By FNC Producer Ghaleb Tawfiq, Baghdad Bureau

Body building and weightlifting is not a new sport to Iraqis, in fact during the seventies and eighties Iraq won a lot of medals and awards at Arab and Asian championships. But since the nineties these two sports began declining due to lack of new machines, proper training, and because of International sanctions imposed on Iraq the country’s athletes were unable to participate in regional or International Games. In addition to that, there weren’t any private clubs in Baghdad then, only a handful of gov. controlled sports clubs.

After the war in 2003, with hundreds of young Iraqis joining the private security companies or  working as bodyguards for Gov. officials or businessmen, the need for bodybuilding has increased again, so dozens of private clubs have opened up throughout Baghdad and in other Iraqi cities where young men are joining these clubs to pump up their muscles.

“Mr. Olympia” is the club we visited last weekend and saw dozens of young men busy working out, lifting weights. The owner of the club “Captain Farahan”, an ex- body builder himself, said he opened this place in 2005, and for him it was a dream come true. He is happy to show the boys proper training for this sport, which according to him means not only having big muscles but learning abut discipline and respecting others. He supervises the training and provides needed protein and amino acids for the trainees.

“Captain Farahan” said his club has 150 members who pay less than $ 20 for a monthly membership, while some come on a daily session which costs only $ 2 a day. The club is open from 9 am – 9 pm 7 days a week, and most of the trainees are private security guards

Click on the video and go inside “Mr. Olympia”:

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By FNC Producer Ghaleb Tawfiq

Almost 50 years ago, the legendary Duke Ellington performed in Baghdad and played his famous composition “Take the A Train”.

Last weekend, Alvin Atkinson and the Sound Merchants played the same composition to the delight of almost 400, mostly Iraqis, at the al Rasheed Hotel, in Baghdad. We didn’t want to miss the chance so we joined the crowd.

Invited by the US embassy, the NY Jazz Quartet were on a one week tour to entertain Iraqis, meeting with musicians and students in a gesture to strengthen cultural relations between the two nations. The crowd responded to the fine tunes with repeated applause

The show started with Iraqi & Arabic traditional music performed by Dejlah Oriental Band, an Iraqi Quartet, and then the American band took the stage and played a number of compositions, for more than an hour, including the “A Train”.

Alvin told us that he has heard about the history and heritage of Iraq’s music which he admires alot and he wanted to share American traditional music with his Iraqi counterparts, he thanked all Iraqis for accepting him and his Band hoping to return for a longer visit.

Listen to their tunes:

Cameraman & editor:

Tom Streithorst

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By FNC Producer Ghalib Tawfiq

Meet young Iraqi, Mohammad. He is a 23 year old Pharmacist from Baghdad.  His father founded this Pharmacy about 30 years ago and now he is retired,  so now Mohammad is running it. Mohammad believes that Iraq should be run by a Democratic political system without any loyalty to a certain religious sect or ethnic group, and that the younger generation should be educated this way, so their loyalty will be only for the country.  Hear from Mohammad himself below!

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By FNC Producer Ghalib Tawfiq

Meet young Iraqi, Yusuf. He is 19 years old, studies computer engineering, and has a part time job in a computer maintenance shop in Baghdad. Since the war is coming to an end, he feels that this is Iraq’s chance to finally catch up with the technology here in America.  After a little convincing, Yusuf agreed to work with me on this video.

Click on the video below:

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By FNC Producer Ghalib Tawfiq

Iraq is now recovering from the aftermath of the war, a war which has its affects on every sector. The health system lacks modern medical supplies and equipment, hundreds of doctors have fled the country during the sectarian violence, and hospitals have shut down and because of that. Similarly, the education system was not in better shape, students stopped going to universities, parents stopped  sending their kids to schools for fear of kidnappings or car bombs. Professors and lecturers  either stayed home or fled the country for the same reasons.  And the same goes for the industrial, commercial sector as well.

Now, the situation has changed.  The security has much improved after the government fought and defeated the sectarian Militias, Death Squads, and Al Qaeda in many Iraqi cities, including Baghdad.  Iraqis are getting back on their feet again trying to rebuild their country and emerge to the world again.

I have been working for Fox News Baghdad Bureau for 3 years now as a producer, and throughout our coverage on Iraq, I have met, talked to, and interviewed Iraqi government officials, politicians, military men, and many others.  Being an Iraqi worker for a major American media corporation,  I want to show the bright side of our story on Iraq, and shed some light on our efforts to rebuild the country, which is the responsibility of all of us.  So I decided to approach one category of Iraqis we haven’t focused on in the past, the YOUNG Iraqis.  I am asking them to talk to the American viewers about themselves, express their own views and thoughts on how they foresee their future, and how they participate in the rebuilding of Iraq.

One of these young men expressed to me that they are the “backbone of the society” and I think it is appropriate to call them the “Real Builders” of Iraq.

Each week I will introduce one of these “Real Builders” and you will get an EXCLUSIVE look inside their story with videos, photos and blogs. Please keep checking back!

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by David Mac Dougall, Baghdad Bureau

The votes are cast and being counted, after Saturday’s ballot to elect regional council representatives in 14 of Iraq’s 18 provinces.  Thanks to very tight security from Iraqi forces, the whole day passed off without major incident.  Polls stayed open an extra hour to ensure that anyone who wanted to cast their ballots could actually do so.  A vehicle ban in major cities was lifted early. 

I went out with a crew yesterday to a polling station in a neighborhood close to where we live.  Streets were empty except for a lot of kids playing soccer – taking advantage of the traffic-free roads to kick around a ball.  Lots of families walked to the polling station, searched by Iraqi commandos as they went inside to vote. 

Today, some numbers are in for voter turnout.  There are some bright spots, but overall turnout wasn’t as high as many people were predicting or expecting (Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki boldly stated the turnout would be 70-80% but it wasn’t anywhere near that high). 

