That regime would also guarantee that U.S. companies scoop up all "reconstruction" contracts.

Officials for the Departments of State and Defense told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Washington would call the shots in Baghdad, not some provisional government set up by Iraqi exiles. In a blueprint leaked to the Washington Post, administration officials said that it would take "unilateral control" of Iraq.

The occupation agency’s priorities, the officials told the Senate committee in February, would be dismantling Iraqi weapons programs, securing the border with Iran, and rooting out supporters of the Saddam Hussein regime in the Baath Party. It will have responsibility for every aspect of ruling Iraq, which will include writing a new constitution and running the oil fields seized by the occupation forces.

According to an article in the March 27 New York Review of Books, Douglas Feith, U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, said that "a genuinely democratic government in Baghdad might encourage other countries in the Middle East to follow suit." To fill in the blanks of this veiled threat to Iran, Syria and other countries, he added, "[In Afghanistan] you had a regime that was ousted.... If the Iraq regime gets ousted...I think the combination of those two actions will influence the thinking of other states."

Feith added that a key task of the occupation agency will be "exploiting information" hoped to be obtained from Iraqi intelligence files. Agents of the occupation authority will have the freedom to go anywhere, interrogate anyone, remove or detain any official, and inspect and carry off any files.

Marc Grossman, U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, told the Senate committee that the occupation regime in Iraq might last more than two years. The March 11 Washington Post reported that senior Army and Defense officials estimate as many as three army divisions will be needed for the occupation. Some 45,000 to 60,000 soldiers is "the range under consideration by the Joint Chiefs of Staff," the Post noted.

Such large numbers of troops will require a base. Saudi Arabia has said it intends to ask U.S. forces to leave the kingdom sometime after the war. One reporter suggested a permanent base in Baghdad would make clear to the governments in the neighborhood--Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia among others--that U.S. military muscle is next door, planted for the long haul.

Washington has also made clear it intends to push most of its imperialist competitors, especially those in "old Europe," out of any contracts in Iraq after the war. Over the last decade, French companies, for example, signed 798 contracts for parts and equipment for the Iraqi oil industry. German capitalists have lagged behind their French pals but have still been pulling in some $350 million in direct annual trade with Iraq. Washington has had no such toehold in Iraq.

An article in the March 17 Wall Street Journal said that the U.S. government plans for postwar Iraq, "as detailed in more than 100 pages of confidential contract documents, would sideline United Nations development agencies and other multilateral organizations that have long directed reconstruction efforts in places such as Afghanistan and Kosovo." The plan offers more than $1.5 billion in Iraq work to private U.S. companies through a growing web of contracts with the Pentagon and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

The article referred to a German official saying that Washington should be "magnanimous" in an expected military victory, "enlisting European partners in the cleanup." "Senior U.S. administration officials say problems in rebuilding Afghanistan," the Journal continued, "prove that a multilateral approach only slows postwar assistance. ‘At least to start, we intend to handle the big jobs ourselves,’ said one Bush official closely involved in the postwar planning."
 
 
Related articles:
Editorial: Washington launches slaughter of Iraqi people
Join protests to demand: Bring the troops home now!
News Article: Washington launches slaughter of Iraqi people
Join protests to demand: Bring the troops home now!
Imperialist plunder of Iraq has long history  
 
 
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