FishBone

Yeah, as fast as you can post that..... Masum announces postponement of parliamentary session till Thursday; Read more: See what I mean....... WTF?????

Phoenix is there any way to check and see if this is indeed a new development or one that has been in place for a while?

Glad I could give you a good chuckle buckeye. If I'm not laughing on here I'm crying. This place puts the FUN in DysFUNctional family. You got your father/leader figures, your CRAZY aunts and uncles, and then all the "kids" trying to make sense of it all. I keep telling myself I'm gonna leave and never come back, but it's like a bad accident.....you can't help but look!!! Good or bad you gotta love the heart of the folks on this website!!!

With all due respect Viper I feel like I have no clue what/who to believe anymore. I read this post (below) this morning from the *****Scooter Chat***** posted in Rumors and I thought how great to have something from this Sanchez guy who looks to be the US Trade Ambassador saying that Maliki is the NEW PM. I'm thinking maybe things are happening and the GOI is moving along despite what everyone is saying and then I read your post and now I'm thinking WTF?? Every morning it's just one big WTF after another! I guess that's what we get for getting on this crazy ride .... [shawnW] he was told Fransico Sanchez at the Bagdad international Business fair announced Maliki as the new PM of iraq. Sladrian did not know who Sanchez was when he posted and Scooter had just come in the room and let everyone know he is the US ambasador to the business fair. Anyway that lent a lot of credibilty for Scooter that Sladrian's Contact used Sanchez's name. He was also told that this will be a pegged rate of $3.33 and will not float. One last thing be watching the news of Hilary going to Iraq as he was told she will be there for the announcement. 1:59 PM [Tradewind] she is in australia right now Read more:

This sounds great! Does anyone know when Hilary is supposed to be in Iraq?

Reporting from Baghdad — Iyad Allawi, a secular politician who is Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's main rival for power in Iraq, warned in an interview with The Times this week that the country's security situation is likely to worsen after coordinated bombings killed 113 people in the capital Tuesday and extremists massacred 58 people in a siege of a Baghdad church two days earlier. Allawi, whose Iraqiya political bloc was widely supported by the country's Sunni Arab minority among others, won two more seats than Maliki's faction in March elections, which still have not produced a new administration. He made it clear his bloc would not participate in a government headed by Maliki that did not include real power-sharing. He accused Iran of dictating the makeup of Iraq's next government and warned that a non-inclusive government would cause greater unrest. How do you view the security after the attacks this week? It's very sad. I always maintained that the security improvement was only fragile.... Unless the political landscape is changed, then all the surges and awakenings are not going to bring sustainable results. That's why we have been witnessing an escalation of violence.... What we have seen and what we know is only the tip of the iceberg. We haven't yet seen the whole iceberg. Assassinations are now a flourishing business throughout the country. There are explosions and violence. But now I think it will continue to take a sharper bend toward the worst. Do you think the attacks will force everyone to come to the table and form a government? It's not a matter of forming a government.... It is a matter of the political landscape. [it's] the dynamic of things.... Suppose a government is formed without a roadmap, without tackling the real issues. Violence will escalate. We have problems. We have to face these problems. Without facing these problems, there will be no security. Do you see any way you could become prime minister now? You have to ask the Iranians if they agree to have me become prime minister or not. Until now they don't agree. Tehran has put a redline on Allawi.... They have been blocking me the last few years. They continue to block me. What is the motivation of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's list in not agreeing to your concepts of sharing powers now held by the prime minister's office? They don't believe in power-sharing. What is the alternative to power-sharing? Absolute power. If you don't want to share power with others, what does this mean?… The big question mark is: Where is the democracy that we fought the last regime for 30 years? I did fight the last regime for over 30 years to bring about rule of law and democracy to this country. So we have now full-blown rule of law? [laughs] Do you think new elections could happen? I think all options should be considered, including a new, fresh election, because my guess is even by January next we won't be able to have a government. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq-allawi-qa-20101105,0,1451055.story

