Inside Iraqi Politics

Thought this might be a good resource for some folks out there...

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BAGHDAD -- A newly released handbook provides the first comprehensive overview of the organization and workings of Iraq's government systems.

The publication, "Republic of Iraq District Government Field Manual," describes Iraq's federal and local government structures in simple language, including information on Iraq's constitution, the roles and functions of various government structures, as well as information on public finance and economic development.

The handbook was developed by the U.S. Agency for International Development's (USAID) Iraq Local Governance Program, which has supported efforts to strengthen government in Iraq at the local, municipal, and provincial levels since 2003....

The manual is available for free download in both English and Arabic at the LGP Web site.

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A series by Bill Ardolino at The Long War Journal:

Examining the Executive Branch, 6 Feb 08

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Security gains in Iraq have maintained momentum for five months and the focus has turned to spurring and gauging the country’s political progress. The ultimate goal of the troop surge executed by the military was for improved security to provide “breathing room” for such progress, which can be simplified to three fronts: “ground-up” political progress, executive political progress by the federal government, and federal legislative progress.....

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A Look at Executive Branch Progress, 8 Feb 08

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The Government of Iraq’s executive branch has several goals central to maintaining security gains and achieving sectarian reconciliation: effective hiring and management of the highly publicized Concerned Local Citizens (CLCs), the auxiliary security forces greatly responsible for the significant reduction in violence; the delivery of reconstruction resources, including basic services, to Baghdad and the provinces; and the creation of jobs and economic opportunity for average Iraqis.....

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Examining the Legislative Branch, 13 Feb 08

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Understanding the constitutional structure and current composition of Iraq’s legislative branch is a prerequisite to analyzing the much-maligned progress of key legislation. As with the executive, the political diversity of Iraq’s legislature presents many significant challenges and a few opportunities to meeting the legislative benchmarks considered important to stability and reconciliation.....

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Inside Iraqi Politics - Part 4

A look at legislative progress: Reconciliation via wealth distribution, 25 Feb 08

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Some of the most important measures of progress are the Iraqi government’s efforts to propose and pass legislation allocating wealth. This includes the 2008 budget, which is immediately essential to executive functions and represents a de facto distribution of revenue among Iraq’s provinces and sects, and the hydrocarbons laws, which will have long-term ramifications for the apportionment and development of the country’s oil resources.....

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Inside Iraqi Politics - Part 5

A look at legislative progress: Sunnis’ and states’ rights, 28 Feb 08

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A significant measure of political progress in Iraq is the parliament’s ability to pass laws on sectarian reconciliation and those stipulating the government’s long-term design. To those ends, the most significant pieces of legislation include the Unified Retirement Law, the Accountability and Justice Law, the General Amnesty Law, legislation on the status of Kirkuk, and the Provincial Elections and Powers Law. Some of these measures have passed, while others remain contested.....

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USIP, 20 Mar 08: From Gridlock to Compromise: How Three Laws Could Begin to Transform Iraqi Politics

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On February 13, 2008 the Iraqi parliament simultaneously passed a law that sets forth the relationship between the central and provincial governments, an amnesty law and the 2008 national budget. The passage of these laws was the result of months of negotiation and last- minute substantive and procedural compromises that could portend a shift away from merely ethnic and sectarian-based alliances to inter-ethnic and sectarian issue-based politics. At the same time, Iraqi lawmakers may have discovered a strategy of simultaneous consideration of multiple matters that could increase the likelihood of consensus and resolution—a sharp contrast to what has until now been an issue-by-issue approach that has often resulted in impasses and political gridlock.

This USIPeace Briefing will examine the specifics of the three laws, as well as the trade-offs and compromises that led to their passage and will explore how the politics and compromises underlying the three laws could begin to transform Iraq’s fledgling democracy.....

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Can anyone with PRT or DoS time in Iraq speak to the validity of these articles?

Supporting governance efforts from the hinterlands (via a secure environment) is about to become an enduring task for me, so I'd like to get a check or hold in case I need to perform substantial second/third source readings.

From the 7th July 2008 CSM

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Already Mr. Sadr's partisans and members of his Mahdi Army militia believe that ISCI and its affiliate party, the Badr Organization – previously known as the Badr Brigade and ISCI's armed wing – instigated the recent US-Iraqi military operations against the Mahdi Army in southern Iraq and Baghdad. They allege it was part of an ISCI/Badr plot to dismantle Sadr's organization ahead of elections.

On Friday, Sheikh Salim al-Darraji, an ISCI official based in Basra, was assassinated in a part of the city traditionally controlled by Sadrists. It comes one week after Basra's chief of military intelligence was killed in a predominantly Shiite part of eastern Baghdad.

The ultimate goal of ISCI and Badr is to consolidate their grip on southern Iraq and to create a nine-province Shiite region on par with the semiautonomous Kurdish region in the north. This is a subject of great controversy among many Iraqis, including the Sadrists.

"We believe the elections are extremely important. We will run jointly with (ISCI). We both have a significant base of public support," says Hadi al-Ameri, Badr's leader and a senior member of the Iraqi parliament.

Mr. Ameri's announcement marks a stark departure from ISCI's strategy during the January and December 2005 elections when it was the pivotal player in assembling a grand Shiite coalition, known as the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA). That bloc swept the largest number of seats in parliament and ushered into power the Shiites and Kurds, who came in second.

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There also is no indication that ISCI and Badr will abandon their strategy of overtly associating themselves with Iraq's most revered Shiite cleric, the Najaf-based Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, as they did in the 2005 elections when they used his image on pamphlets and posters promoting the UIA.

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