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
Wafiq al-Samarai was chief of military intelligence under Saddam and a leading opposition figure to the regime later. The position probably should be rendered as national security advisor, or that’s impression it conveys.