SovereignWealth Fund (SWF) is among the widely used institutional modalities by natural resource-producing countries to mange and invest surplus revenues generated by natural resources such as oil and gas. SWF could have different objectives, functions, structures and managerial, governance and legal frameworks.

‘Stabilization/Saving Fund’ is one form of SWF, and the contribution by Ali K. Merza addresses its application for Iraq. The essay discuses three scenarios of oil production and emphasizes the needs to manage financial surpluses efficiently and transparently, through well-set-up and managed oil fund. The feasibility and efficient working of the fund, as Merza asserts, will be affected by the evolving political/social structure in the country, on the one hand, and the fund’s organizational aspects, on the other.

There appears to be a consensus among informed Iraqis on the many ambiguities of the 2005 Constitution.Whether ambiguities in this supreme law were deliberate, with documented foreign involvements, or the result of political horse-trading at the time of the drafting is a debatable matter. In reality, both federal and regional authorities exploited these weaknesses and referred to the Constitution in a very selective fashion.

Peter Cameron’s article sheds light on these issues and suggests the emergence of two models: Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) concluded by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Service Contracts concluded by the federal government for the rest of the country. However, Cameron suggests the challenges to the fragile constitution may come not from the differences of view between the federal authorities and the KRG. Instead, they might well come from the familiar paradox facing many resource-rich economies: in spite of their resource wealth, the governance and institutional frameworks often fail to deliver the economic benefits to their peoples.

In his essay, Walid Khadduri discusses the possible links between Iraq’s ‘Grand-Upstream Opening’ (GUO) and the invasion of the country. Objectives of putting an end to oil nationalization, to opening the sector for International Oil Companies and decreasing reliance on the twomajor producers (Saudi Arabia and Russia), ‘Peak Oil’ concerns, among others, are objectives easily linked to the invasion. He also shares prevailing views by questioning the delivery of UO production targets in magnitude and on time, and raises the possibility of keeping the related oil contracts but amending them.

Additionally, we have included two articles not related to oil. The first, by Marcus Milwright, analyses the production of visual and textual representations of the imprisonment of Muslim rulers. The first case study deals with the presentations of Saddam Hussein in the English language media following his capture in December 2003. The second addresses the texts, woodcuts and theatrical performances of the late fifteenth- to the eighteenth-century dealing with the captivity of the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I Yildirim by Tamerlane following the battle of Ankara in 1402. The comparison of the treatment of these two events in both text and image reveals common strategies including the employment of historical or literary references and the imagining of forms of violent and/or sexualized humiliation.

Finally, there is an essay by KatrinWorkert and Candice M. Juby that examines the hijacking of Iraq’s cultural legacy at the time of the 2003 invasion. The article argues that the United States and its coalition partners were unwilling to prevent the destruction and looting of Iraqi cultural property and that this was due to not only ignorance and carelessness but also the additional costs associated with protecting the items and perhaps even the intention for these relics to be destroyed. The article further implicates the United Nations, specifically the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, that could have prevented much of the post-invasion destruction and looting of these cultural relics.

In addition to the main articles referred to above the volume include good coverage of recently published books on Iraq, including my review of three important books written by the known Iraqi oil experts and professionals: Dr. Fadhil Chalabi, Dr. Mohammad Ali Zainy, and Mr. Jabbar Ali Allibi.

IJCIS, published by Intellect books (UK), is accessible upon pay-per-article or by subscription. However, the table of contents and abstracts can be accessed through the following link. http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-issue,id=2015/ In case you could not access the URL/links, please copy and paste the URL into the address bar of your Web browser.

Ahmed Mousa Jiyad,

Iraq/Development Consultancy and Research,

Norway.

Mou-jiya@online.no

1^st October 2011