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Understanding What The Neocon-Zionists
Have Done To Iraq And Iraqis
While Earning Massive Wealth For Their Masters
Dick Eastman
olfriend@nwinfo.net
2-3-7
(Author Unknown)
Iraqis have been robbed, murdered,
raped, tortured, and looted for generations to come. The Zionist lobby in the US
in now calling for the same genocide against Iranians, while the Israeli Zionist
Leaders (95% Russian Khazars/German Ashkenazis) are conducting a similar
genocide against the Palestinians and Lebanese with funds embezzled from the US
taxpayers. In addition to hanging a version of their puppet "Saddam Hussein" who
was installed by the CIA and supported by the Pentagon until 1991, the Neocon/Zionists:
staged 911 and then blamed Arabs and
demonized muslims profited immensely from 9/11 related events such as short
selling of airline stocks before the attacks, insurance claims after the
attacks, military buildup, wars, etc. (as per Retd. Colonel Bowman and others,
Dick Cheney was the mastermind behind the attacks leading the simulated
hijacking exercises from his bunker on September 11, 2001),
The Neocon/Zionist cartel have been
conducting illegal wars of aggression and bombing, invading, occupying and
installing a government of criminals, just as criminals as the Congress critters
like Jim Hightower calls them (
http://www.jimhightower.com ), in Afghanistan and Iraq. Here are some
of their other crimes. Iraq has been "liberated" Zionist-style from 2003 till
the present. Today, the 29th January 2007, Iraqis long for the days of the
sanctions:
The US occupation forces will soon get
their Iraqi puppet government to pass legislation giving away Iraqi's oil wealth
to their masters the OIL GIANTS.
Today in Iraq, people are collectively
raped, murdered, tortured, experimented on with various drugs and drills and US
bombs of every type, lazer bombs, phosphorus, cluster, DU....
Today in Iraq, many cities have become
massive ghettos. Baghdad, Falluja, Ramadi, Mosul, Haditha,etc...
Today in Iraq, there are mass
concentration, rape and torture camps.
Today in Iraq there are 3.7 million
refugees seeking shelter outside.
Today in Iraq, there are 700,000 plus
dead since 2003, add to this figure 260'000 children. Today in Iraq, there is no
aspirin, no food, no water, no electricity, no nothing....except for the Neocon/Zionist
mercenaries
Today in Iraq people, are persecuted for
their name tags.
Today in Iraq, there are no more
universities or schools.
Today in Iraq, people have stopped
selling their organs and are selling their kids instead.
Today in Iraq there are no hospitals
left and cancer patients are considered lucky.
Today in Iraq, the secret letter
circulating in the UN prior to the occupation warning that over 1.4 million
children will die, has come true.
Today in Iraq there is a holocaust
happening before your very eyes.
FACTS ARE FACTS Zionist Neocons are
ultimately guilty of:
Killing over 650,000 Iraqis and 50,000
Afghans in the process
Stealing Iraqi wealth of all types
Murdering Iraqi intelligencia,
scientists, and professors
Polluting the World with Depleted
Uranium which has already and will cause cancer of the lungs and birth defects
Lying and misleading the people of the
World
Murdering journalists to reduce negative
reporting
Spending millions on lies and propaganda
companies and censoring news. Just look at the real rich news content available
on the Internet from alternative news sites versus the controlled news and
unreported news and fabricated news promoted on the corporate media
Embezzling funds and issuing no-bid
contracts to military-industrial-congressional complex companies.
Subcontracting the business of killing
and torturing to lavishly paid mercenaries.
Institutionalizing torture and
kidnapping of relatives, including children.
Using weapons of mass destruction such
as napalm, phosphorous, daisy cutters, depleted uranium.
Conducting election frauds,
disenfranchising certain voters, etc. Although Zionist imperialism is
bipartisan, the Democratic is less infiltrated by the demagogue war-mongerers
Passing Soviet-Stalin type laws to
restrict freedoms and imprison without trial, i.e. end of Habeus Corpus/Magna
Carta. Remember that the Patriot Act was written before 9/11
Persecuting those who dare to expose
their crimes
Massively increasing US and Iraqi
taxpayers' debts and deficits
Fabricated and lied about intelligence
reports
Forced downtown Manhattan to reopen
after 9/11 even though the air was toxic and now many people and rescue dogs are
dying from the effects
Genociding entire cities such as
Fallujah, etc.
Spending funds marked for reconstruction
on expensive Blackwater Mercenaries
Millions will die of cancer, get
diabetes, will be born with massive birth defects due to the depleted uranium
contamination
At least 700,000 Iraqis burnt/crushed/shrapnelled
to death by US bombings and other types of attacks
Thousands more injured or crippled
Over 3 million Iraqis have left the
country
Another 3 million are refugees within
their own country.
