Background
"The Independent" in the UK yesterday broke a story about a secret agreement being negotiated between the US and Iraq that would see the United States maintaining up to 50 permanent bases in that country and US soldiers and contractors immune from prosecution. The next day, the same newspaper reported that just in case the Iraqi government doesn't want to agree, the US was holding Iraqi foreign reserves hostage to give it leverage in the negotiations. The US is holding Iraq's foreign reserves under the UN sanctions placed on Iraq after Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
Read those links. The detail is important in understanding the wider context.
The Latest: More Weasel Words
Today the US government reacted to the story. Leading the response was US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker. He says in a Reuters report that it's all wrong:
"There aren't going to be any secret provisions, attachments, protocols or whatever. This will be a transparent process," Crocker told a news briefing.
Note that this is NOT what is being alleged. The report wasn't about parts of some future agreement remaining secret. It was about a deal being negotiated in secret NOW that could tie the hands of a future president.
On the subject of permanent bases, Crocker says:
"I am very comfortable saying to you, to the Iraqis and to anyone who asks that we are not seeking permanent bases, either explicitly or implicitly by just intending to stay there indefinitely."
Right. They don't want to stay "permanently". They just want to stay in Iraq as long as they want to stay in Iraq, however long that might be. No one knows. It's just "permanently" by another name: "indefinitely".
The Reuters report also says:
"Iraqi lawmakers said on Wednesday they would reject any long-term security deal if it were not linked to a requirement that U.S. forces leave."
On the subject of immunity for US forces and contractors, Ambassador Ryan says:
"The question of jurisdiction and immunity will be part of any negotiations on this."
I can't see the Iraqis offering immunity and the US arguing against it, so this statement can only mean the US wants immunity from prosecution and the Iraqis don't want that. Imagine! An entire occupying army with what amounts to diplomatic immunity!
Bush wants the negotiations to be finished by July 31st. He's calling it an "alliance" rather than a "treaty" as the latter term would require it, under te US Constitution, to be submitted to the US Senate for ratification
Looks to me like more lies and deception-by-weasel-words from a US Government that has provided little else since taking office. As No Right Turn rhetorically asked: "And they wonder why people hate them...". I don't hate any person or country, but it's not hard to understand why some might.
Well its no suprise to most of us that the Bush Administration are doing that before he ends his administration. As most of the anti-war movement has known since they invaded, its about the oil. Its actually been confirmed by none other than Alan Greenspan.
ReplyDelete"AMERICA’s elder statesman of finance, Alan Greenspan, has shaken the White House by declaring that the prime motive for the war in Iraq was oil."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/4354269.stm
According to Greg Palast's article in the BBC, there were TWO secret and actually conflicting plans for the exploitation of Iraq's Oil Wealth that sparked a policy war between two ideological and political factions in the Bush Administration.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/4354269.stm
Iraq must have been a tempting target for both the neo-cons and Big Oil when its now confirmed that Iraq potentially has the largest oil reserves in the world.
Iraq could have largest oil reserves in the world
http://www.tinyurl.com/5vr3y5
The claims are corraborated by a conversation that an influential Iraqi Oil Consultant had with a Brazilian Senator on an unrelated subject.
“He stated that Iraq had surpassed Saudi Arabia and is now the first country in the world in terms of known oil reserves. From the top 12 places in the world where higher quantities of oil are found, 9 are in Iraq, he emphasized.”
Eduardo Suplicy
http://www.usbig.net/papers/182-Suplicy–Iraq.doc
To make this fiendishly complex situation even more complex, during the Iran-Iraq War, when Saddam was the friend of the West, the Gulf States (mainly Shiites) feared that Iran (mainly Sunni) would overrun Iraq and threaten their own countries (oil) so they funded his war effort, although after the ceasefire they told him that they considered those "grants" to be mere loans which they expected to be paid back. Interesting. The trail always leads back to the Shieks doesn't it?
How does it work? Take Saudi Arabia for example. This Gulf monarchy is a rentier state in which no taxes are imposed on the population. Instead, Saudis have a religious tax, the zakat, requiring all Muslims to give at least 2.5 percent of their income to charities. Many of the charities are truly dedicated to good causes, but others merely serve as money laundering and terrorist financing apparatuses.
http://www.iags.org/fuelingterror.html
"[President Jimmy] Carter's national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, had in 1980 secured an agreement from the Saudi king to match American contributions to the Afghan effort dollar for dollar, and [Reagan administration CIA director] Bill Casey kept that agreement going over the years." (The Main Enemy, p. 219)
According to a report by the US Army War College’s own Strategic Studies, written shortly after Iraq invaded Kuwait, their conclusion was that Saddam's invasion wasn't because he thought that the Bush Administration would turn a blind eye, nor was it because by nature the Baathists were expansionist, but because they were actually desperate.
"Taking all this into account, it seems obvious that Iraq invaded its neighbors because it was desperate. (Emphasis added.)"
http://bloodbankers.typepad.com/submerging_markets/2003/12/iraqs_new_deb_c.html
Thoughts?
ReplyDelete