Jeffries, the fifth-ranking House Democrat who aspires to be the first-ranking House Democrat in the next Congress, was picking up heightened chatter from colleagues about California Rep. Adam Schiff’s outreach expressing his own interest in the top caucus job.
The 52-year-old Jeffries was concerned enough that he offered to fly to South Carolina to seek the counsel of the 82-year-old Clyburn. The younger lawmaker wanted to gently make sure his elder in the Congressional Black Caucus knew of Schiff’s quiet campaign — and to even more gently warn Clyburn about the risk of splitting votes between them and opening a path for the ambitious Californian.
Jeffries need not have been alarmed.
“There’s nothing I would ever do to impede the progress of our up-and-coming young Democrats and I see him as an up-and-coming young Democrat,” Clyburn said in an interview about Jeffries. “He knows that, I didn’t have to tell him that — but I did.”
Hakeem Jeffries represents the diverse Eighth Congressional District of New York, an area that encompasses large parts of Brooklyn and a section of Queens. Serving his fifth term in the United States Congress, Rep. Jeffries is a member of the House Judiciary Committee and House Budget Committee.
Rep. Jeffries is Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, having been elected to that position by his colleagues in November 2018. In that capacity, he is the fifth highest-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives. He is also the former Whip of the Congressional Black Caucus and previously co-chaired the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee where he helped develop the For The People agenda.
In Congress, Rep. Jeffries is a tireless advocate for social and economic justice. He has worked hard to help residents recover from the devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic, reform our criminal justice system, improve the economy for everyday Americans and protect our healthcare from right-wing attacks.
Since President Biden took office in January 2021, Rep. Jeffries has been instrumental in House Democratic efforts to put people over politics by lowering costs, creating better-paying jobs and fighting for safer communities. Over the past two years Democrats have passed the American Rescue Plan, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.
This year, Rep. Jeffries was able to secure $21.9 million for projects in Brooklyn to provide food for the hungry, fund overdue improvements to medical centers, support organizations working to uplift our neighborhoods, deepen our cultural understanding and more through the 2022 Community Project Funding process. In the spring of 2022, he successfully fought against the splitting of Bedford Stuyvesant into multiple Congressional Districts during the broken and gravely flawed redistricting process unleashed by partisan Republicans and their judicial co-conspirators in New York.
During the 117th Congress, Rep. Jeffries was one of the most effective legislators, passing multiple bills through the House of Representatives and into law with substantial bipartisan and stakeholder support. These measures touched on diverse subject matters and were drafted with the intention of making meaningful improvements to our federal laws and programs. Such bills included measures to ensure veterans and their families have access to benefits information (H.R. 2093, Public Law No. 117-62), to measure the progress of recovery and efforts to address corruption, rule of law and media freedoms in Haiti (H.R. 2471, Public Law No. 117-103), to protect attorney-client privilege for incarcerated individuals corresponding electronically with their legal representatives (H.R. 546) and to eliminate the federal sentencing disparity between drug offenses involving crack cocaine and powder cocaine once and for all (H.R. 1693).
Last Congress, Rep. Jeffries was similarly active in the legislative process, with many of his bills passing the House of Representatives and becoming law. They included bills to create a copyright small claims board allowing the creative middle class to protect their works (H.R. 2426, Public Law No. 116-260), to expand scholarship opportunities available to Pakistani women (H.R. 4508, Public Law No. 116-338) and to provide entrepreneurship counseling and training services to formerly incarcerated individuals (H.R. 5065).
In January 2020, Rep. Jeffries was selected by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to serve as one of seven House Impeachment Managers in the Senate trial of President Donald Trump, becoming the first African American man to serve in that role. During the nearly three-week trial, Congressman Jeffries argued that President Trump should be removed from office for abusing his power by pressuring a foreign government, Ukraine, to target an American citizen as part of a corrupt scheme to interfere in the 2020 election. The House Impeachment Managers established with a mountain of evidence that crimes against the Constitution were committed. Nevertheless, the Senate failed to remove the President without hearing from a single witness during the trial.
On March 9, 2021, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 1280, the “George Floyd Justice in Policing Act” for the second time through the House. During both pushes, Rep. Jeffries helped lead the charge with respect to passage of this historic police reform bill, which included legislation authored by the Congressman to criminalize the chokehold and other inherently dangerous tactics such as a knee to the neck. Rep. Jeffries remains dedicated to working with his colleagues to make transformational police reform a reality and breathe life into the principle of liberty and justice for all.
