Iraq Awards Phone Licenses, Rebuffs U.S. Technology
Mon Oct 6,10:32 AM ET Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Mona Megalli and Fiona O'Brien
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq (news - web sites)'s U.S.-led government awarded licenses on Monday for firms to set up mobile phone networks, rebuffing calls by some American lawmakers to use U.S.-backed technology to restore war-shattered communications.
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Iraqi Communications Minister Haidar al-Ebadi said Iraq's three regional networks would use the GSM system, already adopted across the Middle East. U.S.-backed technology is based on the CDMA (news - web sites) system.
The licenses are among the most potentially lucrative and high-profile contracts to be offered in postwar Iraq.
A functioning national phone system, which Iraq has lacked since Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) was toppled in April, could also allow guerrillas fighting the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq to organize themselves better on a national level. The U.S. Army says guerrilla groups are only locally organized at present.
Iraq did not have a public mobile phone network during Saddam's rule and much of the land-line network was destroyed in the war that overthrew the former dictator.
"Until now, we were denied mobile phones. Iraqis will welcome the chance to use mobile phones to talk to their family, friends and for business purposes," Ebadi said, adding that the first person he would call would be his mother.
The new networks -- expected to be running within weeks according to Ebadi -- will be a boost for businesses and government ministries which have been struggling to function in a country where only satellite phones can be relied on.
Asked if U.S. intelligence services would monitor mobile phone traffic, Ebadi said: "I would be very reluctant to do that." He said he had already signed a decree banning the tapping of phone calls, and added that a functioning mobile system would make Iraq more secure, not less.
CONTROVERSIAL CHOICE
All three winning consortia included Iraqi businessmen as well as Arab telecoms firms. The northern network will be run by a Kurdish firm that already set up a network in areas autonomous from Saddam's rule, in partnership with Kuwaiti firm Wataniya.
Kuwait's MTC is a member of the consortium that won the southern license, and Egypt's Orascom Telecommunications leads the consortium running the key Baghdad and central Iraq network.
The choice of Kuwaiti companies to help run the phone network is a controversial one in a country where many Iraqis still resent their small southern neighbor after years of tension following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
The U.S.-led administration is racing to get Iraq's shattered economy back on its feet and attract foreign investment after years of dictatorship, sanctions and war.
Unemployment has fueled unrest in the country -- former soldiers from Saddam's army who lost their jobs when it was disbanded in May rioted in Baghdad and the southern city of Baghdad at the weekend.
Iraqi police shot dead two people in Baghdad and British troops killed an armed man in Basra during the clashes.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) was quoted as saying that the United States could face a prolonged and futile war in Iraq as the Soviet Union did in Afghanistan (news - web sites) in the 1980s. In an interview published on Monday in The New York Times, he called the U.S. decision to invade Iraq "an error."
Problems getting Iraq's ramshackle oil industry back on its feet in the face of persistent sabotage attacks are also hampering efforts to rebuild the economy.
Washington is seeking a new Security Council resolution giving the United Nations (news - web sites) a broader mandate in Iraq, hoping this will persuade reluctant countries to provide troops and cash for stabilizing and rebuilding the country.
But the United States faces an uphill struggle getting enough votes after U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) challenged the draft resolution last week.
Despite optimistic comments from U.S. officials, U.N. Security Council members say Annan's rejection of the American-British approach stopped progress in its tracks on a draft resolution, due to be discussed again this week.
Security Council members France and Russia have also said they are unhappy with the draft, and want it to include a roadmap for a faster handover of power to Iraqis. |
