Mountain Goat 3/31/16

We also know that part of Sadr’s demands upon the government (maybe not by Thursday but soon) is to bring to justice these high level corrupt officials (referring to Maliki and his stug goons).

Also we know Sadr’s had  come out earlier and stated he demanded that the CBI be cleaned up from all corruption too and the proxy governor also be replaced to a more technocratic position (and recommended Dr Shabibi return).
 
Now Iraq is seeing women demonstrators too with the country's plight is a result of the security and economic situation. They stand for the people of all factions hand in hand with Iraq to demand reform and the elimination of corruption. So if change does not happen soon this is going to get very large and messy.
 
NO Hype, NO Rumors, just the FACTS.

Today’s News
 
Today is Thursday March 31st   2016. Still no RV.  Sorry Charlie!  
 
[Update: 45 Day Deadline for Technocratic Gov’t]
 
Send House Speaker Salim al-Jubouri, on Thursday, sent one of his advisers to the cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in his tent inside the Green Zone, to persuade him to extend the "deadline."  Sadr refused to extend the "deadline".
 
The Roudao network media reporter, that the Iraqi parliament has decided to lift its meeting until further notice,

until the presence of al - Abadi. The Iraqi parliament session has begun, Thursday , March 31, 2016 in which

he decides to host Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, to provide a variety of new ministerial his booth.
 
Parliamentary source confirmed on Thursday that Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, will present at today's meeting in Parliament two lists of candidates for ministers technocrats, one "comprehensive" and another as "nine ministers." The prime minister will come to parliament, bringing with him two lists, one comprehensive and nine other ministers, technocrats candidates for presentation to the parliament for a vote.  

The Kurdistan Alliance and the Union of Forces decide NOT to vote on the dismissal or replace any minister from their bloc.
 
Article Begins

Sadr Warns Iraqi PM He Will Seek His Impeachment Unless Reforms Begin Now
MARCH 30, 2016

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Muqtada al-Sadr, Iraq’s firebrand Shiite cleric, warned Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to "stop giving futile promises" and start with grassroots government reforms if he wants to avoid impeachment.

"We advise the prime minister to stop giving futile promises," Sadr said in a message, convoyed by an official from his Sadrist Movement before supporters in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone, where Sadr is staging a sit-in.

Sadr and hundreds of his supporters entered Baghdad's Green Zone on Sunday to stage a sit-in to pressure the government on reforms.

Sadr warned in his message that if the embattled prime minister fails to move on reforms, he would go to parliament to seek his impeachment.

He has also warned Abadi not to "blow your anger on peaceful demonstrators, since they have been legally waging their opposition. Rather, he better blow his anger at the corrupt” officials.

Abadi pledged on Tuesday that he would announce a cabinet reshuffle shortly.

"We promise all parties that the reshuffling of the government cabinet will begin soon," he said, explaining that "calls for reform should not worsen the security and stability of the government."

But Sadr has been pressuring Abadi to implement a wider reform package that would include replacing several ministers with apolitical technocrats, in a bid to eliminate patronage and corruption.

In one instance of the wide corruption that critics say is eating up Iraq, early this month auditors in the Iraqi parliament revealed that the defense ministry had spent $150 billion on weapons in the last decade but only a fraction of that had gone to buying weapons, with the rest gong missing.

Iraq’s defense ministry “is one of the most corrupt ministries,” the spokesperson for the parliamentary auditing committee, Adil Nuri, told Rudaw.

The auditing committee conducted an inquiry into three new arms deals of the defense ministry last month, according to Nuri. He said he found “that the ministry had signed $350 million worth of contracts with Eastern European countries but the inquiries showed that there has been a lot of corruption in the price and types of weapons.”

Sadr warns he will seek Iraqi PM’s impeachment unless reforms begin now 
 
Article Ends
 
[Update: Iraqi Corruption]
 
Article Begins
 
URGENT .. SUPREME COUNCIL OF CORRUPTION TAKES DECISIONS TO THE TRAVEL OF OFFICIALS AND THEIR PROPERTY AND THEIR MONEY
 
Wednesday 30-03-2016  
 
Twilight Leoz / chaired by Prime Minister Haider al - Abadi on Wednesday a meeting with the Supreme Council for the fight against corruption. 

He said Ebadi 's office in a statement, said that this meeting comes within the reform plans by the Prime Minister, where he was discussing the resolute actions that have been taken by the Council to prosecute corrupt, plans and strategies , which began to be implemented to reduce the phenomenon of corruption in the country.
 
He added that the Supreme Council for the fight against corruption has taken a number of decisions in this area, including:
 
1. support the Integrity Commission on the Prevention of travel officials who are under investigation procedures and based on the evidence available to it. 

2. support workers in the regulatory agencies (COI - Financial Supervision - inspectors general offices - judges - Monitor banking Directorate and credit) and provide them with protection. 

3. the Central Bank of Iraq competent financial institutions to monitor accounts and assets of officials and follow - up according to the law. 

