The Corporate Looting of Iraq  by Sara Flounders
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Before the water was running in Baghdad, before the electricity was operating,
or the phone system, or mass transit or even the hospitals, L. Paul Bremer III,
the U.S. top administrator, declared Iraq "open for business."

The looting of Iraq by U.S. corporate raiders had begun. Pentagon bombers and
tens of thousands of invading troops had smashed open the doors.

Some of the same giant U.S. corporations that had received multi-billion dollar
contracts to participate in the destruction of Iraq were the first to receive
no-bid contracts for reconstruction.

Halliburton, MCI World/ Com, Bechtel�all insiders in the Bush
administration�were at the front of the line for giant handouts.

The Bush administration and Corporate America had a detailed plan for the
reconstruction of Iraq long before Bush gave the order for the massive
destruction and military occupation. The May 1 Wall Street Journal reported that
the confidential plan prepared by U.S.  Agency for International Development and
the Treasury Department was drafted in February�before the U.S. invasion and
occupation.

The plan calls for mass privatization of Iraqi industry, liquidation of
insolvent Iraqi industries and assessment of others for sale.  It also proposes
a year-long propaganda effort to persuade the Iraqi people that this is in their
best interests.

Overseeing the restructuring of Iraq�s financial system is Peter McPherson, a
top Treasury Department official who is now the head of the Iraq National Bank.
The U.S. AID/Treasury Department report echoes the recommendations of the
Heritage Foundation. This powerful, neo-conservative think-tank calls for
preparing state assets for privatization, including industries, utilities,
transportation, ports, airports�and most importantly, the energy sector.

Ariel Cohen, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, wrote a June 17 UPI
analysis entitled "Oil Privatization�Key for Iraq." The international
implications of restructuring Iraq are made clear.

"Iraq�s privatization of its oil sector, refining capacity and pipeline
infrastructure, could serve as a model for the privatization by other OPEC
members, thereby weakening the cartel�s domination of the energy markets."

According to the Heritage Foundation, windfall oil revenue should be distributed
to individuals. The restructuring of Iraq and re-conquest of the entire region
is what the war was really all about. Corporate America is determined to lay
hold of the fabulous oil \ resources and the developed infrastructure.

The reconstruction plan is so deadly, though, that it is fueling greater
resistance. No wonder. Every sector in society, except a handful of
collaborators, stands to lose.

Decisions are being made, multi-billion-dollar contracts signed and basic
industries sold off or closed down by U.S. corporate executives without any
Iraqi participation. These decisions will affect the future of Iraq for years to
come. All this has been done before there is even an appointed government in
place.
This secret corporate plan was very different than the excuses Bush, Cheney,
Powell and Rumsfeld gave for the invasion, which are now being exposed as a
massive lie and a forgery.

The Bush administration�s deception is now being called into question, but only
because growing Iraqi resistance is challenging the real plan of corporate
looting and quick super-profits.

Iraqi acts of armed resistance now average 10 to 20 a day. GI deaths from
attacks and accidents average one a day. The cost of occupation is rising in
political and military terms. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that
the military cost is now $1 billion a week.

The changes ahead that the occupiers are planning are every bit as brutal as the
13 years of U.S.-led economic sanctions. The resulting consequences for the
average Iraqi would be even more devastating.

Shackled in the �Free Market�

Bremer, optimistically announcing plans to open Iraq to foreign investment,
declared "Iraq will find that opening its borders to trade and investment will
increase competitive pressure on its domestic firms and thereby raise
productivity."

Bremer took the same message to the world�s corporate and political elite
gathered at the World Economic Forum meeting in Switzerland in late May.

The terms used are all too familiar: protecting property rights, lowering
barriers, changing laws governing trade and commerce.

During the 13 years of sanctions, the U.S. shut Iraq off to any economic and
commercial relations with the countries of the world, froze all Iraqi assets and
barred all forms of trade. Iraq was prohibited from exporting or importing and
was unable to modernize equipment or purchase spare parts. Bombing and military
occupation followed this.

Now Iraqi industries are told they must compete in the "free market."