Over 18,000 physicians have left Iraq,
250 kidnapped, hundreds killed
Hundreds of Iraqis girls have been
forced into prostitution as sex slaves, many more raped
Dozens of cities massively destroyed
About 1,000 Iraqi scientists and
professors killed by Mossad death squads
About 4,000 young Iraqi men have been
killed by Mossad death squads
Nearly 100 reporters killed by US troops
and unable to report what really happened
Billions stolen by Zionist/Neocon
operatives
Iraqi's oil wealth soon to be given away
to Big Oil Giants
Iraqi banking brought under the umbrella
of the Privately Owned Federal Reserve System
Past Iraqi government employee pensions
cancelled
Most new jobs are being done by imported
laborers
Mossad/CIA/British Intelligence have
been staging bombings and blaming them on rival Iraqi groups to fuel a civil war
Etc. etc. etc.
Here is a flashback of
the Bremer laws to colonize Iraq and it has gotten worse since then:
The Bush Administration's proposed
changes for Iraqi law go even further, with a special focus on Iraq's oil.
BearingPoint describes how current Iraqi commercial law is "woefully deficient
in terms of establishing a market-friendly legal and regulatory environment for
business formation and operation." Changes to those laws will therefore be
necessary "to assure an appropriate legal and regulatory framework for major
utilities such as gas, oil, water, and power." The contract includes every
sector of the Iraqi economy, from public services, media, banking, investment,
taxes, agriculture and the oil sector , implementing "private-sector involvement
in strategic sectors, including privatization, asset sales, concessions, leases
and management contracts, especially those in the oil and supporting
industries." The Bremer Orders have changed Iraq's laws are being replaced and
the BearingPoint contract implemented by L. Paul Bremer, Administrator of the
Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq. The Bremer Orders most relevant
to this discussion are detailed below.
Bremer Order #39: Foreign
Investment
Bremer Order #39, enacted on September
19, 2003, has five key elements: (1) Privatization of state-owned enterprises;
(2) 100% foreign ownership of businesses in all sectors except oil and mineral
extraction, banks and insurance companies (the latter two are addressed in a
separate order); (3) "national treatment" of foreign firms; (4) unrestricted,
tax-free remittance of all funds associated with the investment, including, but
not limited to, profits; and (5) 40 year ownership licenses which have the
option of being renewed.
1. Privatization
The Order allows for privatization of
all state-owned entities. It is difficult to overstate how fundamental a change
this is to the Iraqi economy. As the preamble to the Order explains, it will
move Iraq from a "centrally planned economy to a market economy" in one fell
swoop by U.S. fiat. This will involve some 200 state-owned enterprises. Thus,
everything from water services, electric utilities, schools, hospitals,
television and newspapers, to prisons could be privatized under the Order. The
water sector is already being "reconstructed" by the Bechtel Corporation of San
Francisco , one of the top ten water privatization companies in the World.
Bechtel is the second largest recipient of reconstruction dollars in Iraq after
Halliburton , totaling nearly $3 billion. Bechtel's contract includes the repair
of Iraq's water, sewage and electricity systems, as well as many of its
hospitals and schools.
Cliff Mumm, head of Bechtel's Iraq
operation, told the San Francisco Chronicle that Iraq "has two rivers, it's
fertile, it's sitting on an ocean of oil. Iraq ought to be a major player in the
World. And we want to be working for them long term." Bechtel's track record
does not bode well for the Iraqi people-in fact, the citizens of Bolivia have
written a letter to the people of Iraq warning them of what to expect from
Bechtel. A subsidiary of Bechtel privatized the water systems of Cochabamba,
Bolivia and immediately sent prices sky-rocketing. Families earning a minimum
wage of $60 per month faced water bills of $20 per month. The citizens rose in
protest and at least one seventeen year-old boy lost his life to Bolivian troops
sent into the streets to defend Bechtel's right to privatize with deadly force.
Ultimately, the government relented and cancelled the contract. Bechtel has
responded with a $25 million lawsuit against Bolivia for lost profits. Not
surprisingly, when Thomas Foley, former director of Private Sector Development
for the CPA, announced a list of the first state enterprises to be sold off last
fall which included cement and fertilizer plants, phosphate and sulfur mines,
pharmaceutical factories, and the country's airline, there was immediate unrest.
With anywhere from 50% - 70% of the workforce already unemployed, additional
layoffs , which always follow on the heels of privatization , were unacceptable.
Furthermore, those remaining workers who still have jobs only receive "emergency
pay" mandated by the CPA , about half of what they made before the war, while
prices have skyrocketed and the social safety net has been virtually eliminated.
The CPA promised that the U.S. corporations doing the reconstruction would solve
the unemployment problem, promising 300,000 jobs in an August 13, 2003 letter.
Only a handful of these jobs have materialized. One reason is that many firms
are bringing in non-Iraqis to do the bulk of the work.
Thus, privatization was met with stiff
organized resistance. In response, Bremer was forced to put the immediate
privatization plans on hold for the short-term. However, the long-term plans are
clear. BearingPoint, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and
others both in or contracted by the U.S. government will implement the majority
of the economic policies with the new Iraqi government. Therefore,
implementation can wait until the friction over how that government is created
is resolved. Furthermore, the process of preparing for privatization has not
slowed, while the emphasis on privatization is already rearing its head in Iraq.