4. charge a member of the Supreme Council for the fight against corruption in coordination with the competent integrity judge and investigator integrity concerned to speed up the completion of procedures relating to the resolution of large corruption cases. 

5 - Set a mechanism to check sources dealers entered the buying and selling of real estate. In addition to a number of other decisions of the actual contribution to fight corruption and prosecute corrupt and tampering with money Iraqis and put them behind bars.
 
Article Ends
 
[Update: Fighting ISIS]
 
Article Begins
 
IRAQ ARMY'S MOSUL OFFENSIVE STALLS IN FACE OF FIERCE FIGHTING, DESERTIONS
 
Campbell MacDiarmid, Special for USA TODAY5:29 p.m. EDT March 29, 2016
 
Thousands of desperate civilians were fleeing fighting on Monday on the new front opened by Iraqi forces against the Islamic State group south of the city of Mosul. Newslook
 
MAKHMOUR, Iraq — 
 
The Iraqi army soldiers smoked nervously as they described their ordeal. Sent to clear a village of Islamic State fighters, they found themselves pinned down by sniper fire. A few hours later, after 10 comrades were wounded, they withdrew.
 
“We need to get new uniforms,” soldier Ali Basra, 22, said, pointing to torn and blood-spattered fatigues. “But we'll return to take the village.”
 
Last Thursday's mission was supposed to be a simple operation to harden untested Iraqi army soldiers: clear villages held by Islamic State fighters before crossing theTigris River to retake the larger town of Qayyara, home to an airfield and oil fields. Their longer-term goal is to clear the way for a future push to reclaim the extremist group's stronghold of Mosul, Iraq's second largest city.

Instead, it proved to be a slog because of heavy rains, tougher-than-expected resistance from the militants and reports of the low morale that has dogged the Iraqi military ever since the Islamic State swept into Iraq in 2014.  The stalled operation underscored just how difficult it will be to dislodge the militants from Mosul.
 
USA TODAY

Iraq announces start of operation to retake Mosul from ISIL

While the U.S.-led coalition supporting the Iraqi forces says the operation is unfolding according to plan, Kurdish fighters question the ability of their Iraqi army partners to free Mosul.
 
A Iraqi family fleeing the violence in the northern city of Mosul arrives at a Kurdish checkpoint in Makhmur on March 26, 2016. (Photo: Safin Hamed, AFP/Getty Images)
 
“After the first day, the Iraqi army was unable to take a single meter of (Islamic State) territory successfully,” Kurdish Col. Mahdi Younis said at an outpost here, 70 miles south of Mosul. “No one should expect the least success from the Iraqi army. They have no will to fight.”

On the desk in Younis' office lay a pile of cellphones taken from Iraqi soldiers stopped at a checkpoint. “Deserters,” he said.
 
Outside in the hallway, 10 men in civilian clothes crouched against a wall. “These are the lions which escaped,” joked Kurdish fighter Mohamed Jasem as he watched over them.
Coalition officials said such criticism is premature. “We believe that the Iraqis have performed according to the plan that they've set,” said coalition spokesman Col. Steve Warren. “The Iraqi army, we believe, is improving every day.”
 
Michael Knights, an authority on the Iraqi military at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, agreed, calling the Iraqi army's inauspicious start nothing more than a “wobble.”
 
“It is worth remembering that the Peshmerga (Kurdish fighters) were completely driven out of this area in the late winter of last year," Knights said. "Now the Iraqi army is facing the same challenges trying to push forward into the same terrain.”
 
Iraqi soldiers fire mortar shells as they hold a position on the outskirts of Makhmur March 26, 2016. (Photo: Safin Hamed, AFP/Getty Images)
 
The Iraqi army “had some tough fighting,” said Knights. “Give it some time for these units to gain their balance.” When the operation began Thursday, soldiers from the Iraqi army and Sunni tribal fighters advanced to retake three villages held by the Islamic State with air support from the coalition, artillery fire by U.S. Marines and logistical support from the Kurds.
 
By Saturday, the Iraqi soldiers were bogged down outside the strategic hilltop village of Nassrash, where suicide bombers killed at least seven soldiers. The next day, rain turned the area's dirt roads into quagmires and cloud cover prevented coalition jets from providing effective support.
 
Iraqi commanders declined to comment on the operation or allow reporters near the front lines, but many Sunni Arab villagers displaced by the fighting were critical of the mostly Shiite Iraqi army.

“The Iraqi army came to take their revenge on us because of our ethnicity,” Sheikh Ahmed Khalaf Hamid said at a processing center holding 2,000 displaced villagers.
 
He accused Iraqi army units of burning and looting homes, shooting livestock and firing indiscriminately at civilians, possibly killing two of them in the crossfire with the Islamic State.

“The way they treated us was no better than the way ISIS did,” Hamid said, using an acronym for the extremist group.
 
This week, commanders were waiting for the weather improve before advancing.
“Our forces are surrounding Nassrah village,” Sheikh Fares, leader of the Sabawi tribesmen fighting alongside the Iraqi Security Forces, said Tuesday. “In the next two days the village will be freed completely, God willing.”
 
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