The Real Looting Has Begun

[Gary Sisco]

As I predicted before the shooting started, on the old board: that Bechtel (George Shultz) would win big time in post-war contracts. These guys are so hopelessly corrupt and incestuous that they're utterly predictable.

Which is one reason why we are now more vulnerable than ever to future attacks.

Nothing like an utterly predictable opponent.



Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
The contract awarded to the Bechtel Group includes reconstruction of Iraq's roads.






U.S. Gives Bechtel a Major Contract in Rebuilding Iraq
By ELIZABETH BECKER and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.


ASHINGTON, April 17 — The Bush administration awarded the Bechtel Group of San Francisco the first major contract today in a vast reconstruction plan for Iraq that assigns no position of authority to the United Nations or Europe.

The contract, which was awarded by the United States Agency for International Development, had set off a heated contest among some of the nation's most politically connected construction concerns.

The award will initially pay Bechtel, a closely held San Francisco company that posted $11.6 billion in revenue last year, $34.6 million and could go up to $680 million over 18 months.

But those amounts could be only a fraction of what it costs to rebuild Iraq's airports, water and electric-power systems, roads and railroads.

The reconstruction of Iraq, a task that experts have said could cost $25 billion to $100 billion, is part of a broad American-led effort to stabilize the country and set up a new government.

The American taxpayer will pay the initial contract costs, but Iraqi oil revenue is supposed to eventually pay for much of the reconstruction.

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein's government a week ago, the Bush administration has effectively shut out the United Nations from any postwar role in Iraq.

An American team led by retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner will take over the civilian administration of Iraq until an interim Iraqi authority is in place. The Iraqis will then work with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, institutions in which the United States enjoys wide influence, to reshape the country.

"We are in control on the ground and creating facts on the ground," said a senior administration official who declined to be identified. "Iraq will not be put under a U.N. flag. The U.N. is not going to be a partner. And right now, people don't have the stomach to make a theological fight over this." The administration also opposes the return of United Nations weapons inspectors, senior officials said.

Debate began yesterday at the United Nations on whether to lift sanctions against Iraq, which would end the United Nations' authority to oversee the sale of Iraqi oil, to buy and distribute food, to inspect for weapons and to safeguard the border with Kuwait.

European governments still hope to extract more influence for the United Nations in shaping postwar Iraq, in part to ensure greater involvement by countries and organizations that are reluctant to work for a military occupation. And some European companies are still hoping for a share of the work, perhaps as subcontractors to Bechtel.

British companies are already upset at being cut out of the most lucrative deals to rebuild postwar Iraq, and Prime Minister Tony Blair urged Mr. Bush at a meeting earlier this month in Northern Ireland to grant the United Nations a wider role in reconstruction.

But Mr. Bush has held firm to having the United States play the dominant role, suggesting in comments after the meeting with Mr. Blair in Belfast that United Nations agencies may assist with food, medicine and other needs and that a United Nations special representative can provide political advice.

Administration officials said it was important to give contracts to American corporations, essentially leapfrogging over international groups, as a way to demonstrate to the Iraqi people that the United States is a liberator bringing economic prosperity and democratic institutions to their nation.

"We don't see the need for a U.N. operation at all — the Iraqi interim authority will be the equivalent of a civilian U.N. administration," said the senior administration official.

As the administration sketches out its postwar Iraqi plans, officials say that the World Bank eventually can act as the neutral international body that will be the accountant for oil revenues, replacing the United Nations, which has overseen the oil-for-food program.

This would require the creation of an Iraqi authority that is accepted by other nations and international organizations, including the United Nations. It would also mean lifting United Nations sanctions, as proposed by President Bush on Wednesday, and unfreezing Iraqi assets.

Bechtel defeated a handful of other construction companies today to win the contract.


Continued
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[patricia]

Aside from the ousting of Saddam Hussein, this started to look like a massive make-work project, even before the first shot was fired. It was clear, at least to me, from the outset, that the reconstruction and related contracts, besides the oil, would be the real victory. Stepping back, and looking at this, one must, in a way, admire the audacity of the administration talking about who would get contracts, even before there was any destruction and civil disruption to repair. Obscene, but what could have been done to avoid this? To create destruction and then hand the bill to the destroyed is a form of demented genius.
I would compare this to my running my horses over your property, wrecking your fence and ruining your flowerbeds. I then, graciously fix the fence and replace the flowerbeds and hand you the bill. Insane.
We see it, but don't believe it, or rather, don't want to believe it.