For example:
· On April 25, 2004, Iraq's minister of
public works told The Independent that Iraq was considering privatizing its
water industry to "fund essential works." While the U.S. government is obligated
to ensure that water is provided to the people of Iraq, it is telling that the
Minister did not discuss going to the CPA to demand restoration of water
services nor to Bechtel to demand that it fulfill the requirements of its
contract. Rather, she speaks immediately of privatization.
· Meetings among global corporations to
discuss privatization and investment in Iraq have been taking place unabated at
least since the invasion. For example, in February, the U.S. Commerce Department
held a "Doing Business in Iraq" conference attended by some five hundred U.S.
companies including Boeing, Caterpillar, DaimlerChrysler, Microsoft, IBM,
Motorala, Bechtel and Flour. This conference took place immediately following
vocal criticism by the Iraqi Governing Council's top representative in
Washington that the U.S. was passing over Iraqi firms in awarding reconstruction
contracts. The latest of these meetings took place just over a week ago in
London. Called "Iraq Procurement 2004 , Meet the Buyer" , it was sponsored by
ExxonMobil, Oxy, Volvo, Shell, Raytheon and ChevronTexaco , among others. You
can visit web sites like
www.export.gov/Iraq or
http://www.iraqprocurement.com/ to learn more and similar meetings
taking place monthly around the World.
· The CPA's continued interest in luring
the private sector to Iraq is evidenced by the fact that it recently named a new
director of Private Sector Development. He is Ari Fleischer's brother, Michael.
· Most importantly, it is abundantly
clear from BearingPoint's contract that full implementation is intended to take
place after the new Iraqi government is in place, not in the few months
remaining before the "hand-over." The contract is for three years with the
option of renewal. They are not going anywhere. Of course, the contract
specifically states that while there is a commitment to place "Iraq's leaders
and stakeholders in the driver's seat" their input on policies will only be used
"as long as these are consistent with the overall objectives of the project and
with USAID policies, regulations and guidelines."
· In regard to whether the Iraqis intend
to change these U.S. imposed laws, Sinan Shabibi , the governor of Iraq's
central bank, told an investors services roundtable in Washington recently that
the international financial community need not fear Bremer's banking laws will
be abolished after the hand-over of sovereignty on June 30 because, "It is
unreasonable to enact an economic strategy and then abolish it within two
month." Thus, U.S. pressure is already clearly being felt in Iraq and on its
leaders.
2. 100% foreign ownership
All of Iraq's businesses can be
completely owned, run and employed by non-Iraqis. Iraq, like many countries ,
particularly developing countries , had a ban on foreign ownership (many require
partnerships with local companies as well) in order to ensure local retention of
revenue, employment and other financial gains. Order #39 states that Iraq cannot
restrict access to foreign owners to any sector of the economy except resource
extraction.
Thus, even Iraq's media could be
completely owned by U.S. companies. The first step towards U.S. ownership may
have come with the awarding of a $90 million contract to Science Applications
International Corporation (SAIC) of San Diego, CA, to "restore broadcast media
to uncensored operation." According to the Center for Public Integrity (CPI),
SAIC will be rebuilding Iraq's mass media, including television stations, radio
stations and newspapers, in a program called the Iraqi Media Network. However,
not much more is known because the Pentagon has steadfastly refused to release
any specific information about the contract. What little information that has
leaked out has come mainly from disgruntled employees and press freedom
advocates, who have alleged military censorship, cronyism and significant
mishandling of the work. In just one example, SAIC used the U.S. government-run
Voice of America to patch together nightly news shows made up entirely of dubbed
stories from U.S. television network news shows. Concerns over foreign ownership
go farther. Iraq is home to the most extensive river system in the Middle East,
including the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and the Greater and Lesser Zab rivers.
As Stephen C. Pelletiere, a former CIA senior political analyst on Iraq, wrote
in the New York Times, "America could alter the destiny of the Middle East in a
way that probably could not be challenged for decades , not solely by
controlling Iraq's oil, but buy controlling its water. Even if America didn't
occupy the country, once Mr. Hussein's Baath Party is driven from power, many
lucrative opportunities would open up for American companies." The military
invasion of Iraq has put Bechtel in the position to become one of these
companies.
3. National Treatment
Order #39 states that "A foreign
investor shall be entitled to make foreign investments in Iraq on terms no less
favorable than those applicable to an Iraqi investor." National treatment makes
it impossible to require that Iraqis be given preferential treatment (over
foreigners) as investors, owners, contractors or employees. Thus, foreign
companies can do all of the reconstruction, own every business, do all of the
work and not a single Iraqi need to employed or involved in the process
whatsoever.
This is a particularly troublesome
provision given reports of bloated U.S. corporate budgets. For example, Time
magazine recently reported that an American firm was awarded a $15 million
contract to build a cement factory in Iraq (using U.S. taxpayer dollars). When
the firm was prevented from doing the work, an Iraqi businessman (using Saddam's
confiscated funds) spent just $80,000 to build the same factory. National
treatment is also a powerful tool used by companies to circumvent domestic
regulations on the environment, public health and worker and consumer safety.