The temporary speaker of Iraq's parliament has called legislators into session next week, in a move that could finally end the long stalemate over how to form a government. A rash of recent bombings and other violence in the capital might be what is jarring lawmakers into action. The results of parliamentary elections in March were inconclusive, and politicians have been wrangling ever since over who will hold key posts, including prime minister. The Iraqi parliament has held only one official session since the elections. That session lasted 17 minutes. Since then, politicians can be seen at parliament from time to time. But those are mostly meetings about meetings. No party won a clear majority of seats in the March elections. And in the eight months of political wrangling since, a coalition has yet to emerge. Now, it appears that a group including the Shiite parties of current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, along with Kurdish parties, could form a governing coalition. But that scenario might exclude the party of Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite who has the backing of the country's Sunnis, and who took the most votes in the election. The U.S. and regional powers such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia worry that excluding Allawi would anger his secular and Sunni supporters and would prompt fresh sectarian violence. This week a series of coordinated bombings targeting more than a dozen mostly Shiite neighborhoods shook Baghdad. The explosions killed 62 people and wounded some 300 more. Maliki toured hospitals the day after the attacks, kissing survivors on the cheek. He promised patients that he would investigate the attacks, saying they were meant to disrupt the political process. Hisham al-Hashemi, a historian who is writing a book about militant groups in Iraq, advises Iraqi security forces on militant behavior. He says the bombs in these attacks, most of which were planted in parked cars, did not bear the hallmark of al-Qaida. "Because al-Qaida would bring the car bombs from outside the areas and into the areas, and also the ammunition or the explosives used were very primitive, they were like old," he says. These explosives targeted Shiite civilians, Hashemi says, as a way to re-ignite sectarian violence and threaten the delicate alliance between Maliki and Sadr, whose militia, the Mahdi Army, was a key player in earlier civil strife. This could be why Maliki is pushing to form a government in the coming days, Hashemi says. A deadly attack earlier this week, when militants seized a Catholic church, taking more than 100 people hostage, was the work of al-Qaida, Hashemi says. Fifty-eight people died during the takeover of the church and a subsequent raid by Iraqi counterterrorism forces. At a recent funeral for the victims, survivors wondered aloud how the attack happened in the first place. If Maliki stays in power, they said, will he be able to provide security for his people? http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131070852

got my chuckle for the day! too funny.

ERBIL, Iraqi Kurdistan: Iraqi President, Jalal Talabani, will not and cannot give up the position of the presidency for a non-Kurdish candidate after he was nominated by the bloc of the Kurdish parties to take the largely ceremonial position in the next government, read a statement issued by Talabani’s office in Baghdad Thursday. The statement rejected media reports that had said Talabani would give up his demand on presidency for the Sunni-backed Iraqiya Coalition, which has almost lost chances to take premiership after the caretaker prime minister was granted the support of an anti-American Shiite movement, the Sadrists. “His Excellency Talabani is not free to concede on the decisions made by the Kurdistani parties,” said the statement. “Agreed to [the demand of] Talabani include other coalitions such as the National Alliance as the greatest parliamentary bloc” However, the Kurds have pushed for an inclusive government in which the three major ethnic and sectarian groups, the Kurds, the Sunni Arabs and the Shiite Arabs are represented. In an interview with Rudaw, Iraq’s Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd, said that the inclusion of Iraqiya was a must to prevent the country from turning into havoc. “To be honest, Iraqiya must be part [of the new government],” added Zebari. “If it were not, there would be problems. There would be more violence.” He added that Kurds are a kingmaker now and can play an effective role that no any other party can form a new government. “Now, if we side with Maliki, we can form a government in two days’ time. Or if we side with Iraqiya, we will form a government tomorrow with the support of the [islamic] Supreme Council.” http://www.rudaw.net/english/news/iraq/3271.html

Former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, whose bloc won the most votes in the country's general election, says he will quit power-sharing talks to lead the opposition. In an interview with The Guardian, Allawi said on Wednesday that he believes a U.S.-backed deal to form a national unity government with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other rivals is not viable. “I have come to accept that opposition is a real option for us,” said Allawi, adding that “we are in the final days of making a final decision on this issue.” The sudden decision came after months of negotiations with neighboring countries which appear to have convinced Allawi that a US-backed power-sharing plan -- suggestive of creating an office for him with executive powers equal to those of the prime minister-- cannot work. Allawi's al-Iraqiya alliance secured 91 seats in the parliament, followed by Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki's State of Law with 89 -- both stopping shy of the 163 seats required for a majority in Iraq's 325-member parliament. Allawi, considered by many Iraqis as an American sympathizer, was appointed as Iraq's prime minister by Washington in 2004 and led a transitional government for just under a year. Allawi's brief tenure was marked by allegations of widespread corruption and collaboration with the U.S. He supported some of the U.S. deadly attacks on Iraqis, including the controversial Fallujah offensive in 2004 which left an estimated 800 civilians dead, and attacks against the Mahdi Army of the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Najaf. Allawi, a former member of the Baath Party, has close relations with Washington, London, and Saudi Arabia. (Source: Press TV) http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=229785

