The US military said it targeted operational and weapons storage facilities at two locations in Syria and one location in Iraq.

​​Iraq’s Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi has condemned the overnight US air attack on Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq and Syria which a monitor said killed at least seven fighters.
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In a statement on Sunday, the US military said it targeted operational and weapons storage facilities at two locations in Syria and one location in Iraq in response to drone attacks against the US personnel and facilities in Iraq.

The attacks came at the direction of US President Joe Biden, the second time he has ordered retaliatory attacks against Iran-backed militia since taking office five months ago.

“We condemn the US air attack that targeted a site last night on the Iraqi-Syrian border, which represents a blatant and unacceptable violation of Iraqi sovereignty and Iraqi national security,” said a statement from the Iraqi PM’s office.

March in Diyala province marks the seventh anniversary of the paramilitary force’s founding.

​​Thousands of members of Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) have marched in a parade showcasing tanks and rocket launchers, in the biggest demonstration of military might since the founding of the umbrella organisation of mostly Muslim Shia paramilitary groups.
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The event on Saturday at a military base in Diyala province, in eastern Iraq, marked the seventh anniversary of the formation of the PMF, established after a 2014 call to arms by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani to help defeat the ISIL (ISIS) armed group.

​At the time, ISIL held a third of Iraq’s territory and the PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi, was critical in helping the US-backed Iraqi army defeat it in 2017.
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The parade, held in Camp Ashraf, saw Russian-made tanks, boats and locally made rocket launchers come down a broad thoroughfare. Iranian-made weaponry, including drones, were also displayed during the event that was broadcast on Iraqi state TV and was attended by Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, officially the country’s commander-in-chief.

One company is empowering Kurdish human rights abusers. Another is accused of selling Iranian fuel to the U.S. military.

The first day on the job at the defense contractor DGC International involves an unusual orientation. In the contractor’s offices in McLean, Virginia, some new hires were asked to watch War Dogs, a 2016 blockbuster based on the true story of two kids who got arrested after cheating the Pentagon. For most viewers, the movie is a cautionary tale, but DGC International’s executives seem to have taken its plot as a war-profiteering instruction manual. As one of the film’s would-be protagonists, David Packouz (played by actor Miles Teller), says: “War is an economy. Anybody who tells you otherwise is either in on it or stupid.”

The United States invaded Iraq in the name of fighting terrorism and promoting democracy. But the contractors the Pentagon has hired continue to undermine these justifications. Contracts granted to two of the major companies vying to fuel U.S. bases in Iraq expose the hypocrisy of America’s military mission abroad.

While stiffing the U.S. military with high prices, these contractors are empowering nefarious actors whose interests run counter to stated American policy. DGC International has enriched Kurdish officials who regularly commit atrocities. And DGC International’s main competitor, the Baghdad-based contractor Jamal al-Aalem, faces allegations that in violation of U.S. sanctions it has been supplying U.S. bases with fuel purchased from Iran, as first reported by the trade publication Intelligence Online.
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The U.S. military could not conduct operations in Iraq and neighboring Syria without fuel delivered by DGC International and Jamal al-Aalem. Both companies, but especially DGCI, have made tremendous amounts of money on these contracts. Prices for gasoline have ranged from $3.50 to over $4 a gallon, a considerable markup over market price, which is in the $2 range. At one point in early 2020, DGC International’s rates even spiked above $10 a gallon on short-term deliveries. That price-gouging helped make the contractor the 11th-fastest-growing company in America in 2018.

Iraq's government appears increasingly weak in the face of militias and parties that are expected to entrench their power in an upcoming election, dashing the hopes of protesters who were promised reform, say activists, officials and diplomats.

The Baghdad government has painted an early vote in October as the answer to Iraq's woes, and the West has thrown its support behind Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi and President Barham Salih in calling for the election, which the United Nations has agreed to monitor.

But a series of recent events have demonstrated the impunity of paramilitary groups mainly aligned to Iran. Iraq's biggest parties - all linked to armed groups - are already positioning themselves to divide up election spoils while pro-reform activists are gunned down in the streets.
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"The Iraqi state is not in control of the situation," said Hanaa Edwar, a prominent Iraqi rights activist. "Activists and candidates are being assassinated and threatened. It will be very difficult to hold (free) elections in these circumstances."