Virtually every challenge brought to such laws under the investment chapter of
the NAFTA include claims that the government violated national treatment. For
example, national treatment was one of the tools used successfully by the
Virginia-based Ethyl Corporation to force the government of Canada to reverse
its ban on the gasoline additive MMT, a ground water pollutant also believed to
be a human carcinogen. Ethyl sued and Canada settled: reversing its ban, paying
Ethyl $13 million in compensation for its "trouble," and writing a letter of
apology. Given corporate success in challenging such laws in Canada, the United
States, and Mexico, it is likely that Iraq's environmental, health, and public
interest laws, or those that any new government may wish to enact, will be
severely at risk. The impact of this one provision alone is devastating and has
facilitated the Bush Administration's failure to meet its obligations under
international law to provide for the basic necessities of Iraq.
Failure to Meet
International Obligations to Provide for Iraqi Basic Services
Water
The Washington Post tells the story of
Al-Ani, a PhD civil engineer with 40 years experience who is one the top experts
in water treatment in Iraq. He is an employee of the General Co. for Water
Projects, one of the 200-odd ventures in Iraq that are owned wholly or in part
by the state and have been told they are ineligible for contracts being issued
by the occupation. The company's 187 workers still collect their government
salaries but they now spend their days playing video games, reading books and
chitchatting to pass the time. This story is repeated over and over again across
Iraq. Qualified, experienced and interested Iraqi engineers and workers sitting
idle while U.S. corporations blunder about Iraq at the expense of Iraqi health
and U.S. tax-payer money. Bechtel has the contract that could have gone to
General Co. Rather than hire or talk to Al-Ani or his numerous colleagues,
Bechtel employees spent their first months in Iraq touring the country doing an
assessment of the water and electrical systems only to discover that the systems
were in much worse condition and more complicated than they had originally
assumed. This explains why Bechtel is not living up to the conditions of their
contract for water and electricity provision and why the U.S. government doesn't
care. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, USAID, which oversees Bechtel's
contract, has "reduced expectations of what could be fixed, how long repairs
would take and how much money would be required." Good for Bechtel, but too bad
for the people of Iraq who are virtually without electricity or water and are
living in sewage-filled streets. According to USAID's own reports, one year
after the invasion "Baghdad's three sewage treatment plants, which together
comprise three-quarters of the nation's sewage treatment capacity, are
inoperable, allowing the waste from 3.8 million people to flow untreated
directly into the Tigris River. In the rest of the country, most sewage
treatment plants were only partially operational prior to the conflict, and
shortage of electricity, parts and chemicals have exacerbated the situation.
Water that is pumped through the system is largely untreated, especially in
South." The most extensive on-the-ground assessment of Iraq's water systems by
Dahr Jamail for the consumer watchdog group Public Citizen reached the same
conclusion. Drinking water throughout the country is in a crisis state, with
some villages having no access to water while larger cities receive water
approximately 50% of the time. This has led to vast outbreaks of cholera,
diarrhea, nausea and kidney stones, among other diseases.
Electricity
The same condition exists for Iraq's
electricity , reconstruction of which is also Bechtel's responsibility.
According to a memo by an anonymous U.S. government official written to the CPA
in early March 2004, there is "no consistency" in power flows in Iraq. "Street
lights function irregularly and traffic lights not at all" "Electricity in
Baghdad fluctuating between three hours, on and off, in rotation, and four hours
on and off." U.S. Airforce Colonel Sam Gardiner, author of a 2002 study of the
likely effect US bombardment would have on Iraq's power system, recently told
the Village Voice, "I continue to get very upset about the electricity issue...
Frankly, if we had just given the Iraqis some baling wire and a little bit of
space to keep things running, it would have been better. But instead we've let
big US companies go in with plans for major overhauls." Thus, while Bechtel
reports that they have "returned electricity generation to pre-conflict levels,"
this claim is not supported by the U.S. government or Iraqis themselves. Power
outages lasting for 24 hours a day are still more often the rule than the
exception. The Daura power plant, Baghdad's largest, which should supply one
third of the city's generating capacity was producing only 10% as recently as
December. Helmut Doll, the German site manager for Babcok Power, as
subcontractor of Siemens, told Newsweek that "Bechtel only came and took photos.
We can't judge Bechtel's work progress because they're not here." The same story
is repeated across Iraq. Either they haven't seen Bechtel, or the work that has
been provided is inadequate and intermittent. Bechtel representatives have
admitted as much, citing the constant sabotage of their work and their
ill-preparedness going in, commenting that they did not realize how intertwined
the electricity, water and sewage systems were, greatly complicating their
repair efforts. Of course, the Iraqis knew this and could have told them , if
they had asked. Iraqis point out that after the first Gulf War, they were able
to restore electricity in just three months. Mohsen Hassan, technical director
for power generation at the Iraqi ministry of electricity, told Southern
Exposure Magazine, "We, the Iraqi engineers, can repair anything, but we need
money and spare parts and so far Bechtel has provided us with neither. The only
thing that the company has given us so far is promises."
