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Politics : WHO IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IN 2004 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (7808)	12/18/2003 10:17:02 AM
From: Glenn Petersen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10965

I agree with you. Ideally, the Governing Council or its successor would be the body negotiating the debt reduction. Realistically, the U.S. is currently able to leverage its position and will probably be more effective in cramming down the debt than any Iraqi government could be. It will be interesting to see what he is able to accomplish with Saudi Arabia. If I am not mistaken, Iraq owes the Saudis in excess of $20 billion, funds that were lent to Iraq during the Iran-Iraw War. As Iraq was a proxy for of sorts for the Saudis, that debt should be wiped out entirely. As Ray has noted, Baker "fixes" things for Bush. The Iraqi debt needs fixing. Whatever one thinks about Baker and his conflicts, he is absolutely the right guy for this job. english.aljazeera.net James Baker to sort out Iraqi debt Friday 05 December 2003, 22:59 Makka Time, 19:59 GMT US President George Bush has given former Secretary of State James Baker a key assignment in Iraq - sort out the country's foreign debt. Baker, a longtime family friend, is to be Bush's "personal envoy" to lead efforts to restructure and reduce Iraq's foreign debt. "In response to a request from the Iraqi Governing Council for assistance, I have appointed James A. Baker III to be my personal envoy on the issue of Iraqi debt," Bush said in a statement read to reporters by spokesman Scott McClellan. Baker, who will report directly to Bush, "will lead an effort to work with the world's governments at the highest levels, with international organisations and with the Iraqis in seeking the restructuring and reduction of Iraq's official debt," the president said. Baker, 73, led US diplomacy under Bush's father, former US president George Bush Snr, notably assembling the broad international coalition that backed the use of military force to end the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait in 1991. The wealthy lawyer also headed George Bush's legal team during the fierce battle over election results in Florida in 2000, playing a key role in getting the current president to the White House. McClellan told reporters that Baker would benefit from his skills as a veteran diplomat and his "strong personal relations with the president of the United States" as he worked to ease the war-ravaged nation's debt burden. "The future of the Iraqi people should not be mortgaged to the enormous burden of debt incurred to enrich Saddam Hussein's regime," the spokesman said. But the spokesman sidestepped questions about whether Baker would seek outright forgiveness of what the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has estimated to be $120 billion in debt. AFP