Rep. Jeffries has played a major role in shaping the Congressional response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He has fought hard to assist state and local governments whose budgets have been devastated by the virus, pushed for an extension of the emergency unemployment benefit and supported efforts to keep everyday Americans in their homes. Rep. Jeffries also worked across the aisle with Rep. Peter King (R-NY) to secure billions of dollars in funding for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in the CARES Act (H.R. 748, Public Law No. 116-136), which became law in March 2020. At home, Rep. Jeffries partnered the Governor to expand testing in hard-hit communities of color by establishing walk-in sites at houses of worship throughout New York City. He denounced discriminatory social distance policing that targeted communities of color and helped bring about a change in policy. In the community, Rep. Jeffries continues to personally distribute food, masks, gloves and hand sanitizer to residents in need.
In the 115th Congress, Rep. Jeffries worked across the aisle as the lead Democratic sponsor of the FIRST STEP Act (S. 756, Public Law No. 115-391), a strong, bipartisan criminal justice reform bill that the President signed into law in December 2018. Rep. Jeffries partnered with Congressman Doug Collins, a conservative Republican from rural Georgia, on the legislation, which is widely viewed as the most meaningful criminal justice reform effort in a generation.
The FIRST STEP Act provides retroactive relief for the shameful crack cocaine sentencing disparity that unfairly destroyed lives, families and communities. The law shortens sentences by ensuring inmates can earn the 54 days of good time credit per year Congress intended and applies the change retroactively, to the benefit of thousands of currently incarcerated mothers, fathers, daughters and sons. It provides $375 million over five years to expand re-entry programming, including education and vocational training, which is proven to dramatically reduce recidivism and help prepare for a successful transition back into society. In order to strengthen and preserve family relationships, the bill requires the Bureau of Prisons to house incarcerated individuals within 500 driving miles of their relatives and permits the transfer of lower-risk inmates to home confinement. In addition, the FIRST STEP Act bans the immoral practice of shackling women throughout the duration of their pregnancy, during childbirth and for three months postpartum.
Rep. Jeffries also played a key role in the House passage of the historic Music Modernization Act (MMA) (H.R. 5447, Public Law No. 115-264), which became law in 2018. Heralded as a sweeping update to our copyright laws, the MMA will improve the licensing process so that songwriters, artists and musicians can continue to share their creativity with the world. Because of the MMA, songwriters are more likely to get paid a fair price for their work, and digital music providers like Spotify and Pandora will be able to operate more efficiently. In an era of crisis and dysfunction in Washington, the power of music brought Democrats and Republicans in Congress together to collaborate on groundbreaking legislation, ushering our music copyright system into the 21st Century.
In April of 2018, the President signed the Rep. Jeffries-authored Keep America’s Refuges Operational Act (H.R. 3979, Public Law No. 115-1689) into law. Each year, 47 million Americans visit wildlife refuges, generating almost $2 billion in local economic activity. This law will keep America’s refuges operational by supporting the volunteers who dedicate thousands of hours to maintain our public lands. Passage of this bill was part of a bipartisan, bicameral effort to ensure Americans can visit, explore and study wildlife and experience our nation’s vast natural beauty for generations to come.
Several other pieces of Rep. Jeffries-authored legislation passed the House of Representatives in the 115th Congress, including bills to investigate the public health impact of synthetic drug use by teenagers (H.R. 449, Public Law No. 115-271) and updating federal regulations to remove racially offensive terminology from use (H.R. 995). Rep. Jeffries’ H.R. 3229 (Public Law No. 95-521), which helps protect judicial officers from threats, harm and harassment by those who would seek to compromise the integrity of our judicial branch, also passed the House in 2017, and was signed into law in March 2018. Additionally, Rep. Jeffries authored H.R. 3370 (Public Law No. 95-921), the Fry Scholarship Enhancement Act, which became law as part of the Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2017. It will expand the availability of education benefits to the children and spouses of service members killed in the line of duty.
In the 114th Congress, Rep. Jeffries teamed up with Congressman Peter King to pass the Slain Officer Family Support Act of 2015 (H.R. 1508, Public Law No. 113-227), which President Obama signed into law. That law extended the tax deadline so that individuals making charitable donations to organizations supporting the families of assassinated New York Police Department (NYPD) Detectives Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, could apply such tax deductions to the prior year’s tax return.