Schools and Hospitals
Bechtel has also failed in its
contractual obligations to restore hospitals and schools in Iraq. Bechtel
repeatedly cites the 1595 schools it has "rehabilitated" in Iraq. However, this
is less than a fifth of Iraq's 10,000 schools. And, as Newsweek reported, "many
of the rehabilitated schools don't look ready for the morning bell." The
constant complaint from Iraqi Ministry of Education officials and headmistresses
and ministers of schools that Bechtel has worked on, is that the work is either
non-existent or shoddy, often putting students health and safety at risk. An
internal study by U.S. Army personnel cited in Southern Exposure, strongly
criticized Bechtel's attempts to renovate Iraqi schools. Comments such as the
following were common: "the new fans are cheap and burned out immediately upon
use. All inspected were already broke." "Lousy paint job. Major clean-up work
required. Bathrooms in poor condition." Southern Exposure visited four Baghdad
schools all listed as renovated by Bechtel. They found rain leaking through
ceilings, shorting out power, new paint peeling and floors that had not been
completely repaired. New brass taps and doors painted, but toilets and sinks
that had not been touched. At Hawa School, for example, the headmistress showed
the authors toilets where a new water system had been installed, pipes, taps and
a motor to pump the water. However, the motor didn't work, so the toilets reeked
with unflushed sewage. The conditions reported in Bechtel hospitals are similar
, shoddy or non-existent work accompanied with desperate and unmet human needs.
The Bush Administration is not even living up to its own requirements under
national treatment because it is treating foreign providers differently. The
U.S. has banned countries that did not participate in the invasion for profiting
off of the invasion. Thus, in many cases, repairs that could be performed
quickly to the water and electrical systems are left undone because they require
parts from countries such as Russia, Germany or France.
4. Unrestricted
Repatriation of Profits
Order #39 authorizes foreign investors
to "transfer abroad without delay all funds associated with [their] investment."
Thus, they can put their money wherever they like and take it out whenever they
want to, "without delay." Nothing need be reinvested locally to service the
floundering Iraqi economy. Nothing need be targeted to help specifically damaged
regions, communities or services. All the money can go home with the foreign
owners and they can take out their investments at any time. U.S. corporations
are already reaping staggering revenues from their Iraqi operations. However,
due to Order #39, not a cent of this money need be reinvested in Iraq.
Halliburton, with contracts worth as much as $16.8 billion in Iraq has seen its
revenues increase 80% in the first quarter of 2004 compared to the same quarter
of 2003. According to the Financial Times, they are receiving steep "profits
from their Iraq operations." Bechtel, with nearly $3 billion in Iraqi contracts,
has seen their non-U.S.-generated revenues increase by a whopping 158% since
last year , turning around a three-year slump. Bechtel is not publicly traded
and therefore does not have to reveal profits. However, both Bechtel and
Halliburton have cost-plus contracts that guarantee a specified rate of profit
on their work. ChevronTexaco which has a comparatively minor contract for
transporting Iraqi oil has also seen revenues soar. It is important to note that
neither Halliburton nor Bechtel participated in the most recent round of Iraq
reconstruction contract bids. A good guess as to why would be the constant
barrage of public criticism they have faced over the failures in Iraq. These are
just three of the hundreds of U.S. companies now operating in Iraq , all of
their money could return to the U.S. , non of it need be used to benefit Iraq
whatsoever.
Unfortunately, we don't really know how
much money the Iraqis are missing out on, nor exactly what work is being done
nor by whom. This is because, as the Center for Public Integrity , the
organization which has done the most extensive Freedom of Information Act
requests and investigations into these contracts , so aptly states, "it [does]
not appear that any one government agency [knows] that total number of
contractors or what they are doing." This finding has since been upheld by both
the General Accounting Office and the Pentagon's inspector-general - both of
which have recently concluded studies demonstrating little or no government over
site over contractors and contracts being granted, renewed and increased with
virtually no inspection of written documents nor work performed. Finally,
returning to repatriation of profits , the potential long-term impact of this
provision for the Iraqi economy is monumental, as evidenced by the impact of the
same rules on the "financial tigers" of East Asia, as well as Argentina and
Russia. Each of these countries experienced devastating financial collapse when
foreign investors simultaneously withdrew billions of dollars from their
economies while the governments were powerless to enact restrictions on either
the inward or outward flow of investments. Iraq is now poised to meet the same
fate.
5. 40-year leases
Under Order #39
Iraq will be locked in to its contracts under these rules for 40 years, with an
option of unlimited renewal. If the contracts are broken, the Order gives the
companies the legal authority to enact any international trade agreement of
which both countries are party. If the Bush Administration is successful in
implementing its trade goals outlined below, the U.S. will have a Bilateral
Investment Treaty (BIT) with Iraq. The BIT provides access to courts such as the
World Bank's International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID),
a venue notorious for its undemocratic, untransparent and unjust proceedings and
rulings on behalf of multinational corporations.