[Uli]

Yesterday, I saw a little tv feature about the rumor in the streets of Baghdad. Quite a few people believed that Saddam is in Washington with Bushi trying to ripp them off in a coalition force.

[Dr Dave]

It is kind of amazing. I feel like a bystander at a huge disaster that everyone predicted and no one stopped. Wasn't it common knowledge that Bechtel and Halliburton would score big in Iraq? And now it's actually happening, and while there has been commentary, there doesn't seem to be any interest in Congress in looking into the matter. It occurs to me that we'll soon see stories about how Iraqi engineers are being trained to do things the Bechtel way, and that the company will be praised to the skies for "technology transfer," when all they're really doing is installing infrastructure systems that will require Bechtel service for ever and ever...I gotta hand it to George Schultz. He wanted a war, he got it, and now he's going to cash in big time.

[SinginSumo]

Equally despicable to this nepotism is the American protection of the Iraqi oilfields but NOT to the priceless cultural artifacts in Iraqi museums.

[Al in NYC]

What's amazing to me is that the military and others are acting surprised, as if no one "told" them that Iraq had some previous history that might be important and worth protecting...

Then again, perhaps not so amazing given the sad ignorance of this age in our country...

Certainly the Bechtel deal isn't amazing or surprising, just par for the course. Like Dr. Dave says, it's like seeing a mugging in slow motion and doing nothing to stop it.

I'm getting pretty sick of this country again. If I didn't live in the haven of near-rationality that is NYC (now broke, after years of funding everyone else) , I'd be reversing the course of my family's emigration and be on my way back to Canada

[RainyDay]

What Al in NYC said, most of it, anyway. Congress isn't going to do anything about this because WE THE PEOPLE don't care. We're too busy buying duct tape and plastic sheeting. Jesus, Joseph and Mary. The most powerful country on earth is made up of Chicken Littles.

[RBS]

Didn't the appointment of Halliburton cause such an uproar that they were written out?

Someone please fill me in on the problem with Bechtel. I'm not aware of the tie-in to the administration, I mean, dictatorship.

[Monte Smith]

Some questions:

1. Who should do the reconstruction work if not an American company? Skanska? The Children's Television Workshop? The UN Security Council? The Red Chinese? Who is neutral enough to get the work done without a cloud of political innuendo?

2. What would you all have said if the Pentagon announced in, say, January that they were formulating plans to "protect" priceless Iraqi antiquities in the event of a conflict? Probably you'd say that the US was planning on looting Iraqi museums to provide the oiligarchy with swell baubles. As it is the Iraqis are looting Iraq. The precious artifacts haven't been destroyed, they've been stolen and what has been stolen can be recovered. Whyn't somebody declare a fatwa against looters?

[Al in NYC]

Background on Bechtel from the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom's site, reachingcriticalwill.org:


From the most natural and essential resource on earth – water – to nuclear power and weapons that can potentially cause the extinction of all life, Bechtel Group has manipulated both elements to build a business empire. As one of the largest construction and engineering companies in the world, Bechtel Group develops, manages, engineers, builds and operates telecomunications projects, water systems, petroleum and chemical plants, pipelines, nuclear power plants, mining and metal projects and civil infrastructure projects.

Bechtel has offices in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Egypt, France, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, the U.S. and Venezuela. Last year Bechtel booked $23.3 billion worth of new business and worked off $15.1 billion in revenue, increases of 75% and 20% respectively (1).

