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Ramzy Baroud: Stealing from
the Poor and Giving to the Rich
The plundering of Iraq's wealth, first by the UN and now by
Iraq's new Green Zone czars, is the biggest, most shameful
financial-political scandal of our times.
By Ramzy Baroud
04/27/07 "ICH"
-- -- Locating Dartmouth House, where Hans von Sponeck,
former UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq was scheduled to
speak in London 18 April, was a challenge. Yet having been lost
for an hour in the ever-confusing and expanding city of London
was the least of my concerns the moment I slipped quietly into
the lecture hall. His statements were shocking, as were his many
statistics: Iraq was simply and shamelessly robbed blind during
the period of US-championed UN sanctions. Sadly, the robbery and
mismanagement continue to this day, but now the figures are much
more staggering.
As Mr von Sponeck spoke, I reflected on my lengthy interview
with Iraq's former Ambassador to the United Nations Mohamed Al-Duri.
Al-Duri, being interviewed for the first time by
English-language media since taking up his post at the UN,
revealed to me in early 2001, in equally shocking detail, what
sanctions had done to his country and people. He claimed that
the UN was a key part of the problem. Led by two countries, the
US and Britain, the UN Oil for Food Programme and the
"humanitarian" mission it established in Iraq was reducing
Iraqis to beggary, robbing the country blind and mis-managing
funds, whereas the large bulk fuelled UN-related missions and
operations, with needy Iraqi families receiving next to nothing.
He spoke of the manipulation of Iraq's wealth for political
purposes and alleged that the UN was a tool in the hands of the
US government, aimed at encouraging widespread popular
dissatisfaction with Saddam's government, before the country was
dragged into war.
In hindsight, Al-Duri's assessment was very accurate. Promoting
his new book, A Different Kind of War, von Sponeck reiterated in
essence and substance Al-Duri's claims; the only difference is
that von Sponeck was an insider; his numbers and stories
impeccable and hardly contestable. It's no wonder that one and a
half years after taking up his post in Baghdad, in 1998, he
resigned. Even within such an uncongenial bureaucracy like the
UN, some people still possess a living conscience; von Sponeck
was and remains a man of great qualities.
By March 2003, when American forces invaded Iraq, the UN was
generating $64 billion in sales of Iraqi oil, according to von
Sponeck. But scandalously, only $28 billion reached the Iraqi
people. If distributed evenly, each Iraqi received half a US
dollar per day. According to UN figures, an individual living
under one dollar per day is classified as living in "abject
poverty". Even during the most destructive phases of the war
with Iran, Iraq managed to provide relatively high living
standards. Its hospitals were neither dilapidated nor did its
oil industry lie in ruins. Only after the advent of UN sanctions
in 1991 did Iraqis suffer with such appalling magnitude. Alas,
the tyranny of Saddam Hussein expanded to become the tyranny of
the international community as well.
"Neither the welfare nor sovereignty of the Iraqi people were
respected," by the UN and its two main benefactors, asserted von
Sponeck. The UN Security Council's "elected 10 or veto-wielding
five" had nothing for Iraq but "empty words," and there were
"deliberate efforts to make life uncomfortable (for the Iraqis)
through the Oil for Food Programme". All efforts to modernise
Iraq's oil industry were blocked, said von Sponeck, at the
behest of "two governments that blocked all sorts of items,"
necessary for even basic living -- again, the US and Britain,
the same two that invaded and currently occupy Iraq. The logic
in all of this is clear; the "pre- emptive" war on Iraq was but
an extension of the sanctions regime.
The assessments of Al-Duri and von Sponeck converge, revealing
the shameful intents of the US government and its followers many
years before the horror of 9/11 polarised public opinion and
allowed Washington's political elites, the neoconservatives and
contractors, to make their "case for war". But where did the
money go, during the sanctions and now, four years after the
invasion?
Von Sponeck reports that a large chunk -- 55 per cent of the
money generated from Iraq's oil -- went to fund the UN's own
inadequate "humanitarian" programmes. Much of the rest was
usurped by the UN Compensation Commission, entrusted with
handling damages claims made by those allegedly harmed by the
Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. According to von Sponeck, the Iraqi
oil "pie" was so large there was plenty for everyone: Kuwait,
Jordan, Turkey, and all the rest. But most ironically, the
commission awarded a large sum of money to two Israeli kibbutzim
in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, for allegedly losing some
of their income due to the fact that the war damaged the tourism
industry in Israel.
The robbery in Iraq hardly discontinued after the "liberation".
On the contrary, it intensified beyond belief. The US Government
Accountability Office uncovered appalling discrepancies in the
US military administration's handling of money: uncountable
billions went missing; hundreds of contractors fully paid but
the work never done; layer upon layer of shady companies,
mercenaries and sub-contractors (Halliburton and its subsidiary
Kellogg, Brown & Root but mere illustrations). In partnership
with the new rulers of Iraq, these corporations are stealing the
wealth of the once prosperous nation, leaving it in shambles.
And now, the Iraqis are facing enormous pressure to approve the
Iraqi oil and gas law. The draft bill, according to Iraqi MP
Nureddin Al-Hayyali, would give "50 per cent of the Iraqi
people's oil wealth to foreign investing oil firms". The
nationalisation of the country's oil industry in 1972 is being
reversed. The robbery that began in the early 1990s continues
unabated. Shameful as it is, Iraq's new rulers are stealing from
the poor and giving the spoils to the rich.
Ramzy Baroud is an Author and Journalist. His latest volume:
The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's
Struggle (Pluto Press, London) is available from Amazon and
other book vendors.
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