Iraq business fair draws nearly 400 companies
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Yahya Barzanji
Associated Press
Sulaimaniyah, Iraq- Hundreds of companies from around the world looking for opportunities in Iraq took part Saturday in an international fair in this city in the relatively peaceful Kurdish north.

The fair, organized by the Iraqi American chamber of commerce, was inaugurated by Nechirvan Barzani, the prime minister of Kurdistan's regional government.

Some 370 companies from around the world - including five from the United States, 50 from Germany and 24 from Italy - were taking part in the four-day conference.

Most of the companies specialize in infrastructure and construction, badly needed projects that have been held up by Iraq's insecurity and U.N. sanctions before that. Some of the companies were expected to sign deals with Kurdistan's regional government.

Unlike the rest of Iraq, the three Kurdish provinces in the north are safe and tightly controlled by tens of thousands of local militiamen.

The region became essentially autonomous after the 1991 Gulf War, when the U.S. imposed a no-fly zone there and kept Saddam Hussein's forces out. After the fall of his regime in April 2003, the militias secured the area despite some attacks that killed hundreds of people.

The executive director of the Iraqi American chamber of commerce, Raad Ammar, said the fair was being held for the second consecutive year in Sulaimaniyah.

"This fair shows that reconstruction conference can be held on our land and not abroad so that all Iraqis come and take part," said Ammar, an Arab.

Before 1991, a Baghdad fair held annually since 1964 drew exhibitors from some 50 countries in one of the major trade shows in the Arab world.

Participation dropped as Iraq suffered under crippling 13-year economic sanctions imposed in 1990 to punish Saddam for his invasion of Kuwait.

The last major fair to be held in Baghdad took place in 2002.

© 2006 The Plain Dealer© 2006 cleveland.com All Rights Reserved.

Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
The impetus for this memoir is the military hearing U.S. marine Pantano underwent in 2004 for the alleged murders of two Iraqi insurgents during a raid in Al Anbar (chronicled in a New York magazine cover story and featured on NBC Dateline). What is initially fascinating about Pantano's story is how 9/11 galvanized him. His first reaction after seeing the smoke and debris choking streets in Manhattan was to run to his barber and get a military haircut. Pantano had been a marine in Desert Storm but then morphed into a commodities trader and the founder of an interactive TV think tank. The core of his book is how 9/11 re-upped the semper-fi side of his identity. Although there is far too much initial background on family and upbringing, the heart of the book, which shuttles from Pantano's experiences in Iraq and the Article 32 hearing into the accusation that he committed premeditated murder, is suspenseful and involving. Pantano provides firsthand accounts not only of the marine ethos and the fighting in Iraq but also of the media pile-on during his hearing and the machinations of military lawyers. Although choosing to tell his story in book form necessitates too much padding--this might have been better as a lengthy magazine article--there is still lots to like here: good courtroom drama, excellent war reporting, and absorbing psychology. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"Pantano's story is a tough, gritty, no-holds-barred saga of war by one who knows what it's like to be caught in a crossfire."
-- Oliver L. North Host of War Stories on Fox News Channel

"Demonstrate to the world there is 'No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy' than a U.S. Marine."

-- J. N. Mattis, Major General, U.S. Marines Commanding General's Message to All Hands, March 2003

"Every tenth page of Warlord should be stamped 'this is not a work of fiction.' Some men run from a fight, some hold their own; Ilario is the rare hero that runs to a fight. He is one tough mother!"

-- James Carville New York Times bestselling author, political strategist, and former U.S. Marine

21 April General Jay Garner relieved by Rumsfeld.

2 weeks planning for reconstruction...
Marshall Plan had 2 years of planning...

Comments by Kim Olson in her booknotes TV appearance

Kim's conversation with an Iraqi who said that even if the USA failed in Iraq, it would be better than under Saddam.

Aluding to lack of policy for Iraq reconstruction...