Bremer Order #40:
Banking
Order #40 fundamentally alters Iraq's
banking structure by turning this sector from a state-run to a market-driven
system over night by allowing foreign banks to enter the Iraqi market and to
purchase up to 50 percent of an Iraqi bank. Specifically, it permits six foreign
banks over the next five years the right to enter the Iraqi market. A similar
provision included in NAFTA paved the way for Citigroup to purchase Mexico's
largest commercial bank, Banamex. In Aotearoa/New Zealand, liberalization of
financial banking services left every one of the nation's banks, including the
bank of New Zealand, under foreign control. Affordable financial services and
low-cost loans quickly dried up , so much so that the government proposed
setting up a new bank, the People's Bank, to be owned and operated by the
government itself in order to redress the inequities of the foreign-owned banks.
Local ownership of banks is critical because it facilitates access to credit for
all sectors of society. It may deter disloyal behavior; foreign finance
companies are much more likely to flee in times of crisis. And ensuring that a
foreign company holds some domestic assets within the country in which it is
operating can help ensure it can satisfy any legal liabilities it might accrue.
Moreover, Iraq simply does not have adequate regulatory structures in place to
handle the economic power and marketing prowess of global financial companies.
For example, Iraq does not have a counter-part to U.S. laws such as the
Community Reinvestment Act -- obligating banks to make credit available in
lower-income neighborhoods -- and the Truth in Lending Act -- requiring full
disclosure to consumers of the cost of loans. Finally, with the banks under
foreign ownership, the lobby against adoption of such rules may be too strong to
fight. JPMorgan, the second-largest bank in the U.S., which was implicated in
the Enron scandal, has been awarded a contract to run a consortium of 13 banks
from 13 countries that will constitute the Trade Bank of Iraq. The Trade Bank
may be just the point of entry for JPMorgan, giving it "first dibs" on the full
privatization yet to come.
Bremer Order #37: Taxes
Order #37 changes Iraq's tax law by
implementing a flat tax that provides for a marginal income tax rate of 15% for
both corporations and individuals. Thus, an Iraqi earning .50 cents per hour
will pay the same tax rate as another earning $1 billion an hour. Flat rates
have a record of reducing the tax burden on the poorest in the economy,
increasing the burden on the middle class tremendously, and drastically reducing
the taxes paid by the wealthiest in society , particularly corporations. As the
Washington Post reports, "it took L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in
Baghdad, no more than a stroke of the pen Sept. 15 to accomplish what eluded the
likes of publisher Steve Forbes, Reps. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) and Richard K. Armey
(R-Tex.), and Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) over the course of a decade and two
presidential campaigns."
Bremer Order #12:
Trade Liberalization
On June 12, Bremer signed the "Trade
Liberalization Policy," suspending "all tariffs, customs duties, import taxes,
licensing fees and similar surcharges for goods entering or leaving Iraq, and
all other trade restrictions that may apply to such goods." This led to an
immediate and dramatic inflow of cheap consumer products, which has essentially
wiped out all local providers of the same products. This could have significant
long-term implications for domestic production as well. But tariff elimination
is just the beginning. In early February 2004, BearingPoint was right on
schedule when the Bush Administration achieved WTO observer status for Iraq ,
even without a government , over the strong objections of many of our European
allies. This is the first step towards WTO membership, which also requires the
fundamental transformation of Iraq's laws to bring them in to WTO-compliance.
The longer-term goal was announced by President Bush just two months after the
invasion of Iraq. On May 9, 2003, President Bush announced plans for an
U.S.-Middle East Free Trade Area (MEFTA) by 2013 , bringing all of the policies
outlined above, and more, to the entire region. The Middle East, insulated by
oil revenue, has historically been less susceptible than other regions to the
extreme sacrifices required by governments under corporate free trade
agreements. But with the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the Bush
Administration demonstrated that it would defy global public opinion and the
United Nations to use military force when and where it deems necessary. Thus, it
can now return to the more traditional model of advancing corporate
globalization, the free trade agreement. As George Wolfe, director of Economic
Policy for the CPA told the New York Times, "in the long run, the United States
hopes that Iraq will become an economic model for the Middle East." Or, put more
bluntly by Neil King of the Wall Street Journal, "For many conservatives, Iraq
is now the test case for whether the U.S. can engender American-style
free-market capitalism within the Arab World."
How to Bring the U.S.
in to Accord with International Law and Morality
It is illegal and immoral for the Bush
Administration to use the military invasion and occupation of Iraq to
fundamentally alter that nation's basic laws. It is also illegal and immoral for
the Bush Administration to continue to ignore its obligation under international
law to provide for the basic necessities of Iraqis. The first step needed to
bring the U.S. in to accord with international law and morality is to repeal the
Bremer Orders detailed above. The second step is to allow detailed public
scrutiny of the BearingPoint plan in both Iraq and the U.S. Most of it should be
repealed. At most, it should provide only for the short-term economic
necessities required of the U.S. under international law to restore Iraq's basic
infrastructure and services and to ensure that the economy does not collapse
during reconstruction. Once the Iraqi government is elected, it is the Iraqis
themselves who must determine their long-term economic future, not the U.S. In
the short-term, the following alternatives drawn from more detailed analysis
provided by International Occupation Watch Center in Baghdad, the Institute for
Policy Studies in Washington, DC and the International Forum on Globalization (
http://www.occupationwatch.org/ ,
http://www.ips-dc.org/ ,
http://www.ifg.org/ , are offered to help
restore the Iraqi economy to a functioning position.