FLOATING on a sea of oil, Iraq should by now have rebuilt its war-shattered infrastructure and restored its economy. But construction sites remain idle. Baghdad’s skyline is dotted with the sight of rusting cranes. Roads and bridges are cratered, potholed and broken. Power outages are still the norm, plaguing the Iraqi people with no heating in winter and no air-conditioning in the searing summer temperatures.

Those wealthy enough to keep their refrigerators working and their mobile phones charged, must rely on privately owned generators. And as Baghdad’s infrastructure worsens, its population has continued to swell, bolstered by an influx of refugees fleeing from Middle East conflict zones. At the time of the American invasion in 2003, Baghdad had a population of 4.7 million. Today it is over 8.2 million

Iraq is a broken country. Its infrastructure was ravaged by decades of sanctions and war during the rule of deposed President Saddam Hussein and by the US led invasion in 2003 and the violent insurgency that followed. When ISIS seized over 40% of Iraqi territory in 2014, the resulting campaign to crush the black-clad jihadists led to the almost total destruction of the ancient Iraqi cities of Fallujah, Mosul and Ramadi.

Middle East economists reckon the country needs around $100 billion (£70.7 billion) to rebuild. Its plight has been aggravated by the pandemic and by the collapse in oil prices, worsened by the global lockdown. Oil revenues are critical for Iraq. They fund the government’s universal food subsidy programme that distributes wheat, rice, sugar and vegetable oil to the Iraqi people every month. Now, due to the budget deficit, the Iraqi government has faced challenges in paying the salaries of civil servants as well as pensions to its elderly citizens.

Almost daily, the security authorities in Iraq announce the arrest of drug smugglers and users, especially in Baghdad, as well as Basra in the south and Diyala on the Iraq-Iran border. On 20 June, the Baghdad Operations Command arrested six people accused of using narcotics and in possession of crystal meth, the popular name for methamphetamine, a powerful and rapidly addictive stimulant. A day earlier, units from the Iraqi National Intelligence Service in the Ministry of the Interior arrested two drug smugglers in possession of 10 kilograms of hashish in Basra. The service also announced the arrest of a dealer and transporter of narcotics from a neighbouring country in Basra. We can conclude from such announcements that there is a growing drug problem that is being monitored; that drug smugglers and users are treated in the same way; and that neighbouring countries have a role in the spread of this problem, which is dealt with as a "security" issue.

How it is dealt with raises many questions that have not been addressed despite the many reports and local and international press coverage. These questions revolve around who benefits from planting and spreading the problem, as well as the reasons for its rapid spread in a country that was completely clean until its invasion in 2003. While Iraq was a transit point for the passage of drugs in the early years of the occupation due to the lawlessness and dismantling of the state, why is it now a consumer and producer of narcotics?

According to the 2014 report "Drug and Alcohol Use in Iraq: Findings of the Inaugural Iraqi Community Epidemiological Workgroup", "The data suggests that the most commonly used substances are alcohol, hashish and prescription drugs. New drugs in Iraq's drug use scene include the amphetamine-type substances 'Captagon' and crystal methamphetamine, and the painkiller tramadol. Seizures of Captagon, methamphetamine, Afghan opium, teriac (a crude form of opium), and heroin at border crossings may indicate that these substances are becoming more popular." This indicates that the catastrophe will only intensify with time despite the security forces announcing successful operations. Where does the flaw lie?
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There are many reasons for the spread of drug smuggling and consumption, including the fact that conflict zones are more open than others to such trade, the economic returns of which are equivalent to the manufacture of arms. Moreover, widespread corruption among officials is its backbone. It is noticeable that this aspect is neglected when addressing the systematic and institutional corruption in Iraq, where the focus is on the vast economic corruption in the oil sector. If drugs are mentioned, it is in the context of an "imported" problem without mentioning who is responsible for importing the problem and how it is sustained as a tool to control the people and the future of the country. It is rarely viewed from the aspect of the economy's illegal role in aggravating and fuelling sectarian and national conflicts within Iraq. Moreover, everyone overlooks the experiences of other nations whose illegitimate economies and the groups that thrive on them are highly organised, able to adapt and prone to expansion.