BAGHDAD | Wed Nov 3, 2010 7:03am EDT Iraq has been without a permanent government since an inconclusive election in March. The Sunni-backed cross sectarian group Iraqiya won the most seats, but Maliki's faction has since combined with other Shi'ite groups to keep him in power. In a sign that Iraqiya no longer believes it can form a government, one of its lawmakers said a group of up to 30 of its parliamentarians intended to back a government led by Maliki. "We are with whoever wins 50 percent plus one and he is the only one who has, so he has the right (to form a government)," said the lawmaker, Ahmed al-Ureibi, who belongs to a mainly Sunni group of Iraqiya politicians from around the country. The country's highest court last month ordered lawmakers to get to work and resume sessions, putting pressure on Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish factions to accelerate efforts to reach an agreement on a governing coalition. "I invite all members of the parliament to come to the parliament building on Monday, November 8 to elect a speaker and his two deputies," parliament's temporary speaker, Fouad Masoum, said in a statement on the parliament website on Wednesday. Ureibi told Reuters the three top jobs -- the speaker's post, the presidency and the prime ministership -- would all be decided in Monday's parliamentary session. The deadlock has mainly pitted Maliki against former premier Iyad Allawi, leader of Iraqiya. Tensions have spiked amid fears that any deal that sidelines Iraqiya could anger Sunnis and reinvigorate a weakened but still lethal insurgency. At least 64 people were killed and 360 wounded from a series of bomb blasts in mainly Shi'ite areas of Baghdad on Tuesday, just days after 52 hostages and police were killed when al Qaeda-linked gunmen seized a Syrian Catholic cathedral. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6A22XH20101103

November 2nd, 2010 04:25 pm · Posted in RUMORS [jjens] My really good friend flies airplanes for the government and he has been flying in and out of Iraq like crazy specifically related to the RV. He said that the government had already been formed. That is what he said. He says it is about ready to go down. Tons of planes have been flying into Iraq with troops and supplies. He said Iraq cannot wait any longer. I believe it and he didn’t tell me this because he couldn’t tell me what he was carrying though. I believe it was money and a lot of it. I truly believe we are close people. It would not be right of me to give a specific date or time. That is impossible to do. Everything needs to be in place and it is.

