Antichrist Stops Babylon’s Plans (Revelation 13)

 

US Congress to Reexamine Ways of Arming Peshmerga

Luke Coleman
BAGHDAD

During a visit to Baghdad, the chairman of the US Committee on Homeland Security has expressed confidence that there is a more efficient way of delivering arms to Kurdish and Sunni fighters in Iraq, despite repeated objections from the majority Shi’ite Baghdad government.

Responding to criticism over a proposed bill which would divert 25% of the $715 million slated to train the Iraqi army, Rep. Michael T. McCaul told Associated Press, “I think there is a way to streamline the process of getting the weapons to both the Sunni tribes and the Peshmerga, where it is desperately needed to defeat [Islamic State (IS)], while at the same time not undermining the government of Iraq in Baghdad.”

There is a perception among US lawmakers that while the Peshmerga are fighting along multiple lines in the north, they are not receiving enough weapons from the central government. This is coupled with concern that the overwhelmingly Shi’ite forces in the south of the country will not be able to tackle areas in Anbar and Mosul Provinces without securing the support of currently poorly armed Sunni tribal factions.

The Shi’ite dominated government has reacted angry to the proposed bill. Prominent cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Wednesday threatened to attack US interests in the country if the law passed. Prime Minister al-Abadi has spoken with US Vice President Joe Biden to address the issue.

The proposed bill, criticised as a threat to Iraq’s sovereignty, has faced problems in the US, as the country cannot legally arm regions or groups.

Babylon Caves In To Antichrist’s Demands (Rev 13)

Congressmen to reconsider separate funding for Iraq factions

By Paul Schemm | AP May 3 at 3:51 PM

BAGHDAD — Congress may reconsider a provision in an upcoming bill funding the training of the Iraqi army that would also send weapons directly to Arab Sunnis and Kurds, a congressman visiting Baghdad said Sunday.

However Rep. Michael T. McCaul (R-TX), chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security visiting Baghdad with seven other members, said following meetings with the Iraqi government that Congress would still seek a way to ensure the Sunnis and Kurds fighting the Islamic State group would receive weapons.

“I think there is a way to streamline the process of getting the weapons to both the Sunni tribes and the (Kurdish) peshmerga, where it is desperately needed to defeat ISIS, while at the same time not undermining the government of Iraq in Baghdad,” McCaul told The Associated Press, referring to the Islamic State by an acronym.

On Wednesday, influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose militia was once a major force, threatened to attack U.S. interests if the original provision, which would divert 25 percent of the $715 million defense bill to train the Iraqi army, passed.

Al-Sadr’s statement precipitated a cascade of condemnations by members of the Shiite-dominated government and its allied militias.

Al-Abadi said he brought up the issue with Vice President Joe Biden in a phone conversation, warning that such a provision would undermine the country’s sovereignty, according to the prime minister’s website Sunday.

The provision stems from concerns that the Iraqi government is withholding weapons from the Kurdish peshmerga forces, which are bearing the brunt of the fight against the Islamic State in the north.

The U.S. would also like to see Sunni tribesmen armed and brought into the fight but the Shiite-dominated government doesn’t trust them.

The United States has already spent billions arming and training the Iraqi military, but it performed poorly last year when Islamic State militants swept across western and northern Iraq, routing four divisions.

For the U.S. to bypass the central government in distributing weapons, however, was seen by critics as a threat to the country’s national unity.

Ready To Concede Uranium To Iran

US, France Say Iran Can Have Nuclear Program, Not Bomb

Pamela Dockins

November 05, 2014 3:40 PM

STATE DEPARTMENT—U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says he and his French counterpart, Laurent Fabius, agree that Iran has a right to a peaceful nuclear program but “not a track to a bomb.”
Kerry and Fabius met in Paris where they discussed ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran and other issues, ahead of Kerry’s trilateral meeting in Oman on Iran’s nuclear status.

Kerry says he and Fabius believe that it would be “pretty easy” for a country to prove to the world that its nuclear plan is peaceful.

The secretary of state said the U.S. and France share a common goal as they take part in negotiations to resolve Iran’s nuclear crisis before a November 24 deadline.

“We are hand-in-hand linked in this effort and we will work extremely close together in the next weeks to try to find a successful path,” Kerry said.

On Sunday, Kerry, Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, and EU representative Catherine Ashton will try to make headway on Iran’s nuclear status during talks in Oman.

Iran insists on its right to enrich uranium.  Western powers have voiced concern that Iran wants to produce nuclear weapons.

Kerry says a unified P5 + 1 grouping – the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany – has presented Iran with “creative ideas” to help achieve its objectives.

“Now we will see if Iran is able to match the public words that they are prepared to prove to the world that they have a peaceful program, to match those words with the tough and courageous decisions that need to be made by all of us,” Kerry said. “The time is now to make those decisions.”

President Barack Obama says the United States and its P5 +1 allies have handed Iran a framework for a nuclear agreement, but says it will be weeks before anyone knows if there will be a deal.

Obama said during a White House news conference Wednesday the deal would let Iran meet its peaceful energy needs.

Former U.S. ambassador to Bahrain Adam Ereli says Iran has been engaging in what he calls a “shell game” of stalling and misleading the international community.

“What are they trying to hide or what are they trying to disguise?  They’re trying to disguise a commitment to a nuclear program that they’ve not given up and that they’re not going to give up,” Ereli said.

Brookings Institution Middle East analyst Riccardo Alcaro says Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani may have difficulties “selling” a final nuclear deal to his domestic audience, if it appears Tehran has made concessions to the West.

But, he says there are several reasons why an agreement would be in Iran’s best interests.

“It would give Iran the chance to be reintegrated into the international community,” Alcaro said. “It would give a boost to its economy which has been severely damaged by the sanctions.”

He says it would also help Rouhani’s government in terms of its international reputation and credibility.

US Concedes To 4000 Active Iranian Centrifuges

Iran Claims Major U.S. Concession Over Centrifuges in Nuclear Talks

Iranian centrifuges

October 20, 2014 1:36 pm

 

Ben Cohen

A senior member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission has told one of the Islamic Republic’s official news agencies that the United States has agreed that Iran can keep 4,000 active centrifuges as part of a final nuclear deal.Javad Karimi Qoddousi informed the Mehr news agency that he had been told directly by Seyed Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister and a senior nuclear negotiator, that the Americans were “now coming to terms ” with “4,000 active centrifuges,” despite the fact that in the “New York and Vienna talks, US would not accept 1,300 centrifuges.”

Aragchi is known to have impressed American negotiators in their interactions with him since the signing of the Geneva Accord on Iran’s nuclear program in November 2013. In April this year, the lead US negotiator, Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman, told Al Monitor: “Mr. Araghchi is a very professional negotiator and also a tough negotiator.”

The same report noted, however, that the Americans did not have particularly high hopes for Araghchi when they negotiated with him in Baghdad in 2007, over the issue of Iranian support for Shi’a extremists in Iraq:

“We came to the conclusion that the discussions had not produced any progress at all,” the observer at the 2007 Baghdad meeting told Al-Monitor. “And it was used by Iran against us. Iran would tell other international partners, including the Europeans, ‘Don’t talk to us about the nuclear program or terror or human rights. We are conducting a private dialogue with the Americans. You don’t know what’s going on.’”

“We faced the classic negotiators’ dilemma … no progress, no substantive benchmark to judge if the talks were succeeding,” the source said. “And so like every preceding [US] administration that attempted such talks [with the Iranians], we came to the substantive, not political judgment, that not only were the talks not productive, but they were counterproductive.”