The Bilum
Ladies and gents, I present to you the President, the Prime Minister and the National Assembly combo jumbo Mr. Zalmay Khalil Zadeh… No one will ever leap off, sneak away or take a nip out from his Bilum, and if one ever dares then it’ll fall like a Sparrow egg down a eucalyptus tree.
BC – exclusive (GZ watch):
Today Mr. Zalmay Khalil Zadeh Is considered one of the strongest 'unbidden' men on the planet. A genuine ‘Apocalypse Now’ character but with a Percy Cox flavor that sits on 115,000.00 Million Barrel of crude Oil and 3,170.00 Billion Cubic Meter of Natural Gas, and behind him one the largest and most powerful armies in the world – Jaish Al-Pentagon, to rule a nation of 25 Million people, and all is line with a UN resolution. But when he sleeps he’d probably keeps (the spy) Ms. Gertrude Bell’s memoirs under his little pillow.
Mr. Zadeh’s normal day is one hake of a drama. No laws, No rulings, No legislations, not even a trivial announcement is passed without his personal judgment and his approval, and especially in two areas; security and the reconstruction of Iraq.
In security Mr. Zadeh personally administrates, with the help of specialized six U.S. military advisors and on daily basis, the security situation (Baghdad has generally been crafted out into 6 security zones). The interior as well as the defense ministers are being briefed every other day or every 3 days of how, where, when and ‘whom’ will be at the well-indicated streets checkpoints – No loitering is allowed - and if there are concerns to be raised then they are absolutely futile. In many instances when the interior ministry acted on its own discretion the entire ministry was literally prosecuted by Mr. Zadeh. Conversely, the interior ministry syncs daily with Mr Zadeh on the outcome of the events according to a ‘check list’ and a ‘progress report’ fashioned by the U.S. military advisors.
Every main road, avenue, and major-street is monitored by the invaders authority (similar to any wireless telecom marketing schemes) and with the help of mainly 1 US & 2 UK based private security companies who hire foreigners of Middle-Easterner origins too. A lot of security breaches and streets incidents (car & road bombs, ambushes, assassinations) have gone without immediate retaliation, if ever, due to Mr. Zadeh’s ‘insightfulness’, wisdom and other logistic reasons! The invaders army can do the job any time but everyone has its fair share!
Any raids, security operations, counter –terrorism maneuvers to be taken up by the national guards or the interior ministry are solely overseen, supervised and directed by Mr. Zadeh’s team, who, also, maintains a labyrinth of well-established and ‘direct’ channels with clients range from ‘good’ Baahtists, ‘rough’ elements of Al Tayar Al Sadri, a few groups of the resistance (7 nos.), the Iranians in Baghdad and overseas! to western tribes like Albu Essa, Albu Jasim, Albu Saleh, Al-Huraimat and even with Mr. Harith Al-Dhari’s reps.!
After each parliamentary assembly and within 48 hours our PM will ‘report’ to Mr. Zadeh, holding files in hands he briefs him about the session and to receive the blessing on all that was said and must be done. In many instances Mr. Zadeh would reject and veto at point blank any parliamentary ruling and especially those related to the security situation. The recent failed plan of security (together forward with Zalmay Zadeh), which was totally blamed on our PM, was in fact stitched to the last thread knot by Mr. Zadeh’s team. The poor PM shouldn’t really be found culpable because he probably hitherto has no clue to how it was never worked out!
Mr. Zalmay Zadeh’s current place is everything Saddam or the late Edie Amin had dreamt of: a democratically elected assembly in an Oil rich country with a formidable army that is a constant threat to neighboring countries, all under his undisputed command and is well-pledged by a superpower and agreed upon by the UN.
But Baghdad still is a 3 way allocated Free Zone; 75% is US/Baathist and 25% is Sadri as well as Iranians and all are engaged in the deadly musical chair game.
Reference to the reconstruction of Iraq, Mr. Zalmay Zadeh simply loathes Mr. Ahmed Al Jalabie since the latter took a senior position in the panel for the reconstruction of Iraq (similar poles repel each other!).
The reconstruction of Iraq (100% financed by Iraqi Oil money) is 99.99% accessed, designed, resourced, and executed by American companies and Mr. Al Jalabie is not so keen on the issue, especially when it come to portions are not being ‘fairly’ distributed. (Kurdistan’s biz. barons and war lords and Al Hakim’s cartels maintain their own pall north and south respectively)
Ministries (all are sectarian inclined & oriented) are being given crumbs to do some ‘extra’ works, and in unorthodox and pathetic fashion. For instance, the Ministry of Electricity is given X money to buy an attached list of items! So in a way the ministry is turned into a local purchasing department. Of course, our ministries corruptions can reasonably be comparatively-associated with those in Liberia.
BC believes that in the end the concept remains a simple loose-stringed Bilum that nurtures, nourishes and protects those who could be fitted inside that little spatial. How long this string will hold and not give way? Still remains to be seen.