The Iraqi Election Commission says overall, turnout was just 51% countrywide (down from 55% in the last election four years ago).

The good news is that in mostly Sunni provinces like Anbar (40%) and Salah ad Din (65%) voters cast their ballots in some numbers.  This is a marked improvement from the previous election where many Sunni parties boycotted the vote and voters stayed away due to intimidation, ongoing violence and often times simple apathy in the face of what they perceived was an overwhelming Shiia majority.  In Anbar Province for example, at the last election, only something like 2% turned out on polling day.

The disappointing number for me comes in the capital Baghdad, where it looks like only 40% of voters bothered to cast a ballot.  I would have expected a higher number, but maybe people weren’t energized by the campaign.  Who knows. 

In terms of winners and losers, official results aren’t expected for a few days but some trends are becoming clear.  Prime Minister Maliki’s party seems to have strengthened its position.  His main Shiia rivals are heading for second or third place in some key cities, especially in the south.  His main secular / Sunni rivals are also trailing.  But again – we’re waiting for final results before calling the big cities & individual provinces one way or the other. 

During my trip to a local polling station I took a lot of photographs – here’s a photo essay explaining exactly how city residents cast their ballots. 

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By David Mac Dougall, Baghdad Bureau

There’s just one day left until regional elections in 14 out of Iraq’s 18 provinces.  So who doesn’t vote?  Well, the three northern provinces controlled by the Kurdish Regional Government will have their own local elections later this year; and Tamim Province is exempt this time round (the city of Kirkuk is claimed by three different ethnic groups, so I guess it just seems easier not to have elections there in case of any potential trouble)!

Each day this week we’ve been asking Iraqis what they think about a range of issues.

Today, they get the chance to speak out about elections, politics, different parties, personalities and democracy.  As usual, we’ve got quite a range of voices: from people who applaud the introduction of democracy in Iraq, to one man who says he’d like all the political parties to combine into one single party with just one leader (mmm… paging Saddam Hussein anyone?!)

What we’re seeing in Iraq this time is a real interest in the electoral process – there are more than 14,000 candidates running for just 444 seats.  That’s a lot of people who want to have a say in the future running of their regions.  All across Baghdad there are colorful election posters competing for attention, and on TV voter education ads play alongside soap operas and political broadcasts.  For me, it’s been fun to watch the Iraqis get wrapped up in the process.  Tomorrow, it will be fun watching them cast their ballots (hopefully) in a peaceful atmosphere.

Credits: Camera: Auday Shandal; Editor: Pierre Zakrzewski; Voice-overs: Dragan Petrovic, Andy Roberts & Nicola Sadler.

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By David Mac Dougall, Baghdad Bureau

This coming Saturday, Iraqis go to the polls.  They’re choosing regional representatives in 14 out of Iraq’s 18 provinces.  There’s little doubt that Iraqis are embracing democracy – the numbers speak for themselves: more than 14,000 candidates vying for just 444 council seats.

Each day this week we’re asking Iraqis what they think about a range of issues.

Look up to the top of buildings in any part of Iraq and the chances are you’ll see a satellite dish.  They’re so prolific I’ve heard people jokingly call them “Iraq’s national flower” because they’re blooming everywhere.  Compared to six years ago (before the US-lead invasion), Iraqis have an amazing range of news sources to choose from.  Broadcasts run the gamut of locally produced TV newscasts in Salah ad Din Province to slick high-end pan-Arab satellite channels like al-Arabiya (where President Obama gave his first post-inaugration interview this week) and Iraq-wide channels like Sharqiyah and Iraqiyah.  There are also a number of religious channels and stations run by political parties.

In terms of print media, there’s a wide variety of newspapers on offer: some come weekly, some daily, some support or are printed by a particular political party or religious group, some are printed in Iraq, some overseas.  Iraqis buy their papers at road-side vendors.

For today’s “State Of Their Nation” video, we asked people what they thought of the media here, we asked about the dangers facing journalists (the Committee to Protect Journalists lists 114 Iraqi journalists killed here since March 2003, making it one of the most deadly places to report in the world).  We also asked people if they thought the media here in Iraq was free and fair.

Watch an hour of news, opinion and debate LIVE from Baghdad on Friday at 10am EST at www.foxnews.com/strategyroom.

Credits: Camera: Auday Shandal; Editor: Pierre Zakrzewski; Voice-overs: Dragan Petrovic, Andy Roberts & Nicola Sadler.

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By David Mac Dougall, Baghdad Bureau

This coming Saturday, Iraqis go to the polls.  They’re choosing regional representatives in 14 out of Iraq’s 18 provinces.  There’s little doubt that Iraqis are embracing democracy – the numbers speak for themselves: more than 14,000 candidates vying for just 444 council seats.

Each day this week we’re asking Iraqis what they think about a range of issues.

With the new US administration little more than a week old, we went out on the streets to talk with Iraqis about their expectations of President Obama.  We also found Iraqis had a lot to say about President Bush’s legacy: most people seemed bitter about the US-lead invasion, most had harsh words to say about President Bush and most had low expectations for the new administration.

Sometimes, what Iraqis have to say can be difficult to hear – they don’t pull their punches.  Of course we can’t ask the opinions of every Iraqi in the country.  When preparing these videos, our camera crew goes to a part of the city where different religious groups mix – we don’t just go to a Sunni or Shiia part of Baghdad – so I’m confident we got a fairly representative sample of opinions from the Iraqi capital.  Outside the capital, people might say different things.  In Kurdistan for example you’re more like to have people talking with warmth and gratitude about former President Bush.  In the south of the country, the responses from people on the street might be more extreme in the other direction.  Here in Baghdad, we’re trying to bring you the middle ground.

Do you agree or disagree with what these Iraqis have to say?  Leave a message, we’d like to hear your comments!

Plus — Watch an hour of news, opinion & debate LIVE from Baghdad on Friday, 10am EST at www.foxnews.com/strategyroom!

