Iraqi Reconstruction: More Than a Swindle

So Paul Wolfowitz released the big list of countries who are eligible to bid for Iraqi reconstruction efforts. Bush immediately set to work defending it. Here's a run down of the countries who will be soaking up the $18.6 billion US taxpayer dollars (with helpful linked maps to help you locate the less-well-known ones): Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bulgaria, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Egypt, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, Iraq, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Oman, Palau, Panama, Phillippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Solomon Islands, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, Tonga, Turkey, UAE, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Uzbekistan.

Well, it looks like if you're a former Soviet republic or a smattering of south Pacific islands, you're making out like a bandit here. Oh, or Halliburton. Which likely provided the pretty not-for-eating turkey that Bush so famously held during his Baghdad Thanksgiving trip. Wonder how much that cost us.

I'm sorry, is that Saudi Arabia I see on that list? Didn't 19 Saudis hijack four airplanes and kill three thousand Americans on a sunny Tuesday morning two years ago?

The administration is playing hardball with France and Russia, both of whom are owed billions by Iraq. "[The White House] said it was 'appropriate and reasonable' to limit the opponents of the war to bidding for sub-contracts while countries that backed the war such as Britain, Spain and Poland had a chance to reap the benefits.

"'The United States and coalition countries, as well as others that are contributing forces to the efforts there...are the ones that have been helping and sacrificing to build a free and prosperous nation for the Iraqi people,' said White House spokesman Scott McClellan."

The real reason: The US would like France and Russia forgive the Iraqi debts owed to them. Under international law, an occupying nation becomes responsible for the debt of the occupied nation, so if they don't forgive the debt the United States will be shelling out the cash.

Enter James Baker, the Bush family "fixer". According to the article: "Baker is a lawyer-politician who is a former White House Chief of Staff, Treasury Secretary, Secretary of State and various other things. He is a trusted friend of the Bush family and has been called up before in times of political need. He ran Bush Senior’s presidential campaigns and was President George W Bush’s man in Florida during the recount in 2000.

"Baker is now a senior partner in the law firm of Baker Botts, which is deeply involved in the fight for the oil and gas of the Caspian Sea and is senior counselor to the powerful investment firm the Carlyle Group. On the morning of September 11th, 2001, Baker was reportedly at a Carlyle investor conference with members of the bin Laden family in the Ritz Carlton in Washington D.C. And his law firm Baker Botts is defending the Saudi government in a lawsuit filed by the families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks."

Clean hands? Makes you wonder why anyone gets into government at all. Oh right, all the money they make after they leave.

My question: If Bush had approached France, Germany, and Russia prior to the war and guaranteed that in the event of war, their investments would be secure and they would be able to bid for contracts, wouldn't it have been easier to get them on board? Doesn't our current approach further alienate our friends and make us look even more like the arrogant pricks we've been looking like for the last three years?

Not to mention that we'll be paying nations with less than sterling human rights records a good bit of money to do things that would probably be done more cheaply by France and Germany, who by all accounts are modern liberal democracies.