The stinkin' WHORES of BAGHDAD! The smelliest courtesan, of course, is France which sold two nuclear reactors to an oil-rich Iraq in the late 70s.
France
According to the CIA World Factbook, France controls over 22.5 percent of Iraq’s imports.[1] French total trade with Iraq under the oil-for-food program is the third largest, totaling $3.1 billion since 1996, according to the United Nations.[2] In 2001 France became Iraq’s largest European trading partner. Roughly 60 French companies do an estimated $1.5 billion in trade with Baghdad annually under the U.N. oil-for-food program.[3] France’s largest oil company, Total Fina Elf, has negotiated a deal to develop the Majnoon field in western Iraq. The Majnoon field purportedly contains up to 30 billion barrels of oil.[4] Total Fina Elf also negotiated a deal for future oil exploration in Iraq’s Nahr Umar field. Both the Majnoon and Nahr Umar fields are estimated to contain as much as 25 percent of the country’s reserves.[5] France’s Alcatel company, a major telecom firm, is negotiating a $76 million contract to rehabilitate Iraq’s telephone system.[6] From 1981 to 2001, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), France was responsible for over 13 percent of Iraq’s arms imports.[7]
Germany
Direct trade between Germany and Iraq amounts to about $350 million annually, and another $1 billion is reportedly sold through third parties.[8] It has recently been reported that Saddam Hussein has ordered Iraqi domestic businesses to show preference to German companies as a reward for Germany’s “firm positive stand in rejecting the launching of a military attack against Iraq.” It was also reported that over 101 German companies were present at the Baghdad Annual exposition.[9] During the 35th Annual Baghdad International Fair in November 2002, a German company signed a contract for $80 million for 5,000 cars and spare parts.[10] In 2002, DaimlerChrysler was awarded over $13 million in contracts for German trucks and spare parts.[11] German officials are investigating a German corporation accused of illegally channeling weapons to Iraq via Jordan. The equipment in question is used for boring the barrels of large cannons and is allegedly intended for Saddam Hussein’s Al Fao Supercannon project.[12]
Russia
According to the CIA World Factbook, Russia controls roughly 5.8 percent of Iraq’s annual imports.[13] Under the U.N. oil-for-food program, Russia’s total trade with Iraq was somewhere between $530 million and $1 billion for the six months ending in December of 2001.[14] According to the Russian Ambassador to Iraq, Vladimir Titorenko, new contracts worth another $200 million under the U.N. oil-for-food program are to be signed over the next three months.[15] Soviet-era debt of $7 billion through $8 billion was generated by arms sales to Iraq during the 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq war. Russia’s LUKoil negotiated a $4 billion, 23-year contract in 1997 to rehabilitate the 15 billion-barrel West Qurna field in southern Iraq. Work on the oil field was expected to commence upon cancellation of U.N. sanctions on Iraq. The deal is currently on hold.[16] In October 2001, Salvneft, a Russian–Belarus company, negotiated a $52 million service contract to drill at the Tuba field in Southern Iraq.[17] In April 2001, Russia’s Zaruezhneft company received a service contract to drill in the Saddam, Kirkuk, and Bai Hassan fields to rehabilitate the fields and reduce water incursion. A future $40 billion Iraqi–Russian economic agreement, reportedly signed in 2002, would allow for extensive oil exploration opportunities throughout western Iraq.[18] The proposal calls for 67 new projects, over a 10-year time frame, to explore and further develop fields in southern Iraq and the Western Desert, including the Suba, Luhais, West Qurna, and Rumaila projects. Additional projects added to the deal include second-phase construction of a pipeline running from southern to northern Iraq, and extensive drilling and gas projects. Work on these projects would commence upon cancellation of sanctions.[19] Russia’s Gazprom company over the past few years has signed contracts worth $18 million to repair gas stations in Iraq.[20] The former Soviet Union was the premier supplier of Iraqi arms. From 1981 to 2001, Russia supplied Iraq with 50 percent of its arms.[21]
China
According to the CIA World Factbook, China controls roughly 5.8 percent of Iraq’s annual imports.[22] China National Oil Company, partnered with China North Industries Corp., negotiated a 22-year-long deal for future oil exploration in the Al Ahdab field in southern Iraq.[23] In recent years, the Chinese Aero-Technology Import–Export Company (CATIC) has been contracted to sell “meteorological satellite” and “surface observation” equipment to Iraq. This contract was approved by the U.N. oil-for-food program.[24] CATIC also won approval from the U.N. in July 2000 to sell $2 million worth of fiber optic cables. This and similar contracts approved were disguised as telecommunications gear. These cables can be used for secure data and communications links between national command and control centers and long-range search radar, targeting radar, and missile-launch units, according to U.S. officials. In addition, China National Electric Wire & Cable and China National Technical Import Telecommunications Equipment Company are believed to have sold Iraq $6 million and $15.5 million worth of communications equipment and other unspecified supplies, respectively.[25] According to a report from SIPRI, from 1981 to 2001, China was the second largest supplier of weapons and arms to Iraq, supplying over 18 percent of Iraq’s weapons imports.[26]
heritage.org
Ties with Iraq
PARIS Polls show that many of the 80 percent of French people who oppose a U.S.-led offensive against Iraq believe America's Iraq policy is driven by its appetite for oil. But similar claims could be made about French efforts to avoid war.