Editorial Reviews
Book Description
In April 2003, soon after Operation Iraqi Freedom had been declared a success, President Bush sent retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner to Iraq to rebuild the country. As Garner’s executive officer, the author of this book was part of the senior leadership circle charged with three tasks. They were to reconstruct Iraq’s infrastructure, provide humanitarian assistance, and lay the foundation for a democratic process to take hold. But not long after their arrival in the rubble and ruin of Iraq, the political, military, and economic wheels ground to a halt and theirs became mission improbable.
In this book, Air Force colonel Kim Olson tells how and why. Readers are privy to the candid discussions of U.S. generals frustrated by operating in a policy void. They sit at the table with Iraqi leaders who warn of an impending insurgency if the proclamations crafted by ill-informed and arrogant policy makers are implemented. And they share Olson’s fear as Saddam’s death squads attempt to assassinate her in an explosion of bullets.

This gripping, firsthand account of what went wrong is seen from Olson’s unique point of view as a senior female military officer, pilot, wife, and mother. Many of the stories she tells are known to only the handful of people involved, including a mission to rescue two Iraqi women and details of early meetings with tribal leaders to discuss building a coalition government--an effort quashed by Garner’s successor. Her haunting descriptions of Shiite families searching for loved ones in Saddam’s killing fields and malnourished children in the town of Umn Qasr untouched by the International Oil-for-Food Program, will remain with readers long after they close the book. From the decisions of political leaders and military commanders to everyday encounters with the Iraqi people and informal conversations with soldiers, such a wealth of honest, insider information is rare. No other author weaves together military, political, and humanistic insights so effectively.

From the Back Cover
"We had shared good times and hardship; adventure and doldrums; happiness and heartbreak; security and danger. We had been participants in the greatest endeavor of this new century. As you read her book, you'll understand, as I do...they don't come any better than Kim."—from the Foreword by Jay Garner

"Colonel Olson is a modern day Joan of Arc--born to inspire, to lead and to command. A top flight jet pilot in the Air Force, she entered Baghdad with General Jay Garner to begin the overwhelming job of rebuilding Iraq. Her story will inspire all who open it and can't put it down."--William Sessions, Former Director of the FBI and U.S. District Judge

"This is one of the most provocative and compelling books on Iraq published to date. It encompasses that rare blend of insight and story telling from someone on the inside in the early days of the Iraqi reconstruction phase. This book makes me proud and mad simultaneously. That is told by a senior Air Force officer and pilot is all the more remarkable, because it gives tone, texture and human emotion to the devastation and destruction that defines war."--Ron Tammen

"Kim Olson brings a mother's love and a warrior's courage to her first-person account of the effort to rebuild Iraq as she experienced it-- from the inside. It is an unsparing tale; Olson is tough on people she didn't think were helpful and tough on herself, too, as she recounts a career that didn't end at all the way she hoped it would."--Louis D. Boccardi, Retired President, Associated Press

"This is a story of a life on the edge, at the transition of emerging opportunities for women in the military. And Olson did it all: flying and command assignments, staff and field assignments. Competent, assertive, caring, and loyal, nothing could have prepared her for her final assignment: securing the ‘peace’ in Iraq. A breathtaking, unforgettable account."--Sheila Widnall, Secretary of the Air Force, 1993-97
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November 12, 2006
Democrats Aim to Save Inquiry on Work in Iraq

By JAMES GLANZ, DAVID JOHNSTON and THOM SHANKER
This article is by James Glanz, David Johnston and Thom Shanker.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 11 — Congressional Democrats say they will press new legislation next week to restore the power of a federal agency in charge of ferreting out waste and corruption in Iraq and greatly increase its investigative reach.

The bills, the first of what are likely to be dozens of Democratic efforts to resurrect investigations of war profiteering and financial fraud in government contracting, could be introduced as early as Monday morning.

The move would nullify a Republican-backed provision, slipped into a huge military authorization bill, that set a termination date for the agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. The agency’s findings have consistently undermined Bush administration claims of widespread success in the reconstruction of Iraq.

