Rebuilding Iraq - The American Way

No I didn't. My source is a transcript published on september 23, 1990 in The New York Times. Ambassador Glaspie's comments arose within the context of a discussion of the price of oil.

Not the conversation, but his motivations behind it. In no way did that show we knew exactly what Iraq was planning to do. So saying we supported their actions is based on a falsehood.

That's very interesting - there appear to be slightly different versions of the dialog, but the order is different from your source.

Throughout the 1970's the West gave Iraq what it wanted because they wanted to pry Iraq away from the USSR. In the 80's reasons changed when Khomeini arrived on the scene, and the West found Saddam to be the lesser of two evils. And because Saddam and Khomeini were both evil, the West never wanted either side to win, so they would help them both out whenever it suited them. However, we never sold to Iraq or Iran directly. Saddam used contries like Jordan and Saudia Arabi to front for him and Khomeini used Syria and Lybia to front for him. So, what's your point?

BTW/ Where do you think all those Russian T-72 tanks Saddam has came from? (pssst...the USSR)

EDIT: I don't think we ever sold him actual chemical or biological munitions. It's documented that American and/or British companies sold Saddam the blueprints and what not, but never the actual munitions. That point needs to be brought up.

1980

After reading the posts in this forum, why would you think it was a joke?

I don't think the Iraqi people will get much of a chance to hate America, because I don't think that it will take much to get the country up and running again after the war ends. Not on the scale of occupied Europe or Japan, at least. I think there are plenty of folks already in the region who would love to help Iraq rebuild once they get a jump start.

As for American companies being contracted to do all this stuff afterwards, consider that in some cases (the oil contracts) they may be the best qualified companies or one of the two or three only companies to fill that role in the whole world. I don't know about the port operations case, but that's certainly the case with Halliburton. If anyone ELSE could do the job that Halliburton can do with the oil fields after the war, I think any sane politician would want to steer clear of his ex-firm as much as possible.

Who'da thunk? Nah, it's a conspiracy!

I don't dispute whether the American companies any good...

But it's America who is giving out these contracts... and not the reformed Iraqi government - and they're only going to give it to American companies - all the politicians were arguing for that, including Rumsfeld.

Like they say, "If you give a man a fish for a day, you feed him for one day, if you teach him how to fish, he will eat for life".

As far as the weapons of Mass Destruction is concerned, I want to see some substancial proof (I don't give a flying f**k how confidential they are), let make Saddam make the first move, if you hold a gun to his head, you can keep him contained for life - just like we did for the past 12 years.

Maybe the authorities fear to tell us the real reasons:

- To give American oil companies the opporunities to Iraq oil sources
- To weaken the EU as an economical concurrent
- To prevent the OPEC to switch the oil currancy to the euro
- To demonstrate the world that the US is strong enough to be the only superpower and that it is dangerous to endanger their interests

eVil_kEybOarD--


It's not production. It's shipping. The Iran/Iraq war was at least in part fought over access to the Gulf. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was fought for the same reason, plus the slant-drilling allegations, and that Kuwait used to be part of Iraq until the British cut things up when they were in control of the area.

Still no link to the original story.

Kuwait never 'used to be part of Iraq' because before we (the British) sliced up the area into the geo political map you see today there was no Iraq. We 'drew lines in the sand' to make 'countries' out of the land we were occupying. This is why modern Iraq has 3 groups of distinct peoples (Curds in the North, Sadams lot in the centere and the Shiites in the South, who have more in common with people in Iran) that all hate each other.

P.S. The problem of a 'free' Iraq, is that it could turn into another Yugoslavia after the Comunists left.

Why don't people realize that this is just wrong.

Containment has NOT worked. In 1998, we lost our ability to gain official knowledge and intelligence on Iraq. Hussein kicked the inspectors out. After doing so, he publicly announced his possession of WMD programs from the start. He proclaimed certain amounts of botullin, sarin, etc, etc. He claimed production facilities to make more. Clinton bombed some of those facilities, I suppose. Our inspections did not work, at all!

After 1998, I seriously doubt that he stopped doing what he took pains to do while we were inspecting the country. In fact, it should be assumed that he did continue the programs, even extended them.

In addition, China, Russia, France, and others have been violating the trade sanctions all along.

Furthermore, any new developments in Hussein's contacts with terrorists would diminish the role of deterrence. If we can't detain him, then deter him from using WMD's right? Hold out the carrot of decreased containment to deter his aggression and bad behavior.

No, as soon as he can deliver a WMD through Al Qaida, other terrorist groups, or even his own agents, he will do so. We won't be able to tell that they were his agents or that it was his WMDs because China, Russia, France, and the US have sold him the plans and the materials in the past. The WMD residues will incriminate other countries, if any.

So, no, containment and deterrence are not options.

Back to the topic

Just goes to show that the US is there and always has been for it's own good ONLY. As if American companies are the best to run oil fields - there are plenty of UK and Australian companies that do exactly the same job. But do they get preferrential treatment in the assigning of Iraqi contracts? No - they all go to the US.

Actually - this disgusts me. The bottom line of this whole charade is America has invaded another country to take complete control of their natural resources.

Which country is next?

He invaided Kuwait because Kuwait broke an agreement that forbid them from drilling and pumping oil so close to the border.

They made the agreement to avoid border disputes over who's oil is who's, intentionally to avoid conflict. Kuwait ignored the agreement so Iraq invaded.

Still no link to the original story.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2884701.stm

I'm very wary of the media, especially when I heard someone from the U.S. Military on a phonecall interview on TV started laughing at the mention at the mention of Fox News, he mentioned that they jumpred the gun and blew things out of proportion - particulary when they started reporting that Scud Missiles were landing in Kuwait City on the first day of the war (he claimed they were anything but Scud).

Very recently the Whitehouse had to put a lid on the media as they were starting to overeact again, trying to play down the possible find of a chemical weapons factory - which infact turned out to be anything but (the Whitehouse was right to play it down).

I think anybody that takes the word of the media as "fact" or the "final word" needs to step back a bit - just take a look at all the Mac vs. PC articles in the media over the past years, and tell me how much you trust the journalist's opinion there - the same goes for politics. Even if it does look like they're just reporting the facts, if you're very clever with words and statistics you can actually make the facts say anything - I've seen it done before.

There are different approaches to containing him...

We essentially had him under our thumb right before the war started - we held a gun to his head and put inspectors back in the country.

So what do you do? You make his job difficult!

You keep hawk eyes on him, watch his every move, keep him at the centre of attention in the world spot light - hold a gun to his head put troops outside his borders - threaten to go to war with him for as long as you like - put back in weapons inspectors to get in his way, threaten to shoot if he doesn't let you put them back in - corner him on his every move - and then wait for him to make small mistake and then go in for the kill - because he has been caught red handed even consider entrapment - set him up.

That's a better approach to containing him - and that is certainly not how you've been containing him for the past 12 years.

Are you 12?

WOO WOO. One more year and he'll be old enough to party with Roman Polanski!