Iraq's main daily Azzaman is taking a more and more negative line on the Governing Council. According to the 20th February issue, the Council is not competent to speak in the name of Iraqis to the UN or anyone else. "The Governing Council has spread sectarianism and nepotism in Iraqi institutions and has insisted on keeping political, patriotic, academic and technocratic figures and movements at arm's length. If Lakhdar Brahimi (the UN special adviser to Iraq) wants to put an end to the Iraqi crisis, he must contact the 'silent majority' and political figures outside the council to get an accurate picture," the independent paper said in an editorial, arguing that those who wanted early elections were as self-serving as those on the council who, like the Americans, want them delayed. "Those hiding under the pretext of early elections are wrong because there is no ground to conduct them. Those who want to retain the status quo in the Council also are wrong because they only want to keep their power. Brahimi should deal with all who constitute the Iraqi political scene, because current deformities will lead to deformities in the future. Azzaman concludes that what is needed is an Iraqi general conference comprising all political groups and movements, which would elect a leadership for the interim period leading up to direct elections.

The Greater Middle East Initiative is now all the rage. This lofty title is the name of the game Washington didn't give a damn about for decades while the regional regimes tortured and cheated their way to power. Last week, Bush revived his grand plans for democracy in our time in a speech.

"The United States has failed to find a comprehensive solution for the crisis in Iraq and has acknowledged its inability to act without the support of the United Nations and the international community," columnist Riyadh Abu Milhim wrote in the UAE daily Al Bayan on 21st February. "The proposed Greater Middle East project is being used to cover the severe embarrassment facing the administration and its British allies after their claims about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq proved to be lies."

Differences between Iraq's Kurds and Arabs over Kurdish demands for autonomy in northern Iraq could stall an interim constitution needed before an American handover of power to the Iraqis, say Kurdish officials. Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council faces a February 28th deadline to approve the interim constitution, which would govern the functioning of a transitional body to which Washington intends to hand sovereignty to on June 30th.

Kurds negotiating the constitution said their autonomy plan, published by the Kurdish regional government on Friday as an appendix to the draft constitution, had left a rift between them and Iraq's majority Arabs that could cause delays. "When it comes to the federalism proposal and its place in the constitution, they (the Arabs) are saying, 'You are elected and have a mandate from your people; we are not and may have to wait for an elected parliament to approve this'," said one Kurdish negotiator.

Before and since the war on Iraq, U.S. officials have backed a federal government for Iraq, without endorsing Kurdish demands for power in the region they have run since 1991. Both Sunni and Shiite Arabs say those demands could split the country. Under their plan, Kurds would retain the parliament and governing bodies they set up in the zone they pulled from Baghdad's grip after the 1991 Gulf War. Their militias would come under a proposed Kurdistan national guard that would be deployed in the region instead of the central government's army.

The plan would also grant the North a share of oil revenue proportionate to its population and give the area ownership of its resources. But Arab council members want all Iraq's provinces to have the same relationship to a central government. More autonomy for Iraqi Kurds would be anathema to Turkey, which fears it could rekindle separatism among its own Kurds. This sentiment is shared by Iraq's other neighbors including Iran and Syria, which also have large Kurdish populations. However, Iraqi Kurds - who survived a military campaign by Saddam Hussein that aimed at crushing separatist ambitions, included the use of chemical weapons and killed over 100,000 people - see autonomy as an insurance against a repeat of that experience.

"The Kurds have been oppressed since the establishment of the Iraqi state, genocide was committed against them," said Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish Council member. "They are anxious about the future. Yes, we trust this government today, but what happens tomorrow?" The U.S. handover plan already faces calls from the majority Shiites' top religious authority for elections first. The UN has delayed its recommendations on the shape of an interim government.

Last week, Iraq's U.S. governor met the heads of the two main Iraqi Kurdish parties to urge compromises on federalism to speed up approval of the interim constitution. A senior official of the U.S.-led occupying authority suggested some details of federalism might have to be left for later. He felt that the Kurds had made ambitious demands to ensure getting at least the minimum.

One of Israel's largest oil marketing firms has won a multi-million dollar tender to supply fuel to US troops in Iraq.. The tender awarded to Sonol Gasoline Company and its foreign partner Morgantown International is valued at $70-80 million. The company is expected to supply the US forces with 25 million liters of fuel each month. The tender was issued by the US-based KDR Company, a subsidiary of Halliburton, which has been entrusted with the majority of US military contracts in Iraq. Among Sonol's competitors was Delek, another Israeli company.

Until now, the US forces have received most of their fuel from Kuwait. However, following Halliburton's admission that it overcharged the US military by passing on the Kuwaitis' inflated price, the US Army decided to approach other suppliers. Sonol is one of Israel's three largest firms, marketing oil products with a network of about 205 service stations.

Fuel imported to Israel will pass through the fuel terminal operated by the TASHAN (Oil and Energy Infrastructure Company) north of Beersheba and will then be transported to Iraq by land through Jordan. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), a statistical agency of the US Department of Energy, Israel produces almost no oil and imports nearly all its oil needs (around 237,000 barrels a day in 2002). Traditionally, major oil import sources have included Egypt, the North Sea, West Africa and Mexico. In recent years, however, Israel stepped up its imports from Russia and the Caspian region and now reportedly gets most of its oil from former Soviet republics.

The EIA disclosed that in April 2003 there was some discussion of "reopening" the old oil pipeline from Mosul in Northern Iraq to the Israeli port of Haifa on its northern Mediterranean coast. The line, built in the 1930s, carried 100,000 bpd at its peak, but has been closed since Israel gained independence in 1948. Its reopening would reportedly "solve Israel's energy crisis at a stroke".

According to a report in The Observer in April 2003, plans to build a pipeline from newly conquered Iraq were discussed between Washington, Tel Aviv and potential future government figures in Baghdad. US intelligence sources confirmed this. One former senior CIA official said: "It has long been a dream of a powerful section of the people now driving this administration [of President George Bush] to safeguard Israel's energy supply as well as that of the United States.

James Akins, a former US ambassador to the region, was quoted by The Observer as saying: "There would be a fee for transit rights through Jordan, just as there would be fees for Israel from those using what would be the Haifa terminal.  After all, this is a new world order now. This is what things look like, particularly if we wipe out Syria. It just goes to show that it is all about oil for the United States and its ally."