In the 113th Congress, Rep. Jeffries successfully passed H.R. 5108 (Public Law No. 113-227), legislation that established the Law School Clinic Certification Program of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) into law. This program had been operating in a pilot capacity since 2008 and enabled students at participating law schools to gain experience in patent and trademark law while providing legal assistance to inventors, tech entrepreneurs and small businesses. The bipartisan bill, which was signed by President Obama, expanded the program by removing its “pilot” status, making it available to all accredited law schools in the country that meet the program’s eligibility requirements.
Rep. Jeffries has been actively involved in the passage of a number of other key pieces of legislation, including the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013 (H.R. 152), a bill that provides billions of dollars in Superstorm Sandy recovery to the Eighth District and other affected areas. The Congressman also sponsored — and passed as part of the National Defense Authorization package — the Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument Preservation Act, which directs the U.S. Secretary of the Interior to study the feasibility of designating the Prison Ship Martyrs’ mausoleum in Brooklyn as a national monument. Consisting of a 100-foot-wide granite staircase and a central Doric column 149 feet in height, the monument in Fort Greene Park houses the remains of 11,500 Revolutionary War soldiers who were kept as prisoners of war by the British.
While he remains committed to working diligently in Washington on behalf of New York’s Eighth Congressional District, Rep. Jeffries also works tirelessly to keep in close contact with constituents. In January, the Congressman begins each year with a well-attended State of the District Address. During the spring and summer, he holds “Congress on Your Corner” outdoor office hours throughout the district. At each stop, the Congressman sets up a table in front of a local post office or on neighborhood corners where constituents are able to meet with him one-on-one. He also hosts regularly-scheduled telephone town hall meetings that provide an opportunity for constituents to speak directly with the Congressman about local and national issues.
Prior to his election to the Congress, Rep. Jeffries served for six years in the New York State Assembly. In that capacity, he authored laws to protect the civil liberties of law-abiding New Yorkers during police encounters, encourage the transformation of vacant luxury condominiums into affordable homes for working families and improve the quality of justice in the civil court system.
In 2010, Rep. Jeffries successfully led the first meaningful legislative reform of the NYPD’s aggressive and controversial stop-and-frisk program. His legislation prohibits the NYPD from maintaining an electronic database with the personal information of individuals who were stopped, questioned and frisked during a police encounter but not charged with a crime or violation.
In the same year, Rep. Jeffries sponsored and championed groundbreaking civil rights legislation to end prison-based gerrymandering in New York State. This archaic practice of counting incarcerated individuals at the location of their imprisonment, rather than their homes, undermined the fundamental democratic principle of one person, one vote. After passage of Jeffries’ legislation, New York became the second state to count incarcerated individuals in their home districts in census calculations.
Congressman Jeffries obtained his bachelor’s degree in political science from the State University of New York at Binghamton, where he graduated with honors for outstanding academic achievement. He then received his master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University. Thereafter, Rep. Jeffries attended New York University School of Law, where he graduated magna cum laude and served on Law Review.
After completing law school, Rep. Jeffries clerked for the Honorable Harold Baer Jr. of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. He then practiced law for several years at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, an internationally renowned law firm and served as counsel in the litigation department of Viacom Inc. and CBS. He also worked as of-counsel at Godosky & Gentile, a well-regarded litigation firm in New York City.
Rep. Jeffries was born in Brooklyn Hospital, raised in Crown Heights and is a product New York City’s public school system, having graduated from Midwood High School. He lives in Prospect Heights with his family.