Whether or not France's interests in Iraq are guiding its foreign policy, the country has a clear commercial interest in the maintenance of Saddam Hussein's regime. France's economic ties with Iraq have been close and lucrative in the past. They are profitable at present despite the embargo and, should Saddam survive the current crisis, they would become much more so in the future.
Warm French relations with the current Iraqi regime go back a long way. In September 1975, the French prime minister played host to the vice-president of the Revolution Command Council of Iraq. The first, Jacques Chirac, described the second, Saddam Hussein, as a personal friend, showed him around a French nuclear reactor and invited him to his home for the weekend. It was about this time that the prime minister was nicknamed Jacques Iraq.
The same year France sold the Iraqis two nuclear reactors, one of which, Tamuz II, at Osirak near Baghdad, was designed to produce plutonium. Israeli fighter bombers destroyed this plant in 1981 as French engineers were completing work on the facility.
A furious President Francois Mitterrand swore that France would rebuild Osirak. This the French never did, but the following year France supplied Iraq with five highly sophisticated Super Etendard fighter bombers and armed them with Exocet missiles.
Throughout the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, right up to the UN embargo imposed after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, France sold Iraq $25 billion worth of weaponry. Industry sources say French companies still haven't been paid for everything they supplied to Iraq. If Saddam goes, those debts will be a write-off.
The UN embargo hit the volume of French exports but, once the UN oil-for-food program was introduced in 1996, the French share of the Iraqi market became larger than ever as Saddam rewarded the closest thing it had to a Western ally.
A report commissioned by the French Parliament and published in September 2002 put the value of French exports to Iraq since sanctions were eased at $3.5 billion. France's pharmaceutical firms, for example, are well-placed on the Iraqi market - even if their fortunes vary according to the way the political winds are blowing. Industry experts say that in July 2001, when relations with France went through a chilly period, Saddam froze these pharmaceutical companies' contracts. They were unfrozen once diplomatic relations returned to normal.
France still managed to sell Iraq $650 million worth of goods in 2001, more than any other country. The telecommunications firm Alcatel, the engineering company Alstom and Renault's utility vehicle division all made substantial sales. Another car maker, Peugeot, did well in 2000 and 2001. France, unsurprisingly, was the Western country with the largest number of stands at last November's Baghdad Trade Fair.
But above all, the French are interested in Iraqi oil. French oil industry experts say France's state-controlled oil company TotalFinaElf is poised to win contracts to drill the largest unexploited reserves of easily accessible oil in the world.
In the mid-90s, Elf and TotalFina, who have since merged, negotiated contracts for two huge fields, Majnoon and Nahr Omar, southeast of Baghdad. The combined reserves of these fields is estimated at 20 billion barrels. To put that into perspective, the United States has total, proven oil reserves of 31 billion barrels.
Through the late '90s, Elf and TotalFina weren't allowed to sign these contracts because of the trade embargo. But Saddam agreed to wait while France lobbied to get those sanctions lifted.
Washington says that when Saddam is toppled it will be up to the Iraqis what they do with their oil. The Iraqi most likely to take power in the wake of an American overthrow of Saddam Hussein has already indicated where his preference lies. Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi banker who heads the Iraqi National Council, the American-backed organization supposed to bring democracy to a post-Saddam Iraq, has said that American firms will be given a "preponderant role."
War would mean a blow not only to French diplomacy but to French industry as well.
The writer is a British reporter based in Paris.
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