Credits:
Camera: Auday Shandal
Editor: Pierre Zakrzewski
Voice-overs: Dragan Petrovic, Andy Roberts & Nicola Sadler.

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By David Mac Dougall, Baghdad Bureau

This coming Saturday, Iraqis go to the polls.  They’re choosing regional representatives in 14 out of Iraq’s 18 provinces.  There’s little doubt that Iraqis are embracing democracy – the numbers speak for themselves: more than 14,000 candidates vying for just 444 council seats.

Each day this week we’re asking Iraqis what they think about a range of issues.

Today, they speak out about things most people in the West take for granted: clean running water, electricity to heat or cool their homes and run appliances, efficient sewage to keep the towns and cities disease free.  A lot of this essential infrastructure was in a terrible state of disrepair after the US-lead invasion – following years of neglect and sanctions during the Saddam Hussein regime.  Many Iraqis had unrealistic expectations that the Americans would fix all their problems overnight but nearly six years after the start of the war there are still a lot of issues with basic services.  Now, Iraq is going to be increasingly paying to upkeep and maintain more of these essential services as the US steps back militarily as well as financially.

PLUS — Watch an hour of news, opinion & debate LIVE from Baghdad on Friday 10am EST at www.foxnews.com/strategyroom.

Credits:
Camera: Auday Shandal
Translation: Khadum Hussein
Editor: Pierre Zakrzewski
Voice-overs: Martin Francis, Dragan Petrovic & Nicola Sadler.

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By David Mac Dougall, Baghdad Bureau

This coming Saturday, Iraqis go to the polls.  They’re choosing regional representatives in 14 out of Iraq’s 18 provinces.  There’s little doubt that Iraqis are embracing democracy – the numbers speak for themselves: more than 14,000 candidates vying for just 444 council seats.

Each day this week we’re asking Iraqis what they think about a range of issues.  Today, they speak out about taking control of Baghdad’s most famous piece of real estate the “Green Zone”.  It had been under American control since 2003 but now the Iraqis are back in charge again.  The Iraqi Government also took control of military operations here and in theory American forces can only conduct operations with the approval and cooperation of Iraqi troops.  This new-found sovereignty marks a turning point for Iraq, after almost six years of de-facto Coalition control here, and we found a lot of people eager to talk about it.

Credits:
Camera: Auday Shandal
Translation: Khadum Hussein
Producer: Nicola Sadler
Editor: Delamir Babic
Voice-overs: Martin Francis & Dragan Petrovic.

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By David Mac Dougall, Baghdad Bureau

I’m never good on just three hours of sleep.  Let’s face it, who is?  But often that’s what it takes to get a story, and I learned a long time ago the US military loves an early start.

Arriving at Camp Taji on a helicopter flight from Baghdad recently, the soldier who greeted us at the flight line in the early hours of the morning said “I’ll pick you up at 5:15″.

“PM?” asked producer Nicola Sadler, a little too hopefully.

“No ma’am,” came the soldier’s reply.  “A.M.”

And that’s how our embed began.

I first visited the town of Tarmiyah in Dec. 2006 with the army’s 2nd Battalion 8th Cavalry, commanded by Lt. Colonel Scott Efflandt.  The town was, quite frankly, in disarray.  A local al-Qaeda affiliated group called the Mujahidin Shura Council had decided to declare itself independent from the rest of Iraq, a supposed counter-weight to the Shiia-dominated central government.  Police quit their posts en masse, businesses and schools closed down after being threatened by Al-Qaeda and Tarmiyah looked like a ghost town.  Not that we could see very much; we pretty much drove through the main street in a convoy of five hum-vees, because it was pretty dangerous to get out and walk around.  In fact, one of our vehicles was hit by a roadside bomb, although thankfully nobody was injured.

Add to all this mess a dose of regular criminal activity, tribal rivalries, decades-old blood feuds, and you can see the scope of the problems the US military had to deal with.

Scott Efflandt was effectively acting as the mayor of Tarmiyah, and trying to use the carrot-and-stick approach to get the community back on its feet, encouraging various local Sheikhs and civic leaders to work together and also withholding spending on infrastructure projects for “bad behavior”.  The US military ended up using Tarmiyah as a case study during counter-insurgency training school for how to deal with a multi-layered insurgency problem.  Scott Efflant said that putting things right in Tarmiyah was “a task of inches” and that there were “no silver bullets, no home run, just hard work.”  How right he was.

The real thorn in the side of Lt. Colonel Efflandt and the men of 2/8 CAV (as well as the people of Tarmiyah) was an insurgent leader by the name of Abu Ghazwan, the head of the Mujahidin Shura Council.  He’d been jailed by the Iraqi authorities for two years and then released in the fall of 2006.  On his route from prison to Tarmiyah, he’d linked up with al-Qaeda cells and received extra training, and by late 2006 Abu Ghazwan was Tarmiyah’s most wanted.  We heard stories of public executions and suicide bomb attacks terrorizing the town’s residents, and the US army post in Tarmiyah was almost over-run in the spring of 2007 in a concerted insurgent attack.

Abu Ghazwan was behind many of the terror attacks in Tarmiyah, and in 2006 Scott Efflandt told me “we’ll deal with Abu Ghazwan.  He was a problem before, and he went to prison; he was released, and we’ll deal with him again, and I’m sure next time he won’t be released”.

You can see my original 2006 video report about Tarmiyah at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stxS0rewtrE

If Scott Efflandt – or any of the soldiers from 2/8 CAV – visited Tarmiyah today they would be shocked by the progress there.  I know that I was.  For a start, Abu Ghazwan is dead.  Last November, during a routine search of Abu Ghazwan’s sister’s home, a sharp-eyed Iraqi soldier saw a man running away so he gave chase.  The man – who turned out to be Abu Ghazwan of course – threw a grenade at the Iraqi soldier which seriously wounded him – but not before he could fire off a shot and kill Tarmiyah’s most wanted man.  The Iraqi soldier, by the way, is being protected by members of his own family, for fear of revenge attacks by Abu Ghazwan’s supporters who are still lurking on the outskirts of the town.  With improved security – thanks to the US-backed Sunni militias known as the Sons of Iraq – Tarmiyah was able to slowly reverse the slide into chaos which the previous few years had brought.