Edmund L. Andrews described how a flood of imports threatens the survival of
Iraqi businesses. "Iraq�s cloistered industry suddenly faces the full fury of
globalization and international competition," he wrote in a June 1 New York
Times article entitled "After Years of Stagnation, Iraqi Industries Are Falling
to a Wave of Imports."  Andrews explained that "... since American forces seized
Baghdad, Iraq has been transformed from one of the most isolated economies into
a huge new free-trade zone.

"Iraqi manufacturers, which employed more than one-tenth of all workers before
the war, are almost powerless to match the new competition. Their equipment is
badly outdated. ... The free market shocks are even bigger for Iraq�s
state-owned industrial companies, which produce everything from packaged food to
electrical equipment and employ more than 100,000 people."

Duty-free, cheap electronic products, packaged food and tons of other materials
have flooded into Iraq. They have pushed Iraqi business that survived years of
sanctions into overnight bankruptcy.

Privatizing of industry and public services is usually called by the innocuous
term "structural adjustment." Throughout the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe
and many Third World countries, the results for the overwhelming majority of the
people have been a total disaster.

These measures, dictated by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, led
to years of massive, chronic unemployment. The people of Argentina, Mexico,
Bolivia, Korea, Thailand and every other developing country have lost jobs and
essential services while transnational corporations with capital to invest have
picked up the windfalls.
U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW) released a report in mid-June entitled "The
Corporate Invasion of Iraq: Profiles of U.S. 

Corporations Awarded Contracts in U.S./British Occupied Iraq." 

USLAW explained in a release: "Most of these corporations have been awarded
no-bid contracts worth billions of dollars to rebuild and privatize Iraq, and
bring its economy firmly under U.S. control.

Their names read like a rogue�s gallery of anti-union U.S. multinationals,
including Halliburton (VP Cheney�s former company), MCI (formerly MCI/WorldCom,
notoriously anti-union and now charged with the largest fraud in history), and
SSA (the leader of the attack on the ILWU during 2002 contract negotiations)."
The contracts are enormous handouts worth billions. USLAW says its report
"exposes the labor, human rights, environmental and business records of these
corporations�a sordid history of ...
fraud, bankruptcy, overcharging, price-gouging, profiteering, wage-cheating,
deception, corruption, health and safety violations, worker and community
exploitation, human and labor rights abuses, union-busting, strike breaking,
environmental contamination, ecological irresponsibility ..."

The Best-Laid Plans

The occupiers are committed to their plan. It calls for big layoffs of Iraqi
workers, massive turnover of industries and services, cutbacks in all social
programs. And it aims to end the numerous free services�from health care to
schools�that the previous government had provided. Bremer also wants to cut the
free food distributions to the entire population that kept 80 percent of the
Iraqi population alive during years of sanctions. He considers them a wasteful
subsidy.

Bremer�s ban on employment for 30,000 members of the Baath Party impacts on many
vitally necessary low-level civil servants. Bremer dissolved the Iraqi Army,
putting 400,000 Iraqis out of work without pensions or retraining. He is engaged
in a full-scale assault on the Iraqi state. This is calculated to shrink the
public sector, including schools, hospitals and other essential social services,
including sanitation and sewage and infrastructure needs of a modern country.

However, in order to have stability, the U.S. occupation must be able to provide
the basic requirements of life. Electricity, potable water, communications,
transportation, jobs, schools and health care are essential. But since taking
over two and a half months ago, the U.S. has failed to provide even the bare
minimum needed by the people while concentrating on suppressing their resistance
and taking over their resources.

The Iraqi people, seething with rage against the occupation and
re-colonization, are putting up increasingly fierce resistance. As
it grows, U.S. congressional critics are beginning to complain that there is no
plan on how to stabilize Iraq.

The plan to hijack the entire economy creates a contradiction that U.S.
occupiers will not be able to solve. This unsolvable crisis, the criminal nature
of the occupation and the growing resistance of the Iraqi people means that the
only real solution will become increasingly clear to GIs on the front lines,
their families and millions worldwide. Their voices will rise in a resounding
demand to bring the troops home and end the occupation of Iraq.

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Copyright Sara Flounders, Workers World 2003  For fair use only