Peter Espeut NOW THAT the United States has destroyed much of the infrastructure of Iraq, they are giving out contracts to rebuild. Sounds good? I wonder.
A Reuters report out of Washington last Thursday revealed that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has awarded a contract worth up to $680 million to repair war-torn Iraq's electricity system, water supplies and other key infrastructure to Bechtel Group Inc., an American company based in California. USAID has already awarded smaller contracts to run the Iraqi port at Umm Qasr, restock schools, bolster local government and assist the aid agency in its Iraq planning effort. Still pending are contracts to manage air shipments of aid, run warehouses, restore the public health service and promote citizen participation in impoverished Iraqi communities.
HOW ARE CONTRACTS AWARDED?
I am here not questioning the competence of the Bechtel Group Inc., a 105-year-old engineering, construction and technical services company who helped build the Hoover Dam in the 1930s, and 50 years later completed work on the Channel Tunnel linking England and France. I want to know how these kinds of contracts can be awarded without reference to the Iraqi people themselves. Imagine foreign contractors arriving in Jamaica and starting construction of public infrastructure without reference to public opinion here. (Well I suppose if you can imagine the US attacking Iraq on a false pretext of weapons of mass destruction, and destroying the infrastructure in the first place, it's not too hard to imagine American architects and contractors designing and erecting another New York in Baghdad and Basra, complete with McDonalds, KFC and Burger King). This sounds to me as a calculated move to impose American culture - the American way, the American dream - on one of the oldest civilisations in the world.
I take strong exception to this, as well as the hands-off attitude taken by US soldiers to the open looting of the priceless national heritage of Iraq from various museums in the country. As soon as possible, the rebuilding of Iraq - including the granting of contracts - should be placed in the hands of the United Nations as quickly as possible.
COST OF LIBERATION
Don't think for a moment that the United States is going to actually pay for the rebuilding of Iraq out of US taxpayers funds. It is Iraqi oil revenues which will pay for the rebuilding of the damage caused by US bombing. Promises were glibly given that the US has no intention of capturing the Iraq oil sector or oil revenues, as these belonged to the Iraqi people. Well, like it or not, the Iraqi people will spend a good portion of their oil revenues for years to come paying US companies to rebuild their nation. Kuwait had to repay the US government the costs of liberating them from Iraq more than a decade ago; I would not be surprised if the Iraqi people are required to spend a good portion of their oil revenues for years to come repaying the US government the cost of liberating them from their President, Saddam Hussein, and his government. The US has bought the support of the "Coalition of the Willing" with massive "aid" packages, totalling billions of dollars. The Iraqi people will spend a good portion of their oil revenues for decades to come repaying the US government the cost of establishing the "Coalition of the Willing" (call it what it really is: bribery!) The USA is not going to lose a cent over the deal.
COST RECOVERY
This is a good way to stimulate the flagging US economy, which, as the world knows, is going through a bad patch. The effect of these contracts and the various "cost recovery" exercises, is that Iraq will be investing heavily in the US economy, which might just set it again on a path of growth - and in the implementing of US foreign policy. Who says war is not good for the economy (of the aggressor)!
This is not the time for the world community to stand back and allow the USA to continue to have its way in Iraq (and the rest of the Middle East) and ultimately the world. The US has bought the support of the "Coalition of the Willing", and is threatening other countries to support them, or else! We are at a crossroads in world history where might is being made into right. If the US has its way, world economic and political relations will so change as to give the USA an even greater share in the world economy, which will further impoverish the rest of the world.
Look for exciting days ahead, with the US and its "Coalition of the Willing" squaring off against the European Union and the rest of the world. Expect to see the closure of US military bases in Europe, massive trade wars, and the defection of coalition members when it becomes clear that they have been used. Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, wherever they are hiding, must be smiling.
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and is executive director of an environment and development NGO.
