Let's inva.... 'er, um, let's re-inva.... aaaaaah, let's just forget the whole damn thing.
Israel, Bibi, you are ON YOUR OWN on this one. Sorry, but as a war-weary, depleted, bankrupt, and exhausted American I think I speak for most of us, not all, you gotta do this next phase yourself. We're out, and won't be fooled, cowed, or bullied by another false flag. It's not me knowing, it's the fact that the rest of the world knows -- including state intelligence organizations.
"Iraq provides economic help to Iran despite sanctions" by Duraid Adnan and James Risen | New York Times, August 19, 2012
WASHINGTON — When President Obama announced last month that he was cutting off a little-known Baghdad bank from any dealings with the US banking system, it was a rare public acknowledgment of a delicate problem for an administration hoping for a reliable ally in the country where US troops just fought a war: For months, Iraq has been providing economic assistance to Iran, skirting the sanctions imposed on the country because of its nuclear program.
The bank singled out by the United States, the Elaf Islamic Bank, is only part of a network of financial institutions and oil-smuggling operations that, according to current and former US and Iraqi government officials and experts on the Iraqi banking sector, has provided Iran with a crucial flow of dollars at a time when sanctions are squeezing its economy.
The Obama administration is not eager for a public showdown with the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki over Iran just seven months after the last US troops withdrew from Baghdad.
Still, it has held private talks with Iraqi officials to complain about specific instances of financial and logistical ties between the countries, officials say, although they do not regard all trade between them as illegal, or as in the case of smuggling, as something completely new. In one recent instance, when US officials learned that the Iraqi government was aiding the Iranians by allowing them to use Iraqi airspace to ferry supplies to Syria, Obama called Maliki to complain. The Iranian planes flew another route.
In response to questions from The New York Times, David S. Cohen, the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, provided a written statement saying that Iran ‘‘may seek to escape the force of our financial sanctions through Iraqi financial institutions.’’ But he added that ‘‘we will pursue, and are actively pursuing, efforts to prevent Iran from evading US or international financial sanctions, in Iraq or anywhere else.’’
Related: Doing Business in Iran
Also see: Israeli Oil Shipments Exempt From Iran Sanctions
There are always exception$.
Some current and former US and Iraqi officials and banking and oil experts, however, say that Iraqi government officials are turning a blind eye to the large financial flows, smuggling, and other trade with Iran. In some cases, they say, government officials, including some close to Maliki, are directly profiting from the activities.
Iraq's version of the AmeriKan drug war?
“Maliki’s government is right in the middle of this,’’ said one former senior US intelligence official who now does business in Iraq....
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Iraqi banking experts said last week that the bank was still being allowed to participate in the Iraq Central Bank’s daily auction at which commercial banks can sell Iraqi dinars and buy US dollars. These auctions are a crucial pathway for Iranian access to the international financial system. Western officials say that Iran seeks to bolster its reserves of dollars to stabilize its exchange rates and pay for imports.
Iraqi and US officials with knowledge of Iraqi banking practices say Iranian customers are able to move large amounts of cash through the auction, and from there into banks in regional financial centers like Dubai, United Arab Emirates, or Amman, Jordan, and then into the international banking system.
Mudher Saleh, the central bank governor, said in an interview that Elaf Islamic Bank was being allowed back into the auction because Elaf officials had denied any wrongdoing.
‘‘Elaf Bank is attending the auctions and they are telling us that they didn’t violate the law, and saying that they didn’t deal with any Iranian institutes,’’ Saleh said. While Iraq has tried to impose more stringent reporting requirements that might pick up illegal transfers, officials with knowledge of the Iraqi banking industry say that banks, hawala houses and their Iranian customers are finding ways around them, often by forging documents that make it look as if the money transfers are to finance legitimate trade between Iraq and other countries.
Aren't those houses where terrorists bank?
Thanks to Iraq’s growing oil revenue, the Iraqi central bank has about $60 billion in foreign exchange reserves, held in accounts at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, with which to meet the insatiable demand for dollars. But the new flight of dollars out of Iraq is prompting widespread criticism of the central bank and of the Iraqi government.
Yeah, it turns out "liberated" people despise enslavement at the hands of central bankers.
The accusations of high-level Iraqi government involvement in sanctions-busting have roiled Iraqi politics and invariably reflect on Maliki, since many Iraqi officials now say that he has taken effective control of the Iraqi central bank, which is nominally independent.
Several US and Iraqi banking and government officials also say that Iranian organizations have gained effective control over at least four Iraqi commercial banks through Iraqi intermediaries. That gives Iran direct access to the international financial system, supposedly denied to Iran by the economic sanctions. Even as the United States has moved to tighten the vise against Iran this summer, the Maliki government has openly sought to enhance its already deep economic and political ties with Iran.
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Related: Iran: Beware the Ides of August
I've been told it has been moved back to October.
Just wondering where Iraqis might go for vacation.