· The military occupation of Iraq must
end.
· Iraq's foreign debts, accrued by
Hussein in the suppression of the people of Iraq, must be forgiven.
· Only with the end of the U.S.-UK
occupation should the United Nations, including an UN-commanded multilateral
peacekeeping force, return to Iraq. Their mandate should be for a very short and
defined period, with the goal of assisting Iraq in reconstruction and overseeing
election of a governing authority.
· As belligerent powers who initiated
the war, and as occupying powers, the U.S. and the UK are obligated to provide
for the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people and to pay the continuing costs
of Iraq's reconstruction, including the bulk of the cost of UN humanitarian and
peacekeeping deployments. Washington should reverse the spending priorities of
its $87 billion request from Congress, and turn over to full UN authority (on
behalf of the Iraqi people as a whole, not simply given to the U.S.-appointed
Council) a starting grant of at least $75 billion (the initial amount Washington
spent on waging the war) for reconstruction in Iraq.
· The $15 billion (out of the $87
billion) requested by the Bush administration for Iraqi reconstruction is
insufficient to meet Washington's obligations under international law. The $65
billion scheduled for the Pentagon to continue the occupation of Iraq should be
challenged. The additional reconstruction funds should not come from ordinary
taxpayers. They should be raised from (a) an excess profits tax on corporations
benefiting from the war and post-war privatization in Iraq; and (b) the Pentagon
budget lines currently directed at continuing war in Iraq.
· Reconstruction of Iraq should be based
on rebuilding the economy to maximize fulfilling the needs of the Iraqi people.
All contract processes should be completely transparent and accessible to
Iraqis. The awarding of contracts should be done with preference given first to
Iraqi companies, experts and workers. Preference should then be given to
international humanitarian organizations with a record of performing similar
reconstruction work. If a non-Iraqi private company must be used, the contract
must be open to global competition and the profit margin must be held as low as
possible at a fixed fee. Oversight must be transparent, public and thorough.
· Labor laws should ensure protection
and security for local workers.
· A broad U.S. Federal Government
investigation must be launched to scrutinize U.S. corporate expenditures and
actions in Iraq, with the power to impose or seek punitive measures for contract
violations and over-expenditure, and to provide oversight, regulation and
accountability of U.S. contractor's work in the application of their contracts.
The citizens of Iraq and the U.S. Congress and public should be informed of the
findings.
· Iraq should be allowed to join the
Worldwide movement for local sustainability by moving away from export oriented
economics that make trade and multinational corporations the basis of economic
development. Government spending, taxes, subsidies, tariff structures, etc.
should be reoriented to support local environmentally sustainable production
that meets local needs (these ideas are expanded upon in the IFG publication,
Alternatives to Economic Globalization)
The Multibillion Robbery The US Calls
Reconstruction & The shameless corporate feeding frenzy in Iraq is fuelling the
resistance
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1247867,00.html
Naomi Klein, June 26, 2004, <
http://www.guardian.co.uk/ >The
Guardian, UK
The Program Management Office, which
oversees the $18.4bn in US reconstruction funds, has finally set a goal it can
meet. Sure, electricity is below pre-war levels, the streets are rivers of
sewage and more Iraqis have been fired than hired. But now the PMO has
contracted the British mercenary firm Aegis to protect its employees from
"assassination, kidnapping, injury and" - get this - "embarrassment". I don't
know if Aegis will succeed in protecting PMO employees from violent attack, but
embarrassment? I'd say mission already accomplished. The people in charge of
rebuilding Iraq can't be embarrassed, because, clearly, they have no shame.
Their god is G: gold O: oil
D: drugs
In the run-up to the June 30 underhand
(sorry, I can't bring myself to call it a "handover"), US occupation powers have
been unabashed in their efforts to steal money that is supposed to aid a
war-ravaged people. The state department has taken $184m earmarked for drinking
water projects and moved it to the budget for the lavish new US embassy in
Saddam Hussein's former palace. Short of $1bn for the embassy, Richard Armitage,
the deputy secretary of state, said he might have to "rob from Peter in my
fiefdom to pay Paul". In fact, he is robbing Iraq's people, who, according to a
recent study by the consumer group Public Citizen, are facing "massive outbreaks
of cholera, diarrhoea, nausea and kidney stones" from drinking contaminated
water. If the occupation chief Paul Bremer and his staff were capable of
embarrassment, they might be a little sheepish about having spent only $3.2bn of
the $18.4bn Congress allotted - the reason the reconstruction is so disastrously
behind schedule. At first, Bremer said the money would be spent by the time Iraq
was sovereign, but apparently someone had a better idea: parcel it out over five
years so Ambassador John Negroponte can use it as leverage. With $15bn
outstanding, how likely are Iraq's politicians to refuse US demands for military
bases and economic "reforms"? Unwilling to let go of their own money, the
shameless ones have had no qualms about dipping into funds belonging to Iraqis.
