After the war, who will get the lucrative contacts?

THE EDITOR: What this war in Iraq is really about is a question that time will hopefully provide the answers to. It doesn’t appear to be about weapons of mass destruction (they haven’t found any), it’s not about bin Laden or terrorism (no connections found), and this business about regime change — there may be something here.

Kicking out Saddam Hussein is a very good reason for this war, and I don’t mean the liberation of the Iraqi people. Removing Saddam gets him out of the way so that the US government can get on with the business of milking Iraq of its oil and provide lucrative ‘reconstruction’ contracts to American firms. That is why many countries — like France, for example, want the UN to play the major role in the rebuilding of Iraq — even Britain is advocating the same thing.

I suppose they too are afraid of the rape that may occur if the Americans become too firmly entrenched in the post-war administration of Iraq. Even in the United States there are suspicious minds — senior Democrats have requested an official review of exactly how these contracts are going to be awarded — they have even asked for an investigation into the preferential treatment of the Halliburton Company, once run by Vice President Dick Cheney. Apparently Mr Cheney was CEO of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000. The United States plans to put retired general Jay Garner in charge after the war, and it is said that he has extensive business dealings with the Israelis. Surely a more pro-Arab individual can be found — the last thing the Arab world needs now is more mistrust and hostility.

JEREMY BOYD
Soogrim Street
Gulf View