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US wants Iraq reparations dropped
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| ahlamalek |
US wants Iraq reparations dropped
Saturday 27 September 2003, 23:23 GMT
The United States has urged Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to drop war reparations claims against Iraq for losses suffered during the 1991 Gulf War.
Paul Bremer, the US-occupation administrator in Iraq, told a Pentagon briefing on Friday that Iraqis should not be made to pay for a war most of them opposed.
"Well, I have to say that it is curious to me to have a country whose annual per-capita income GDP is about $800 � pay reparations to countries whose per-capita GDP is a factor of 10 times that, for a war which all of the Iraqis who are now in government opposed," Bremer said.
Bremer said Iraq owed about $200 billion in total debt, with about $98 billion in war reparations claims.
Bremer's comments are striking because the US was the key player driving the imposition of the UN sanctions regime in 1991 that demanded reparations from Iraq.
Crippling compensation
Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 and occupied the emirate until US-led forces drove out Iraqi troops during the 1991 Gulf War. Iraq had also launched missile attacks into Saudi territory.
Iraq was subsequently forced to pay compensation for the damage it caused. Under the much-criticised UN oil-for-food programme, a portion of Iraq's oil revenue was set aside to pay reparations.
As living standards in Iraq deteriorated sharply in the 1990s, critics described the multibillion reparations burden as crippling.
But as recently as early 2003, the US was insisting Iraq had to abide by all UN demands, including Resolution 705 (1991) which set up the mechanisms for the payment of reparations.
Revision needed
However, with the US now facing the task of rebuilding Iraq, Washington needs more of Iraq's oil revenue to be spent within the country it occupies. Bremer said the US hoped the issue of reparations would be revised.
"It will be, obviously, something to be raised through diplomatic channels by the Iraqi government, and we certainly would encourage that," Bremer said.
"So I think there needs to be a very serious look at this whole reparations issue. And, by the way, the Governing Council �feels very strongly about that," he said.
Reuters
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| Renegade |
I agree that sanctions and enforced debt payments need to be wiped clean to help the Iraqi people, but there should have been more effort to at least ease the sanctions (which were lifted, from memory, soon after the Americans removed Saddam Hussein?) and soften these debts several years ago. Iraqi citizens have been suffering too long under this ideological and economic warfare, so while it's good to see the burdens being lifted, it's hard not to point the finger at the last two administrations in allowing the suffering to go on as long as it did.
It's also not hard to identify the hypocracy in this rhetoric. Contrast the words of someone like, say, Madeline Albright (who thought the alleged deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children under sanctions were "worth it") and the sudden shift in rhetoric now that the US have control over the oilfields. I understand that these are two different administrations, but the ultra-hardline stance of the Clinton administration was certainly carried over to the Bush administration, perhaps intensifying in the process. Where has this new-found concern for the Iraqi people been over the past 12 years?
Anyway, I think these passages sum it up, really:
| quote: | Paul Bremer, the US-occupation administrator in Iraq, told a Pentagon briefing on Friday that Iraqis should not be made to pay for a war most of them opposed.
[...]
Bremer's comments are striking because the US was the key player driving the imposition of the UN sanctions regime in 1991 that demanded reparations from Iraq.
[...]
As living standards in Iraq deteriorated sharply in the 1990s, critics described the multibillion reparations burden as crippling.
But as recently as early 2003, the US was insisting Iraq had to abide by all UN demands, including Resolution 705 (1991) which set up the mechanisms for the payment of reparations. |
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