Bechtel has been involved in some of the world’s largest and most ambitious construction projects. The Hoover Dam, the first oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia, the Alaskan oil pipeline, and our first nuclear power plants; all constructed by the private corporation under contracts that have been secured through brilliant manipulation of personal connections. Since the dawn of the nuclear age Bechtel has successfully solidified its position as the preeminent company for building all things nuclear. In its history Bechtel has helped to design and /or construct 45 nuclear power plants in 22 states (2). Recent Bechtel projects include decommissioning the Connecticut Yankee nuclear power plant, managing ExxonMobil’s Singapore Chemical Complex, building an oil pipeline in Mexico, the Meizhou Wan power plant in China, the Collahuasi copper project in Chile, Space Launch Complex in California, the Reliance oil refinery in India, the Ragian nickel and copper complex in Canada and the Boyne Island aluminum smelter in Australia.

One of Bechtel’s most important programs is Bechtel Nevada which manages operations at the Nevada Test site – a test bed for conducting defense-related nuclear experiments and national security experiments - for DoE’s Nevada Operations Office which recently became National Nuclear Security Administration. The Nevada Test site is a massive outdoor laboratory and experiment center that is larger than the state of Rhode Island. Bechtel Nevada runs in partnership with Johnson Controls Nevada, Inc.; and Lockheed Martin Nevada Technologies, Inc., and partners with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories on many projects. Bechtel Nevada also works on projects for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, NASA, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the U.S. Air Force, Army and Navy.

...

Bechtel Political Connections

Bechtel’s close relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency helped influence overthrows of several foreign governments perceived as unfriendly to American business goals; and allowed the company to be at the right place at the right time to take advantage of new business opportunities with puppet regimes (3). Close ties between Alan Dulles the CIA deputy Director and Steve Bechtel’s financial advisor, John Simpson, facilitated the relationship between Bechtel and the CIA. Steve Bechtel served as the CIA’s liaison with the Business Council and several other organizations directly linked with the CIA (4). The ties between Bechtel and the CIA led to collaborations in intelligence gathering that helped overthrow Iran’s Mossadeq in 1953 and Indonesia’s Sukarno and replace them with the Reza Shah Pahlavi and Suharto respectively, pro-Western, pro-business allies.

Key Bechtel alumni are Reagan Secretary of Defense Casper Weinburger former Bechtel general counsel, and Reagan Secretary of State, George Schultz former Bechtel President, and current Bechtel board member. W. Kenneth Davis, former vice-president for nuclear development became Reagan’s deputy secretary of Energy and head of the Atomic Energy Commission under Reagan. William Casey, chairman of the Security and Exchange Commission under Nixon, head of the Export-Import bank under Ford, Reagan campaign manger and head of the CIA under Reagan was also a Bechtel consultant.

Richard Helm was CIA director under Nixon and eventually became a Bechtel consultant. White House political advisor Perter Flanigan under Nixon became a senior partner in the Bechtel-owned investment house Dillon, Read and Company. Robert L. Hollingsworth, AEC’s general manager under Nixon became manager of manpower services at Bechtel. Nixon Treasury secretary William Simon became a Bechtel consultant. Additionally, numerous friends of Bechtel, too long to list, many working in the AEC eventually ended up with Bechtel. The close collaboration between the AEC and Bechtel was "so incestuous it is impossible to tell where the public sector begins and the private one leaves off" (5).

Bechtel’s political influence does not stop close relationships to people in power. The company also lets its money to the talking. In the last ten years, Bechtel has contributed almost a million dollars to election campaigns of members of Congress.

Since Bechtel remains a private corporation the company has been quiet about its connections with the current Bush Administration. Considering Bechtel’s cozy relationship with past Republican Administrations and President Bush’s trend of recycling former politicos, it is more than likely that Bechtel has formed strong ties with Bush. Bush’s energy plan is corporate friendly and nuclear friendly, a formula most likely very attractive to Bechtel.

[Nathaniel Catchpole]

1. I'm not an expert on post-war reconstruction history, but I assume that at various times it has been done by aid agencies and other not-for-profit organisations, or at least multi-national teams with restrictions on using technology that ties the country to them for dozens of years. I don't remember where I saw it, but apparently the reconstruction awards are encouraging the use of American patented technology - i.e. technology incompatible with that of other countries and/or non-serviceable by iraqis or anyone else apart from Bechtel or whoever else does the work. The money made from the contracts is considerable but not the main issue, the issue is that these countries will have effective economic control over Iraq for many, many years. In that sense it very much does matter who's in there, even if it's the lesser of various evils.

