Welcome! Our goal at Winds of Change.NET is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from Iraq that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. This briefing is brought to you by Joel Gaines of No Pundit Intended and Andrew Olmsted of Andrew Olmsted dot com.
TOP TOPICS
- The elections are less than a week away. Wretchard analyzes the emerging storylines expected to try and ensure the elections are viewed as illegitimate.
- With the event they've dreaded for months now a week away, Al Qaeda in Iraq declared all-out war on the elections. If the terrorists have anything left to throw at the Iraqis, it will be an ugly leadup to the elections. The United States is promising to provide elaborate security, but with 5,000 polling stations across the country, it is difficult to believe they can effectively defend them all.
Other Topics Today Include: new method for catching terror threats quickly; $300 million goes from Iraq to Lebanon; the costs of infrastructure attacks in Iraq; reforming Iraq's banking policies; getting ready for the election and its aftermath; Chalabi to be arrested(?); Hussein's trial postponed; unreported news from Iraq.
REPORTS FROM THE FIELD
- Maj. Mohammed Salman Abass Ali al-Zobaidi of the Iraqi National Guard in Iskandariya has implemented a paradigm breaking means to quickly get tips about possible terror threats from all over the city. People use their cell phone text messaging directly to his phone. Witnesses can report suspicious activity discretely, as cell phone use is very high in Iraq. This also allows citizens to bypass informants working in the police stations.
- $300 million left Iraq's central bank and appeared in Lebanon, possibly to buy weapons for an Iraqi armored division. Iraqi officials are accusing each other of spending the money, and it is still uncertain whether the money went for weapons or simply disappeared.
RECONSTRUCTION & THE ECONOMY
- There have been 196 attacks on Iraq's oil and electicity infrastructure since April 2003. The cost of these attacks in oil alone has reached $7 billion. and in the last three months of 2004, Iraq lost $887 million in oil exports.
- A key set of recommendations have been given to the Central Bank of Iraq, which will help reform banking policy in a system fraught with decades of graft and arbitrary operations. If the recommendations themselves become available, we will post them.
IRAQI POLITICS
- Wretchard tries to help New York Times reporter Sarah Boxer understand why the bloggers of Iraq the Model would risk their lives for something other than an American paycheck.
- Arthur Chrenkoff looks at the hard task facing the Shia once their expected election victory comes to pass next week.
- Interim Defense Minister Hazim al-Shaalan has stated publicly he intends to have Ahmad Chalabi arrested and turned over to Interpol for his Jordanian conviction in absentia sometime after the Eid al-Adha holiday. Apparently, Chalabi accused members of the defense ministry of stealing over $500 million from the ministry and posting documents to that effect on a website. The issue may be more political or geopolitical than anything else - what do you think?
- The latest Carnival of the Liberated is up at Dean's World.
THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE
- The leaders of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, comprising the Gulf Cooperation Council, have conveyed their support for the January 30 elections. The concensus is that Iraqi government is based upon a solid foundation and will improve greatly as the next several rounds of elections occur.
- The US Department of State has posted a web site to cover the Iraqi elections. There are both English and Arabic versions of the site.
ETCETERA
- Stating concerns regarding legitimacy, the Iraqi Justice Minister has stated Saddam Hussein will not be tried until sometime after the January 30 elections.
- Chester of The Adventures of Chester is starting a great new feature: unreported news from Iraq. He is soliciting letters and emails from people serving in Iraq to get stories that aren't published in other media into the public eye. (HT: Arthur Chrenkoff.)
- The general manager and employees of a small Iraqi radio station are not cowed by threats from insurgents. Find out why.
- The troops are still there. So is the Winds of Change.NET consolidated directory of ways you can support the troops: American, Australian, British, Canadian & Polish. Anyone out there with more information, contact us!
- Don't forget Chief Wiggles' Toys for Iraq drive!
Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know. And if you have a tip for a future Iraq Report, email us at MondayIraqReport(at)windsofchange.net.
Re: the article about using text messages to gather information.
This is simple ingeniousness and should be made standard policy for all Iraqi police departments as well as the marines in Iraq. The biggest problem in fighting the insurgency has been an intelligence bottleneck (the constant chanting of "more troops" from certain armchair generals notwithstanding); American armed forces can crush insurgents anytime and anywhere, but to do that they need to know where to find them. The Iraqis have the information but are too terrified to come forward. This solves the problem of getting all that distributed knowledge into something useful using simple technology. Excellent.