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

To: geode00 who wrote (192511)	7/22/2006 8:20:17 AM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I heard that this was Wolfowitz's plan. Possible. Certainly the Wolfowitz/Perle clique circulated a proposal for a government in exile, which could be "installed" as soon as Baghdad was taken. That plan, which would have made privatisation of oilfields at least a hypothetical possibility, was also categorically rejected. The neocons didn't have everything their way. I don't remember early elections. I remember the Iraqis arguing that they could have elections immediately because they did the census with 400,000 teachers and could register voters quite easily. And which Iraqis would these have been? I recall that some Iraqis wanted elections sooner (favoring groups with an established presence) and some later (which would have given a better chance to newer parties). There was no Iraqi consensus on the issue. Certainly it takes more than a census and voter registration to have an election - you need candidates, parties, etc. The question is not in any case relevant to the matter under discussion. Once the commitment to hold elections was made - and this was done quite early on - it was clear that there was no operative plan to privatise oil resources. At any rate, the Bushies would not let BigOil lose money or risk too much on Iraq. Since neither the administration nor the oil industry ever adopted or supported any plan to privatise Iraq's oilfields, it hardly seems wort discussing what the administration might or might not have done in the event that such a plan was adopted.