During this most recent visit to Tarmiyah our host was Capt. Chris Loftis from 1-14 Infantry Battalion out of Schofield Barracks in Hawaii.  It’s a heck of a lot colder in Tarmiyah in January than it is in Hawaii I’m betting!  Chris is a real asset to his commanders because he speaks Arabic.  He’s also been in the army for 23 years, first as an enlisted soldier and later as an officer.  That longevity brings much-needed experience to the streets of Tarmiyah.

What we found for ourselves was a town transformed.  We were able to walk freely up and down the main street, where stores and markets were open and doing a thriving business.  A couple of stores in particular, according to Capt. Chris Loftis, really indicated a bright future ahead: bridalwear and furniture.  If people are planning weddings they’re planning for the future – and they often give bedroom furniture as a wedding gift – plus the furniture store we saw also sold cribs which means couples are looking to expand their families.

The whole town had an air of “normalcy” about it – normal that is, by Iraqi standards with checkpoints, razor wire, and security blast barriers still in evidence.  There were boys spilling out of the high school, stopping to buy street food from a vendor.  There were election posters plastered on walls, and women busy buying household goods at a makeshift roadside market spread out on the sidewalk.  Something that was very satisfying to see however was Abu Ghazwan’s “wanted” poster.  Some Iraqi policemen had drawn a large red “X” over his face.

And as for Abu Ghazwan… well… we had an unusual “encounter” with him.  Turns out the room we slept in for a few nights (which I thought was as cold as a morgue) had in fact been used to store Abu Ghazwan’s body.  I guess Lt. Colonel Scott Efflandt was right on the money when he told me back in 2006 that next time justice was visited upon Abu Ghazwan, he wouldn’t be escaping his fate so easily – it’s just especially poetic that Iraqi security forces were the ones to bring his murderous run to an end.

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By David Mac Dougall, Baghdad Bureau

After seven fun-filled weeks in Iraq it’s time to go home.  In fact, I already left Baghdad this morning with cameraman Michael Pohl and right now I’m in Amman Jordan, flying in the morning to London, then New York on Friday and eventually back to Scotland.  I’ve worked in Iraq every Christmas and New Year since 2003 so it will be nice to have a change of scenery this year.

Before I switch off the computer, turn out the light and head to bed, I wanted to post one last video clip.  This comes from our buddies at Patrol Base Gaines Mill near Kirkuk.  The guys were out conducting a medical mission at a small village and the local kids kept hanging around their parents and generally impeding the good order Major Matt McGrew and his guys had been trying to establish.

So how do you keep a group of Iraqi kids entertained?  Turns out Matt McGrew thought the best solution was to teach them the Macarena.  You know the dance – a favorite at weddings and bachelorette parties.  Now… one of the last people I ever expected to see dancing the Macarena was Matt McGrew – especially in full body armor.  But here’s the evidence, filmed by one of his loyal officers, and posted online by his wife.

Check out the video:

If this video doesn’t have the words “viral internet hit” written all over it, then I don’t know what does!  It’s like the Rick Astley “Rick Roll” video, except with more camoflague and an M-16.  Enjoy!

Talk to you all soon! Happy Holidays!

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By David Mac Dougall, Baghdad Bureau

We’re spending Thanksgiving with the men and women of the US military at Forward Operating Base Warrior, in Kirkuk Northern Iraq.

In the past few weeks, traveling around the country, we’ve talked to dozens of Soldiers, Airmen and Marines.  Take a look at this video, featuring some of the people we met, wishing their loved ones a Happy Thanksgiving.

Tomorrow – Friday – We move on to the town of Hawija with 3rd Brigade 25th Infantry Division who are based out of Hawaii. 

Check back over the next few days while we blog about the rest of this trip.

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By Anita McNaught, Baghdad Bureau

We were ready from late morning.

I’m chained to the satellite dish at the Baghdad Bureau, ready to go live at any second, while my Iraqi colleagues are penned into the media area in Parliament, trying to stay afloat while strong political currents swirl around them.

One of them phones me, to describe the melee in the building… five different kinds of security forces.. too many journalists.. harried Parliamentarians.. and negotiations of the finest Machiavellian kind still going on.

The session is meant to start at 1pm.. the Big Vote is scheduled for 3.

An hour or so later, another colleague who’s been working the phones comes over to report:

- They’ve decided what law to use. They can’t pass the new International Treaties and Agreements Bill in time, so they are going to use one – oh the irony! – dating back to the Saddam era. It requires only a simple majority – 51% – to pass.

Well, that’ll please the Sadr-ists…

We find out why the building is bristling with paramilitaries. Both PM Maliki and President Talibani are due to arrive. To do some last minute arm-twisting? To deliver victory speeches? No-body knows.. because the deals are still being negotiated.

This is a game of political pass-the-parcel. No-one really wants to be left holding this Agreement when the music stops. Too few ordinary Iraqis understand what’s in it, what the implications are, and why so many lawmakers might be inclined to sign up.

It is, after all, the point at which the Americans are in Iraq at the invitation of the Iraqi government. And the UN justification – such as it was – ceases to exist.

Then we hear about the Referendum Initiative. This is the amendment the so-far unco-operative Sunni Parties want added. Six months after Parliament passes the Agreement, it goes up for a yea or nay vote to… the Iraqi people.

So if it all goes horribly wrong, and Maliki thought he could share the blame with Parliament for agreeing to it… now Parliament can shift the responsibility off onto the Iraqi people. When the music stops.

From time to time, my Iraqi colleagues manage to catch lawmakers on the hoof and persuade them to share their views.