2. Many artifacts have been destroyed, not just looted - and they're much more likely to turn up in western collections if they're sold privately - Britain has a long history of looting artifacts from the middle east - so I'm sure in 20 years the British Museum will be showing some of them. The main issue for me is the disregard for the looting of hospitals. I'm sure Glaxo Smithkline Beecham can replace all the equipment for a fee in a few weeks though, so that's all dandy then.

[Uli]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Nathaniel Catchpole

2. Many artifacts have been destroyed, not just looted - and they're much more likely to turn up in western collections if they're sold privately - Britain has a long history of looting artifacts from the middle east - so I'm sure in 20 years the British Museum will be showing some of them. The main issue for me is the disregard for the looting of hospitals. I'm sure Glaxo Smithkline Beecham can replace all the equipment for a fee in a few weeks though, so that's all dandy then. [/QUOTE

The thing is, that under the Geneva convention, the Coalition forces have a duty to protect the cultural treasures as well as foreign embassy staff and property. China has sent a diplomatic protest note to the US for the looting of their embassy. Besides, apparently they were warned by UNESCO and US sources that this would happen. From reports it seems that the looting of the museum was long planned and the looters had keys to vaults etc.

[RainyDay]

Would you really expect this tribe aggressing against Iraq to care about the Geneva convention? They care only when it suits them.

[RBS]

Thanks Al. Why am I surprised?

[Nathaniel Catchpole]

With all the shouting about the "parading" of POWs they`re being very quiet about their responsibilities under the convention now.

Another thing, isn't the victor of the war (or the aggressor) supposed to pay reparations. In that case the Iraqi oil trust fund can't possibly counted as reparations can it?

[Darryl G. Thomas]

Monte,

To answer your questions, if you don't want things to look crooked you don't select a company that has such obvious ties to the administration. In the contracting world you put bids out on the street allowing a wide variety of companies to place bids. From what I've read the bidding process for this project has been very "selective". Usually the awarding of a contract takes a long time. This one was pretty quick which means either the bidding began before the war was launched or that process has been subverted for one reason or another.

Anyway, the whole point of this exercise is to find the bid with the lowest cost. And to be honest I agree that bidding should've been limited to the countries that actually put troops on the ground. However, how broad a selection of companies offered bids? I understand this was a somewhat secretive process where the adminstration selected the bidders. That looks bad.

Now for your 2nd question. All through this war we've been constantly reminded that the military was going out of its way to avoid civilian casualties, to not destroy mosques, schools, things that were culturally important to Iraqis and Muslims on a whole. So it seems to me that this museum would've been one of those things to be protected. Like the Ministry of Oil.

Here's the problem: Rumsfeld can swear up and down that we had enough troops on the ground. But a real problem has been the fact that we couldn't protect territory we conquered because there weren't enough support troops, like MPs. We lucked out, the Iraqis for the most were disorganized and for the most part didn't fight back. Rumsfeld was so determined to validate his idea of modern combat and repudiate the Powell Doctrine he put the troops on the ground at risk as well as placing Iraqi cities at the mercy of looters.

[Uli]

Originally posted by Monte Smith
Some questions:

1. Who is neutral enough to get the work done without a cloud of political innuendo?

There are some very reputable Swiss construction companies. Besides they allready are experienced in Irak. Some of them built some of Saddam's bunkers for example. Not to get you onto funny ideas they also do a lot of construction work for our friends like the Saudi's.

[Monte Smith]

Originally posted by Uli
There are some very reputable Swiss construction companies.

Yes, and there is Skanska.

Thanks to all who addressed my questions without yelling and crying foul. As for me, I have no problem with American and British and Polish, etc., companies profiting from reconstruction in Iraq. For one thing, American forces on the ground can trust them better than any others. For another, the citizenry of those nations are paying for this conflict with blood and taxes. Thirdly, it would be insane to reward certain governments with contracts to their corporate citizens when those governments went so far out of their way to oppose US interests in this conflict. Fourthly, I have every confidence that American comapnies are the best skilled, best placed companies to get the job done quickly and at the lowest cost.

