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Politics : Piffer Thread on Political Rantings and Ravings -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Augustus Gloop who wrote (10172)	3/24/2003 11:07:26 PM
From: Original Mad Dog	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14610

One more? No more.

To: Augustus Gloop who wrote (10172)	3/25/2003 10:59:00 AM
From: Techplayer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14610

French opst-war planning PARIS (Dow Jones)--Alarmed by reports that the Bush administration wants to award the lion's share of Iraqi reconstruction contracts to U.S. companies, the French are laying out a plan to join the post-war fray by leveraging their long-standing ties to Iraq. France's finance ministry and the country's largest business federation, Medef, have set up a joint working group to determine how French companies can wrest lucrative contracts from American firms to rebuild Iraq after the war. France's government is determined that French companies be part of the rebuilding of a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq even though President Jacques Chirac led the diplomatic opposition to the war, people familiar with the plan said. "France is opposed to war but intends to fully participate in the reconstruction" of Iraq, said a spokesman for the French finance ministry. The purpose of the informal working group is "to be ready when the time comes and see what resources can be mobilized." A person close to the Medef said: "The group's role, with a staff of around ten, is to see how French companies could get back into Baghdad." The Bush administration's current reconstruction plan, details of which have leaked over the past two weeks, would award more than $1.5 billion in Iraq work to private U.S. companies, sidelining United Nations development agencies, other multilateral organizations and big nongovernmental organizations. European officials have reacted angrily to the plan, charging that efforts to keep the U.N. and non-U.S. contractors on the sidelines will delay reconstruction in Iraq and stir deeper ill will toward Washington. Last week, Chirac said France would veto any U.N. resolution attempting to "give the American and British belligerents the right to administer Iraq." Building on decades of close relationships between Paris and Baghdad - French firms built the Iraqi capital's current sewer and phone systems in the early 1980s - French companies have established themselves as the largest suppliers of goods to Iraq since the U.N. trade embargo was partially lifted in 1996. In 2001, France exported 660 million euros worth of goods to Iraq. As part of the U.N.'s now-frozen oil-for-food program, French telecom equipment supplier Alcatel SA (ALA) clinched a $75 million contract to upgrade Baghdad's phone network, and French car maker Renault SA F.RNA) sold another $75 million worth o tractors and farming vehicles to the Iraqi state. The French company that has perhaps the most at stake is oil major TtalFinaElf SA (TOT), which spent six years in the 1990s doing preparatory work on the giant Majnoon and Bin Umar oil fields. Total hopes that that groundwork will pay off when the contracts to operate those two Iraqi fields are awarded.