After losing the fight to keep control of Iraq's oil money after the underhand,
occupation authorities grabbed $2.5bn of those revenues and are now spending the
money on projects that are supposedly already covered by American tax dollars.
But then, if financial scandals made you
blush, the entire reconstruction of Iraq would be pretty mortifying. >From the
start, its architects rejected the idea that it should be a New Deal-style
public works project for Iraqis to reclaim their country. Instead, it was
treated as an ideological experiment in privatisation. The dream was for
multinational firms, mostly from the US, to swoop in and dazzle the Iraqis with
their speed and efficiency. Iraqis saw something else: desperately needed jobs
going to Americans, Europeans and south Asians; roads crowded with trucks
shipping in supplies produced in foreign plants, while Iraqi factories were not
even supplied with emergency generators. As a result, the reconstruction was
seen not as a recovery from war but as an extension of the occupation, a foreign
invasion of a different sort. And so, as the resistance grew, the reconstruction
itself became a prime target. The contractors have responded by behaving even
more like an invading army, building elaborate fortresses in the green zone -
the walled-in city within a city that houses the occupation authority in Baghdad
- and surrounding themselves with mercenaries. And being hated is expensive.
According to the latest estimates, security costs are eating up 25% of
reconstruction contracts - money not being spent on hospitals, water-treatment
plants or telephone exchanges.
Meanwhile, insurance brokers selling
sudden-death policies to contractors in Iraq have doubled their premiums, with
insurance costs reaching 30% of payroll. That means many companies are spending
half their budgets arming and insuring themselves against the people they are
supposedly in Iraq to help. And, according to Charles Adwan of Transparency
International, quoted on US National Public Radio's Marketplace programme, "at
least 20% of US spending in Iraq is lost to corruption". How much is actually
left over for reconstruction? Don't do the maths. Rather than models of speed
and efficiency, the contractors look more like overcharging, underperforming,
lumbering beasts, barely able to move for fear of the hatred they have helped
generate. The problem goes well beyond the latest reports of Halliburton drivers
abandoning $85,000 trucks on the road because they don't carry spare tyres.
Private contractors are also accused of playing leadership roles in the torture
of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. A landmark class-action lawsuit filed by the Centre
for Constitutional Rights alleges that Titan Corporation and CACI International
conspired to "humiliate, torture and abuse persons" in order to increase demand
for their "interrogation services". And then there's Aegis, the company being
paid $293m to save the PMO from embarrassment. It turns out that Aegis's CEO,
Tim Spicer, has a bit of an embarrassing past himself. In the 90s, he helped to
put down rebels and stage a military coup in Papua New Guinea, as well as
hatching a plan to break an arms embargo in Sierra Leone. If Iraq's occupiers
were capable of feeling shame, they might have responded by imposing tough new
regulations. Instead, Senate Republicans have just defeated an attempt to bar
private contractors from interrogating prisoners and also voted down a proposal
to impose stiffer penalties on contractors who overcharge. Meanwhile, the White
House is also trying to get immunity from prosecution for US contractors in Iraq
and has requested the exemption from the new prime minister, Iyad Allawi. It
seems likely that Allawi will agree, since he is, after all, a kind of US
contractor himself. A former CIA spy, he is already threatening to declare
martial law, while his defence minister says of resistance fighters: "We will
cut off their hands, and we will behead them." In a final feat of outsourcing,
Iraqi governance has been subcontracted to even more brutal surrogates. Is this
embarrassing, after an invasion to overthrow a dictatorship? Not at all; this is
what the occupiers call "sovereignty". The Aegis guys can relax - embarrassment
is not going to be an issue. A version of this article first appeared in The
Nation< http://www.nologo.org/ >
www.nologo.org
Video:
http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid=-8682653001715840214&q
http://www.outlawjournalism.com/
Jews (both the 95% Ashkenazi-Khazar and
the 5% Sephardic Semites) are not Israelites. Since the late 1800s, Khazar/Ashkenazi
Zionists who originated from Southern Russia/Northern Turkey and who are not
True-Torah Israelites (
http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com ) have been conducting an insurgency
in the Middle-East and now are occupying Palestine since 1948.
Video: Jews Against Zionist Terror in
Palestine:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6519655078961670837
Video: The new Berlin Wall in Palestine
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3913278874048571867
Anarchists Against the
Wall block Central Tel Aviv
Israeli activists blocked central Tel
Aviv with razor wire from the Apartheid Wall. The activists stretched the razor
wire across Basel Street with a sign from the Wall that reads in Arabic, Hebrew
and English: "Anyone who touches the fence endangers their life." The twenty
activists from Anarchists Against the Wall, who attend the weekly Friday
demonstrations against the Apartheid Wall in Bil'in, set up the blockade at
around 2pm and started handing out flyers to passers by explaining the action.
The action was taken to protest the Apartheid Wall being built through the West
Bank, as well as severe travel restrictions on Palestinians. The leaflets remind
Israelis that they bear responsibility for the suffering of Palestinians as a
result of their government's apartheid policies. For details contact Yonaton
Pollack: 0546327736 For photos contact Oren: 0523767272
Reproduced from
www.Rense.com
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