Bush’s pals scoop Iraq jackpot, but we’ve also earned a few crumbs
Well, some of them are on the table most are reserved for American companies and those from countries which collaborated with the Yanks' war effort in Iraq.
It's also considerate of the Bush administration to allow Iraqi firms bid for contracts to rebuild their own country after the Americans invaded it with help from Tony Blair and were the main cause of the country having to be rebuilt in the first place. A few Iraqi businessmen may be invited to join the boards of some US subsidiaries to be able to claim even more of the post-war bonanza.
Of course, the White House can point to the $18.6 billion approved by the US Congress last month and maintain that they can decide what to do with American taxpayers' money.
Oddly enough, though, most people would regard the provision of foreign aid to be for the benefit of the country to be helped, rather than to swell the coffers of the multinational companies of the country that initiated the war.
The White House has made it plain: pro-war countries only need apply for a piece of the $18.6 billion cake which will be sliced between them and their allies.
Peace, apparently, is not a profit-maker.
Maybe the loan of the landing strip at Shannon might just qualify Irish companies for the crumbs. But Irish firms would to more likely to qualify if Bertie Ahern sent troops to Iraq to help the Americans clean up the mess they have created there. Maybe he intended to, but they ended up in Liberia.
In any case, companies from France, Germany and Russia have been excluded from bidding for any of the 26 contracts which cover areas such as oil, power, communications, water, housing and public works centres.
It was always going to be thus, even before the US led the charge into Iraq. Contracts were handed out to American companies before the first shot was fired. One of them was Halliburton, an oilfield services company which was once headed up by Vice-President Dick Cheney.
The biggest contractor in Iraq is Bechtel, the American (what else?) construction company which has an estimated $1 billion contract to rebuild the country's infrastructure.
There's nothing new in the Americans looking after their buddies. It happened before the Gulf War in 1991 when the US Army corps of engineers dished out all the rebuilding contracts to American companies before the conflict started.
Obviously, the message from corporate America is: get the contracts sorted before you start the war.
According to US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the anti-war exclusion policy was necessary to protect America's "essential security interests".
However, those "essential security interests" problems would disappear if excluded firms indulged in a little bit of blackmail and put pressure on their governments to join the post-war effort.
I don't suppose somebody such as the deputy defence secretary was hinting that those companies might get strappy about corporate contributions should their governments fail to fall in line with American plans.
That's not the American way, as we well know.
Mr Wolfowitz added a comment which could have come from George Dubya, because I certainly can't make any sense of it. "Limiting competition for prime contracts will encourage the expansion of international co-operation in Iraq and future efforts," he said.
Far from encouraging the expansion of international co-operation, the White House diktat can only antagonise countries like France and Germany and other allies in NATO and the UN Security Council.
In fact, the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, said, in so many words, it was verboten and was not acceptable to his government.
WHAT he can do about it, I'm afraid I haven't the slightest idea, apart from putting in the boot verbally, anyway at every available opportunity.
And whatever did Mr Wolfowitz mean when he referred to "future efforts?" Maybe more contracts in greener fields, or brown deserts?
However, all is not lost as far as the US-EU rift is concerned, because help is at hand, and from an unlikely source.
When Ireland takes over the EU presidency next month, it will be used as an opportunity to straighten out the strained relationship. Our Europe Minister Dick Roche said that with no particular axe to grind over the war in Iraq, Ireland could play the part of honest broker between both sides.
"The huge amount of kinship, friendship and bonds of blood between both countries mean we share the same objectives," he said. I presume he was referring to the long relationship between Ireland and America, and it wasn't a hint about those contracts.
"It's a generally accepted view in Europe that if any nation state is well placed to bridge the gap with the US, it is Ireland," enthused Mr Roche.
Maybe, he thinks George Dubya is a Democrat, because the Pres would have to change sides before Dick would have a chance to realise his global statesmanship aspirations and bridge that gap through the use of our influence. And that's about as likely as any French or German company opening an office in Iraq.
In any case, I doubt if the Americans would be impressed with Ireland's position on the defence of Europe, which we don't want to know about.
At the inter-governmental conference in Brussels this weekend, one of the main concerns of the Taoiseach is that Ireland squirms out of a mutual defence arrangement which was included in the original draft of the proposed EU constitution.
We are not the only country seeking to do that, but what's being trotted out again is our neutrality, something which depends on the prevailing winds.
If those winds are blowing from a friendly direction, then neutrality can be watered down, as was shown in the hand over of Shannon for use by American military aircraft heading to Iraq.
If we are neutral, let us be neutral on a consistent basis and not pick and choose in whose favour we can put it into suspended animation.
But there's one thing I fail to understand. As members of the EU we have enjoyed enormous benefits from it ever since we joined. It goes beyond the benefits, though. Ireland endorses what the EU stands for, and that should mean we are prepared to come to its defence. We are either in the club, or we are not.
We should not pick and choose the aspects that suit us.
That's an issue Dick Roche might address after he sorts out the rift.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
