Obama administration

Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 the United States has promised the country $52.8 billion in reconstruction funds. That was the largest rebuilding effort in American history. Now this program is expected to end by 2014.

The recent delay of the passage of the 2010 election law showed that Kirkuk remains one of the major unresolved issues in Iraq. There is now talk that the United States will try to deal with the city before it withdraws its troops by the end of 2011.

In mid-August 2009, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq General Ray Odierno proposed joint U.S.-Iraqi-Kurdish patrols in Ninewa. The Americans made the proposal after a series of mass casualty bombings rocked the province. The offer was later extended to all of the disputed territories in northern Iraq.

Iraq The Model recently reported on a story from al-Sharq al-Awsat on U.S. sponsored talks between the ruling al-Hadbaa party in Ninewa and the Kurdish Ninewa Fraternal List.

August 2009 saw a sharp increase in mass casualty bombings across Iraq. After Baghdad, Ninewa was the hardest hit. On August 9 a suicide bomber struck a mosque in Mosul killing 23 and wounding 130. The next day two truck bombs hit the village of Khazna in eastern Ninewa killing 20 and wounding 110.

Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution has been one of the long-time American commentators on Iraq. He recently wrote a piece for The National Interest journal entitled “The Battle for Baghdad". In it he argues that Iraqis, left to their own devices will destroy the gains made in Iraq since the Surge. He warns that the older political parties that took over after the 2003 invasion are still clinging to power, and are willing to bring down Iraqi democracy to maintain their positions.

Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies is one of the leading military analysts on Iraq. Every month he authors a few reports on the subject, and at the end of July issued a short paper on the short-comings of the Obama administration called “Iraq: A Time To Stay? The US Needs an Exit Strategy, Not Just an Exit.” Cordesman thinks the Obama White House is solely focused upon withdrawing, and isn’t adequately planning for a long-term Iraq policy afterward.

Ninewa province and its districts

One of the positive changes made during the Surge was to dramatically increase the number of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in Iraq. Early attempts at reconstruction in Iraq under the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) were characterized by huge, multi-million dollar projects without regard to security, cost, or the needs of Iraqis. The PRTs tried to reverse these trends by focusing upon small-scale projects that were coordinated with local Iraqis and government officials.

In April 2009 the United Nations issued its report on Iraq’s disputed territories. The paper offered several possible solutions for Kirkuk. One was revising Article 140 of the constitution to make it a detailed plan, two changing the constitution to make Tamim a regular province, three giving joint rule to Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government over the province, and four making Kirkuk an autonomous region.