[animal_mutha]

Ladies & Gentlemen: we got him…but what now?? by John Munro
16-12-2003, 08:35

President George W. Bush must be pleased, catching Saddam Hussein the way he did, hiding like “a rat in a hole,” as some gleeful commentators pointed out. Certainly, it was a huge psychological boost for the American-led coalition forces but its significance will only become apparent in the days, possibly weeks, ahead. If attacks on the coalition forces and their Iraqi allies continue to weaken, then there really will be cause for celebration. It will mean that the loyalists of the former regime constituted the hard core of the resistance and that their back has been broken. If the resistance continues, then it will mean that those who are simply angry about the occupation are the main force to be reckoned with. More ominously, it will also suggest that Al Qaeda’s frontline has shifted to Iraq.

Much will depend on the way the Bush administration handles the situation. If it engages in some unseemly triumphal and fails to defer to an Iraqi authority to decide what to do with him, then Arab resentment will grow. That is assuming that no weapons of mass destruction are found, otherwise Saddam Hussein should be handed over to an international authority. If this does not happen and the US drags its feet over open elections, it will appear to Iraqis and Arabs in general that in western eyes, they count for little and can be demeaned and manipulated at will. Already some of my Egyptian friends are in denial: they tell me the man the Americans captured was one of Saddam Hussein’s look-alikes; Saddam would not have given himself up so easily.

The Arab reaction to Saddam Hussein’s capture has been mixed. On the one hand there is satisfaction that a brutal tyrant has been brought to justice; on the other, a sense of humiliation. Once again the Arabs have been reminded how ineffectual they are and worse, incapable of living up to their proud traditions. No wonder they prefer to look back to the days of the caliphate for solace and inspiration. What also rankles is that the American-led coalition has adopted the ham-fisted arrogance of the Israelis to subdue the Iraqi resistance. If the Bush administration were to seize the moment though, and press Israel to make concessions in the interests of a Middle East peace, this would have a dramatic effect on Arab attitudes. The time is propitious. Moderate Israelis and Palestinians are talking to one another and the wider world is listening to them. Prime Minister Sharon seems ready to make some conciliatory gestures. But most important, with Saddam Hussein out of the way, the Israelis can no longer claim they need to adopt an aggressive military posture because they are surrounded by dangerous enemies. The present moment would be ideal for the US to intervene.

Unfortunately, that is unlikely to happen. The neo-conservative clique that surrounds President Bush is too busy trying to create a new Iraq in its own image. This means democracy, as long as Iraqis do not stray too far from the vision of Thomas Jefferson and try to install an overtly Islamic government. It would also like to see the implementation of a free market economy, as long as US companies receive preferential treatment. The Bush administration’s decision to award reconstruction contracts only to its friends, suggests that here too the US is going to pursue its own agenda, irrespective of what the Iraqi people may want. In fact, to exclude Russia, France and China from the bidding, the three countries which have perhaps the most extensive, recent experience of working in Iraq, is to demonstrate a political bias that will likely cost the Iraqis (and the American tax-payer) millions of dollars that could have been better spent.

Those of us who have supped at the US-AID trough know how high a percentage of aid money is needlessly spent and how much of it flows back to the US in the form of personnel salaries, goods and services-in fact, as high as 80%, according to some studies. Recent revelations about Vice President Dick Cheney’s former company Haliburton, only confirms what most of us suspected. It has been charging the US government $1.59 a gallon for imported petrol through a Kuwaiti subsidiary, while it could have been imported from Turkey for 98 cents. Anecdotal evidence provided by formerly exiled Iraqi businessmen, eager to participate in Iraq’s reconstruction, also suggests that the prices being charged by Haliburton’s subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown and Root, for catering and other kinds of support services for the US military, is more than double what non-American vendors would have agreed to.

Another American company, Bechtel, has by far the biggest share of infrastructure projects in Iraq. It just so happens that the head US-AID, Andrew Natsios, the organization through which the bulk of the reconstruction funds is channeled, used to be head of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which was responsible for the controversial $14.8 billion project to build a highway under Boston, at the time Bechtel won the contract. That George Schultz, who is closely associated with Bechtel, the Bush family and the Republican party, has been selected by President George W. Bush to try to persuade countries like Russia, to whom Iraq owes around $8 billion, to either forgive the debt or recycle it, therefore seems strange. Is this yet another blunder or is there a hidden agenda?

Previously, Russia’s LUKOIL was under contract with the Iraqi regime to exploit the vast Querna oil field. This was cancelled by the Iraqi government just prior to the war. Despite President Bush declaring understanding expressed at the St. Petersburg summit earlier this year that he “fully realized that Russia has economic interests in Iraq, as do other countries,” there now appears little chance of the US allowing LUKOIL to get back in the game. However, another Russian oil company, Tyumen Oil Co., in which British Petroleum has a 50% stake, is now being tipped as a likely beneficiary. Closely associated with this company is Iraq’s former under-secretary for oil, Fadhil Chalabi, who just happens to be Ahmed Chalabi’s cousin. It would appear that a deal is in the making.

The whole Iraqi reconstruction effort reeks of cronyism and manipulation and while the Bush administration may argue, as it does, that it is simply working with the best people to get the job done quickly, the underlying message is that the wishes of the Iraqi people seem not to loom large in Washington’s thinking.

Until the Iraqi people begin to feel they are genuinely involved in the governing of their country, such dramatic incidents as the capture of Saddam Hussein, are unlikely to undercut the resistance to the coalition forces. Until Arabs begin to feel they are something other than pawns in a game played by western rules, one should not expect such incidents as the capture of Saddam Hussein to alter the basic dynamics of Arab-western relations.