Oversight, the power wielded by Congressional committees to demand information and internal documents and to haul executive branch officials to hearings, by subpoena if necessary, is reverberating through Congress as a Democratic battle cry.

“The unilateral decision made by House Republicans to shut down this critical office should be reversed immediately,” said Senator Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who is poised to become the majority leader.

The House version of the bill will be introduced by Ike Skelton, the Missouri Democrat likely to take over as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, a member of Mr. Skelton’s staff said Friday. Mr. Skelton also said he would resurrect a subcommittee on oversight and investigations that was jettisoned by Republicans to investigate military spending.

In the Senate, Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is in line to become chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that seeking a new strategy for Iraq would be his primary focus, but that he would also look carefully at military contracting.

“There have been serious allegations and evidence of misconduct among suppliers,” Mr. Levin said. “And the taxpayers, of course, get socked on that. And the troops are not properly taken care of when that happens.”

Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said on Saturday that the administration was willing to have discussions with Congress on the proposal to extend the inspector general’s tenure. Mr. Fratto added, “We have a history of cooperating fully with and supporting inspectors general.”

Mr. Fratto said he could not speak more definitively on the subject because the legislation was yet to be released.

In a measure of the momentum behind the bill, it is expected to be introduced in the Senate by Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, along with co-sponsors Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, and Joseph I. Lieberman, who won re-election as an independent in Connecticut.

“It is inconceivable that we would remove this aggressive oversight while the American taxpayer is still spending billions of dollars on Iraq reconstruction projects,” Ms. Collins said.

Mr. Reid has said that after the lame-duck session ends, the Democrats will press ahead with Congressional oversight, particularly on Iraq. But Democratic leaders have also been conciliatory in discussing broader efforts to review the administration’s initiatives of the past six years.

The imperative to investigate financial misdeeds extends beyond the military. Congressional aides said that the House government reform committee under Representative Henry A. Waxman of California might also investigate spending related to domestic security and the response to Hurricane Katrina.

The Appropriations Committee, which is likely to be led by Representative David R. Obey of Wisconsin, is likely to review more closely spending like large supplementary requests for Iraq and Afghanistan.

In addition, after the negative political fallout of corruption cases involving lawmakers, the Appropriations Committee is under pressure to curtail earmarks, which are spending measures for specific projects not sought by a federal agency but sponsored by a lawmaker — sometimes anonymously and often for a financial supporter.

Potentially explosive confrontations over foreign policy issues between Democrats and the Bush administration may be unavoidable. John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, who is expected to become the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has been a critic of the C.I.A.’s secret detention program and the National Security Agency’s domestic wiretapping program.

It is unclear how far chairmen like Mr. Rockefeller may push the administration to obtain more information about secret programs. The committee, like many others, has often degenerated into partisan rancor over the past two years, and Mr. Rockefeller, like other incoming chairmen, has told colleagues that one of his priorities is to restore the committee’s historic bipartisanship.

But there is unlikely to be much downside for the Democrats in going after waste and fraud in government contracting, particularly in the Iraq war, which is not only unpopular with the American public but also where corporate giants like Halliburton, Parsons and Bechtel have committed highly publicized missteps in the rebuilding program.

Investigations by the Iraq oversight agency, led by Stuart W. Bowen Jr., have already led to convictions of American occupation officials on bribery charges and uncovered many instances of substandard construction.

Mr. Bowen’s investigations of Halliburton have uncovered tens of millions of dollars of charges for work that achieved little in the way of results, but apparently met the letter of the company’s contract with the United States to repair oil facilities. Mr. Bowen has also found that Halliburton has been using federal loopholes to impede investigations of its work by declaring nearly all information about company activities in Iraq to be proprietary, or sensitive because it could aid the company’s competitors.

