|
Edited on Sun Aug-20-06 11:06 PM by Dover
Don't forget that the Iraq invasion was a policy plan created by CORPORATIONS. Corporate-think and structure is anything but democratic. And believe me....... global corporate governance is THE PLAN...and Iraq is meant to be its first model. According to Greg Palast: One such document, titled "Moving the Iraqi Economy from Recovery to Growth", was obtained from the State Department by well-known investigative reporter Greg Palast. The document, also called the "Economy Plan", was part of a largely secret program called "The Iraq Strategy".
Here is how Palast describes the plan: "The Economy Plan goes boldly where no invasion plan has gone before: the complete rewrite, it says, of a conquered state's 'policies, laws and regulations'. Here's what you'll find in the plan: a highly detailed program ... for imposing a new regime of low taxes on big business, and quick sales of Iraq's banks and bridges - in fact, 'all state enterprises' - to foreign operators ... Beginning on page 73, the secret drafters emphasized that Iraq would have to 'privatize' its 'oil and supporting industries'." <5>
After a detailed account and analysis of the plan, Palast concludes, "If the Economy Plan reads like a Christmas wish-list drafted by US corporate lobbyists, that's because it was. From slashing taxes to wiping away Iraq's tariffs (taxes on imports of US and other foreign goods), the package carries the unmistakable fingerprints of the small, soft hands of Grover Norquist."
Norquist, once registered as a lobbyist for Microsoft and American Express, is one of many corporate lobbyists who helped shape the Economy Plan for the "new" Iraq. In an interview with Palast, Norquist boasted of moving freely at the Treasury, Defense and State departments, and in the White House, "shaping the post-conquest economic plans ...".
The Economy Plan's "Annex D" laid out "a strict 360-day schedule for the free-market makeover of Iraq". But General Jay Garner, the initially designated ruler of Iraq, had promised Iraqis they would have free and fair elections as soon as Saddam Hussein was toppled, preferably within 90 days.
In the face of this conflict, civilian militarists of the Bush administration overruled Garner: elections were postponed - as usual, on grounds that the local population and/or conditions were not yet ripe for elections. The real reason for the postponement, however, was that, as Palast points out, "It was simply inconceivable that any popularly elected government would let America write its laws and auction off the nation's crown jewel, its petroleum industry."
When Palast asked lobbyist Norquist about the postponement of the elections, he responded matter-of-factly: "The right to trade, property rights, these things are not to be determined by some democratic election." The troops would simply have to wait longer.
Garner's resistance to the plan to postpone the elections was a major factor for his sudden replacement with L Paul Bremer, who, having served as managing director of Kissinger Associates, better understood the corporate culture. Soon after assuming power in Saddam's old palace, Bremer canceled Garner's scheduled meeting of Iraq's tribal leaders that was called to plan national elections.
Instead, he appointed the entire "government" himself. National elections, Bremer pronounced, would have to wait until 2005. "The delay would, incidentally, provide," Palast notes, "time needed to lock in the laws, regulations and irreversible sales of assets in accordance with the Economy Plan ... Altogether, the leader of the Coalition Provisional Authority issued exactly 100 orders that remade Iraq in the image of the Economy Plan." ..cont'd
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HH16Ak01.html
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
Replies to this thread
-
-