'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

'Iraqi Press Monitor' resumes

Yesterday, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting put out the first edition of its once-daily 'Iraqi Press Monitor' since February 2nd.

I'm glad they've cranked it up again. It's not perfect but it does provide some interesting tidbits. Like one in yesterday's edition, from the Chalabist Al-Mutamar newspaper that referred to someone called "Wafiq al-Samarai, security counsellor to the Iraqi president." Samarai had reportedly issued his "first press release", in which he

promised an end to terrorist violence. In particular, he said, foreign insurgent groups would driven out through a combination of national reconciliation, dialogue and employment.

Well, never mind so much what the guy said. But who knew that the Iraqi President would have his own "security counsellor"?

I thought the system of government was supposed to be one in the which the Prime Minister headed the executive power?

In today's edition of IPM, they had this report from the SCIRI daily, Al-Adalah:

Jawad al-Maliki, who deputises for Jaafari in the Islamic Dawa Party, said the government should have been announced on January 25 [oops, maybe make that 'April 25'?] but the decision was postponed for a day as some issues remained unresolved. Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zibari described Jaafari’s talks as “last-ditch negotiations”. Ali al-Dabbgh of the United Iraqi Coalition said the Iraqi List headed by former prime minister Ayad Allawi would not be part of the new cabinet, but would play a role in the political process through the National Assembly.

However, the Allawist paper Baghdad was reporting that,

Iraqi List [= Allawist list] member Hussein al-Sadr said the bloc had not withdrawn from talks on forming a government, contrary to rumours spread by certain other political forces...

I guess this government-formation drama ain't over till it's over. The Democracy Denied in Iraq counter, by the way, is now standing at 86 days.

And now, who can tell us more of the story on what's been happening at IWPR?

Last week, commenter Windinthewhistle commented on this JWN post that:

The state of IWPR's programs in Iraq and Afghanistan is, sadly, IWPR's own fault. I don't mean the participants, who are great, or the foreign trainers, such as Steve Negus in Iraq, who have done a super job, but the management in London.

In 2004, IWPR's management decided that they deserved a swank new office building in London's overheated real-estate market, and bought one. Where the money was supposed to come from for this is anyone's guess, but they probably thought they would skim enough out of their big new Iraq and Afghanistan contracts to pay for it.

Subsequently, IWPR was fired by their prime contractor in Iraq, and tried to salvage their new lifestyle by squeezing their Afghanistan program to death. What they couldn't squeeze, they stole outright, submitting false invoices to the donor and fabricating hundreds of thousands of USD worth of expenses. Once the Afghans understood what was going on, they also fired IWPR, with the blessing of their donors who had caught on. A messy divorce ensued, in which IWPR stole every piece of equipment they could on their way out the door.

Sadly, this is a part of the NGO world seldom reported on --- despite being well known among foreign correspondents in Kabul and Bahgdad. The commitment and hard work of participants in the field, especially those who are supposed to benefit from programs like IWPR, are often subverted not so much by the manipulative designs of donors as by the corruption and incompetence of management sitting in comfort at HQ.

Maybe WITW or someone else could give us more details on this intriguing but also really very tragic story? (This could be done on the Comments board here or by emailing the details to me.)