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What…??!!!

Iraq, one of the world’s largest oil producers, gets a big loan??

Do I smell corruption??

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8536034.stm

I read something about restarting oil fields and upgrading existing infrastructure.
That takes time and lots of capital investments. A few billion dollars to support the production factors is nothing to be worried about.

regards

Good question.

To be honest, I don't know and would be most interested in finding out.

I wonder how Halliburton is doing?

(I do recall some non-US companies winning some oil contracts, but I haven't kept in touch with all the Yank firms creaming off the money allocated for Iraq. There was a good documentary a few years back 'Iraq for sale' which highlighted how US companies were siphoning off money from the US military - by entering into 'cost-plus' contracts - the US would pay them whatever their costs were plus a margin, so the incentive was to inflate costs:
http://www.documentaryfilms.net/index.p ... rofiteers/
)


Also, it would be interesting to see what strings are attached to the IMF loans - these are notorious for providing very little actual value to the recipient countries and actually providing very nice nest-eggs in Swiss Bank Accounts for a few 'top' people! Ahh, but perhaps I'm just being cynical and the IMF is doing a good job this time round

Cheers,
Shafique

well several countries against the war in iraq had there oil contracts with saddam torn up when america came in and then it went to single tenders, which are just corrupt. America made noises about reparations for costs spent from the oil so im amazed if an Iraqi has seen any benefit from their oil for years.

shafique wrote:Good question.

To be honest, I don't know and would be most interested in finding out.

I wonder how Halliburton is doing?

(I do recall some non-US companies winning some oil contracts, but I haven't kept in touch with all the Yank firms creaming off the money allocated for Iraq. There was a good documentary a few years back 'Iraq for sale' which highlighted how US companies were siphoning off money from the US military - by entering into 'cost-plus' contracts - the US would pay them whatever their costs were plus a margin, so the incentive was to inflate costs:
http://www.documentaryfilms.net/index.p ... rofiteers/
)


Also, it would be interesting to see what strings are attached to the IMF loans - these are notorious for providing very little actual value to the recipient countries and actually providing very nice nest-eggs in Swiss Bank Accounts for a few 'top' people! Ahh, but perhaps I'm just being cynical and the IMF is doing a good job this time round

Cheers,
Shafique

There are people that openly criticize the IMF and Worldbank for alleged loans to developing nations with strings attached, like e.g. a loan that can only buy American products and equipment. They claim these two entities are part of the imperialist American agenda. I believe economist Joseph Stiglitz is one economist who has spoken some hard words about the IMF intentions in his new book Freefall. He was director of Worldbank.

Kenneth Rogoff, the former Chief economist of the IMF is saying this is total nonsense and that the IMF is merely involved whenever countries need fiscal reform and austerity measures to get their finances back in order. Nothing else.

Ofcourse there are American companies profiting because of the new opportunities, but I know that the Iraqi government has tendered the oil projects with great self interest and the oil contracts are slowly coming to fruition. Iraq has made agreements with Shell, Exxonn, Eni, Lukoil and some Chinese players also.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e72e708a-7dec ... ck_check=1