A More Civil War? Iraqis
Spending $ To Lobby on Capitol Hill

Judging by the actions of some of their fellow Iraqis, maybe Shiite militants and Sunni insurgents can soon be persuaded to drop their weapons and to start paying high-priced lobbyists to fight their battles.

In recent weeks, several prominent Iraqi groups, including the Kurds and the Iraqi Red Crescent, have signed contracts with powerful lobbying firms in D.C. to represent their interests.

The IRC retained Cassidy & Associates, a Democratic-leaning firm, and the Carmen Group, a Republican-leaning group, according to O’Dwyer’s.Although the IRC used to be on good terms with the administration, donating $1 million for Katrina relief in 2005, they’ve started clashing with the administration. Last year, Vice President Jamal Al-Karbouli complained about repeated U.S. raids on IRC offices and called American forces a bigger security threat than the insurgents.

And Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government took matters into its own hands, opening up their own lobbying office. And they’ve brought in the big guns, naming Qubad Talabany, the son of Iraq’s president, to head the office and to lure investment to the region.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 28th, 2007 at 3:56 pm and is filed under International, Iraq War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.