Since 2006, Jeffries has been a cautious supporter of Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards project.[32]
He has opposed the Keystone XL pipeline, but also voted against an amendment that would have restricted sales of oil transported on the pipeline to within the United States.[61]
He is pro-Israel, saying at a rally in July 2014, "Israel should not be made to apologize for its strength." Citing his own childhood growing up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Jeffries added that he knew from experience that "the only thing that neighbors respect in a tough neighborhood is strength."[62] In December 2016, Jeffries condemned the Obama Administration for not vetoing United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 concerning Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories.[63]
Since taking federal office, Jeffries has been called "a rising star".[64] He has been appointed to the House Judiciary Committee Task Force on Over Criminalization[65] as well as appointed the whip of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC)[66].[67] He also plays in the infield on the Congressional Baseball Team.[68]
As a member of Congress, he called for a Department of Justice investigation into the circumstances of Eric Garner's death.[69] On a visit to the Staten Island site where Garner was killed, recorded by a CNN news crew in December 2014, Jeffries encountered Gwen Carr, Garner's mother.[70] In April 2015, he stood with Carr to announce the introduction of the Excessive Use of Force Prevention Act of 2015[71] that would make the use of a chokehold illegal under federal law.[72]
As the Congress member with among the highest number of public housing residents, Jeffries focused on being attentive to their needs. He introduced P.J.'s Act[73] in response to the death of six-year-old P.J. Avitto of East New York, who was stabbed in an elevator inside the Boulevard Houses, a NYCHA apartment complex. The legislation would increase federal funding for enhanced security in public housing developments.[74]
Jeffries has also called on the New York City Police Department Commissioner to reform its marijuana arrest policy[75] after reports showed that low-level marijuana arrests, which had increased dramatically under Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration's application of stop-and-frisk, were still rising in New York City under Bloomberg's successor, Bill de Blasio. Jeffries has become a high-profile critic of de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner William Bratton, questioning whether the reduction in stop-and-frisk has been a product of mayoral administration changes or the results of a movement that brought a successful federal lawsuit, and criticizing Garner's chokehold death.[76]
In Congress, as the Congressional Black Caucus whip, he has been actively involved in maintaining the CBC's historic role as "the conscience of the Congress".[77] In his CBC role, he has hosted Special Orders on the House floor, including regarding voting rights (after the Supreme Court decision on the 1965 Voting Rights Act)[78] and in December 2014, leading CBC members in a "hands up, don't shoot" protest to protest the killings of African-Americans by police.[79] After the shootings in Charleston in June 2015 by a white supremacist inspired by the Confederate flag, Jeffries led the effort to have the flag removed for sale or display on National Park Service land, an amendment eventually killed by the Republican House leadership after its initial support and inclusion on voice vote. During dramatic debate on the House floor, Jeffries stood next to the Confederate battle flag, said he "got chills" and lamented that the "Ghosts of the Confederacy have invaded the GOP".[80]
With a high concentration of public housing and high unemployment in his district, Jeffries has also made an issue of HUD's failure to adequately enforce Section 3 of its initial creating statute from 1968, which explicitly required that federally funded capital and rehabilitation projects in public housing developments had to employ residents of those developments. Jeffries said, "we can download the power of the federal government into neighborhoods that are struggling the most, without legislative action. The most promising area is Section 3."[81]
Jeffries supports banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. In 2019, he voted in favor of the Equality Act and urged Congress members to do the same.[82][83]
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Friday, November 4, 2022. Julian Assange continues to be persecuted, Iraqis continue to suffer, Chris Hedges has a new book, and much more.
John Malkovich is speaking out on behalf of journalist Julian Assange.
A grim picture of the US and Britain's legacy in Iraq has been revealed in a massive leak of American military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes.
Almost 400,000 secret US army field reports have been passed to the
Guardian and a number of other international media organisations via the
whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.
The electronic archive is believed to emanate from the same dissident
US army intelligence analyst who earlier this year is alleged to have
leaked a smaller tranche of 90,000 logs chronicling bloody encounters
and civilian killings in the Afghan war.
The new logs detail how:
•
US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse,
torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct
appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.
• A US helicopter gunship involved in a
notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after
they tried to surrender.
• More than 15,000 civilians died in
previously unknown incidents. US and UK officials have insisted that no
official record of civilian casualties exists but the logs record 66,081
non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities.
The numerous reports of detainee abuse, often supported by medical evidence, describe prisoners shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or ankles, and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric shocks. Six reports end with a detainee's apparent death.
Another video of interest?
A video has allegedly shown former CIA Director and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo being served with a lawsuit brought by American lawyers and reporters who visited Julian Assange. Footage tweeted by Wikileaks being handed the papers as he stands in front of a greenscreen. Wikileaks tweeted on Wednesday (2 November) morning: "Michael Richard Pompeo: You’ve been served! “Mike Pompeo has been served with a lawsuit brought by US lawyers and journalists who visited Assange. Spanish court documents show violations of their US constitutional rights. Plaintiffs are represented by NY attorney Richard Roth.” Reuters reported in August that attorneys and reporters sued the CIA and Mr Pompeo, who left his job as a Kansas congressman to become the CIA Director in January 2017, just days after Donald Trump was inaugurated.
