Richard Adams Monday March 31, 2003 The Guardian
First it was renaming french fries "freedom fries", now US politicians want a new Iraqi mobile network to benefit American telecoms firms more than their European rivals.
Republican congressman Darrell Issa has introduced a bill seeking to impose a mobile network developed by a US firm in preference to the standard used in the rest of the world.
In a letter to the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, Mr Issa warned that "the US government will soon hand US taxpayer dollars over to French, German, and other European cellphone equipment companies to build the new Iraqi cellphone system. This is not acceptable".
Mr Issa's bill calls for the imposition of the CDMA network standard owned by Qualcomm, a San Diego firm that donated funds to Mr Issa's last election campaign.
While the CDMA system is mainly used in the US, the rival GSM standard has 60% of the world's mobile market.
"If European GSM technology is deployed in Iraq, much of the equipment used to build the cellphone system would be manufactured in France, Germany, and elsewhere in western and northern Europe," Mr Issa wrote.
Advocates of GSM point out that its technology is global, with 1bn users in 190 countries. "The right time to debate the technology will be when the real conflict is over," said Rob Conway of the GSM Association trade body.