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| Iraq |
| Iraqi newspaper questions external debts |
| 2003-10-04 |
| From the newspaper Al-Taakhi in Baghdad, also from MEMRI. I'll stop after this but it's delicious. An editorial by Al-Taakhi asks: "Are there detestable and non-detestable debts? The answer is yes, the detestable ones are those imposed on you unknowingly and without your consent. This is what happened to the Iraqi people, where we find ourselves in debt to other countries at the tune of 130 billion dollars
And no one has the answer to the why, how and for what. It is a debt inherited from the former regime, a despotic regime which dealt with the world based on personal decisions whose goal was to drain this country's resources and the future of its people without their knowledge
Wonder if Michael Moore and Nancy Pelosi know this? Gotta be news to them. "It hurts us to think about this debt, and it hurts us to read a statement by Jordan's finance minister that Iraq owes Jordan 25 billion dollars while we know that we have 500 billion dollars [sic.] frozen in Jordan
We do not know whether the minister forgot that Iraq has, for many years and free of charge, supplied half of Jordan's oil needs
Saddam did that based on a political consideration that [Jordan] would protect and defend [his] regime
The Iraqi people cannot be held accountable for decisions made clandestinely by a ruler who wanted to preserve his regime at the expense of his nation
" Wotta interesting concept! The paper also questions reparations related to the second Gulf war which are estimated at 200 billion dollars and were imposed on Iraq by the U.N. According to the paper, even if Iraq pays all these debts, it will take years, during which, the country will remain poor and bankrupt. Maybe Chirac & Co. are getting worried about ever getting re-paid? And I wonder how many tens of billions Saddam has stashed in foreign banks, and how much of that will never get recovered. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #9 Actually Iraq's debts to Euro countries date back to pre-embargo times. I bet the embargo breakers insisted on cash. Btw the bulk of debts is owed to the Gulf States. |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2003-10-4 11:01:49 PM |
| #8 Amazing. The only country that could put one over Saddam was NoKor? Right. |
| Posted by: john 2003-10-4 8:18:52 PM |
| #7 Sounds like the Russians need to collect the $25mm bounty on Saddam and apply it to their debt. Oh, right. They've got no idea where he is or how to find him. Nope. |
| Posted by: Matt 2003-10-4 5:45:05 PM |
| #6 What to do about the debts is for Iraq to decide. Usually defaulting to such large economic powers would be a bad thing for a country trying to rebuild. In this case, the US would probably be a souce of any loan money required by Iraq for the near term. It would be healthier if the elected Iraqi government could negotiate something with all or several of these countries on their own. That would put Iraq in a position to flip the US the bird and start undercutting us in the UN like all our other friends. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2003-10-4 3:52:46 PM |
| #5 Apparently the Russkies, Chinese and Euro have forgotten the gold rule of criminal economics: Cash only... If your customer tells you he can't pay right now after delivery, its time to think of options for the weasel, namely, putting him out of your misery. If you continue to make deliveries and you aren't seeing any money, the time to take action is gone forever. Better luck next time, boys. |
| Posted by: badanov 2003-10-4 1:42:50 PM |
| #4 There's a lot of Europeans who have long been concerned about getting paid. The new government should declare a freeze on any and all payments and go after Baathist/frozen 'overseas' assets. Then invite creditors to negotiate individually in a nice, quiet, heavily armed Kurdish village... |
| Posted by: Pappy 2003-10-4 11:54:33 AM |
| #3 Since Sammy undoubtedly has billions stashed still, the countries should consider their contracts to be with him, and pony up bounty to try and get him jugged so they can get at least a portion of their money back. Iraq owes them nothing. Consider it as a bail bondsmen trying to get his bond back from the victim when the criminal's skipped...makes more sense, huh? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-10-4 10:55:10 AM |
| #2 badanov >> I'm with you. I say to hell with the France, Russia, China, etc. If they want to get paid send the bills to Saddam himself. In the end, I hope the Iraqi people "justly reward" France, Russia, and China for all of the help they gave to liberate the Iraqi people. |
| Posted by: Paul 2003-10-4 8:11:02 AM |
| #1 This is going to take a long time to unravel. My view is that indebtedness incurred because both sides broke the embargo, are losses, pure and simple; If the illegal item still exists, then Iraq can simply return the item to the sellor, and the sellor can cancel the debt. I can't help but to wonder how the UN can reasonably expect to collect reparations when it failed to vote for liberation of Iraq. |
| Posted by: badanov 2003-10-4 5:35:41 AM |