US issues threat to Iraq's $50bn foreign reserves in military deal

US issues threat to Iraq's $50bn foreign reserves in military deal

www.independent. co.uk

The US is holding hostage some $50bn (£25bn) of Iraq's money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pressure the Iraqi government into signing an agreement seen by many Iraqis as prolonging the US occupation indefinitely, according to information leaked to The Independent.

US negotiators are using the existence of $20bn in outstanding court judgments against Iraq in the US, to pressure their Iraqi counterparts into accepting the terms of the military deal, details of which were reported for the first time in this newspaper yesterday.

Iraq's foreign reserves are currently protected by a presidential order giving them immunity from judicial attachment but the US side in the talks has suggested that if the UN mandate, under which the money is held, lapses and is not replaced by the new agreement, then Iraq's funds would lose this immunity. The cost to Iraq of this happening would be the immediate loss of $20bn. The US is able to threaten Iraq with the loss of 40 per cent of its foreign exchange reserves because Iraq's independence is still limited by the legacy of UN sanctions and restrictions imposed on Iraq since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in the 1990s. This means that Iraq is still considered a threat to international security and stability under Chapter Seven of the UN charter. The US negotiators say the price of Iraq escaping Chapter Seven is to sign up to a new "strategic alliance" with the United States.

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www.independent.co.uk

50 permanent US bases in Iraq, total legal immunity for US personnel, full freedom of intervention on Iraqi soil and airspace. These are the scandalous terms of permanent US presence in Iraq, as envisioned by madman Bush and as rejected by the huge majority of Iraqi people. In an even more scandalous move, the United States now is blackmailing the Iraqi Governement into agreeing to these antidemocratic measures, threatening Iraq over it's 50bn in foreign reserves.

www.independent. co.uk
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I would say it's the best 50 billion Iraq will ever spend. Come on Iraq, give the US the finger and buy your freedom.

A super sized embassy/fortress

* over a dozen permanent super-bases
* appox 50 well fortified 'frontier' bases for the military & american contractors
* complete immunity for shooting of Iraqis' for both military & contractors
*hand over development of oil fields to the western mega-national oil corps.


Iraq under these terms becomes by all sensibility a USA Possession,
living in a form of democracy that is only protectd by a continuing USA presence there... reminds me of Panama and other parts of the world that the American colonized