Palast: Privatizing Iraq Real Goal of Bush admin?
Privatising
By: Line Thomsen
Published date: 31/8/2003
Editor?s note: BBC investigative reporter Greg Palast is also the author of the recent bestseller ?The Best Democracy Money Can Buy,? a look at the American political process. He is also one of two journalists who obtained a document from the administration of US President George Bush titled ?Moving the Iraqi Economy from Recovery to Sustainable Growth,? a confidential report of 101 pages from inside the US State Department and written prior to the invasion of Iraq. It outlines the plan for what it terms ?the postconflict economy? and involves the mass privatization of virtually every Iraqi government asset.
He decided to grant an interview to the Bulletin because ?you speak to some people in Iraq, and they ought to know what is planned for them.?
Same old question: Was oil really the reason for war?
The leaked document, which only Palast and a reporter from The Wall Street Journal have managed to obtain, contains plans of ?private sector involvement in strategic sectors, including privatization, assets, sales, concessions, leases and management contracts ?? especially in the oil and supporting industries.?
?Said more plainly; it is a plan to sell off the oil fields, the pipelines and the oil infrastructure of Iraq to private business and to turn what is left of Iraq into a freemarket paradise,? Palast said.
?The plan is obviously made to make it easier for the giant operators that could possibly afford to take over Iraq?s oil wealth,? he said.
Palast?s suggestion to what organizations would possibly take over the oil wealth included ?two giant American operators, two British and one Russian operation.?
Continues..........
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