Naomi Klein: Baker Emroiled in Iraq Debt Controversy

[reprehensor]

Bush special envoy embroiled in controversy over Iraq debt

Consortium plans to cash in as Baker asks countries to end £200bn burden.

Naomi Klein
Wednesday October 13, 2004
The Guardian

President Bush's special envoy, James Baker, who has been trying to persuade the world to forgive Iraq's crushing debts, is simultaneously working for a commercial concern that is trying to recover money from Iraq, according to confidential documents.

Mr Baker's Carlyle Group is in a consortium secretly proposing to try to collect $27bn (£15bn) on behalf of Kuwait, one of Iraq's biggest creditors, by using high-level political influence. It claims Mr Baker will not benefit personally, but the consortium could make millions in fees, retainers and commission as a result.

Other countries, including Britain, have been urged by Mr Baker to relieve the new Iraq regime of its $200bn debt burden. Iraq owes Britain approximately $1bn.

One international lawyer described the consortium's scheme as "influence peddling of the crassest kind".

more@link

[lil-petunia]

1. Is this the lady who wrote NO LOGOS?

I could not put that book down.

[rooboy]

2. Yep - she's my heroine. n/t

[lil-petunia]

3. hard to disagree. That should be required reading for every

college student.

[bloom]

5. see:

http://www.nologo.org/

Your post inspired me to do a search. This is her site with links to her articles, etc.


I found out about her after reading Baghdad: Year Zero. I thought it was excellent.


:)

[realFedUp]

4. Thank God for this woman

Let's see if our rightwingnut media
covers this...

[Kenneth ken]

6. I read this

at the Nation website. It's a fairly complicated story, but worth the extended read. (link to that at the bottom of the Guardian story.)

Basically, Baker is playing both sides, on the one hand working as Bush's* envoy to get the world to forgive Iraqi debt so reconstruction can proceed; on the other working for Carlyle to set up a deal with Kuwait so that war reparations owed to Kuwait by Iraq will not be part of the debt-relief package the US is trying to convince the world to accept.

An interesting side note is that this isn't just a Republican-corporate money grab by Carlyle Group, but includes The Albright Group, which seems to be a Democratic financial vehicle with Madeline Albright and Carol Browner also getting in on the deal.

edit: The Albright Group sounds like a nascent version of the Carlyle Group for former Dem politicos. Link to who the Albright Group is:
here

[CHIMO]

7. Interview On The Topic

Broadcast Exclusive: James Baker's Double Life in Iraq: The Carlyle Group Stands to Make Killing on Iraqi Debt


AMY GOODMAN: It's great to have you. Naomi Klein, award winning journalist and author of Fences and Windows: Dispatches From the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate and the book No Logo: Taking Aim at Brand Bullies. Her new film is called The Take. Tell us exactly how you learned about this deal, and if you could explain further what it is.

NAOMI KLEIN: Absolutely. The documents just came to me. I cannot really say how they came to me, just essentially a leak. And I have them right here. They're extensive. There's 75 pages of documents. 65 pages are a proposal that was submitted to the government of Kuwait by this consortium of companies that you have described, and then the rest are letters back and forth, including letters signed by Madeleine Albright herself, letters between the government of Kuwait and the consortium talking about whether or not the deal is going to be accepted. ......


http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/13/144220

[KoKo]

8. The Baker story was up on MSNBC's web site last night. So, it's getting

some attention by the mainstreamers. They had it as a report by Lisa (Blue Dress) Myers from the "Nation" magazine. The article said that they had withdraw their plan. So, no prosecutions will be started, I guess, and it will go down the "memory hole." :shrug: