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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (113512)	8/31/2003 8:00:17 AM
From: Dennis O'Bell	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

On these hundreds of billions of dollars of Iraqi debt - a huge proportion is debt owed to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia for costs related to the Gulf War (and events leading up to that.) Then there is debt owed for weapons purchases by the Baathist regime cited in my other message. Realistically, who thinks these countries will ever collect these ? I think an interesting article subject would be to realistically assess what debts Iraq should and will be expected to ever pay. Third world national debts are written off all the time when it's clear the debtor nation will simply never be able to pay, even though the figures are not as elevated as the debt owed by Iraq. Remember the punishment meted out to Germany after World War I, and how the crushing debt was one of the factors leading to the rise of Hitler's National Socialist party. Why make the mistake again here ? I also believe that any nation that owes huge amounts for arms purchases incurred by a prior regime should have such debt summarily written off. Any nation that runs arms should be expected to take on the increased risk of not being paid if those arms are purchased on credit, whether it's the USA, Russia, France, etc, and deserves no sympathy if the "loans" default.