Summaries here and here.

The deputy governor of the southern Iraqi city of Basra said on Tuesday that security authorities are unable to control the city, calling on citizens to abide by legal procedures in various fields to control the security situation.

“Security forces in Basra are trying to control the security situation, but the number of forces and their weapons are not enough to fully control a large city like Basra,” Loai al-Batat said at a press conference held in the city hall. Article

It’s time-tested tech nology, not rocket science (emphasis added).

A U.S. review of Iraq reconstruction finds Iraq oil production down compared with this time last year, though capacity is up.

[snip]

Iraq oil production averaged 2.16 million barrels per day in third-quarter 2007, as the northern pipeline was fixed and better guarded than before.

“It is important to note, however, that this quarter’s production lags slightly behind the same period last year,” the report said. It also pegged production capacity at 3 million bpd.

[snip]

The report noted an increase in household appliances has bolstered demand while U.S. reconstruction efforts, done in isolation of the status of Iraq’s electricity sector and its problems, have hurt the sector by stocking plants with too many generators of differing make, capacity and technology. Article

Related:

Several Iraqi power plants are idle due to shortages in fuel supplies, exacerbating blackouts across the country.

Electricity Minister Kareem Waheed blamed the stoppages on lack of fuel, saying neighboring countries have failed to honor contracts to ship fuel supplies.

[snip]

Iraqi refineries have the capacity to churn out up to 700,000 barrels a day but they are working much below capacity due to acts of sabotage, lack of maintenance and corruption.

Waheed’s target in Kuwait is to persuade Kuwaiti authorities to sign a new fuel import contract as domestic fuel production is dwindling, electricity ministry officials said.

They said several power plants were idle because there was no fuel to operate them. Article

Looking in on the mercenary mayhem. Summary here and here.

A grant of limited immunity by State Department investigators to Blackwater security guards accused of shooting dead 17 Iraqis last month could complicate efforts to bring charges against them, a U.S. government official said on Tuesday.

The officials confirmed media reports that State Department investigators had given limited immunity protecting Blackwater guards’ statements from being used against them.

But the officials said the guards could still be subject to prosecution using other evidence in the probe into the Sept 16 incident, which is now being led by the FBI.

“They have to reconstruct the case around (avoiding) the statements,” that had already been given, a government official said.

Another official said the FBI investigators had not known of the immunity provisions. “Law enforcement said they didn’t know what DSI (the State Department’s Department of Special Investigations) was doing on the ground,” he said.

[snip]

U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the Democratic chairman of the Judiciary Committee, called the immunity provisions given by State Department investigators an example of a “well-worn pattern” of the Bush administration avoiding accountability.

“That seems to be a central tenet in the Bush administration — that no one from their team should be held accountable,” Leahy said.

“If you get caught, they will get you immunity. If you get convicted, they will commute your sentence. They are the amnesty Administration.” Article

#1 — but they’re not public employees or officers, they are private employess under contract with a public entity.

…The guards, who allegedly fired on civilians, killing 17 and prompting the Iraqi government to withdraw Blackwater’s operating license, have received so-called “Garrity protections” from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the branch of the State Department that oversees private security firms. Garrity protections prohibit statements made by public law enforcement officers from being used against them in criminal prosecutions.… Source

#2:

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the department did not have the authority to give someone immunity from federal criminal prosecution.

“The kinds of, quote, ‘immunity’ that I’ve seen reported in the press would not preclude a successful criminal prosecution,” he said.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd Tuesday called the reports “inaccurate” but gave no details.

“The Justice Department and the FBI cannot discuss the facts of the Blackwater case, which is under active investigation. However, any suggestion that the Blackwater employees in question have been given immunity from federal criminal prosecution is inaccurate,” Boyd said in a statement.

If the reports of the immunity offer are accurate, though, it could reignite the controversy in the Iraqi capital over the role of private security firms such as Blackwater USA in the war-torn country, which a recent Defense Department report characterized as out of control.

The New York Times Tuesday said officials in the State Department’s investigative unit, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, made the immunity offer though they lacked authority to do so.

Most of the guards involved in the shooting were promised they would not be prosecuted for anything they said in interviews as long as their statements were truthful, the Times reported.

And one law enforcement official told the Washington Post that some Blackwater guards cited the immunity promises in refusing to be interviewed by the FBI, which took over the investigation this month.

McCormack Tuesday sought to distance Rice from the scandal, emphasizing that her attitude is that “if there are individuals who broke rules, laws or regulations, they must be held to account.” Article

#3:

Iraq’s cabinet approved a draft law on Tuesday to end foreign security firms’ immunity from prosecution by scrapping a controversial decree that Iraqis say amounts to a “licence to kill”.

The bill, which has to be approved by parliament, follows a Sept. 16 shooting incident involving Blackwater in which 17 Iraqis were killed. The U.S. security firm said its guards acted lawfully, but the shooting enraged the Iraqi government.

In Washington, a U.S. government official said efforts to bring charges in U.S. courts could be complicated by an offer of limited immunity to Blackwater security guards by State Department investigators. The New York Times said the investigators did not have the authority to make such an offer.

[snip]

The new bill also proposes tightening controls on foreign security firms by making them register and apply for a licence to work in Iraq, and for all guards to have weapons permits. That process has begun but has been mired in bureaucracy.

A potential source of friction is a proposal to make foreign security guards, and the convoys they are protecting, subject to searches at Iraqi security force checkpoints. Article

#4 — tweaking and trimming around the edges doesn’t address the rot in the center.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates met on Tuesday to discuss a working group’s recommendations to give the U.S. military “considerably more involvement in contractor operations,” the Pentagon said.

“All this stuff needs to be tightened up,” Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell told a news briefing.

However, the agreement appeared to fall short of a deal putting contractors under the command of the military, as Pentagon officials had suggested.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said from a practical standpoint, it was decided not to put contractors under military command.

“Once they did an analysis of it, they decided this was not something they wanted to take on,” said McCormack. Article