Blame it on the Iraqi Govt.

[Disturbed]

That seems to be what most Rethugs & Dems are now trying to get Americans to believe.

The blame is not on the Illegal Invasion of Iraq or now the Illegal Occupation but the Iraqi Govt. is not functional. What has been hidden is the following.

Full Sovereignty?

"Throughout the spring, as hundreds died in the spiraling conflict, as Regime bosses applied their hardcore "anti-terrorist" tortures to innocent bystanders raked up in their occupation nets, as Regime mouthpieces prated endlessly of "liberation" and "sovereignty," Bush viceroy Paul Bremer was quietly signing a series of edicts that will give the United States effective control over the military, ministries -- and money -- of any Iraqi government, for years to come, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Bremer has placed U.S.-appointed "commissions" made up of Americans and local puppets throughout Iraqi government agencies; the ministers supposedly in charge weren't even told of the edicts. These boards "will serve multiyear terms and have significant authority to run criminal investigations, award contracts, direct troops and subpoena citizens," the Journal reports. Any new Iraqi government "will have little control over its armed forces, lack the ability to make or change laws and be unable to make major decisions within specific ministries without tacit U.S. approval, say U.S. officials.


Earlier Bremer edicts laid the Iraqi economy wide open to ruthless exploitation by Bush-approved foreign "investors"; dominance of such key sectors as banking, communications -- and energy -- is already well advanced. The latest dictates aim to ensure that this organized looting goes on, no matter what kind of makeshift "interim government" the United Nations manage to piece together. Bush's plans to build a Saddamite fortress embassy in Baghdad and 14 permanent military bases around the country are designed to provide the knee-breaking "security" for these lucrative arrangements."



http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/05/21/120.html



Order #12 enacted on June 7, 2003 and renewed on February 24, 2004, suspends "all tariffs, customs duties, import taxes, licensing fees and similar surcharges for goods entering or leaving Iraq, and all other trade restrictions that may apply to such goods." This led to an immediate and dramatic inflow of cheap consumer products, which has essentially wiped out all local providers of the same products. This could have significant long-term implications for domestic production as well.

Order #39 allows for the following:

(1) privatization of Iraq's 200 state-owned enterprises;

(2) 100 percent foreign ownership of Iraqi businesses;

(3) "national treatment" of foreign firms;

(4) unrestricted, tax-free remittance of all profits and other funds; and

(5) 40-year ownership licenses. Thus, it allows the U.S. corporations operating in Iraq to own every business, do all of the work, and send all of their money home. Nothing needs to be reinvested locally to service the Iraqi economy, no Iraqi need be hired, no public services need be guaranteed, and workers' rights can easily be ignored. And corporations can take out their investments at any time.

Order #40 turns the banking sector from a state-run to a market-driven system overnight by allowing foreign banks to enter the Iraqi market and to purchase up to 50 percent of Iraqi banks.

Order #49 drops the tax rate on corporations from a high of 40 percent to a flat rate of 15 percent. The income tax rate is also capped at 15 percent.

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/19293