U.N. and donors prepare road map for rebuilding Iraq

[Omaha Steve]

http://reuters.excite.com/article/20060910/2006-09-10T225036Z_01_L10402196_RTRIDST_0_INTERNATIONAL-IRAQ-AGREEMENT-DC.html

U.N. and donors prepare road map for rebuilding Iraq
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Sep 10, 6:50 PM (ET)

By Daliah Merzaban

ABU DHABI (Reuters) - Iraq, the United Nations and foreign donors met on Sunday to prepare a road map for the reconstruction of Iraq and try to make the country economically self-sufficient within five years.

Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih said that under the initiative, called the International Compact for Iraq, Baghdad would seek aid from governments and multilateral organizations while encouraging private sector investment into its strategic oil industry.

"The compact lays down the road map for what is needed to restore general stability to Iraq. This is not just about throwing money into the pot," Salih said following the meeting in Abu Dhabi attended by senior officials of the U.N., World Bank and representatives of many Arab and Western governments.


The wreckage of a vehicle used in a car bomb attack is towed in Baghdad, September 10, 2006. The attack on Sunday killed three and wounded 14 people, mostly policemen, police said. REUTERS/Mohammed Ameen (IRAQ)


The meeting was a precursor to high-level talks scheduled for September 18 at the United Nations in New York, where officials will discuss implementation of the compact within the framework of relevant Security Council resolutions.

FULL story at link above.

[Drum]

1. I should think Bush would be used to this.

Y'know...some responsible grown-ups convene to see what they can salvage of another of W's fuck ups.

Someone Else Cleans Up is their postwar plan. (aka No Plans is Good Plans.)

[lumpy]

2. You'd think the first consideration would

be to completely disarm Iraq to stop the killing. Throwing money at the problem hasn't done much good that we can see. Somehow the Sunnis and Shias have to get over their blood feud. Looks like that basic problem has been overlooked.

[CHIMO]

3. Iraq is Not America’s to Sell – Author and Journalist Naomi Klein on Ameri

Iraq is Not America’s to Sell – Author and Journalist Naomi Klein on America’s Corporate Control of Iraq

AMY GOODMAN: Bring Halliburton home, cancel the contract, ditch the deals, rip up the rules - Just a few of the suggestions for slogans that could help unify the growing movement against the occupation of Iraq. That’s the opening sentence in Naomi Klein’s piece in the Guardian newspaper, the Guardian of London. She and close to 2,000 people were gathered in Madison, Wisconsin this weekend for a media reform conference. In a little while, we'll go to Al Franken, who was also there, and throughout the week we'll be playing excerpts of that conference, but right now to Naomi Klein on her piece "Iraq is not America’s to sell."

NAOMI KLEIN: I think the global anti-war movement is in the process of shifting gears into becoming an anti-occupation movement and we saw some large anti-occupation protests on October 25, and much of the debate has focused on whether the call should be to bring the US troops home or to replace - bring all the foreign troops home - or to replace them with international peacekeeping. I think that is an important debate, but I think that it's missing a really important point, which is so that there is another front, to the attack on Iraq, to this war. And it is a front we're not hearing about when we keep hearing that it is a mess, it is a disaster, it's a quagmire, a morass, which is the economic front of the war on terror and the attack on Iraq.

And that side of the war is actually going very, very well. It’s going so well, in fact, that the economists called the new rules in Iraq a capitalist's dream and described the rules that Paul Bremer, the chief US occupier in Iraq, as a wish list for foreign multinationals. This wish list, which was granted as part of the now infamous Orders 39, which was on September 19, was a transformation of the Iraqi economy, using basically traditional IMF structural adjustment policies, but in one fell swoop. So Orders 39 announced that, contrary to Iraq’s constitution, which places clear restrictions on foreign ownership of the Iraqi economy and deems essential services protected and not able to be privatized, these were just completely overthrown and 200 Iraqi state firms were put up for privatization and foreign firms were allow 100% ownership of those firms. In addition, they were also given, as part of this wish list, the ability to take 100% of their profits out of the country. So, all the rules that, you know, are the battleground of in terms of international trades were granted. In addition to this, a tax cut for the highest income earners was granted from 45%, which is the tax rate for corporations in Canada to 15% flat tax. So it was as wish list, a kind of capitalist dream to attract investment, to create investment opportunities. What has become clear is that these contracts are illegal. Now I think that four - I’ll come back to that.

But for the anti-occupation movement, it is important to understand that even if every troop were to come home tomorrow and a so-called sovereign Iraqi government were to come into power, Iraq would still be privatized. It would be privatized by these laws that were written by another country. It would be privatized by foreign companies that would be controlling their essential services. And it would be colonized by the fact that they have now 70% unemployment because of attacks on the public sector. That is cold logic and we - colonization and we need to have this economic exercise. It’s become very, very clear that we have a very strong weapon in our arsenal in terms of countering this economic occupation of Iraq and that is that this economic - this shock therapy, this structural adjustment of Iraq, that is the other side of the war, which is not a mess, but it is going very, very well - is completely illegal.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/10/159203&mode=thread&tid=25

Good money after bad. Article from Nov. 2003