One, from the Iraqi National List – the ‘Allawi Party’ associated with former PM Iyad Allawi – secular-ish and pragmatic – says that personally he is against the Agreement because it will create more problems between Iraqis.. but he thinks his bloc might be prepared to sign up to it. He wants that referndum.

Then – to his evident delight – my Iraqi colleague manages to buttonhole Sadr Party book-banger-desk-smasher Ahmed Al-Massoudi. “We will use all means, political and legal, to fight this Bill,” he declares. Al Massoudi mentions taking the issue to the Federal Court.

But would the Sadr Party take up arms again – would they ask JAM to fight?

“No,” Al Massoudi says, “… I don’t think so”.

Now we hear the session has been delayed till 5pm, with the vote perhaps at 6pm.

My colleagues in Parliament have had no food for hours. There’s a kiosk selling tea and coffee – but they need sustenance, not stimulants. They’ve had enough of those already.

A spokesman for the UIA, the governing Shi’a coalition declares that they have the numbers. It’s a “comfortable margin’ – “a landslide” even.

A Turkoman MP from their same group gives a speech declaring this “an historic moment in Iraqi history”..

But we hear the Sunni Parties are still negotiating hard with the Iraqi President. Neither he, nor PM Maliki have yet showed. The words ‘chickens’ and ‘count’ come to mind..

An update. The vote is at 5pm. A show of hands. Covered live on TV.

At 20 minutes to 5, they adjourn Parliament for the day.

No Vote. No deals closed today.

We reckon they’ve got around three working weeks left to sort this.

My American colleagues are now beside themselves. The Vote is scheduled for tomorrow? On Thanksgiving? Are they nuts?

Click here to read more of Anita’s ‘On the Scene’ blogs!

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By Anita McNaught, Baghdad Bureau

The Iraqi Parliament held another session today…Unwisely, here at the FOX News Baghdad Bureau, we thought we knew the agenda.

It’s simple. Lawmakers have to pass the ‘International Treaties and Agreements Law’. Without this law, they cannot vote on the US-Iraq Withdrawal and Cooperation Agreement. (That’s the one that gives the deadline for US troops to leave in 2011).

Parliament has, of course, had nine months – while the US and Iraqi negotiating teams drove each other up the wall  – to pass this Treaties Law. But they didn’t. They started debating it last week.

So today, they voted it in, right?

Wrong.

Today they passed resolutions condemning violence against women and new laws on returning refugees and immigrants.

In fact, since Saturday’s unprecedented open-access debate on the US-Iraq Withdrawal and Coooperation Agreement, they haven’t discussed  the single most important issue on the Iraqi political agenda at all.

Which is not to say they haven’t been talking. Across Baghdad and beyond, there are some furious meetings going on. Wrangling, horsetrading and political brinkmanship. The Maliki government wants a ‘yes’ vote from lawmakers – it’s a fine time to make a deal.

Very few of these meetings are, quite understandably, seeing the light of day… TV cameras were allowed into a meeting the Prime Minister had with the Shi’a Coalition the UIA (United Iraqi Alliance) that put him in power in 2005.. But these MPs aren’t the problem – they were always going to vote as their leader asked.

Also on the weekend, our long-suffering Speaker Mahmoud Al Mashhedani popped up in Amman. Caught on the front pages of the Jordan newspapers, shaking King Abdullah’s hand. Perhaps he needed a break from the stresses of keeping Parliament on the rails.. More likely, he was brokering deals as well.

Meanwhile, the Prime Ministerial bluster level is rising. At the end of the UIA meeting, he warned that America might throw in the towel if Parliament said  “no” , pulling all troops out forthwith and plunging Iraq into terrible chaos.

Well, what he said was: “It would not be in Iraq’s best interests at the moment”. But everyone knows what he means.

But according to my colleagues

And tomorrow, the Vote is meant to happen. Sometime after 1pm Iraq-time.

Does the PM have the numbers? That’s the question tonight.

Many Parliamentarians have already gone overseas.. some to Mecca. On Saturday they didn’t even manage to achieve a quorum (138 members present out of 275) to hold a parliamentary session.

Staunch supporters of the agreement – the large Shi’a and Kurd blocks – should in theory combine to give the government a simple majority .. IF enough of them show up.

But even if they were to all be there tomorrow, a simple majority is not enough. The Great Arbiter Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani gave his qualified go-ahead on condition the Agreement had widespread support. A ‘yes’ vote so slim it lacks political legitimacy will just cause more trouble.

But the Sunni blocks are divided between those who believe the deal is so deeply flawed (though fundamentally a good idea) that the ‘benevolent and protective’ UN Chapter 7 mandate needs to be renewed for 3-6 months so a better deal can be hammered out with the US.. And those who can live with the deal, but aren’t going to vote ‘yes’ without some major favours from the Shi’a government.. Freeing thousands of Sunni prisoners in jail topping their list.

The government daren’t risk rejection. Or do they?

The UN are running around with the option of renewing the Chapter 7 Mandate.. like firemen with a blanket at the bottom of a burning building.

Face-saving compromises are very much the Iraqi Way, in these explosively delicate  times. Watch for UN Iraq Chief Staffan di Mistura to step elegantly into the fray in the coming days.

Click here to read more of Anita’s ‘On the Scene’ blogs!

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By Anita McNaught, Baghdad Bureau

So you have a near-mutinous Parliament, seething with resentment and frustration, holding in their hands an International Agreement with the US that most of them, in one way or another, have ‘issues’ with.

What do you do?

You let them get it out of their system.

This was the stroke of genius at the weekend. The Word came down from the Presidency Council to let the lawmakers talk… Let them talk, and talk, as much as they wanted. Open the floodgates, let no holds be barred, no fulm be unfulminated.

So, Saturday morning, the long-suffering (but distinctly mischevious) Speaker of the House, Mahmoud Al Mashhedani invited his parliamentary colleagues to lay it all out for the world  – and their voting constituents – to hear.

