Reuters is calling Chalabi’s takeover as Oil Minister an “OLD-STYLE COUP” …
“Uloum’s resignation as oil minister came after what looked like an old-style ministerial coup last month, when he was placed on leave against his will and replaced by Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi.
“Uloum had opposed the December 19 fuel prices rises, saying they should have been introduced more gradually. The price of premium gasoline went up by 200 percent, with other fuels doubling in price. However, given the level of subsidy, further price rises seem likely under the IMF’s strictures.
“The government remains committed to cutting fuel subsidies further to meet the demands of the International Monetary Fund, which agreed a landmark credit arrangement with Iraq on December 23. …” (Reuters via Raw Story)
For more, check out Pat Lang’s “Chalabi Reborn? (and a Chalabi Wannabe),” Steven D’s “Bush’s Secret Plan(s?) for Iraqi Oil & Iraq’s Missing Uranium,” and my “‘Messpot’ Safe For Oil: Chalabi in Charge.”
And I really hope one of you more world-weary, cynical coup experts will explain to me how Chalabi’s coup fits in with today’s story below, “Iraq: No Mo’ Money, Less Oil Revenue.”
Guess we now know what Chalabi was doing in Washington recently.
Chalabi is there to protect the US/IMF interest. al-Uloum opposed the price increases, which presumably would cut internal consumption. None of which is going to solve the real problem, which is that they can’t protect the facilities to keep production up.
Chalabi must be either a vampire or a zombie.
You read Bob Baer’s book. Darcy has it or i’d look up the passages on Chalabi, and retype them here … but it struck me that Baer had a grudging respect for Chalabi’s mind, his connections, his awareness — and his ability to keep all the divisive dissident Iraqi exile groups in one group.
he seems to live a charmed life. I guess I can admire that.
Chalabi is useful for one thing, for sure: Whenever he is involved, you know that principles and ideals have been thrown out of the temple’s window and that money has replaced them at the right hand of god.
The IMF? The fucking IMF?
For the sake of all that is holy, haven’t these people suffered enough?
Not suffered of course, the IMF is there to free them from the confines of their state-owned resources dontcha know…
now that we know they are involved chalabi makes all sorts of sense… he is their ‘man in havana’ and won’t complain as all of iraqs oil, gas, water, etc. is sold off to the highest US or British bidder. they won’t have to worry about him blowing the whistle with the mullah’s who are now running Iraq, or the people of Iraq themselves, like actual elected folks might. They just need to keep him on their payroll and allow him to keep up his contacts with Curveball and the Iranians.
Sounds like they need to move quickly to get all these IMF deals done and “legal” on the international stage before the Kurds make a move on the large oil fields in the North… they will be quite shocked to find out the oil they think is rightfully part of a new Kurdistan is already owned by Exxon to help pay off Iraq’s debts and “reconstruction”.
Iranians pay thirty cents a gallon for gas. As Iraqis go bankrupt at the pump, they will envy the generosity of the mullahs’ government in Teheran.
Chalabi looks like a brilliant double agent – pandering to the worst of the U.S. conquistadors while handing the services of the U.S. military to the Iranian intelligence services.
of intrigue something is going on. Probably just making sure huge contracts awarding all Iraq’s oil present and future is tied into Exxon-Mobil et al, and making sure absolutley none of it goes to poverty eradication or anything vaguely useful like that. I guess a bit of it will have to go the way of Chalabi as well. No doubt a whole bunch of contracts will need a signing before King George marches his troops off home for a ticker tape parade after declaring total victory from the deck of some floating leviathon.
Now the only question left unanswered is does Chalabi really work for the US or Iran.
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MOSCOW Oct. 20, 2005 — On Iraq, let me say as the head of the World Bank, we are the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Iraq is a perfect example. Afghanistan is an example. Rwanda is an example. Haiti and Liberia are examples. Post-conflict situations where there is a real need for reconstruction. For that matter Pakistan and Indonesia are in enormous need of reconstruction because of natural disasters.
I think the Iraqis have just made a very important step forward with this referendum — in the political area with this referendum on the constitution, but progress also clearly depends on economic progress, and that’s where the World Bank does play a role and plays it as strongly as we can.
[…]
TOKYO Oct. 11, 2005 — Iraq has been devastated by 35 years of misrule and in many cases including, particularly southern Iraq and northern Iraq, punitive policy of disinvestment, which any visitor to Basra could observe very easily. Basra was once called the Venice of the Persian Gulf, and it is a miserable dilapidated city. There is a lot of rebuilding work to do; it will move a lot faster however, obviously, if the killers stopped their work.
I think if there is peace in Iraq there is every reason to think that it can move quickly. People often talk about Iraq’s considerable natural resources, by which they usually mean the oil; it also has wonderful water resources which can be in agriculture. Most of all, it has remarkable human resources, and some of the most talented people in the world. So I think with peace, the Iraqis have an enormous chance to build a successful country.
The IMF has prescribed the same medicine for troubled third world economies for two decades now:
Only when governments sign this “structural adjustment agreement” does the IMF agree to lend enough to prevent default on international loans that are about to come due and otherwise would be unpayable. Arrange a restructuring of the country’s debt among private international lenders that includes a pledge of new loans.
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼▼▼ READ MY DIARY ▼
And the silence from Congress on this is deafening. We have elected sheep…
Is it because the general policy of the U.S. government is to strengthen the wealthiest of citizens and corporations?
What about the passage of the bankruptcy bill? So goes the Iraqi people, so goes the American citizen.