US forces freeze out regional & local Iraq businessmen

The US forces in Iraq have every intention of creating a country in their own image - and that includes freezing out regional and local businessmen. - Syed Saleem Shahzad

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EH13Ak01.html

Aug 13, 2003

US and the changing face of Iraq
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - As the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority struggles to restart business activity in Iraq, it is coming increasingly clear that as a matter of policy, most of the beneficiaries will be US-led firms, while neighboring Arab countries look as if they will be frozen out.

There is a strong belief in the Arab world that post-Saddam Iraq was completely planned in Washington as a country free to be shaped under the US administration, culturally, politically and economically. Indeed, the shape of the new governmental infrastructure is a strong indication that traditional influences, whether of the former Ba'athist regime or even from opposition groups, will be kept at bay. Likewise, in the field of commerce, the influence of neighboring countries will not be permitted. The new dominant influences are free trade and representative democracy, which the Americans clearly expect to be remarked upon in neighboring countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Syria.

The theme of the new Iraq is thus very clear. It would be another outpost of US interests in the region, or certainly another US client state. The US obviously does not trust local Iraqis who were bred and born under Saddam Hussein. There is a feeling that the country was brainwashed with Ba'athist theory. Ultimately more than 400,000 Iraqi civil servants have been sacked.

To replace the old system, the Pentagon has developed an organization of Iraqi exiles from the United States and Europe under the rubric of the Iraqi Reconstruction Development Council (IRDC). About 1,500 have returned to Iraq and are assisting coalition authorities in running day-to-day affairs in the ministries. They are helping the United States to develop a new system more suited to Western and US political philosophy.

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