Iraq president is in intesive care, VP survives assassination, no worries oil law draft endorsed

[sabra]

http://www.cnn.com /

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani was placed in the intensive care unit of a Jordanian hospital today after doctors put a catheter into his heart, hospital officials told CNN.

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2007-02-26T152915Z_01_COL360656_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsHome-C1-topNews-6


Iraqi vice president wounded in bombing, 6 killed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's Shi'ite vice president and a cabinet minister were wounded in an apparent assassination attempt on Monday when a bomb killed six people at a ministry in Baghdad where they were attending an official ceremony.

...

Police sources said Public Works Minister Riad Ghareeb, also a Shi'ite, had been seriously wounded when a bomb hidden at a ministry's meeting hall exploded. Aides to Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi said he escaped with light wounds caused by shrapnel.

The attack was the latest blow to Maliki's crackdown in Baghdad, seen as a final attempt to halt all-out civil war.

Aides to the vice president, a member of the Shi'ite majority that dominates the U.S.-backed government, said he was later discharged from a U.S. military hospital in the Green Zone, a vast government compound that also houses the U.S. embassy, and that he had returned to his office.

Police said he was still in hospital. Continued...

http://today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.aspx?view=CN&storyID=2007-02-26T152049Z_01_PAR654231_RTRIDST_0_ENERGY-IRAQ-CABINET-UPDATE-1.XML&rpc=66&type=qcna

UPDATE 1-Iraqi cabinet agrees draft oil law -oil official

BAGHDAD, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Iraq's cabinet has endorsed a draft oil law crucial to regulating how the country's vast oil wealth will be shared between its ethnic and sectarian groups, a senior Iraqi oil official said on Monday.

The law will also set out terms regulating how foreign oil firms will be able to operate in Iraq.

The draft now goes to parliament for a vote after the cabinet agreed the draft on Monday, with the backing of Kurds who had been haggling over the terms of some articles.
Reuters Pictures
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Passing an oil law, to help settle potentially explosive disputes among Iraq's ethnic and sectarian communities over the division of oil reserves, has been a key demand of the United States.

[EFerrari]

1. BFEE "democracy" on the march.

:(

[JDPriestly]

2. A coup?

Talabani in Jordan. The VP barely missing an assassination attempt. Chalabi appointed to be "liaison" between the Iraqi people and the American troops (or something like that), and the oil law. Don't know about the quack, but it sure looks like a coup-duck to me.

[Straight Shooter]

3. Things that make you go hmmmm .....

What's the coup de jour on the Iraqi menu, waiter?

[dogday]

4. I just posted the story about the VP and that was

my first thought when I saw it... It looks like a lot of "bad luck" is being put upon the Pres and VP of Iraq.... Coincidence you think? :shrug: