In an extraordinary session at Irbil, the parliament of Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) voted July 9 to postpone a referendum scheduled later this month on the autonomous region's controversial constitution. The referendum was to be held on July 25 simultaneously with the region's parliamentary elections. Parliament speaker Adnan Mufti admitted the decision not to hold the referendum simultaneously with the parliamentary elections "has been influenced by the bad publicity the constitution has received in Baghdad." Shi'ite and Sunni Arab politicians in Baghdad have criticized the draft Kurdish constitution— which has been approved by the Kurdish legislature—as having "secessionist" tendencies.

What are we to make of apocryphal Iraqi insurgent leader Abu Omar al-Baghdadi? We have been repeatedly told he is dead, he is captured, or he never existed. Every time one of these theories is announced to the world, he issues another statement. In 2007, he issued a statement daring Washington to nuke Iran. After Obama's election he tentatively offered a truce if the US would immediately withdraw. Now he (supposedly) issues a statement urging his insurgents to keep fighting despite the US pull-back from Iraq's cities. From Stars & Stripes, July 10:

The Iraqi Oil Ministry announced that a contract will be signed to develop the Rumaila oil field—the largest in Iraq and one of the largest in the world—with a joint venture formed for the project by BP and the China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC). Iraq's Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani hailed the awarding of the Rumaila contract as a "great achievement". (Dow Jones, July 1) A rival bid was placed by a joint venture of Exxon and Malaysia's Petronas. (Dow Jones, June 30)

Iraqi forces assume formal control of Baghdad and other cities June 20 as US troops hand over security in urban areas. A countdown clock broadcast on Iraqi TV ticked to zero as the midnight deadline passed for US combat troops to finish their pullback to bases outside cities. When the hour arrived, fireworks were set off in celebration. "The withdrawal of American troops is completed now from all cities after everything they sacrificed for the sake of security," said Sadiq al-Rikabi, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. "We are now celebrating the restoration of sovereignty." Al-Maliki declared a public holiday, proclaiming June 30 as "National Sovereignty Day." (AP, June 29)

By the end of June, Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain Shahristani is scheduled to award service contracts to foreign oil companies to develop six of the country's largest oil-fields over the next 20 to 25 years. But senior figures within the Iraqi oil industry have denounced the deal. Fayad al-Nema, director of the South Oil Company, said: "The service contracts will put the Iraqi economy in chains and shackle its independence for the next 20 years. They squander Iraq's revenues." Nema is reported to have since been fired because of his opposition to the contracts, which he says is shared by many other officials in Iraq's state-owned oil industry. (The Independent, June 18)

Former US soldier Steven Green was sentenced May 21 to life in prison for the rape and murder of an Iraqi teenage girl and the murder of her family in Mahmudiya. A federal jury in the US District Court for the Western District of Kentucky, which convicted Green earlier this month, was instructed to decide "whether justice requires imposition of the death penalty or life imprisonment without any possibility of release."

Spanish National Court Judge Santiago Pedraz Gómez reinstated charges May 21 against three US soldiers for their involvement in the death of Spanish cameraman José Couso, which occurred when the soldiers opened fire on a Baghdad hotel frequented by Western journalists in 2003, allegedly without provocation.

A judge in the US District Court of New Jersey dismissed a lawsuit May 19 brought by the Constitutional Litigation Clinic at the Rutgers School of Law alleging that former president George W. Bush violated Congress's constitutional power to declare war by initiating a preemptive war against the nation of Iraq.