R
: Friday 2nd July 2004, Issue 462
:
: WAKE UP! WAKE UP! IT'S YER BLAIR RICH PROJECT...
:
: SchNEWS
:
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:
: IRAQ-ING UP THE PROFITS
:
: "Desperately needed jobs have gone to Americans, Europeans and
: South Asians; roads are 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 is seen not as a recovery from war but as an
: extension of the occupation, a foreign invasion of a different
: sort." - Naomi Klein, journalist
:
: Human Rights activist Ewa Jasiewicz and film maker Pennie Quinton,
: will be appearing in court soon, charged with 'Aggravated
: Trespass', following their protest against the Iraq Procurement
: Conference in London this April. Ewa, Pennie and others have been
: drawing attention to the fact that the corporate handover of Iraq
: to the multinationals is about more than just oil. The handover's
: making millions for the members of a cartel of multinationals,
: dominated by the backers of George Bush. At the same time as
: millions of reconstruction dollars have gone missing, millions of
: Iraqi's still live without electricity and water.
:
: The old regime has left Iraq in serious debt. "The Paris Club" of
: creditor nations is owed $160bn, largely money borrowed by Saddam
: for his war against Iran, while other debts are reparations
: payments owed to countries he attacked. These payments, enforced
: by the UN Compensation Commission, have already cost Iraq $1.64bn
: since last April: more than its combined health and education
: budgets. On 23rd June, as the UN called for $259m to meet a
: shortfall in humanitarian relief, the Compensation Commission also
: announced that it would take another $600m in reparations this
: year.
:
: But the US doesn't seem that bothered by the Iraqi debt. John
: Snow, the US Treasury Secretary recently said, "The people of Iraq
: shouldn't be saddled with those debts incurred through the regime
: of the dictator." Is this a new angle on US foreign policy? Maybe
: John's about to announce the cancellation of the Iraq's debt -
: mostly owed to non-US companies - so Bush Inc can concentrate on
: the fat reconstruction contracts to boost its re-election coffers.
:
: The Halliburton Corporation has been pretty coy about total value
: of its Iraq contracts, although the Pentagon has confirmed that an
: initial $90m was agreed to be paid to the Corporation before the
: fall of Saddam Hussein. Former Halliburton boss, Vice President
: Dick Cheney, has denied any wrongdoing. He says that he severed
: contact with the corporation when he got into the White House in
: 2000, but a French Press Agency report claims that a leaked
: Pentagon e-mail confirms Dick had a hand in huge Halliburton
: government contracts for Iraq, whilst in office and coordinating
: the war effort.
:
: Up to the corporate-handover, White House Inc. had spent just 2%
: of the $18.4bn it had obtained from Congress for the 'urgent'
: reconstruction of Iraq. While Bush might be saving for a big spend
: at election time, some cash has just plain disappeared. Last
: October, Christian Aid revealed that $4bn of oil revenues were
: unaccounted for and even according to the coalition's latest
: figures, $1.3bn has gone walkabout.
:
: Being investigated by Ronald Reagan's Commission on Organized
: Crime for alleged links to gambling and prostitution, didn't stop
: Richard Armitage becoming Deputy Secretary of State in 2000. Now
: he's helping oversee the State Department as it nicks $184m,
: earmarked for drinking water projects, to boost the budget for a
: lavish new US Embassy in Saddam's former palace. Ever honest
: Armitage admitted he might have to "rob from Peter in my fiefdom
: to pay Paul."
:
: HAND (OVER) RELIEF
:
: And all that's before the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have
: been let loose in Iraq with a long-term IMF structural adjustment
: program in return for debt reduction. Rapid privatisation and an
: opening up of the Iraqi economy for foreign investors is the name
: of the game, leading to increased unemployment and Iraqi public
: assets falling into the hands of a "coalition" of foreign
: multinationals.
:
: As soon as big business gets hold of the bargain-priced publicly
: owned companies up for grabs, they will shed jobs to make a quick
: profit. Already the Coalition Provisional Authority is making Iraq
: a great place to do business. Last September it signed Order 30 on
: Salaries and Employment Conditions, cancelling government subsides
: for public sector workers which had helped them pay for housing
: and living costs. The Authority has set the minimum wage at 69,000
: Dinar ($40) per month, which is, according to Ewa Jasiewicz, less
: than half of the recommended salary of a sweatshop worker in one
: of neighbouring Iran's Free Trade Zones.
:
: Antonia Juhasz of the International Forum on Globalisation, says
: that the Bush administration is "using the military invasion and
: occupation of Iraq to advance a corporate globalization agenda
: that is illegal under international law, has not been chosen by
: the Iraqi people and may ultimately prove to be even more
: devastating than twelve years of economic sanctions, two U.S.-led
: wars and one occupation."
:
: One thing the new Authority sees eye-to-eye with the Saddam regime
: over is draconian Trade Union Laws. Under the new boss, workers in
: the state oil industry are forbidden from organising a union, and
: harassment of union organisers is commonplace. But people are
: still joining workers groups, and as journalist David Bacon, who
: travelled to Iraq with US Labor Against the War said, "the thing
: that was really heartening was that under the most difficult
: conditions that you can imagine, workers were not waiting one
: minute before they started organising themselves." Unemployment is
: still very high (30%), and the reconstruction process isn't
: exactly the job frenzy it was supposed to be - having created only
: 15,000 of the 250,000 jobs promised.
:
: Saddam was always heading for trouble, running one of the only
: state owned oil companies in the world and refusing to let Western
: oil companies in on the game. Remember two years ago when the US
: sponsored a coup against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela (at the time the
: main supplier of oil to the US - see SchNEWS 345)? He had promised
: to use oil profits to pay for a minimum wage, rather than let all
: the money go abroad to the oil companies. But this is about more
: than just oil. They are flogging the whole country's assets off,
: lock stock and barrel. The Middle East's got a lot of state owned
: assets which western corporations are ready to buy up cheap. The
: pretext offered by terrorism to make a profit through invasion and
: economic colonisation isn't worrying business friendly Saudi
: Arabia. But no doubt Iran and Syria with their state owned water
: companies, electricity plants and telecom systems are getting
: worried by cash-hungry Halliburton and friends.
:
: More info: www.jubileeiraq.org www.iraqitradeunions.org
: www.occupationwatch.org www.bellaciao.org
:
[snip]
:
: Disclaimer
:
: SchNEWS warns all readers... money doesn't grow on trees - it
: grows on Bushes. Honest!
:
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