[Marxism] Greg Palast on the life and times of Lieutenant-General Jay Garner

["Jurriaan Bendien" <andromeda246@xxxxxxxxx>]

(an excerpt of Greg Palast's recent article "Adventure capitalism" - what I
found particularly interesting was the frank acknowledgement by a lobbyist
that "The right to trade, property rights... are not to be determined by
some democratic election" - a shrill contrast to the ideology that the
market and democracy and inextricably bound up with each other - JB).

(...) One thing stood in the way of rewriting Iraq's laws and selling off
Iraq's assets:  the Iraqis.  An insider working on the plans put it coldly:
"They have [Deputy Defense Secretary Paul] Wolfowitz coming out saying it's
going to be a democratic country . but we're going to do something that 99
percent of the people of Iraq wouldn't vote for."
In this looming battle between what Iraqis wanted and what the Bush
administration planned for them, the Iraqis had an unexpected ally, Gen. Jay
Garner, the man appointed by our president just before the invasion as a
kind of temporary Pasha to run the soon-to-be conquered nation.

Garner's an old Iraq hand who performed the benevolent autocratic function
in the Kurdish zone after the first Gulf War.  But in March 2003, the
general made his big career mistake.  In Kuwait City, fresh off the plane
from the United States, he promised Iraqis they would have free and fair
elections as soon as Saddam was toppled, preferably within 90 days.

Garner's 90-days-to-democracy pledge ran into a hard object:  The [State
Department's] Economy Plan's 'Annex D.'  Disposing of a nation's oil
industry-let alone redrafting trade and tax laws-can't be done in a weekend,
nor in 90  days.  Annex D lays out a strict 360-day schedule for the
free-market makeover of Iraq.  And there's the rub: It was simply
inconceivable that any popularly elected government would let America write
its laws and auction off the nation's crown jewel, its petroleum industry.

Elections would have to wait. As lobbyist Norquist explained when I asked
him about the Annex D timetable, "The right to trade, property rights, these
things are not to be determined by some democratic election."  Our troops
would simply have to stay in Mesopotamia a bit longer.

(...)  After General Garner was deposed, I met with him in Washington. He
had little regard for the Economy Plan handed to him three months before the
tanks rolled.  He especially feared its designs on Iraq's oil assets and the
delay in handing Iraq back to Iraqis. "That's one fight you don't want to
take on," he told me.

But we have.  After a month in Saddam's palace, Bremer cancelled municipal
elections, including the crucial vote about to take place in Najaf.  Denied
the ballot, Najaf's Shi'ites voted with bullets.  This April, insurgent
leader Moqtada Al Sadr's militia killed 21 U.S. soldiers and, for a month,
seized the holy city.

"They shouldn't have to follow our plan," the general said.  "It's their
country, their oil."  Maybe, but not according to the Plan.  And until it
does become their country, the 82nd Airborne will have to remain to keep it
from them.

Complete text: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/adventure_capitalism.php

See further:
http://www.baghdadbulletin.com/pageArticle.php?article_id=146&cat_id=1&PHPSE

Note: apart from the State Department blueprint, there was also the UN plan.
See e.g. http://www.emjournal.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/march03048.html









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