Wolfowitz Says World Bank Has Role In Rebuilding Iraq
Background:
The US, Britain are pushing for Jaafari’s ouster in order to install Abdul-Mahdi who will privatize Iraq’s national oil company for the benefit of US oil companies. #msg-10601755
Leaks from the state department's "future of Iraq" office show Washington plans to privatize the Iraqi economy and particularly the state-owned national oil company. Experts on its energy panel want to start with "downstream" assets like retail petrol stations. This would be a quick way to gouge money from Iraqi consumers. Later they would privatize exploration and development.
The US went so far as to propose paying all Iraqis an annual dividend from a trust fund established with the country’s oil revenues if they shift from state owned to private firms. This amounts to nothing more than a bribe, dangled in front of a people who are largely in poverty and have suffered greatly. Once they are bribed or paid to switch to energy privatization American oil magnates can ‘buy’ their oil thus getting the oil revenue out of the country. #msg-1197170
If Abdul-Mahdi cannot get the privatization thing done we call in the World Bank’s Wolfowitz to implement the privatization and gain control of Iraq’s oil.
One example is Obasanjoof Nigeria who said in a speech to mark the fifth anniversary of his election to power in 1999, that Western creditor nations were now using debt repayment as an issue to put political pressure on Nigeria, the biggest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa.
"They [the creditor countries] hold the debt over us like a sword, so it has become another means of intimidation and control. We reject it," Obasanjo said. #msg-3213856
This is called asymmetrical warfare and it is our way of insuring the Iraqi people never see the light of day.
-Am
Wolfowitz Says World Bank Has Role In Rebuilding Iraq
by Staff Writers Makassar, Indonesia (AFP) Apr 10, 2006 The World Bank has a role to play in helping Iraq rebuild, its chief Paul Wolfowitz told AFP in an interview Saturday. "The Iraqi people deserve a peaceful, stable country and the World Bank has a contribution to make clearly on the development side," he said.
The contribution could be in the form of shared advice and expertise as much as in financial assistance, he said, speaking during a visit to Indonesia.
"They are trying to get ministries that were fundamentally corrupted... and are trying to rebuild those things almost from scratch and they need a lot of advice and support from us," he said.
Asked about the possibility of the World Bank reopening an office in the Iraqi capital, Wolfowitz said no decision had yet been taken.
The World Bank closed its Baghdad office in 2004 after a member of staff was killed during an attack on a UN building there. The bank has worked out of Amman in neighbouring Jordan ever since.
Wolfowitz, who as deputy US defence secretary under President George W. Bush's first administration was one of the architects of the US-led invasion of Iraq, said he remained optimistic for the country, despite ongoing violence.
"I think in the long run yes, if you look at these millions of Iraqis that turned out for the elections clearly expressing a desire for a new Iraq, it seems to me that with that overwhelming popular desire ultimately they will come out ok."
Wolfowitz, who was US ambassador to Indonesia from 1986 to 1989, arrived in the country on Wednesday to review progress made in rebuilding after the December 2004 tsunami.
The Wolfowitz Appointment: A Red Flag for the Coming Wars
By Mike Whitney
Al-Jazeerah, March 21, 2005
The nomination of Paul Wolfowitz to the World Bank has brought on the widespread gnashing of teeth among America’s liberals, but there’s no real reason for despair. The World Bank has never operated according to its mandate, (to reduce poverty in the developing countries through financial assistance) so it’s better to have someone like Wolfowitz at the top-spot where the activities of the bank draw greater public scrutiny. His appointment will serve the same purpose as a warning label on medicine vial; cautioning needy third world states that overuse could be hazardous. The World Bank has operated below the radar for too long. Rather than reducing poverty, it’s strategies of readjusting economies to meet the needs of global industrialists, have only created greater disparities between rich and poor and a 20 year cycle of economic stagnation. Wolfowitz’s appointment will show the public how political decision-making has contributed to this malaise, and demonstrate how the bank functions as an extension of the US Treasury; working tirelessly on behalf of US financial institutions and big business. For those who think the bank should be done away with entirely, Wolfowitz provides an identifiable “name-brand” that will connect the bank to the egregious policies that keep most of the developing world in perpetual debtor peonage.
Wolowitz dismal record on Human Rights
Wolfowitz’s resume is bound to draw brickbats from anti-war Europeans. He brings with him the baggage of two unprovoked wars, 100,000 dead and a constellation of gulags strung out across the globe; not the type of qualifications we normally expect for leadership in the World Bank. So far, his nomination has been greeted with either exasperation or derision, and many believe that his personal history should preclude him from the top position. The ACLU has condemned the nomination citing recently discovered FBI documents that confirm that Wolfowitz “specifically authorized torture techniques” for interrogations at Guantanamo. Such allegations would normally be career ending if not grounds for criminal proceedings. However, in the new Bush paradigm these actions simply indicate a readiness to move up the political food-chain.