Gerrard Kaonga (NEWSWEEK) reports:
A video appearing to show former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo being served with a lawsuit has gone viral on social media.
The lawsuit was brought by a group of American lawyers and journalists who have alleged that the CIA, while Pompeo was director of the agency, spied on them during meetings with Wikileaks founder and whistleblower Julian Assange while he was sheltering at the Ecuadoran embassy in London in an effort to avoid extradition to the U.S.
The Wikileaks Twitter page shared the video on Wednesday and the clip has so far been viewed over 500,000 times.
Pompeo is one of the defendants in the case, which also names the CIA, security firm UC Global and UC Global director David R. Morales Guillen. They are accused of spying on WikiLeaks publisher and founder Julian Assange and his visitors while he took refuge in the embassy.
A statement from the Assange Defence Committee said the suit was served on the former CIA head as he was posing for photographs at the John Ashbrook Memorial Dinner in Ohio on 29 October.
The plaintiffs, who include renowned civil rights activist and human rights attorney Margaret Ratner Kunstler, attorney Deborah Hrbek and journalists Charles Glass and John Goetz, visited Assange while he was in the embassy.
The suit alleges violations of the plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment rights and documents how UC Global provided the CIA with information about Assange’s visitors and forced visitors to surrender their electronic devices to enter the embassy – digitally copying and transmitting information on those devices to the CIA.
Joe Biden continues the persecution of Julian Assange while his administration makes hypocritical statements.
The world watches as Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian and, as the world watches, it registers just how hollow the 'big' statements the US government makes actually are.
At INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE, Chris Hedges observes:
It’s impossible, under international law, to defend Russia’s war in Ukraine, as it is impossible to defend the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Preemptive war is a war crime, a criminal war of aggression.
Still, putting the invasion of Ukraine in context was out of the question. Explaining — as Soviet specialists (including famed Cold War diplomat George F. Kennan) had — that expanding NATO into Central and Eastern Europe was a provocation to Russia was forbidden. Kennan had called it “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era” that would “send Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking.”
In 1989, I had covered the revolutions in East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Romania that signaled the coming collapse of the Soviet Union. I was acutely aware of the “cascade of assurances” given to Moscow that NATO, founded in 1949 to prevent Soviet expansion in Eastern and Central Europe, would not spread beyond the borders of a unified Germany. In fact, with the end of the Cold War, NATO should have been rendered obsolete.
I naively thought we would see the promised “peace dividend,” especially with the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev reaching out to form security and economic alliances with the West. In the early years of Vladimir Putin’s rule, even he lent the U.S. military a hand in its war on terror, seeing in it Russia’s own struggle to contain Islamic extremists spawned by its wars in Chechnya.
He provided logistical support and resupply routes for American forces fighting in Afghanistan. But the pimps of war were having none of it. Washington would turn Russia into the enemy, with or without Moscow’s cooperation.
The newest holy crusade between angels and demons was launched.
War unleashes the poison of nationalism, with its twin evils of self-exaltation and bigotry. It creates an illusory sense of unity and purpose. The shameless cheerleaderswho sold us the war in Iraq are once again on the airwaves beating the drums of war for Ukraine.
As Edward Said once wrote about these courtiers to power:
“Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires, as if one shouldn’t trust the evidence of one’s own eyes watching the destruction and the misery and death brought by the latest mission civilizatrice.”
I was pulled back into the morass. I found myself writing for Scheerpost and my Substack site, columns condemning the bloodlusts Ukraine unleashed. The provision of more than $50 billion in weapons and aid to Ukraine not only means the Ukrainian government has no incentive to negotiate, but that it condemns hundreds of thousands of innocents to suffering and death.
For perhaps the first time in my life, I found myself agreeing with Henry Kissinger, who at least understands realpolitik, including the danger of pushing Russia and China into an alliance against the U.S., while provoking a major nuclear power.
Greg Ruggiero, who runs City Lights Publishers, urged me to write a book on this new conflict. At first, I refused, not wanting to resurrect the ghosts of war. But looking back at my columns, articles, and talks since the publication of War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning in 2002, I was surprised at how often I had circled back to war.
