BUSH/CHENEY: "Blackmail, plain and simple"

[kpete]

June 5, 2008
Guest: dday


BLACKMAIL?... When I read Patrick Cockburn's article yesterday about the "secret" agreement for the US military to remain in Iraq indefinitely I thought he was a little bit behind the story. The only place where the discovery that the US wanted permanent basing rights and air superiority and immunity from prosecution for their personnel was HERE, where we've all been dazzled by the election. The Iraqis have been fighting this agreement and making direct signals of moving away from it, calling for a national referendum on any agreement and demanding national sovereignty within it.

Now, the follow-up article shows what may be the Cheney Administration's strategy to get the Iraqis to sign it:

The US is holding hostage some $50bn (£25bn) of Iraq's money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pressure the Iraqi government into signing an agreement seen by many Iraqis as prolonging the US occupation indefinitely, according to information leaked to The Independent.

Unbelievable.

US negotiators are using the existence of $20bn in outstanding court judgments against Iraq in the US, to pressure their Iraqi counterparts into accepting the terms of the military deal, details of which were reported for the first time in this newspaper yesterday.

This is the very point that Bush used to hold up the defense bill with that pocket veto last winter. He claimed that the claims against the Iraqi government would bankrupt a young country on the road to democracy. Now we know why he vetoed that provision - he wanted to make sure he could use those lawsuits as a bargaining chip instead of having the money get paid out to the plaintiffs.

Iraq's foreign reserves are currently protected by a presidential order giving them immunity from judicial attachment but the US side in the talks has suggested that if the UN mandate, under which the money is held, lapses and is not replaced by the new agreement, then Iraq's funds would lose this immunity. The cost to Iraq of this happening would be the immediate loss of $20bn. The US is able to threaten Iraq with the loss of 40 per cent of its foreign exchange reserves because Iraq's independence is still limited by the legacy of UN sanctions and restrictions imposed on Iraq since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in the 1990s. This means that Iraq is still considered a threat to international security and stability under Chapter Seven of the UN charter. The US negotiators say the price of Iraq escaping Chapter Seven is to sign up to a new "strategic alliance" with the United States.

Read this entire article. This is blackmail, plain and simple. Bush and Cheney are demanding a permanent agreement that would basically turn Iraq into a client state of the US and corporate interests.

more at:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_06/013860.php
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/us-issues-threat-to-iraqs-50bn-foreign-reserves-in-military-deal-841407.html?service=Print

[LakeSamish706]

1. That may be, but who is going to do anything about it before January 20, 2009?

Most of us are aware of the crimes that this Administration has been involved in during their Squat in the White House, but we have been so far unable to do anything meaningful about it! We have elected officials that seem to turn a blind eye to the crimes (whether from fear or other) and we are helpless until we can elect someone that will turn the tide.

[robinlynne]

2. Excellent article. thanks kpete. nt

[lonestarnot]

3. K & R

[hootinholler]

4. Wasn't that the goal?

Isn't that why we went in?

-Hoot

[Winterblues]

5. I bet Peloisi is very proud about now..

Everything the crooks want she is allowing them to have. I suspect she is an insider..

[chill_wind]

6. Juan Cole - Informed Comment (6-6-08)

Friday, June 06, 2008
Bush Blackmailing al-Maliki with $50 Bn. in US Fed

(...)

Although the Bush administration is playing hardball to get this wideranging set of commitments from Iraq before July 31, and although Iraqis are eager to escape Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which limits their government's sovereignty, the negotiations may collapse in the face of widespread opposition to the baldly neocolonial terms sought by Washington. Even remaining under the UN Security Council, under Chapter 7, may be preferable to Baghdad. There were large demonstrations against the security agreement, barely covered by the US press, last Friday, and Iraqi religious and political leaders are coalescing against it. Postcolonial states of the Arab world, which only attained real independence from Britain and France with great difficulty and in living memory, are touchy about being seen as kowtowing to imperial demands. The Shah's government was overthrown in 1979 by huge crowds and a wide cross section of the public precisely on these grounds.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has issued a 170-page report accusing Bush and Cheney of exaggerating the intelligence on the threat posed by Iraq, in the build-up to the Iraq War. D'oh.

Meanwhile, Turkey's Chief of Staff has warned that the 'status quo' in Iraq will destabilize the Middle East if it goes on. That is, he is attacking the current constitution and political arrangements, whereby Kurdistan is semi-independent of Baghdad.

Turkey and Iran are coordinating their attacks on Kurdish guerrillas, based in American-held Iraq, that have been conducting strikes against the two countries.

Turkey itself has entered a constitutional crisis over, of all things, whether women in universities may veil on campus.


http://www.juancole.com/

[bluesmail]

7. Economic hitmen, working for Cheney and *. n/t