News last week that U.K. oil super-major, BP, is working on a plan to spin off its operations in Iraq’s supergiant Rumaila oil field into a stand-alone company had an extremely familiar ring about it to those who have been in the oil markets business for a while. It was exceptionally reminiscent of the withdrawal of the U.K.-Dutch oil super-major, Royal Dutch Shell (Shell), from Iraq’s supergiant Majnoon oil field in 2017 and also of its withdrawal from Iraq’s supergiant West Qurna 1 oil field in 2018.

Each of these announcements also bore a startling similarity to U.S. super-major ExxonMobil’s (Exxon) recent announcement that it too wants to get out of West Qurna 1 and to its withdrawal from the Iraq’s crucial Common Seawater Supply Project (CSSP) some time ago. The answers to what is actually causing this mass exodus of Western firms from Iraq are laid out below.  

The real answers bear little relation to the official reasons given at the time for the withdrawal of these companies from Iraq, as OilPrice.com’s shrewd readers might well have already construed. In Shell’s case, the official reason for its withdrawal from both Majnoon and West Qurna 1 was that such moves were in line with its overall plan to restructure its global business, following its takeover of BG Group, involving a US$30 billion asset disposal programme and a focussing on gas development.

​The reason given by various BP sources for its creation of a completely standalone separate entity operating in Iraq – ‘ring-fenced’ is another word for it – is that it will allow BP more flexibility to invest in low-carbon energy by enabling it to reduce its spending on oil and gas. ExxonMobil, for its part, long ago gave up bothering to come up with any official reason why it wanted nothing to do with Iraq. ​

The causes of the spike may be linked to Iraq's wars or environmental pollution, but the evidence is sketchy.

​Director of the Environmental Department in southern Iraq Walid Hamid said May 21 that “Ministry of Health statistics indicate that 2,000 cases of cancer are recorded annually due to oil flares that release toxic gases into the air as a result of extraction operations in the Basra fields,” and he criticized oil companies for their disregard of the approved environmental and health standards and controls.
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There have been mounting calls to address this health crisis. In 2018, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Basra announced that “about 800 cases of cancer are recorded every month in the province.” The office confirmed the figure on Jan. 4 and stated that “the governorate leads Iraqi cities in cancer cases, with 600 to 700 cases recorded on a monthly basis in 2020.”

In 2019, the Iraqi Environment and Health Association in London stated that “the oil and gas industries in Iraq failed to shoulder their responsibilities as far as the environmental fallout of oil projects is concerned, knowing that such projects entail severe health risks.”

Iraqi Oil Minister Ihsan Abdul-Jabbar Ismail blames indecision and delays in the ministry on fear of powerful lawmakers whose interests are not served, the Associated Press reported.

"This is the culture: To stay away from any case, to stay away from inspectors, to say, 'Let us not do it.' I think this is the corruption that slows the economy," he told the AP.

While oil minister, Ismail has tried to fast-track projects. He said he is hopeful the coming months will bring signed contracts to develop key projects that could boost Iraq's gas capacity by 3 billion cubic feet by 2025.
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Iraq is currently trading oil at $68 per barrel, close to the approximately $76 needed for the state to operate without reliance on the central bank to meet government expenditures.

Iraq's minister of culture responded to a citizen's admission of being unable to feed his nine children due to a salary cut by asking: "Do you take Viagra?"

​Iraqis have demanded an apology from the country's minister of culture after a video circulated on social media showing him ridiculing a citizen's poverty woes.

Culture Minister Hasan Nadhem appears surrounded by staff and security personnel in the clip as he is addressed by a man who complains over having his salary cut, leaving him struggling to feed his nine children.

Interjecting before the man is able to continue, Nadhem appears to pose a humiliating retort concerning the number of children fathered by the man.

"Do you take Viagra?" the minister asks mockingly, prompting fits of laughter from his entourage.