Any new government that tries to take charge of the economy and resources of Iraq will have its hands tied before it even starts: a deal signed between the US-appointed government of Iyad Allawi and the "Paris Club" of rich nations has tied limited cancellation of debt to long-term adherence to policies laid down by the International Monetary Fund, based in Washington DC.
Just over $31 billion of debt run up by Saddam Hussein's regime is to be written off under the deal, which leaves Iraq still owing Paris Club nations in excess of $7 billion, additional unresolved Iraqi debts of $82 billion, and further claims for unpaid Gulf War reparations ($30 billion) and other claims ($84 billion) - a possible total in excess of $200 billion, more than ten times Iraq's total GDP.
However the cancellation of 80 percent Paris Club debt attached. Only 30 percent of the $39m debt was to be written off immediately: another 30 percent hinges on Iraq adopting an economic strategy endorsed by the IMF, and the final 20 percent would wait until the IMF had certified that the policies had been successfully implemented.
IMF strategies typically include the privatisation of publicly-owned utilities, and the imposition of user fees for services such as health care.
Washington-based campaigners The Development GAP (Group for Alternative Policies,) sum up the impact of the IMF on developing countries:
"Its new role as judge and financier of anti-poverty programs is a frightening prospect given that the institution remains wedded to an orthodox adjustment paradigm and has demonstrated that it knows considerably less about poverty about classical economics...
"For decades, the Fund has imposed its will on the countries of the South, reshaping their economies with virtually no input from the millions of people affected by their policies. Farmers, workers, conlooted by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which has been revealed to have spent more than $20 billion during its 15 month period in control of the country's resources before the handover to Allawi's interim regime. This is more than Iraq's annual GDP, but was The fight must spent with a recklessness
of US imperialists unaccountable to any Iraqis. complete and The one Iraqi representaunconditional tive who was supposed to
sit in on the CPA's meetings came to just two of the 43 board meetings in 2003. "We just threw the by Saddam's money over the fence,"
one US official told the Financial Times. Millions were spent without evidence of a contract, a tender or services rendered in exchange. The health ministry spent hundreds of millions of records or observing proper procedures.
It is unlikely that the IMF will want to investigate this trail of profligacy, corruption and shady practice: but if Iraq's new government tries to restore the state-funded health care system that Saddam established before the war, we can safely predict an intervention.
The fight to get the occupying troops out of Iraq has to run hand in hand with the fight to prise loose the grip of global capital on the newly-elected regime, and the Iraqi people. The country has to be rebuilt from top to bottom.
The fight must be for the complete and unconditional cancellation of ALL the debts that were run up by Saddam's regime, and of those debts and contracts incurred on behalf of the Iraqi people by the US occupiers and their agents since the invasion. tives, rather than relying on the central steering committee.
I'm not sure what we decided at the end, but doubtless the incoming steering committee will take such issues to heart in planning coming work.
A powerful, rousing speech from visiting Iraqi oilworkers leader Hassan Jumaa, some sharp analysis from Sami Ramadani, and stalwarts George Galloway and Tony Benn, all contributed to the success of the day.
A couple of things could have been better.
Motions should be circulated before hand, and possibly composited allowing more thoughtful discussion rather than having one speaker and then deciding how to vote.
And I'm not sure we need announcements of what the steering committee recommends. But I thought this conference was better than last year, and people did listen fairly, on the whole.