What Qualifications?
By any standard, Wolfowitz is unqualified for his new task. He has no experience in finance or administration. As for his skills at managing large reconstruction projects; his history in Iraq speaks for itself. A full year after the initial invasion less than 2% of the $18 billion provided by Congress for reconstruction had been spent, even though electrical power, sewage treatment and clean water were nearly non-existent. In fact, Wolfowitz’s performance would suggest that the administration never had any intention of rebuilding Iraq (“We don’t do nation building”) Whatever money couldn’t be sluiced off to Bush’s constituents (Halliburton, Bechtel etc) simply ended up disappearing in what may be the greatest corruption scandal of all time. (To date, an independent UN commission has acknowledged that over $8.8 billion has gone missing from Iraqi oil receipts.) We should also take notice of Wolfowitz unorthodox manner of awarding contracts. After the fall of Baghdad it was Wolfowitz who said that contracts would not be issued to any country that hadn’t participated in the illegal invasion. Saving money for the American taxpayer was never a serious concern for the Deputy-Secretary. Contracts were issued strictly according to a feudal-system deigned by Wolfowitz to reward those who were loyal to the administration. (Reconstruction in Afghanistan has been equally abysmal, where only 1 in 5 Afghanis has access to clean water and yet, two-thirds of reconstruction money goes towards Karzai’s security apparatus) Despite the spurious claims that Wolfowitz’s experience with Tsunami victims “changed his outlook”; he will continue the same debilitating programs that are the mainstay of World Bank activity. All the talk about poverty reduction is pure nonsense. His task will be to entice corrupt foreign leaders to plunge their countries further into unsustainable debt so the World Bank (and their sister organization, the IMF) can offer “bail-out” loans and apply harsh austerity measures designed to pry-open markets, destroy the public sector and deliver valuable natural resources to US corporations. (These usurious policies have frequently been compared to legalized loan-sharking) The bank has always operated this way. Moreover, this is the process that ensures America’s continued economic hammerlock on developing nations. The policies are devised to perpetuate poverty not reduce it.
In his new role Wolfowitz will oversee construction and development loans to Iraq’s fledgling government. The new Iraqi leadership will be expected to rubber-stamp the many enormous loans that pay for the services of American mega-corporations and security services. This way, Iraq will stay in a permanent state “colonial dependency” (Noam Chomsky) even while its vast natural wealth is spirited out of the country.
The Israel connection
Wolfowitz’s appointment comes at an opportune time for Israel. Now, that Arafat is out of the picture, the World Bank is expected “to supervise the implementation of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of projects in Gaza.” (Jerusalem Post) Newly elected Mahmoud Abbas will be able pay off the corrupt Palestinian Authority with funds from the World Bank to do the job that Arafat always rejected; disarming the militias and cracking down on their own people.
As one senior official said, “Wolfowitz is a no-nonsense administrator who knows what needs to be done in terms of reform and democratization”.
“Democratization?”
Hardly. When we look at the affect of Wolfowitz’s policies in Afghanistan, Iraq and Haiti, it’s difficult to believe that his influence will produce better results in the world’s last sanctuary for apartheid. Realists would expect that Wolfowitz’s involvement will only exacerbate already-existent divisions by expressing an institutional bias in favor of Israel. It is impossible to imagine that Wolfowitz could be even-handed about an issue for which he has expressed virulent partiality his entire adult life.
Preparing for War
The inserting of Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank is actually part of a global war strategy. The idea is to put Bush loyalists and ideologues wherever they can advance the neocon agenda and undermine international organizations. The Pentagon’s new “National Defense Strategy” released this week makes this perfectly clear.
The document states that America’s strength will continue to be challenged by “a strategy of the weak”.
Asked to explain the paper Douglas Feith (no. 3 at the Pentagon) said, “There are various actors around the world that are looking to either attack or constrain the US, and they are going to find creative ways of doing that, that are not the obvious conventional military attacks. We need to think broadly about diplomatic lines of attack, legal lines of attack, technological lines of attack, all kinds of asymmetrical warfare that various actors can use to try to constrain our behavior.”
Feith is not talking about the nebulous threat of terrorism. He’s talking about the nations of the world that are looking for ways to deter future American aggression. (“diplomatic, legal, and technological”) This is an administration that sees the entire world as a potential enemy. The amount of paranoia in this statement epitomizes the bunker-mentality that pervades the current White House. Enemies are everywhere, trying to constrain the US with “international forums, judicial processes and terrorism”.
“Judicial processes?”