Well, not quite all. Our old friend from the Sadr Party, Ahmed  Al-Massoudi, instantly decided to pick a fight over whether the Speaker had a quorum to proceed.

The Speaker’s enormous eyes narrowed.

“Please. Don’t waste our time…”, he snarled.

Then off the lawmakers went, making some fine arguments along the way.

Early on, former Mininster of Planning, Mehdi Al Hafedh, popped up. He looks like a tired mathematics teacher, but his quiet assurance silenced the room. He’d been looking into the US/Iraqi Agreement and he was worried.

There’s a lot of Iraqi money – more than $US 60 billion by his reckoning – from oil revenues piled up in international bank accounts, all under the protection of the United Nations under Resolution no. 1483. That means that money can’t be touched by any of Iraq’s many creditors, and can only be spent on reconstructing Iraq.

But when the UN Chapter VII Mandate comes off on December 31st, it’s potentially open season. Creditors dating back 20 years or more, to the Iran/Iraq war, to massacred minorities like the Kurds, to the Kuwaitis .. Russia, China for broken deals.. all could have claims for compensation.. and many of Iraq’s neighbours have not forgiven Saddam’s development debts either.

Any of Iraq’s assets could be seized as security. The Mininster of Defense worried this weekend that Iraq’s navy can’t keep Iraq’s oil shipments safe from pirates.. or its army stop Turkey from invading. That could be the LEAST of his worries.

Where in this Agreement, asked Al Hafedh, were the guarantees that Iraq’s badly-needed savings wouldn’t be grabbed? There was little that explicitly guaranteed American protection. This was a recipe for disaster.

“Our days of special treatment are over”, he mused. “International relations are getting more complex and unpredictable every day. We cannot rely on continued American support ”.

The Prime Minister had so far been deaf to all entreaties to amend the agreement, he explained. So Al-Hafedh pleaded for an extension to the UN mandate, to give Iraq time to work out how to protect itself.

His views were echoed and endorsed by another eminent speaker, Adnan Pachachi, former Iraqi Foreign Mininster and one of the architects of the present UAE.

But by then, the fun had really begun.

Click here to read more of Anita McNaught’s ‘On the Scene’ blogs!

All this talk of prolonging the negotiations was beginning to really worry some of the people’s representatives in the room..

“We won’t BE here in 2009 to continue these debates” lamented one Turkoman MP.

[“Too RIGHT you lot won’t be!”, my Iraqi colleagues in the FOX Bureau roared at the TV, appalled by the previous days’ behaviour, and looking forward to the corrective impact of the Jan 2009 provincial elections]

The savvy but doleful Kurdish independent MP Dr Mahmoud Othman took the microphone next.

He said that before Iraq started signing international treaties, it needed to do something about resolving its very serious internal security problems – like the tensions in the North between Kurds and Central Government.

He warned his colleagues that the Iraq war might soon become an insupportable burden on the US economy, Treaty or no Treaty.

And what were MPs thinking, all going off to the Hajj (the Pilgrimage to Mecca) at a critical time like this?

[Oh, my colleagues in the Bureau knew all right – It’s called:‘Not Being There on the Day of the Vote because that’s Much Too Controversial’]

Hassan al Shammari of the Fadilha Party always has something thoughtful to say.. On Saturday, he lamented that the length and secrecy of the negotiations had left him doubting the validity of it all.

Unimpressed with the end result, he wanted to see the drafts of the Agreement so he could be certain what was the work of the US and what, the work of the Iraqi government. He wanted to know who was driving the process.

A few minues later, a member of Prime Minister Maliki’s Dawa Party, Hassan al Sineid, responded, saying he’d seen a draft with 150 amendments in the margins in the PM’s own hand – if it made the difference, he’d bring it in for all to see.

[Now everyone at the FOX Bureau was keen to get their hands on a copy of that].

The day saw a lot of plain speaking.

“The Government of Iraq enetered into this agreement in its own interests and the interests of its own survival, without considering the wishes and needs of the Iraqi people”, observed Saleh Al Mutlaq, veteran MP from a small Sunni block.

[Another roar of approval here from my Iraqi colleagues in the bureau – who, it must be observed – are a healthy balance of Sunni and Shi’a.]

But the liveliest exchanges of the day were between Sadr Party MP Dr Maha al Douri and an exasperated Speaker.

Clad head to toe in an enveloping black abaya, she raised aloft a pocket-sized copy of the Qu’ran and declared that she would not criticise the Agreement from a political perspective, but only from an Islamic one…

“Good grief!” (or the Arabic equivalent) gasped al-Mashhedani. “What have you come here to do? Issue fatwas? Who do you think you are? The Supreme Leader?”

Dr. Al Douri wwas undeterred…

This Agreement, she said, “would enable the infidels to dominate the faithful of Iraq and rob them of their wealth and treasures…”

In vain did the Speaker implore her to speak politics in Parliament… she was on a roll.

The American occupiers (she’s still waving the Qu’ran ) had “desecrated the holy book before – who was to say they wouldn’t do it again once they had signed the agreement? How you could even think of signing an agreement with people like that?”

Finally, with a rhetorical flourish, she concluded.. “And if the Iraqi forces are ‘not ready to take over yet’, then what are those huge numbers of recruits and the vast budgets spent on them? I’ll tell you – they are thugs and gangs and barbarians!”

[She might have a point there, said my Iraqi colleagues...]

And by now, it was only lunchtime…

The debating carried on till well after 5pm, till lawmakers’ voices grew hoarse, till the Chamber was 2/3 empty, till well after our signal linking us to the Chamber had cut out.

But by then, no-one could say anymore that the nation’s voice had been silenced.

And it was also clear the final deciding vote wasn’t going to happen today – Monday – as planned.

Click here to read more of Anita McNaught’s ‘On the Scene’ blogs!

