Word: basra
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...Awwad Al-Asadi, head of Iraq's Federation of Oil Unions, the largest union group, says he intends to mobilize his 23,000 or so members against the draft. "We want a new, different law, which will be in the interests of Iraqis," he said by phone from Basra on Wednesday. "If there is no solution we can stop production, stop exports." In a more threatening tone, he told union members at a conference on the law in Basra in early February: "We strongly warn all the foreign companies and foreign capital in the form of American companies against coming...
...fact, Cordesman fears that the brutal Shi'ite control of Basra and southern Iraq will spread to greater Baghdad and make the already bad situation there that much worse. Shi'ite militias in the capital appear to be standing down and not challenging U.S. and Iraqi forces as they attempt to quell the bombings and bloodshed that have gripped the city for the past year. That leaves insurgent Sunnis as the main target of the effort. "In effect," Cordesman says, "both the U.K. and the U.S. may end up acting to expand Shi'ite influence in very different ways." That...
...released study by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy that warns that democracy is a long way from coming to the southern part of the country. In their report, "The Calm Before the Storm: The British Experience in Southern Iraq," Michael Knights and Ed Williams observe that greater Basra "has suffered one of the worst reversals of fortune of any area in Iraq since the fall of Saddam's regime." Once a cosmopolitan city and the center of Iraq's oil industry, the city - under British control - has become a violent maelstrom of warring Islamic elements. While the British...
...grim assessment cited in the report comes from Brigadier James Everard, who led British troops in Basra until three months ago. "Freedom of speech, freedom of expression: it just hasn't quite worked out the way it was planned," he is quoted as saying. "They're just not prepared to debate. They tend to do things...
...authors ask a series of questions about Basra and Britain's role there: "Basra's slide into chaos poses many uncomfortable questions. What dynamics caused the dramatic reversal? What role has Iran played in the region? Was Britain fully committed to the task of bringing representative moderate governance to the deep south? Did the British style of community soldiering and minimal use of force help or hinder the effort to stabilize southern Iraq? Can the deterioration be reversed? Most important, what happens next...