US embassy cable - 03AMMAN3904

S E C R E T AMMAN 003904 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/29/2013 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, MOPS, PHUM, IZ, JO 
SUBJECT: IRAQI MFA INSPECTION TEAM TO RECOMMEND REOPENING 
IRAQI EMBASSY IN AMMAN FOR CONSULAR SERVICES 
 
REF: STATE 156956 
 
Classified By: PolCouns Doug Silliman for reasons 1.5 (B) and (D) 
 
1.  (S)  PolCouns met June 26 with the members of the Iraqi 
MFA's inspection team, Amb. Zaid Noori and Abdul Baqi Ismail 
Ali (ref).  Noori said that they had no trouble getting into 
the Iraqi Embassy in Amman on June 25 and had found the 
morale of the Iraqi staff quite high, "since all the 
intelligence people have left and only real MFA people 
remain."   Ali, who Noori described as "the most senior 
financial inspector in the MFA," had just begun his 
examination of the accounts of the Iraqi Embassy and could 
not yet draw any conclusions.  Ali said that, from records in 
Baghdad, there was a real possibility that the Iraqi 
embassies in Beirut and Damascus had been used to collect and 
funnel to Baghdad kickbacks from illegally smuggled oil. 
Noori and Ali hoped to travel to Beirut on June 28, then on 
to Damascus June 30 or July 1 to conduct preliminary embassy 
inspections there. 
 
2.  (S)  Noori related that they had discovered a quantity of 
handguns, AK-47's, and ammunition "inappropriate for a 
diplomatic mission" stored at the Iraqi Embassy compound.  He 
said that he would almost certainly ask the Jordanian 
government to take possession of the weapons for safekeeping 
until a new Iraqi government could decide on what to do with 
them.  In the meantime, he had recorded all of the serial 
numbers of the weapons and, on his return to Baghdad, would 
try to determine their origin within the Iraqi government. 
 
3.  (C)  Noori said that a second key goal of their mission 
to Amman was to look at the possibility of reopening consular 
services for the Iraqi community in Jordan, which he 
estimated at 300,000.  He said that many of the Iraqis who 
had traveled from Jordan to Iraq after the war had done so on 
expired passports.  Since the MFA is not yet issuing new 
passports, those Iraqis do not have the travel documents 
needed to gain entry into other countries.  Noori said he 
would recommend to the MFA's Steering Committee in Baghdad 
that the Iraqi Embassy in Amman reopen for consular services 
as soon as possible, and that the CPA consider issuing some 
type of temporary travel documents to permit Iraqis to enter 
and leave Iraq until formal passports are issued. 
GNEHM