Iraq: Corporate Pigs Enhance Their Feasting--Felicity Arbuthnot, UN Observer

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2007-09-14 | "We live under a system by which the many are exploited by the few - and war is the ultimate sanction of that exploitation." Harold Laski, 1945.

At the end of August, in Dubai and the beginning of September, in London, conferences were held in order to privatise and carve up contracts for every essential service and infrastructure in Iraq. There was not a mega-corporate pig anywhere on earth, seemingly, who did not have its trotters in the trough. As Iraqis flee in an exodus of biblical proportions and die in a genocidal one, US/UK government backed corporate priority is a smash and grab raid of every asset and facility in the "land between two rivers."

Meetings were organised by the Iraq Development Programme, under the auspices of the Arab-British Chamber of Commerce ("Arab" clearly secondary, as since Arabic is written from right to left, Britain comes first and the Arabic version, last) ninety five percent of "tendered" ("assumed" seems more apt) contracts are US giants. The UK was thrown minimal bones, with Egypt, Netherlands and Spain getting one each, according the IDP website ( http://www.iraqdevelopmentprogramme.org ) The "best-in-breed" technology is to the brought to Iraq, as it is milked dry.

Trough facilitators include: the misnamed United States Aid and International Development (USAID) U.S. Embassy Iraq, Department of Defence Army Corps of Engineers, (U.S.) Defence Procurement and Acquisition Police, U.S. Government Iraq Infrastructure and Reconstruction Programme (NB: http://www.bechtel.com/iraq ) the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, U.S. Government Iraq Reconstruction Projects - and on and on. To mix metaphors, potential cash cows don't come bigger than this.

The carpet baggers had a little bit of help from their quisling friends in their illegitimate and illegal carve up. Dr Adel Abdul Mehdi, Iraq's "Vice President," said: "Iraq's new investment law will facilitate investment for both Iraqi and non-Iraqi businesses by providing a secure investment environment." Referring to Iraq's resources, he said the conference presented opportunities across a wide range of industries: oil, gas, agriculture, infrastructure.

Indeed. Up for grabs are: hospital and security equipment, medicines, road and rail machinery, oil production tools, finance and telecommunication systems. Rebuilding of roads, rail, hospitals, government buildings, schools, water purification plants and electricity, information technology, telecommunications, all to move from state owned to the "free market economy."

If Iraqis are down to near no electricity now, due to the liberators' inability to provide what Saddam Hussein's government did within just months after the 1991 decimation, they won't be able to afford it in the future anyway. "Yes we have plans for fully privatising," Iraq's electricity "Minister" Karem Waheed Hassan, told UPI.