As to the artifacts, yes we are all of us the poorer as human beings because of the irretrievable loss of Mesopotamian riches. Cripes. However, this isn't a case of the Taliban firing cannon at unique statuary. This stuff was plundered by the people themselves. Yes, some of it will wind up in the west, where if people want to be responsible they can turn it over to Kofi Annan himself. The FBI is on the case now. That and a fatwa should be able to aid local law enforcement in recovering the stuff.

In the balance--freedom, plastic shredders, WMD, support for terrorism vs. the whole Iraqi museum catalog--artifacts are laughable as a priority. Just laughable. I know that will sound barbarous to the ears of the enlightened cogniscenti, but it is so true.

--I mean, if you are saying that American soldiers should not loot Iraqi museums, I agree with you. But um....

[Uli]

Originally posted by Monte Smith

Fourthly, I have every confidence that American comapnies are the best skilled, best placed companies to get the job done quickly and at the lowest cost.

Of course you have

Originally posted by Monte Smith

In the balance--freedom, plastic shredders, WMD, support for terrorism vs. the whole Iraqi museum catalog--artifacts are laughable as a priority. Just laughable. I know that will sound barbarous to the ears of the enlightened cogniscenti, but it is so true.

But of course it's laughable, especially if you are putting such imaginary things like WMD & support of terrorism in the balance.

As far as I'm concerned, we did the crime, so we should either do the repairs for nothing or give the jobs over to people/countries that were not complicit. We should certainly not give these jobs to corporations from which any of the perps (Cheney, Schultz, Rice, et al) might reap as much as a penny in profit.

[Monte Smith]

In a new direction: I am struck by how little time the takedown of the Iraqi regime took. Not just in absolute terms, but in comparison to the length of the debate and the protests and all that. The period of wading thru the grey fog of interminable multilateralism. The protests seemed to go on forever--indeed, they are still going on, though last Saturday might have seen the wrap up in New York, London, Rome, etc.

The conflict was a mere blip.

So, let's say Bechtel gets to work. Do you think the reconstruction will take longer than the period of debate we saw between September 2002 and the present, or less time? Six months or less? How much stuff has been busted? What needs to be done?

[Gary Sisco]

Like I said, these guys are utterly predictable. They belong to the same club and they keep the money in the same club. Like the Rastaman say, "Money go where money is." That's always the case, but in this case, it's "money go where Reagan/Bush administration holdovers is." Watch and see. This will be far from the last example. It's only the most obvious.

"There's plenty good money to be made..."

Nor are they done, yet. They'll fuck up a couple of other places before they're booted out, and the same crew will get the same contracts. With the tab picked up by all Americans except their club, who will be excluded by Bush's and the Demo's "tax cuts" (the quotation marks are used because their club will see huge cuts, even though they pay hardly anything now, while the rest of us just pay and pay and pay unto our grandchildren's days. They're already half a trillion in the whole *this year.* But what do they care? The same club owns the national debt and its interest.

Why would they have any reason to give a shit about deficit spending? It makes good campaign propaganda (sometimes), but other than that, deficit spending is very much in the interests of the ruling class.

[Nathaniel Catchpole]

Monte, I think I missed your response to the looting of hospitals. And FWIW there's no British companies partaking in the reconstruction, US-only so far (much to many of our Hawks' dismay).

[Monte Smith]

Nat: My response to Iraqis looting hospitals is no different from my response to Iraqis looting museums. It is stupid. But surely, yes, it is even stupider.


I'd like to add to the list, if I may, of those institutions which cannot be trusted to rebuild the shit we broke in Iraq. The institution I add is that warm and fuzzy org we all instinctively trust, the United Nations.

From today's NYT editorials:

Oil, Food and a Whole Lot of Questions
By CLAUDIA ROSETT

President Bush's call to lift economic sanctions against Iraq could mean the end of the United Nations oil-for-food program, which has overseen the country's oil sales since 1996. Not only are France and Russia likely to object, but they may well support efforts by Secretary General Kofi Annan to modify the oil-for-food system, which is due to expire on May 12, and give it a large role in rebuilding the country. Whatever Mr. Annan's reasons for wanting to reincarnate the operation, before he makes his case there's something he needs to do: open the books.

