for years to the Peshmerga, the Kurdish security forces, equipping them with high-level military gear and, some say, helping them turn a mountain militia into a well-honed and modern fighting force.
They do the same for the Iraqi army; the country's top counter-terrorism force was founded by U.S. Special Forces, and multiple branches of the security forces have been trained by them; while the pandemic ended in-person training, the regular equipment handouts continue.
The Iraqi government says the country's armed forces, who were swiftly overpowered when ISIS swept through much of Iraq in 2014, are now ready to fight the country's multiple security threats alone. Others aren't so sure.
Peshmerga General Sirwan Barzani has worked hand-in-hand with the coalition for years; he says local forces couldn't manage in a year what foreign forces can do in a few days.
AROUND NOON on June 9th, a sudden hubbub echoed through the Imam Hussein shrine in Karbala. Qassem Musleh, a militia boss who had been arrested two weeks earlier on suspicion of murder, was free and visiting one of Shia Islams holiest sites. A happy crowd surged around him as he walked out into the blazing sun. Some did not even stop to retrieve their shoes, and scorched their feet on the street. Your correspondent squeezed into the throng for a brief interview. They had no proof, crowed Mr Musleh.
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For many Iraqis, his release was a sad reminder of how weak their state is. Prosecutors had accused him of ordering the assassination of a campaigner against corruption and Iranian influence. When Mr Musleh was arrested, his gun-waving supporters promptly occupied parts of the Green Zone, where Iraqs central government is based. Rather than risk a bloody confrontation, the state released him.
Iraq is preparing for elections in October. It will be a huge task to ensure they are free, says President Barham Salih. The UN has been invited to supervise. Thirteen main factions are jostling for power. Seven are Shia, four Sunni Arab and two Kurdish. Two broad coalitions of Shias, Kurds and Sunnis will probably emerge from the mix: one leaning towards Iran; the other towards America and the Sunni Gulf states. Mustafa al-Kadhimi, the prime minister (a position more powerful than president), may get a second term if the factions are convinced that he is pliable.
However, Iraqis wonder how much authority the government they elect will actually have. Many fret that, no matter who wins, the shots will really be called by militias, tribes, corrupt factions and foreign powers. Many plan to boycott the ballot. Five young men in a restaurant in Basra, a southern city, sum up the mood. All supported the huge anti-establishment protests that rocked the country in 2019. Two show off scars from having been beaten by militiamen. None plans to vote. I want a country, says Nabil, a civil servant with a nasty truncheon injury.
Like many Iraqis, he frets that his motherland is tugged and battered by forces beyond the governments control. Qassem Suleimani, one of Irans top generals, used to visit regularly to help organise Iraqs Shia militias. America, which still has 2,500 troops in Iraq, killed him with a drone strike last year as he left Baghdad airport. The charred wreckage of his car is now mounted on a pedestal near where he died. It is one of the first things visitors see, along with countless billboards of Suleimanis face, and that of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, an Iraqi militia commander who died with him.
Scores of militias, most of them Shia, are collectively known as the Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation Forces). They played a crucial role in vanquishing the torture-broadcasting Sunni jihadists of Islamic State (IS), who once controlled a third of Iraqi territory. But after IS was defeated in 2017, the militias did not disband. On the contrary, they have won public funding: 2% of GDP last year. Thus, the government bankrolls private military forces of dubious loyalty with a lavishness many formal armies would envy. (Iraqs gets 4%.)
We always follow the prime ministers orders, says Sheikh Abdul Zahra al-Ghanim, the spiritual leader of the Hashds 10th brigade. But the pictures on his wall are of Suleimani and Ali Khamenei (Irans supreme leader). Abu Fatima al-Basri, who runs the martyrs centre where Mr Ghanim is sitting, lets the mask slip: On religious matters, we follow Ayatollah Khamenei; on earthly matters, we follow the prime minister. And if their instructions were to conflict? Our faith is above the prime minister, he says.
Mr Basri adds that he would like the Hashd to become like the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. For many Iraqis, this is a horrifying prospect. Irans elite force answers to the top cleric, not the president, and runs a vast, corrupt business empire.
The Hashd already control some ministries, and make tidy sums from extortion and smuggling. Resentment against Iran and its proxies is widespread. Protesters set fire to the countrys consulate in Karbala last month. Others burned a Hashd office in Nasiriya last year. Soot still daubs the walls. The attacks were paid for by outside forces, claims one of the staff there. Such conspiracy-mongering is rife.
The prime ministers men say they are gradually curbing militia power. Last month Mr Kadhimi issued a report claiming that the government had impounded 1,700 missiles in the past year, but it did not say from whom. A plan was proposed to merge the Hashd with the army and pension off many of its members. It has gone nowhere. One of its more vocal advocates, Hisham al-Hashimi, was murdered last year. Many Iraqis have lost faith in the prime minister. When he visited Nasiriya on June 12th, protesters pelted his motorcade with sandals.
A state is supposed to serve its citizens. The Iraqi state, however, serves its employees. In a normal year, pay and pensions for public-sector workers gobble up two-thirds of the budget. Last year, when oil prices were low thanks to covid-19, they swallowed an estimated 122% of Iraqs oil revenues, which are the states only big source of income. Civil-service bonuses and perks are not taxed, so civil servants are mostly paid in bonuses and perks. Police get extra for standing guard in risky areas; professors, for lecturing. The government pays more money, more reliably, for less work, than any private firm. So everyone wants to work for the government, observes Ali Allawi, the finance minister.