Ayad Allawi, who won the most votes in Iraq's general election eight months ago, has for the first time indicated he will take his bloc into opposition and walk away from western-backed efforts to form a power-sharing government that would free the country from a crippling political crisis. "I have come to accept that opposition is a real option for us," Allawi said in an interview with the Guardian. "We are in the final days of making a final decision on this issue." Until recently, Allawi had been clinging to hopes that a compromise would be reached between his bloc, known as Iraqiya, and the coalition of the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, whom Allawi's bloc narrowly edged by 91 seats to 89 in the 7 March election. However, interminable rounds of shuttle diplomacy, mostly conducted in neighbouring capitals, appear to have convinced him that a US-backed power-sharing government is not viable. "We are not ready to be a false witness to history by signing up to something that we don't believe can work," Allawi said, in reference to a mooted plan to create for him an office with executive powers equal to those of the prime minister. The plan had been a key plank of US diplomatic efforts over the summer, but has been subsumed by regional manoeuvrings in which Iran, the US, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have competed heavily for influence in postwar Iraq. Maliki made a high-profile visit to Tehran last month, during which he referred to Iran as Iraq's leading ally. Iranian efforts were instrumental in getting a key bloc of Shia Islamists, the Sadrist movement, to endorse Maliki, despite years of enmity between him and their exiled leader, Muqtadr al-Sadr. The Sadrist move has enhanced Maliki's chances of being returned as leader and made a solution for Allawi all the more difficult. It also appears to suggest that Iraq is shifting from a western sphere of influence to direct Iranian tutelage as the seven-year war winds down. "Our rights and the will of the Iraqi people are being ignored and the fact that Iraqiya has the most seats is being ignored," Allawi said. "There are no discussions about power-sharing, or devolution of power. "The Iranian influence is the biggest factor in this country and we believe it is damaging to the country and in the future for the two peoples of Iraq and Iran, let alone creating tensions for the greater [situation] in the Middle East." A US diplomatic rearguard effort now appears to have swung heavily behind Iraq's vice-president, Adil Abdul Mehdi, who is also a Shia Islamist but is considered pro-western in outlook. Abdul Mehdi suggested to the Guardian that Iraq was a finely balanced ship, and conceded that regional states were heavily involved in attempts to form a government that reflects their own interests. "We hope [iraq] will not shift too far to one side," he said. "Ever since the first Gulf war, Iraq has been regionalised in a sense. All leaders are going to neighbouring countries to explain themselves. But it's making a mistake to have things dictated to us." Abdul Mehdi and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which he represents in parliament, have formed a notional alliance with Allawi's Iraqiya and several minor parties that does not command half of the 325 seats in the new parliament – a benchmark needed to make a claim on forming a government. "They should be given the rights they deserve from being elected," he said of Iraqiya. If Allawi does take his party into opposition, it will be the first time any bloc has done so after an election in post-Saddam Iraq. Both he and the Sadrists left Maliki's last government in 2007 and notionally were in opposition. However, the move was more of a boycott and not seen as a counterweight to government. Iraq's Kurds command 59 seats and will play a pivotal role in any new government. "The Kurds are the kingmakers now," Abdul Mehdi said. "If any of us try to hurdle the process they will be prevented by the other three." Iraq's fractured parliament The result of Iraq's general election on 7 March was inconclusive, with Ayad Allawi's coalition claiming 91 seats, compared to the 89 seats won by Nouri al-Maliki's coalition. Neither were ever going to secure half of the 325 seats in Iraq's expanded parliament. Forming a government is especially difficult because most parties represent sects with disparate interests and little common ground, and the inevitable horse-trading to build a ruling bloc dragged on for almost eight months. Maliki's bloc is comprised largely of Shia Islamists. Allawi's coalition is secular in character and its supporters come mainly from the Sunni heartland that was disenfranchised by the fall of Saddam. Whoever ends up governing will need the support of the Kurds, who control 59 seats and loom as kingmakers in any future deal. Complicating things further are the not so hidden hands of Iraq's neighbours, who play a decisive hand in the brittle state's internal affairs. Iran supports Maliki; Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey are backing Allawi; and the US is somewhere between the two. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/02/ayad-allawi-iraq-opposition

Son of a BISCUIT!!! What happened to twice a day meetings until the GOI was formed?

(RTTNews) - Iraq's Shiite alliance has turned down an offer extended by Saudi Arabia to host an all-party talks involving Iraqi political leaders for ending the months-long political deadlock that has prevented formation of a coalition government in that war-ravaged country after the indecisive March elections. The National Alliance, a coalition of the Shiite-led political blocs in Iraq, said they were rejecting the Saudi offer as a deal that would lead to the formation of a coalition government appeared to be imminent after the country's highest court ordered Parliament to resume sessions last week. "Though we express our appreciation to Saudi Arabia for its concern about the situation in Iraq and its willingness to provide support, we would like to confirm that Iraqi leaders are continuing their meetings to reach a national consensus," the Shiite alliance said in a joint statement issued on Sunday. Their response came a day after Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah offered to host all-party talks in Riyadh for resolving the continuing political imbroglio since the March 7 elections. The Saudi Monarch had offered to hold the talks in Riyadh after the annual Muslim haj pilgrimage ends in mid-November. "I invite his Excellency President Jalal Talabani ... and all parties that took part in the elections and the political process to your second country Saudi Arabia, to Riyadh, after the blessed Haj season (for a meeting)," King Abdullah said in his appeal to Iraqi leaders. Despite the rejection of the Saudi offer by the Shiite alliance, the secularist al-Iraqiya coalition led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, the Arab League, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have welcomed the Saudi Monarch's initiative. Currently, Iraqi politicians are struggling to form a government since the March 7 parliamentary elections. Though the elections were widely seen as a crucial test for Iraq's national reconciliation process, none of the coalitions manged to secure the minimum number of 163 seats required to form a government. Final results of the elections showed the secular al-Iraqiya coalition led by Allawi had won most number of the seats in the Iraqi Parliament, two more than the 89 seats won by current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's State of Law Alliance. Despite his coalition coming in second in the elections, Maliki has recently strengthened his bid for a second term in office by securing the support of a Shiite bloc led by anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr and the National Alliance. The National Alliance came third at the polls with 70 seats, while another coalition comprising of blocs from the autonomous Kurdish region won 57 seats. The Kurdish coalition is also currently being wooed by Maliki's alliance to form a coalition government. http://www.rttnews.com/ArticleView.aspx?Id=1463545&pageNum=1