The oil-for-food program is no ordinary relief effort. Not only does it involve astronomical amounts of money, it also operates with alarming secrecy. Intended to ease the human cost of economic sanctions by letting Iraq sell oil and use the profits for staples like milk and medicine, the program has morphed into big business. Since its inception, the program has overseen more than $100 billion in contracts for oil exports and relief imports combined.

It also collects a 2.2 percent commission on every barrel--more than $1 billion to date--that is supposed to cover its administrative costs. According to staff members, the program's bank accounts over the past year have held balances upward of $12 billion. With all that money pouring straight from Iraq's oil taps--thus obviating the need to wring donations from member countries--the oil-for-food program has evolved into a bonanza of jobs and commercial clout. Before the war it employed some 1,000 international workers and 3,000 Iraqis. (The Iraqi employees--charged with monitoring Saddam Hussein's imports and distribution of relief goods--of course all had to be approved by the Baath Party.)

Initially, all contracts were to be approved by the Security Council. Nonetheless, the program facilitated a string of business deals tilted heavily toward Saddam Hussein's preferred trading partners, like Russia, France and, to a lesser extent, Syria. About a year ago, in the name of expediency, Mr. Annan was given direct authority to sign off on all goods not itemized on a special watch list. Yet shipments with Mr. Annan's go-ahead have included so-called relief items such as "boats" and boat "accessories" from France and "sport supplies" from Lebanon (sports in Iraq having been the domain of Saddam's Hussein's sadistic elder son, Uday).

On Feb. 7, with war all but inevitable, Mr. Annan approved a request by the regime for TV broadcasting equipment from Russia. Was this material intended to shore up the propaganda machine Saddam Hussein had built in recent years? After all, the United Nations in 2000 and 2001 approved more than a dozen contracts with Jordan and France for Iraq to import equipment for "educational TV."

It is impossible to find out for certain. The quantities of goods involved in shipments are confidential, and almost all descriptions on the contract lists made public by the United Nations are so generic as to be meaningless. For example, a deal with Russia approved last Nov. 19 was described on the contract papers with the enigmatic notation: "goods for resumption of project." Who are the Russian suppliers? The United Nations won't say. What were they promised in payment? That's secret.

I was at least able to confirm that the shipment of Russian TV equipment approved in February was not delivered before the war started. A press officer told me that batch didn't actually get to Iraq because United Nations processing is so slow that "it usually takes three to four months" before the purchases start to arrive.

Bureaucratic lags notwithstanding, putting a veil of secrecy over tens of billions of dollars in contracts is an invitation to kickbacks, political back-scratching and smuggling done under cover of relief operations. Of course, with so little paperwork made public, it is impossible to say whether there has been any malfeasance so far--but I found nothing that would seem to contradict Gen. Tommy Franks's comment that the system should have been named the "oil-for-palace program." Why, for example, are companies in Russia and Syria ? hardly powerhouses in the automotive industry--listed as suppliers of Japanese vehicles? Why are desert countries like Libya, Syria and Saudi Arabia delivering powdered milk?

And then there is this menacing list of countries that supplied "detergent": Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Algeria, Yemen and Sudan. Maybe all that multisourced soap was just a terrific bargain for doing the laundry. But there is no way for any independent parties--including the citizens of Iraq, whose money was actually spent on the goods--to know.

Mr. Annan's office does share more detailed records with the Security Council members, but none of those countries makes them public. There is no independent, external audit of the program; financial oversight goes to officials from a revolving trio of member states--currently South Africa, the Philippines and, yes, France.

As for the program's vast bank accounts, the public is told only that letters of credit are issued by a French bank, BNP Paribas. Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq, entitled to goods funded by 13 percent of the program's revenues, have been trying for some time to find out how much interest they are going to receive on $4 billion in relief they are still owed. The United Nations treasurer told me that that no outside party, not even the Kurds, gets access to those figures.