Parties take over ministries and dish out jobs to their supporters and their cousins. Merit barely merits a mention. When I say I dont belong to a party, they wont even let me apply for a job, says a young oil engineer in Basra. (He plans to emigrate.) When a huge portion of public workers stayed at home during the pandemic, there was no effect on output, sighs Mr Allawi. And this is not because they were furiously working remotely. Some 10% of them, he says, are ghost workers.
Efforts to trim the public payroll, so that there might be cash left over for schools, roads, hospitals and so on, meet fierce resistance. Iraqs 4.5m public employees and 2.5m pensioners in an adult population of roughly 20m are a gigantic interest group that politicians fear to defy.
The other big drain on the public purse is subsidies, on such things as food and electricity. Energy subsidies (largely in the form of free oil to generate power) run to $17bn a year, or 10% of GDP. This makes electricity cheap; even so, few Iraqis pay their bills. Officials take bribes to overlook this. Politicians are reluctant to upset either group. Because electricity is in effect free, demand is uncontrolled, says Mr Allawi. Go to any squatter settlement, everyone has air-conditioning. Except during power cuts, which are common.
If Iraqis had to pay their bills, they would waste less. Iraq would find it easier to keep the lights on. In a pilot scheme in Zayouna, a Baghdad suburb, a private firm collected payments for electricity. Residents and local businesses found they actually saved money, because there were fewer power cuts and they spent less on costly diesel generators. But such reforms may take time to catch on.
To generate more power, Iraq imports Iranian natural gas. Because of American sanctions on Iran, paying for this is complicated: Iraqi dinars must be placed in an escrow account, which can then be used to buy food and medicine. Iran would rather have cash, but this will not be allowed unless international talks about its nuclear programme yield an agreement. Iraq has often failed to pay what it owes, prompting Iran to curb supplies.
Ironically, Iraq produces plenty of gas, which bubbles out of its oil wells. But most is flared (ie, burned on the spot) or released into the atmosphere. This is environmentally irresponsible and economically daft. Were the gas to be captured, it could replace Iranian imports entirely.
Some firms are trying. Basrah Gas Co, a joint venture between the state, Shell and Mitsubishi, has since 2013 gone from capturing gas equivalent to 50,000 barrels of oil a day to 210,000. Work has begun to capture 100,000 barrels more. Technically none of this is complicated, says Malcolm Mayes, the managing director. The difficulty has been making sure the government pays what it owesessential for a project that requires hefty upfront investment. After some hiccups, the firm has worked out a deal whereby payment is secured with oil, and is pressing ahead.
The fossil-fuel industry can never be a big employer. And that irks many Iraqis. The tribes from whose land the fuel is pumped insist that as many jobs as possible are given to their members. The tribes next door tend to miss out. On a tiny island in the marshes near Basra, surrounded by water buffaloes, Noaman al-Salmi grumbles about the blazing flare on the horizon, and the pollution that falls like mist. We get no jobs, he says, only cancer.
Beset by pious gunmen, some Iraqis have grown disillusioned with religion itself. Imams bemoan their dwindling congregations. The countrys top Shia cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has stopped giving weekly sermons. Iraqis speak of a rising nationalism that eschews foreign interference, especially Irans.
Respect for human rights is still lacking. Sunni Arab dissenters are treated as terrorists and have largely been silenced. Shia ones fear assassination. The prime minister promised to arrest the thugs who killed more than 560 protesters last year. But a year of investigations has yet to result in a single prosecution, says the UN.
Some perspective is in order. This country has seen devastation no other country has seen, says Mr Salih: dictatorship, genocide, invasion and a blood-drenched caliphate. Building a state that can govern Iraq needs a lot of work, he says. Still, there are signs of progress.
The main reason for optimism is that the country, though still violent, is less so than at any point since the American-led invasion in 2003. The last big car bomb was in 2017. Tribal feuds are still common, but the sound of gunfire in cities is fading.
Iraq is also opening up. Visas that once took months are now available on arrival. Traffic flows through checkpoints more easily than before. The economy is rebounding from covid-19. Having plummeted by 10% last year, it will grow by 2% this year and 8.4% in 2022, predicts the World Bank. The budget assumes an oil price of $45 a barrel; it is around $70, so the fiscal deficit should shrink from 5.5% of GDP in 2021 to a more manageable 0.6% in 2023.
The state is as corrupt as ever. But optimists note that much of the money that is stolen is now invested locally, rather than spirited abroad. Cranes long dormant are rotating again. Well-tended shrubbery has appeared by roads in Basra. The old city of Mosul, which was bombed to cinders during the war against IS, is being rebuilt with help from the UN. Of the 6m Iraqis displaced by that war, almost 80% have returned to their areas of origin.
Covid-19 has spurred innovation. Credit cards are rare, making it hard for homebound Iraqis to order things online. So firms such as Zaincash have built apps to allow digital payments. Small businesses are working incredibly fast because of covid-19, says Rashwan Shareef, who runs a Basra-based online marketing company.
Meanwhile, ordinary Iraqis are getting on with their lives. Ghayth al-Hillo recalls taking a high-school exam in Baghdad in the turbulent days of 2007. Desks were spaced far apart to prevent cheating. When a gunfight broke out on the floor below, the teacher did not stop the exam. We were told to sit closer together, away from the windows, recalls Mr Hillo.
Now, aged 30, he seldom hears shooting. He is developing an online startup, Join the Club, to help Iraqis improve their English. He is guardedly hopeful about the future. But still, he scorns the choices at the upcoming election. Im going to spoil my ballot, he says.
This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline "Thirsting for change"