1 May 2003 US plans to set up an advisory board to oversee Iraq’s oil sector are taking shape. Fadhil Othman, a retired Iraqi oil marketing official now living in Turkey, is understood to have accepted Washington’s request that he serve as deputy head of the oil advisory board, a non-executive body. In view of Othman’s past experience as head of Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organization (Somo), he “could be…
Author: Ruba Husari
IOF Editor
US Asserts Authority at Iraqi Oil Ministry
30 April 2003 A senior US official from the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) made a first visit to the Iraqi oil ministry in Baghdad on Tuesday, delivering instructions from ORHA chief Jay Garner that the status quo be preserved at the ministry for the time being. In the first meeting since the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime and the occupation of Iraq by US forces, ORHA senior…
Iraqis Gather to Discuss Political Future
29 April 2003 About 300 Iraqis — most of them exiles until the recent fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime — met in Baghdad on Monday under the leadership of US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and began debating the process of setting up an interim Iraqi government. The Baghdad session is the fourth in a series that started in London in mid-December with a meeting of most political groupings of Iraqi exiles…
Iraq’s Baiji Refinery Sits Idle, Awaiting Power, Repair Work
29 April 2003 Iraq’s Baiji refinery — the biggest and newest of the country’s three main refineries — is being protected by members of the nearby Qaissi tribe. For the 5,000 workers at the Baiji refinery, 200 kilometers north of Baghdad, the first real contacts with US soldiers have yet to come. Hundreds of US army trucks can been seen moving north on the road from Baghdad to Mosul, but…