Then there is the program's compensation commission, which is supposed to dole out 25 percent of all oil-for-food proceeds to people and companies harmed by Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. It has so far dispensed $17.5 billion and approved a further $26.2 billion. Who decides on compensation claims? Commission members are picked from a "register of experts" supplied by Mr. Annan. One staff member told me that that this register cannot be released because it is "not public." The identities of the individual claimants are, of course, "confidential."

Lifting the sanctions would take away the United Nations' remaining leverage in Iraq. If the oil-for-food operation is extended, however, it will have a tremendous influence on shaping the new Iraq. Before that is allowed to happen, let's see the books.


Claudia Rosett, a former foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, is writing a book on dictatorships and democracy.

[jeff54]

If the oil belongs to the Iraqi people as GWB claims, and oil revenue is paying for the rebuilding. Then why don't the Iraqi's get to decide who they want to pay to rebuild things.
This is total garbage. We break the stuff to begin with we make the Iraqi people pay for the repairs and we tell them who they have to use to do the rebuilding. So much for their first lesson in democracy. Sheesh

[SinginSumo]

Monte chooses to affix blame on Iraqis rather than register outrage that museums have been desecrated and that hospitals have been pillaged. What does he care? After all, HE'S not Iraqi, he doesn't care that people (of whatever persuasion) need medical attention or that irreplaceable works of art are gone forever. To Monte it is simply "shit that we broke."

Just the usual expediency, the usual proselytizing, the usual dubious agenda and the usual total lack of sensitivity and sense.

[Monte Smith]

Jeff: Because no one expects the Iraqis to have a government in place next week, the power on the ground (us) does have to get started making repairs to Iraqi infrastructure, building hospitals, schools, supplying the same, putting up media towers, getting the telephony cranked, broadband!, aspalting the cracks our tanks made in their admirable highway system (German designed and South Korean-built), and erecting Disney Baghdad. Oops, not the last part. No reason for Iraqis to wait for this easy stuff while they are also waiting for a modern, functioning government--the hard part.

Sumo: I have tons of sympathy for the Iraqis. Even the looting Iraqis. It wasn't very sympathetic to want to leave the Iraqis to the tender mercies of Saddam's family mafia. And more than sympathy, I have hope for the Iraqis, too, since our boys are over there.

[patricia]

I too, was aghast at Monte's characterization of priceless artifacts and hospital looting as "shit we broke". Yes, the hospitals can be repaired and medical supplies can be raplaced, and should be, immediatly. As for the area's history, in the form of the contents of their museums and libraries, they are irreplaceable, if they are not found. The destroyed items are gone forever.
Perhaps Monte did not study the history and culture of the region, in junior high, as I and my fellow students did, but the former Mesopotamia is an integral part of human history. This is not just "shit we broke", but a real tragedy and can't just be dismissed, because we only care about the future economics of the area, related to the West's wealth. If the Iraqi people interpret the U.S.' s presence as an occupation, then the attack itself will take on a whole different face, to the U.S.'s detriment.
Being seen as barbarians, concerned only with material gain may very well mean continuing violence and conflict.
Handing the Iraqi people the bill for repairs seems to be the final straw. Who profits from this will be very telling as to the motives for the invasion, at least to the Iraqi people.

If we're going to use the guage of blood to determine who will get contracts, worth around 100 billion dollars, the blood of Americans and Brits amounted to less than 100 souls, half in accidents and friendly fire. The Iraqis lost hundreds of souls. This is not to diminish the deaths of the Americans and Brits, but, do the math.

[Monte Smith]

Originally posted by patricia
I too, was aghast at Monte's characterization of priceless artifacts and hospital looting as "shit we broke".

Don't be aghast, patricia. I didn't make any such characterization. The shit we broke wasn't priceless artifacts. That is the shit that the Iraqis themselves broke.

Sure, we will clean up that mess, too. But the main thrust of reconstruction will be what I in fact characterized: Iraqi infrastructure, building hospitals (building new ones, not just restocking the ones the Iraqis looted), schools, supplying the same, putting up media towers, getting the telephony cranked, broadband!, aspalting the cracks our tanks made in their admirable highway system (German designed and South Korean-built), and erecting Disney Baghdad. Oops, not the last part.

[patricia]

Perhaps you would be the perfect representative of the U.S. as Ambassador to Iraq.