I rarely wrote about myself or my experiences. I sought out those discarded as the human detritus of war, the physically and psychologically maimed like Tomas Young, a quadriplegic wounded in Iraq, whom I visited recently in Kansas City after he declared that he was ready to disconnect his feeding tube and die.
It made sense to put those pieces together to denounce the newest intoxication with industrial slaughter. I stripped the chapters down to war’s essence with titles like “The Act of Killing,” “Corpses” or “When the Bodies Come Home.”
The Greatest Evil Is War has just been published by Seven Stories Press.
This, I pray, will be my final foray into the subject.
Meanwhile, Iraq remains devastated -- more so each day. Jeff Schogol (TASK AND PURPOSE) informs:
It’s been more than three years since the Islamic State appeared to be defeated after the terror group lost all the territory it had once controlled, and yet ISIS continues to wage an insurgency in both Iraq and Syria, according to the most recent quarterly report from the Lead Inspector General for Operation Inherent Resolve.
“Overall, compared with the same period in 2021, the frequency and severity of ISIS-claimed attacks decreased dramatically in Iraq, while attacks in Syria increased significantly, marking a rebound from historically low levels the previous year,” the report says.
Between July and September, ISIS carried out 74 attacks in Syria and 73 attacks in Iraq, the report says. Small cells based in rural areas mostly conducted hit-and-run attacks against local security forces along with occasional high-profile attacks in cities.
While roughly 2,500 U.S. troops are still in Iraq and another 900 service members are in Syria to help prevent ISIS from mounting a comeback, the report cites several factors beyond the U.S. military’s control that have made their mission more difficult, including third-party actors, such as Iran; political instability, especially Iraq’s problems forming a government; and social-economic instability.
The Arab League held their summit this week -- not that it got a great deal of press attention. ANF reports:
Speaking at the 31st Arab League Summit in Algeria on Wednesday, Iraqi President Latif Rashid said that the dams built by Iran and Turkey on the rivers in Iraq threaten the country's water security and cause water levels to drop.
“I hope that the water resources in Iraq will improve. Dialogue should be established with Turkey and Iran for a solution to the water problem,” the Iraqi President said.
This as Turkey continues to bomb and drone attack Iraq. RUDAW notes, "At least one person was killed in Shingal on Thursday after a suspected Turkish drone targeted a pickup vehicle, Kurdish counterterrorism forces and media affiliated to the local forces reported. " AFP adds, "Turkish military operations complicate relations between Baghdad and Ankara, one of Iraq's leading trading partners." Ambrin Zaman (AL-MONITOR) offers:
Iraqi Kurdistan is gripped by turbulence as it comes under mounting aggression from Iran and Turkey, and as Baghdad seeks to wrest full control of its oil and gas industry. Rampant corruption and a lack of economic opportunity are prompting a rising number of young Iraqi Kurds to flee the country. As if things were not bad enough, the two largest political parties — the Kurdistan Democratic Party led by Massoud Barzani and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) that was founded by Iraq’s first post-war president, the late Jalal Talabani — are quarreling again over power and money, prompting worries of a resurgence of the civil conflict that convulsed the region in the mid-1990s.
The difference today is that not only are the parties at odds with each other, they are also mired in internal rivalries. Lahur Talabany, former co-chair of the PUK who led the Sulaimaniyah region’s intelligence services and the US-trained Counter Terrorism Group, was ousted by his cousins Bafel and Qubad Talabani last summer in a Byzantine power grab. It was the most overt manifestation yet of the intra-family feuds simmering in the Talabani and Barzani dynasties.
In other news, RUDAW reports:
US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken on Thursday spoke on the phone
with Iraq’s new prime minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani, stressing that
Washington is “eager” to work with his cabinet, according to a tweet by
Blinken.
“The U.S. is eager to work with the Iraqi government to confront Iraq’s
challenges and deliver results for the people of Iraq,” Blinken said in
his tweet, reaffirming the US “partnership” with the Iraqi government.
Sudani was tasked with forming Iraq’s next government on October 13,
after more than a year of political bickering since the parliamentary
elections in October 2021. Iraq’s parliament convened late last month,
approving Sudani’s cabinet.
There was immediately no statement from Sudani’s office regarding the phone call.
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