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By David Mac Dougall, Baghdad Bureau

Check out more info on Fallujah’s KFC in the video below:

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By David Mac Dougall, Baghdad Bureau

We spent most of last week in Fallujah, arriving back in Baghdad yesterday (Saturday); and now we’re preparing to go out again on Tuesday afternoon.  That means preparing equipment, washing clothes, finding cold-weather gear, packing the satellite, editing gear, cameras and back-up equipment too.  Lots to keep us busy!

This coming week marks one of the big dates in the Baghdad Bureau calendar: Thanksgiving.  It might be the time when people back in the US tuck into turkey, but in Iraq we traditionally try to get out and broadcast live with troops, putting as many of them as possible on TV and on the internet.

For the past few weeks we’ve been doing Thanksgiving “shout-outs” giving soldiers and marines we meet the chance to say hello to their friends and families back home, to be broadcast this week on FOX News.  So far I’d say we’ve recorded close to a hundred of them – in Kirkuk, Baghdad and Fallujah.  If you see military personnel on TV from Iraq this week, chances are we met them and had some fun in front of the camera.

Here’s a few final photographs from our embed with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Marines in Fallujah last week: watch out online Monday for a special KFC “webisode” which we’re putting together exclusively for the On The Scene blog… and of course, watch out for our Fallujah stories to air this week in the run-up to Thanksgiving on FOX News Channel.

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By David Mac Dougall, Baghdad Bureau

We finally made it to Kentucky Fried Chicken in downtown Fallujah. The quest for KFC is over!

But let me clarify: on closer inspection it turns out this is not one of Colonel Sanders’ officially sanctioned franchises.  In fact, apart from the large “KFC” sign in the window you’d be hard pressed to distinguish this from many other chicken restaurants in Fallujah.  The big difference though, is on the inside.  Iraqis like baked chicken, and it turns out deep fried chicken is something of a novelty, and so they’ve been flocking to the restaurant over the past eight months since it opened – the local newspaper even ran a story about it, so I guess it’s not a FOX exclusive.

Of course, we only made it to KFC with the help of our embed hosts this week – Capt. Dan Micklis and the Marines of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Marines.  They’ve been showing us all over the north of Fallujah, and we’ll be sad to say goodbye later this evening as we start the journey back to Baghdad.

We were the only customers early Friday evening in KFC, so I bought enough chicken to feed the Marines.  In case you’re wondering, they only have one thing on the menu – a $5 meal which buys 2 pieces of fried chicken, French fries, a soda, bottle of water and 2 bread rolls.

If the official KFC wants to send Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Marines any free stuff, like t-shirts or hats, vouchers for meals (or pretty much anything really!), then get in touch and we’ll make sure you can link up with the guys.

In the meantime, enjoy some pictures!

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By Anita McNaught, FOX News correspondent

You could call it a political hangover. The Iraqi Council of Representatives was all remorse and contrition today.

Chastened Parliamentarians sat around, engaged in muted mutual admonition.

They made quiet speeches. “We regret the behaviour yesterday”.. “This is not how we want the world to see us”.. “We went over the top..”.

Speaker of the House Mahmoud al-Mashhadani (shown below) was presiding again from his big desk at the top of the room. His enormous eyes scanned the delegates. Eyes that look like they have seen too much.

But he wasn’t buying into the communal repentence. Finally, he intervened.

“You’re all wasting time wringing your hands, “ he scolded. “Let’s just get on with passing the legislation, like you are supposed to do.”.

But here we discovered that the Bad Boys of the Sadr Bloc had won their point of order. Yesterday, they had quite persistently pointed out that they couldn’t pass an international treaty until Parliament had passed the law.. enabling it to pass international treaties. And that, pretty much, was where it all came apart.

Today – clearly after some furious back-room consultation – they were allowed that argument, and the session resumed with another reading of the International Treaties and Agreements Bill. Round One to the Sadrists.

But having ticked the boxes, the Speaker then turned back to the burning issue – this US/iraqi agreement. He delivered a speech to his Parliamentary colleagues..

“The Iraqi people have been kept in the dark about this Agreement and what it means. If you vote to approve it, you must explain fully to the Iraqi people why. And if you reject it, you must also fully explain your reasons..”

And, he went on, he wanted to notify Parliament that members of the Tawafic Sunni bloc have a number of demands for the government on detainees and amnesties.. and if those demands were not handled well, the government could not count on Sunni support.

Let’s stop and count the numbers here.

– There are 275 members of the Iraqi Parliament.

– The Sadrists say they won’t support the deal. That’s around 30 votes.

– Another small Shi’a party, Fadilha, came out earlier in the week and said they won’t either – that’s another 17 votes.

– The various Sunni parties control around 74 votes. Tawafic have 44 of those.

– The Kurds, 53 members.

– And the other major Shi’a parties in coalition have 85 between them.

– Then there are independents and one-member parties, which come to about 13.

IF the Agreement comes to a vote on Nov. 24 as was originally intended, then there is another issue to deal with: does it need a 51 percent majority or a two-thirds majority to pass?  That, too, is yet to be decided.

Now if the House were full, which it almost never is, a rough calculation suggests.

Two-thirds means roughly 181 votes in support needed… and 95 votes to defeat it.

Fifty-one-percent means the Iraqi government needs only 138 votes to pass the Agreement. Or the same on the other side for them to dump it.

The Sadr and Fadilha parties alone cannot scupper this Agreement, however much  noise they make. If a significant number of Sunnis decide to bail, then the government could be in trouble.

But  right now, notwithstanding the posturing in Parliament, the government looks like it still has the numbers.

Prime minister Maliki today at a press conference was bullish – defending the Agreement and saying there would be no further tweaking.

And supporters of the Agreement took to the streets yesterday around Iraq. In speeches not entirely flattering to the US, the marchers said ANY deal which got America out of Iraq by an agreed date was better than none.

