Truth is Hutch my friend, IMF will have ZERO power in the coming Republican US.
Republicans Hope To Profit From Russia Graft Issue
WASHINGTON, Sep 21, 1999 -- (Reuters </frames/frames.php3?url=www.reuters.com>) The Republican-controlled U.S. Congress begins a series of hearings on corruption in Russia on Tuesday, thrusting the subject into the American presidential campaign just as such domestic political issues as tax cuts and gun control are fading.
Political and foreign-affairs analysts said the hearings, which will begin in the House Banking Committee and center on money-laundering allegations, are really intended as a vehicle for attacking the Clinton administration's Russia policies.
The prime target in congressional Republicans' sights is Vice President Al Gore, the leading Democratic presidential candidate, who played a key role in the administration's Russia policy, having co-chaired a bilateral commission with former Russian Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and his successors.
Republicans have seized on reports of massive Russian money laundering through the Bank of New York and on intelligence information that Russian companies have circumvented nuclear nonproliferation agreements by selling weapons technology to Iran as evidence that U.S. policies in Russia have failed.
Several of Gore's Republican rivals on the presidential campaign trail have hammered him over the issue. Steve Forbes has urged Congress to subpoena Gore "to testify as to the administration's knowledge of the Russia-IMF corruption scandal."
The question "Who lost Russia?" has become a rallying cry for Republicans on Capitol Hill, breathing energy into a moribund Congress whose legislative achievements are thin and whose agenda is bogged down in squabbles and politicking.
"All this attention is tainting, poisoning the Russia issue in the presidential campaign," said Clifford Gaddy, a Russia expert at the Brookings Institution. "There's a little bit of hysteria involved."
The House Banking Committee hearings - with a string of star witnesses scheduled, including Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and Attorney General Janet Reno, as well as members of the Russian Duma and key figures in the Bank of New York affair - are to be followed by hearings in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by the powerful conservative Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina.
Analysts said the Congressional probe would be useful if it succeeded in shedding light on specific allegations of Russian corruption, particularly whether the money laundering involved hundreds of millions of dollars in International Monetary Fund loans to Russia.(cont)
russiatoday.com
Quote on TV from George W. Bush was "No more money to the IMF, we are just throwing away good money after bad".
|
