Do not make the mistake of thinking that because my conclusion is the same as another person's that my reasoning is the same
Just when it looked as if there was a chance to expand international involvement in Iraq, President Bush has reversed field again and left the European allies angry, the secretary of state looking out of step, and the rest of us wondering exactly what his policy really is.
Late last week, it seemed as if Mr. Bush had decided to seek the global support he needs to free the United States of the demands that come with its unilateral occupation of Iraq. Secretary of State Colin Powell was in Brussels, expansively inviting NATO and the United Nations to join the security and reconstruction efforts. And President Jacques Chirac was sending the message that he was prepared, finally, to get involved.
Then came the news that Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz had issued a decree, approved by Mr. Bush, barring any country that did not support the invasion � including France, Germany, Russia and Canada � from competing for next year's $18.6 billion in prime reconstruction contracts. The document, printed before Mr. Powell was back in Foggy Bottom, said America's "essential security interests" required the move. But it is hard to follow that reasoning when it means cutting out countries that might be able to bid competitively, contribute money, forgive debts and relieve American forces. The approved list of 63 nations includes Britain, Italy and Japan, but quickly tapers off to countries unlikely to help and to struggling nations like Albania and Eritrea.
United States officials say the rules apply only to American-financed contracts. But the other sources, like the World Bank, are small. And the American portion covers such things as rebuilding the electric, transportation, communications and oil industries, and what the Wolfowitz memo delicately calls "the indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract to equip the new Iraqi army."
Now the European Union is considering whether the ban violates world trading rules. The Russians say they will refuse to write off their $8 billion in Iraqi debt. And the new Canadian government, which was supposed to have been friendly to Mr. Bush, says it will reconsider its own donations.
No amount of preferential bidding and sweet deals for American companies � including the extra dollar or so a gallon that Halliburton charges for shipping fuel into Iraq � will repay American taxpayers for the cost of going it largely alone.
Posted by P6 at December 11, 2003 08:20 AM | Trackback URL: http://www.prometheus6.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2485It is absolutely smart, long term. Steven Den Beste covered this much more completely than I could a long time ago. We don't need to -- and shouldn't -- attack France economically, but we should make it clear that they are no longer our friend. Friends don't do what France did last year.
Most importantly, everyone needs to remember that France fought as hard as they could to keep the Iraqi people under the boot of Saddam. Just because they had different reasoning (maybe) doesn't change the end result. The people in the mass graves don't care how altruistic France was.
To me, this seems like a lot of baying at the moon.
For one, this only forbids countries from using US TAXPAYER DOLLARS for reconstruction. Russia is perfectly free to donate its own money and use its own contractors. To me, it seems to be the height of arrogance to expect to receive contracts when they opposed the action to begin with. The US and allies (France and Russia are not allies, they are just other countries. WWII ended 60 years ago, and the Cold War ended over a decade ago) such as Poland and Spain were forced to bear a higher cost in terms of money and lives because the blacklisted countries refused to contribute- due in large part to the financial stake they had in maintaining Saddam's regime- so it does not seem fair to award them contracts paid with American taxpayer dollars, benefitting their economy, when they made no investment in the effort in the first place. Why should France profit when it risked nothing in lives or money to get rid of Saddam?
Secondly, the countries are only forbidden from bidding on contracts as general contractors. There is nothing saying they can't work as subcontractors. In fact, a German company, Siemens, operating as a subcontractor, is already working in Iraq. There is a French company working on deisel generators, and a Russian company is refurbishing power plants.
Now, if this were a valid complaint, it would be valid from any perspective, but I think this one warrants the good old intellectual honesty test. Let's take a hypothetical scenario here. Let's say that the US never participated in WWII, and in fact was a vocal opponent of the allies, working against them at every turn. After the allies came out of a close victory over the axis, Great Britain passed a very controversial bill in the Parliament granting billions of dollars, let's say, $87 billion, at a time when Great Britain was suffering from high unemployment, budget deficits, and a recession, for the purpose of reconstructing Germany after the war. Now along comes the arrogant Americans, Johnny-come-latelies, a country that opposed the war against Germany because of the large and lucrative arms contracts it had with the German government. Should America expect to get some of the money paid by the British during harsh economic times when it could ill afford it, when America opposed Great Britain? Should American CORPORATIONS profit from the lives lost and the blood spilled by the British people when America scoffed at the British for their actions and acted in the UN (I know it didn't exist then) to hinder their efforts? Answer that, and be honest. You will only lie to yourself otherwise.
"preferential bidding and sweet deals for American companies"
Because we all know that only American corporations are bad. A French corporation profiting from the blood of another country's citizens is still worthy of a humanitarian award by virtue of not being American, or something like that. I think that people forget that other countries have the same selfish interests as the US. A lot of people seem to have a tendency to attribute to other countries the highest and noblest motives for everything they do contrary to US interests simply because they think that only America is selfish, but in fact, we do not live in a black-white world where the US is greedy, selfish, and unilateralist. Every nation is that way, but because every other nation will put its interests before the US's interests, they think that somehow the rest of the world is altrusitic and selfless, serving some kind of greater good. They aren't. It is just that in pursuing their own interests, many will share in common an opposition to US interests.
This isn't about "valid complaints." This is about piss-poor diplomacy. This is about continually acting in ways one MUST recognize will set your allies' teeth on edge.
I took the original entry to be against the substance of the decision, not the lack diplomatic propriety in announcing it.
I heard a similar complaint on C-SPAN, that it wasn't so much the substance of the decision, but the way it was announced. But then another commentator stated that the fact that it is an election year played a big role in the way the message was delivered. A great many Americans are satisfied with the decision, and, like any politician, Bush wanted to make it as publicly known as possible that the countries that stood against the US would be punished.
It is a bit duplicitous, however, since the countries can still bid on the contracts as subcontractors. But I cannot get upset. Only those with elevated expectations of politicians can be upset about any cynical action taken by a member of the political class.