'Banking on Empire'---on naked colonialism in Iraq

[Aidoneus]

Banking on Empire
Mitch Jeserich, February 17, 2004

Iraqi ministries will now be able to borrow billions of dollars to buy much-needed equipment from overseas suppliers, but only by mortgaging the national oil revenues through a bank managed by New York- based multinational JP Morgan Chase.

Hussein al-Uzri, president of the Trade Bank of Iraq, which is managed by JP Morgan Chase, announced last week in Kuwait City, that the bank had raised $2.4 billion in export guarantees for trade between Iraq and foreign companies and governments.

"Those oil revenues will be used to support the Iraq Trade Bank letters of credit," said David Chavern, a senior official with the U.S. Export-Import Bank, when he addressed attendees at a recent briefing organized by Equity International for potential investors in Iraq. "And we will ensure those letters of credit for the U.S. exporter."

The management contract, which is worth $2 million over two-and-a-half years, was awarded to a consortium of thirteen banks representing fourteen countries, led by JP Morgan, last July after a competitive bidding process against four other international consortia. JP Morgan Chase, which was formed from the merger in December 2000 of one of the world's largest commercial banks, the Chase Manhattan Corporation, and the investment bank J.P. Morgan & Company, declined to comment about its role in the Trade Bank of Iraq.

--snip--

But critics say that the occupation authorities and multinational banks may be shackling a future Iraqi government with an unknown quantity of debt. "The oil figures are very murky and secretive," said Nomi Prins former investment banker and author of the forthcoming book Other People's Money: The Corporate Mugging of America. "That same oil for which no one has the appropriate...information is being used to collateralize multiple things. You're effectively leveraging oil for which the revenues are non-transparent."

--snip--

http://www.guerrillanews.com/sci-tech/doc3922.html

[diamond14]

1. thanks....follow the money...(snips, links and photos)

these -snips- tell the story....a long long story of USA corruption


Servicing Despotism

JP Morgan Chase is no stranger to the architects of the occupation, having contributed $158,000 to the Bush-Cheney ticket. The bank will fit right into occupied Iraq, given that it already has close relationships with companies that have received billions of dollars contracts there. On JP Morgan Chase's Board of Directors sits Riley P. Bechtel, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Bechtel Group, which has received over $2 billion.


Other notables on JP Morgan Chase's board include Lee R. Raymond, the Chairman of the Board of the Exxon Mobil Corporation, which is also looking to benefit from cheap oil prices coming out of Iraq.


Lest critics suggest that JP Morgan Chase is unqualified to run Iraq's banking system, the company does have experience working in the Middle East. Chase has been assisting Qatar's national bank for the past 30 years by managing the country's export of oil and natural gas, thus making Qatar one of the wealthiest countries in the region and helping to solidify Qatar's monarchy.


Qatar is just one of several non-democratic institutions that JP Morgan Chase has given financial assistance to. In fact it has a long history of it going as far back as to U.S. slavery and as recently as to the Enron scandal. A study by California's Insurance Commissioner shows the former company Chase, which is now a part of JP Morgan Chase, as one of several insurance companies that provided life insurance on slaves for slave owners. When a slave died, according to the study, Chase paid the slave owner for the loss.


The bank has never paid reparations and JP Morgan Chase's spokeswoman Charlotte Gilbert-Biro said, "We don't believe there's any basis for liability on the part of the bank."

[diamond14]

3. here's the video and photo...whole story in a 2 minute video...

watch flash video here...very short two minute history of saddam hussein and the USA, highlightling the CIA, which was headed by pappy bush* and donald rumsfeld, who served under reagun/bush...it's an eye-opener...

http://www.bushflash.com/thanks.html


relentlessly pursuing BLOOD FOR OIL....

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
and Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah
being chauffeured by the shrub....

photo taken at the exotic expensive Egyptian resort
Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt
June 03, 2003....shortly after the aircraft stunt on May 01, 2003

[Aidoneus]

2. kick for the late evening

:kick: