Iraq News (17 April)

The Good: Prime Minister Maliki is schmoozing with the EU to get their help building oil infrastructure so that Europe can get their gas somewhere other than Russia. Could be a huge windfall for the Iraqi government, and whether or not they will use the revenue to improve their country remains to be seen. A press conference was held yesterday detailing the recent kills/captures of bad dudes in AQI. Long War Journal has some details, and a seized document from a US raid near Baghdad indicates Al-Qaeda's plans of striking infrastructure to disrupt the Iraqi economy, inciting sectarian violence, etc. etc.

The Bad: Turkey is allying with Iran to target their mutual enemies, the Kurdish separatist groups PKK and the PJAK. This isn't going to help Turkey get into NATO, but they really hate Kurdish rebel groups, as seen with this recent airstrike. There is some confusion over whether Iraqi Generals Mohan and Khalaf, who were commanders of the recent operations in Basra, were fired or just re-assigned. Why can't I get "re-assigned"? Time to turn up the level of incompetence to get out of here early.

The Ugly: And you thoughtthe US Navy had problems since they made clowns like me a commissioned officer, check out the Iraqi Navy. The article details how they had to essentially start from scratch post-Saddam, and with all the oil smuggling and perennial troublemaker Iran next door, sounds like they have a lot of challenges ahead of them.

PM Maliki and the EU...BFF!