So it came as a surprise to many that Mr. Bowen’s office was directed to go out of business on Oct. 1, 2007, by an obscure provision in an authorization bill that President Bush signed last month. The termination language was quietly inserted into the bill by staff members working for Representative Duncan Hunter, the California Republican who now leads the House Armed Services Committee.

As in the bill that the president signed, the new Senate proposal would expand the pot of money that Mr. Bowen could investigate, but it would not set a hard deadline for the agency’s work to come to an end. Both the House and Senate measures extend the deadline at least into 2008, by most readings, but the House measure would also add about $2 billion — for training and equipping Iraqi security forces — to the amount that the agency could investigate, a Congressional staff member said. Representative Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat who is expected to become the House speaker, said she would strongly support that legislation.

“Democrats want the inspector general to stay at work until the job is done,” Ms. Pelosi said. “Those individuals and companies responsible for shoddy work or fraudulent billing practices must be held accountable.”

Several officials on Capitol Hill said that the locus of resistance to extending the tenure of Mr. Bowen’s office came from the State Department, which believes that its own inspector general should begin taking on the job of investigating reconstruction in Iraq. But that notion finds resistance among some lawmakers who distrust the administration’s will to investigate itself.

Outside the reconstruction program, some agencies are likely to be singled out for special scrutiny, not only the Pentagon, but also the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation. Incoming Democratic chairman have said they plan to review the C.I.A.’s secret detention and interrogation program for important terrorism suspects and what some lawmakers have said is the sluggish pace of the F.B.I.’s effort to transform itself into a counterterrorism agency.

The Homeland Security Department has had at least some scrutiny from Congress in recent years, most particularly related to its performance and that of the Federal Emergency Management Agency during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

But the new Democratic leaders, their aides said, intend to significantly broaden the oversight efforts, a step that may include more frequent subpoenas for administration officials who have declined to appear for some hearings, as was the case in the hurricane investigation.

One area that almost certainly will draw additional oversight is mass-transit security, said Dena L. Graziano, spokeswoman for Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, who is expected to take over the House Committee on Homeland Security.

And Democrats have long argued that the administration is too focused on aviation security, and has failed to devote enough money or attention to preventing bombings like those that have occurred in Madrid and London. Some Democrats, nursing years of slights at the hands of Republican appointees in federal agencies who ignored or brushed aside hundreds of their letters asking for information, are eager for answers. The Senate Judiciary Committee has staff members trying to compile a complete list of unanswered questions.

Some Democrats said before the election that they would inquire more deeply into some issues, asking for fuller accountability among senior officers and civilian officials at the Pentagon over the harsh treatment of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

“I think the accountability for Abu Ghraib has not yet been accomplished in terms of finding out who was involved, at what level,” said Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island.

For all the pledges of rigorous oversight, Democrats are moving warily, fearful of a misstep, mainly in national security areas, that could return them to the sidelines as a minority party.

That may explain the focus on less volatile issues like waste and fraudulent spending and why few Democrats are proposing inquiries on hot-button issues, like the underlying rationale for the war in Iraq or the underpinning for the administration’s counterterrorism policies.

Agendas are likely to shift over time, particularly in the House, where the leadership lineup will not be known with certainty for weeks. In addition, the transfer of majority control in both chambers means Republicans and Democrats must switch offices in the House and Senate. Republicans will be forced to dismiss some committee staff members, and Democrats will expand their workforce, in some committees nearly doubling staff size.

In a telephone interview, Mr. Skelton said that in the past, “the Congress has not worked, and has not asked the tough questions or held the administration to account.”

But he said it was the responsibility of every Democrat taking over a subcommittee chairmanship also to apply more scrutiny to government action, and not just those of subcommittees specifically charged with that mandate.

“Our subcommittee chairmen will be able to bring oversight back to their individual subcommittees,” he said.

David Johnston and Thom Shanker reported from Washington, and James Glanz from New York. Eric Lipton contributed reporting from Miami, and Mark Mazzetti and Rachel L. Swarns from Washington.

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