This afternoon, State TV channel Iraqia engaged in its own act of contrition – running in FULL the coverage of Parliament’s near-riot yesterday, which they had so shyly cut away from just as the situation threatened to get out of control.

You can watch part of it here.

It was quite reassuring, in a perverse way, to see female opposition MPs pile into the fray with equal gusto. I worry that they are too quiet, most of the time

Actually, we have all seen far worse in debating chambers over the years in places like Korea and Taiwan. There, politicians have actually managed to land a few punches, broken chairs over each other’s heads.

For every Iraqi voter disgusted by what they are seeing this week, there’ll be another pleased their point of view is being defended.

Click here to read more of Anita McNaught’s ‘On the Scene’ blogs!

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By David Mac Dougall, Baghdad Bureau

We’re continuing our embed with B-Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Marines in Fallujah.  Today, we headed to one of the main checkpoints leading into the city.  These were established to stop insurgents returning to Fallujah – you can only get in now if you have a residence card or have a job inside the city limits.

Until very recently the Marines were in charge of this checkpoint.  Now they have a new role – “over watch” (a word we hear repeatedly from the military in Iraq).  Over watch means that the Iraqi Police are now front and center at the checkpoint, taking responsibility for managing the ten thousand plus people who come into the city this way each day.

We’ll show you more about how the Marines are taking a step back, and handing over increasing amounts of security responsibility in Fallujah to Iraqis, in a TV story next week.

Meanwhile – here’s some pictures of the Marines we’ve met and have been working with.  And that visit to Fallujah’s very own KFC restaurant I mentioned yesterday?  You’ll just have to check back again on Friday…  I’ve been promised that it’s “finger licking good”, and definitely worth the wait!

Check out the slideshow:

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By Anita McNaught, Baghdad Bureau

The Iraqi Parliament is, as a general rule, a lively place. Iraqis are passionate, voluble, combative…

These days, the People’s Representatives relish being able to speak their minds without being taken immediately out the back and shot by Saddam’s Mukhabarat.  Which is not to say it’s a safe job – it’s not… Iraqi lawmakers are still being assassinated – an MP from firebrand Shi’a cleric Muqtada al Sadr’s party was killed barely a month ago.

But today was destined to be more lively than most, as it was the day that lawmakers finally got to see  the long-wrangled-over US/Iraqi Agreement setting out the terms for the final three years of America’s hand-on involvement in Iraq.

This Agreement started out with the comfortingly misleading name of ‘SOFA’ – the ‘Status of Forces Agreement’. It’s now tactfully called the ‘Agreement on the Withdrawal of US forces from Iraq and the Organisation of their Activities during their Temporary Presence in Iraq’.

A more suitable abbreviation for this would be ‘DOOR’, because that’s what the Iraqis have shown their American allies.

With public opinion in Iraq stretched between those who believe America should stay on indefinitely, and those who believe America should go yesterday, unanimity in the Council of Representatives was always going to be an issue.

There is perhaps one area of common understanding among lawmakers – That if the US were to pull out tomorrow, they would all be in danger of being hunted down by their oppostions’ death squads. But even here, there would be a divide between those who would admit to this publicly, and those who would not.

When the US and Iraqi governments began negotiations in March, it was all supposed to be very straightforward. Months later, when the Iraqis had acquired not one but two negotiating teams, plus an Iranian back-channel, it looked like the Agreement was never going to get signed and the American team was despairing of ever reaching formally-acknowledged common ground…

Then, suddenly, the Iranians declared that the Agreement was actually pretty decent, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani – Iraq’s Great Arbiter – gave it a qualified thumbs-up, and the Iraqi government immediately decided to sign up to it.

But the responsibility of passing it into law rests largely with the Iraqi Parliament, and lawmakers were understandably not delighted with being handed what looked like a very bad career move.

While the Americans are unquestionably handy to have around, there are no votes here in being America’s cheerleader.

And Iraqi MP had more reasons to be unhappy. Not only had they not been consulted during the process of drawing up the Agreement – and were largely in the dark about the previous drafts – but they were expected to pass the  deal without being able to alter a word of it.

The most consistent and energetic opponent of US involvement in Iraq – if we can put Al Qaeda to one side for a second or two – is undoubtedly the Sadr Party. And today they did not disappoint, launching objection after objection to what they clearly saw as government railroading of the Agreement.

But here they had allies, because the inconvenient fact is that the Iraqi Parliament lacks the mandate to do what they are being asked to do. There is a piece of legislation that deals with the rights of the Council Of Representatives to pass international treaties – but that law hasn’t been passed through parliament yet either.

So one particularly passionate and famously combative Sadist MP, Ahmed  Al-Massoudi, waved the Procedural Handbook at the Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani.. who waved first a finger and then both arms indignantly back at him, and then others piled noisily into the argument and everyone stopped listening to everyone else. Then the Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari tried to intervene, asking for cool heads and pragamatism about the timetable – a plea which everyone felt they could happily ignore.

But then in a final act of terrible provocation, one lawmaker actually began reading from the contentious US/Iraqi Agreement. When MP Al Massoudi went towards him to take it out of his hands, an unseemly scuffle nearly ensued.

It was at this point that the State TV channel, Iraqia, felt it appropriate to suspend its live coverage of Parliament and run a news bulletin instead. By the time is was over, the Speaker had suspended the session and sent everyone home.

‘Had MPs forgotten they were being broadcast live…?’ a wise parliamentary elder statesman pointed out to his mutinous colleagues.

“We’re not supposed to show the world the way we’re acting..”

Too late. Long before then, all of us in the Fox Baghdad Bureau were utterly glued to our TV screens – as doubtless was much of the rest of Iraq.

This drama continues again tomorrow, when Parliament reconvenes.

It’s now must-see TV.

To find out what the fuss is all about, read for yourself! Click here for the text of an unconfirmed copy of the SOFA Agreement.

Watch the events in Iraqi Parliament below! Also, click here for the English translation of the video.

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