Russia and France had a deal with Saddam...the plot thickens

[Clashman]

Clashman, you better find more than $17k to Bush if you want me to believe this is purely payback for campaign contributions or because of Cheney. Boots and Coots is one of the best oil firefighting outfits in the world, and arguably, after putting out 700 oilwells in 1991, they have the experience. I don't see why they wouldn't win any contract on those grounds alone.

I would bet that most of that money came in the form of "soft money", ie money that theoretically can be used for any number of races, but in reality was probably largely spent on the 2000 presidential campaign.

 

[pax]

Well thats why I said I didnt know who got the better deal. I havent read any assessment on the value of Iraq's non oil assets that were privatized. It certainly is hard for the Iraqis to get a donation of 20 billion and then say that whatever gets built with it is theirs lock stock and barrel.

Hopefully some mideast outlet wont spin the minor privatisation to fan the flames... Im in favor of a mostly privatised economy but to me there are clear exceptions. Also so many scams and bad deals have been done in the past Im simply being instinctively cautious in my outlook. Even in Canada we've had in the past unbelievable scams such as of 99 year contracts which ended up giving untold billions to private firms with ties to former govs...

 

[Silent_One]

I would bet that most of that money came in the form of "soft money", ie money that theoretically can be used for any number of races, but in reality was probably largely spent on the 2000 presidential campaign.

According to opensecrets.org Halliburton Co gave $11,500 in soft $ in 2002.
http://www.opensecrets.org/softmone...le=2002&sort=name&code=E01&Page=3

They also gave $5,000 to the RNC/Repub National State Elections Cmte on 3/6/2001 and $1,000 to the NRCC/Non-Federal on 4/5/2001

Opensecrets.org is a interesting site BTW. Lots of info on "who-got-what". http://www.opensecrets.org/

 

[Clashman]

For the 2000 Elections, IE the ones Bush got appointed in:

Halliburton Soft Money Donations:
To Democrats: $0 (0%)
To Republicans: $194,700 (100%)
Total: $194,700

http://www.opensecrets.org/softmone...xtUltOrg=n&txtCycle=2000&txtSort=name
At least 80,000 went to the Republican National Committee.

An interesting site indeed.

 

[Clashman]

Also, I could be wrong, but it looks like many of those donations occurred when Cheney was still CEO. Does anyone know the exact date he stepped down?

 

[Clashman]

Found it: He left in July of 2000, meaning Cheney was in charge of the company for all but one of the soft-money contributions his company made for the 2000 elections.

 

[Sazar]

First of all, there's not much to privatize outside Oil. Iraq doesn't have many other industries. 95% of the revenue was provided by oil. The telephone company got privatized, whoop-de-do. Both the telephone and electric sector were in such poor condition, there wasn't much to privatize. You're acting like this is the former USSR where a lot of people struck gold by buying up former state industries for next to nothing. It is not.


Iraqi's are more sensitive about the $150 billion in external debt racked up by an unelected dictator. Piling another $20 billion on via an unelected council is not likely to sit well.

All of the non-oil state enterprises, together, probably aren't worth a one billion dollars, so I am not sure your proposition "stop privitization, loan them money, rather than keep privization, give money" is a net gain for the Iraqis.

One only needs to look at the massive success of China in recent years to see that privatization and foreign investment and ownership of dosmetic industries is far better than more IMF/WorldBank loans.

You aren't letting leftwing anti-capitalist sentiment cloud your anti-privatization view are you? You really think letting the power and phone industries remain run by an incompetent and newborn government is better in the shorterm than having modern foreign countries come in and build utility infrastructure? You think giving the IGC a $20 billion loan to do it themselves is going to get the power back on in Baghdad sooner?

After Iraq gets back on their feet, if they want state ownership, they can buy back the utilities with oil revenue, or they can charge high land use rights for pipeline, electric, and other resource usage. This is certainly the better scenario than a loan. With privatization, Iraq gets a modern infrastructure built by foreign countries, with the option to buy back. With a loan, they have to pay back, whether or not the country's infrastructure is working. WIth privatization, if the foreign built utilities suck, they simply won't buy them back, the foreign companies will lose out, as the government funds their own dosmetic projects out of the oil revenues.

Either way, the major risk takers here are the foreign investors, not the Iraqi people. I feel an unelected council assuming loans on behalf of the people is far worse than an unelected council accepting foreign grants and foreign investment to rebuild the country. Ok, so the Iraqi's won't own the foreign infrastructure that is built on their behalf, but it got build on grants and risky investments, and they have the option of granting building rights to local competitors in the future and unfavorable licensing fees or taxes on foreign subsidaries.

things to privatise besides oil...

industry/power/utilities/construction/services...

iraq is not solely about oil though it is the first thing people think of...

 

[DemoCoder]

things to privatise besides oil...

industry/power/utilities/construction/services...

iraq is not solely about oil though it is the first thing people think of...

There ain't must to privatize

Top State-owned Iraqi companies by # of employees:

Cement: 10,800
Cotton: 6,776
Fertilizer: 4,276
Iron and Steel: 4,208
Petrochemicals: 3,872
Vegetable oils: 3,750
Engineering: 3,352
Phosphates: 3,212
Woolens: 3,201
Paper: 3,153


Secondly, the US has stated that the largest state owned companies won't be privatized for atleast 5 years and has instead granted a loan to continue to pay workers and keep the existing "large" state owned companies running. They elected to only privatize the smallest firms, and they don't expect much foreign interest.

But it's still a ludicrous assertion that something immensely valuable is being given away. Iraq's state owned companies only employ a total of 100,000 Iraqi's, and they suffered $320 million in damage during the war, plus due to neglect and incompetence (e.g. most were Baath loyalists and the job was a make-work award) over the last 10 years, they are not producing much. Iraq gets most of what it needs by importing using oil revenues.

Don't talk to me about privizating something like Iraq's power utility, which didn't do hardly jack outside of Baghdad, and didn't upgrade it's equipment for like 30 years. It was a status-quo Baathist company that did the minimal neccessary to keep the Sunni's in Badgdad happy. There's no management class in Iraq to run these companies that aren't Baathists. It's like in China, all large companies are infected by Chinese communist party members.

Foreign ownership is the best possible outcome for Iraqis.

 

[Clashman]

Cement: 10,800
Cotton: 6,776
Fertilizer: 4,276
Iron and Steel: 4,208
Petrochemicals: 3,872
Vegetable oils: 3,750
Engineering: 3,352
Phosphates: 3,212
Woolens: 3,201
Paper: 3,153

Could you post where you got those from?

To me, the big one that they were planning to privatize and sell to foreign companies was the banks. People who control the banks can in large part control where future economic investment go, and in doing so play a large part in controlling the Iraqi economy.

 

[XForce]

But they wouldn't HAVE to buy from Halliburton if Bush didn't give them the contract.

...is there something wrong with this?

Well, the American tax payers could have saved a lot of money.