The administration holds itself above the law, and those who would make it conform to the law ( Guantanamo, Iraq etc) are the de facto enemies of the state. The Wolfowitz appointment is a part of the “asymmetrical warfare” to which Feith alludes. The administration plans to extend its grip by filling every available position of authority with Bush loyalists; undermining the efforts of the international community to resolve crises through multilateral means. It’s all a straight forward attack on the current world order and, tragically, a prelude to even bigger and more catastrophic confrontations.
China's methods are cutting across the interests of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It has extended a $2 billion soft loan to Angola, for example, which Africa Confidential believes may increase to $6 billion, in exchange for favourable oil contracts. "The Chinese are offering the loan as an alternative to working with the IMF," points out Princeton Lyman from the Council of Foreign Relations think-tank in Washington. The loan has given Angola the ability to ignore the IMF’s demand for an agreement on accountability and to delay indefinitely an international donors’ conference.
The IMF and World Bank are a form of asymmetrical warfare the US or creditor countries use to insure that the debtor nation is intimidated and controlled.
With China cutting into the action this has to be a big ouch for Washington.
One example is Obasanjoof Nigeria who said in a speech to mark the fifth anniversary of his election to power in 1999, that Western creditor nations were now using debt repayment as an issue to put political pressure on Nigeria, the biggest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa.
"They [the creditor countries] hold the debt over us like a sword, so it has become another means of intimidation and control. We reject it," Obasanjo said. #msg-3213856 #msg-10625113 #msg-4948785
-Am
Western Concern At China's Growing Involvement In Africa
New evidence is emerging about the extent and nature of China’s involvement in Africa. A series of articles in the Financial Times claims that China "has in the span of a few years changed the pattern of Africa's investment and trade." The paper admits to "only just beginning to grapple with the implications."
Trade between China and Africa has quadrupled since the beginning of this decade. China is now Africa’s third largest commercial partner after the US and France, and second largest exporter to Africa after France. It is notably ahead of ex-colonial power Britain in both categories. As one US official put it, "China has simply exploded into Africa."
Although China’s primary interest in Africa is energy, it has major interests in other natural resources, particularly metals, food and timber. It exports textiles and low-cost consumer goods, primarily electronic and high-technology products, and invests in infrastructure.
Like the former colonial countries China backs its trading relations with aid, debt relief, scholarships, training and the provision of specialists. It is also a major supplier of military hardware, like the West, and has supplied peacekeepers—to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Liberia—and election observers to Ethiopia.
As a latecomer to Africa, China has been prepared to enter regions and take risks that others would not. "Like the west during the cold war,” observes the Financial Times, “China is not sniffy about dealing with despots."
China's methods are cutting across the interests of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It has extended a $2 billion soft loan to Angola, for example, which Africa Confidential believes may increase to $6 billion, in exchange for favourable oil contracts. "The Chinese are offering the loan as an alternative to working with the IMF," points out Princeton Lyman from the Council of Foreign Relations think-tank in Washington. The loan has given Angola the ability to ignore the IMF’s demand for an agreement on accountability and to delay indefinitely an international donors’ conference.
About half of Angola’s $9.7 billion foreign debt is owed to the Paris Club of nations, which according to Africa Confidential is divided over their negotiating strategy, largely because of China’s incursions. Paris Club rules dictate that creditor countries cannot reschedule debts without an IMF imprimatur, but Spain, Germany, Italy and Japan want negotiations to speed up so that they can expand their operations in Angola.
In Ethiopia, China has offered to make good any shortfall in assistance following the suspension of European Union aid due to human rights abuses. In Equatorial Guinea, China is trying to gain influence in the US-dominated oil sector by providing military training and specialists to the country—the president now describes China as its main development partner. Equatorial Guinea has approximately 1.28 billion barrels of proven oil reserves.
In the case of Zimbabwe, China is now its second largest trade partner after South Africa, up from eleventh in just three years. It has supplied military hardware, including fighter aircraft and intelligence listening devices, and is interested in Zimbabwe's tobacco as well as platinum and other mineral reserves which are currently dominated by South African and British companies. It also has stakes in electricity production and supply, mobile phones and transport. Its reported plans include a joint coal venture, a glass factory, telephone assembly, and beef production on vast tracts of acquired land following President Mugabe’s disastrous land redistribution policy. There are now also direct flights from Harare to Beijing, and China has donated three commercial aircraft to Air Zimbabwe.
China’s links with Zimbabwe go back to when it supported the ZANU liberation movement of Robert Mugabe, whilst the Soviet Union backed his rival Joshua Nkomo’s ZAPU. Mugabe, who has been isolated by the West, stated recently that Zimbabwe is "returning to the days when our greatest friends were the Chinese." He also told supporters somewhat cryptically: "We look again to the East, where the sun rises, and no longer to the West, where it sets."
The US Department of Energy has registered concern over China’s willingness to deal with regimes to which it has given pariah status. This particularly refers to Sudan, where China has used its United Nations Security Council veto to block sanctions over the question of Darfur.
China has stepped up its arms sales to Sudan in line with its increased involvement in the country's oil sector, and the Financial Times believes that the "manufacture in Sudan of Chinese weapons and ammunition complicates the enforcement of a UN embargo on supplies to militias in Darfur." A Sudanese government official is quoted saying that China's presence is important "not only on an economic level but also on a political level."
In January, a Chinese government white paper on Sino-African trade called for greater military cooperation with the continent, and trade agreements "when conditions are ripe." China is now making strategic trade deals throughout Africa. It gets copper from Zambia, cobalt and copper from the Democratic Republic of Congo, timber and oil from Congo-Brazzaville, iron-ore from South Africa, and food from Tanzania, to name but a few. It is now the world’s largest consumer of copper, ahead of the US, and the worldwide rise in many commodity prices is largely driven by Chinese demand.
China is also stepping up exports to Africa, especially in textiles. Garment factories across Africa have been shutting down since the ending of the Multi-Fibre Agreement (MFA), which allowed Western countries to place quotas on clothing and textile imports from certain countries, such as China. When the MFA ended in January 2005, Chinese exports to the US soared and African exports could not compete. Over 10 textile factories in Lesotho alone closed in 2005 with the loss of 10,000 jobs. Even larger economies like Nigeria and South Africa have seen their textile sectors largely devastated. Clothing exports from China to South Africa rose by 40 percent in the last nine months of 2005 and after protests from the South African government China has now claimed it will limit the amount to prevent further job losses.
Chinese investments have an advantage over the West in that most are through state-owned companies whose individual investments do not have to make a profit so long as they serve overall Chinese objectives. In Nigeria, China is in talks about running the privatised Kaduna oil refinery—a money-losing proposition that no Western country would touch. However, the deal should give the Chinese preferential treatment in future oil-block allocations. In Ethiopia, China’s state-owned construction company was instructed by Beijing to bid low on various tenders, since its objective is to gain favour with the regime.
Like the US, China is looking to diversify its oil supplies away from the Middle East and now gets between 25 percent and 30 percent of its oil from Africa, mainly from Sudan, Angola and Congo-Brazzaville.
Between 1995 and 2005, the number of licences held by national oil companies in Africa more than doubled, from 95 to 216. Chinese state oil companies' exploration include deals with Angola, Nigeria, Sudan, Algeria, Gabon, Niger and Chad.
The key demand which China impresses upon its African trading partners is its "one-China" policy, which insists on non-recognition of Taiwan. Today, all but six of Africa's 53 nations maintain relations with Beijing. Senegal was the last to transfer allegiance from Taipei last year, leading to Senegal being included on Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing’s recent six-nation diplomatic visit, and the offer of debt elimination and infrastructure funding. The visit also sent a message to smaller nations about the help they might receive for cooperation with China.
Resource rich Libya and Nigeria were also on the minister's agenda. China signed an $800 million oil deal with Nigeria last year to purchase 30,000 bpd for five years, and the China National Petroleum Corporation recently bid $2.3 billion for a 45 percent share in Nigeria's off-shore Akpo field. In total, China is considering some $7 billion of investment in Nigeria across a wide range of sectors.
"The perception is that China is catching up with the level of engagement that Western governments have," a senior Nigerian foreign affairs official explained. "They are also prepared to put more on the table. For instance, the Western world is never prepared to transfer technology—but the Chinese do."
Nigeria has approached a Chinese company, Great Wall Industry Corporation, to launch a satellite for it next year. This is despite the fact that the US has applied sanctions against this company for allegedly supplying Iran with technology that could be used for a nuclear weapons programme.
Nigeria has recently criticised the US for failing to help it protect the country’s oil assets and forcing it to turn to China for military support. When talks with the US were not progressing fast enough to stop the insurgency in the south of the country, Nigeria sourced dozens of patrol boats from China to secure the swamps and creeks that are at the centre of insurgent attacks on oil facilities.
The US has been reluctant to increase its supply of military equipment to Nigeria, citing official corruption as the reason. Stephen Morrison of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies has warned the Pentagon to get more serious about dealing with the Nigerian military and to show more concern about Chinese involvement in the country. "The Chinese are very competitive players and we have to come to terms with that," he complained. "They are going to places that really do matter."
More generally the US Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) think-tank has recently proposed that sub-Saharan Africa must be a primary component of US foreign policy over the coming decade due to growing US economic and strategic interests in the continent. It also applauded Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s "transformational diplomacy", i.e., the shifting of diplomats away from Europe to Africa and other areas of more immediate strategic concern.
We need "greater flexibility," explains Lyman of the CFR, and "the kind of geopolitical shift that puts a much higher priority on this region within the White House and ... State Department." He also called for US involvement in conflict resolution in Africa to be more flexible so that "we can deal with more than one crisis at a time."
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