The announcement that firms from countries that opposed the US invasion of Iraq will not be invited to bid for the second round of Iraqi reconstruction contracts, comprising 26 projects worth $18.6 billion, is as absurd as it is immature and petulant. Excluding French and German companies from the work also flies in the face of Washington’s professed desire to involve the entire international community in rebuilding a stable and prosperous Iraq.
It will only create more bad feeling at a time when the White House should be seeking to mend fences and restore relations. Not only this, but the announcement contradicts the message given out only days ago by US Assistant Secretary of Commerce William H. Lash, who, on a visit to the Kingdom, called on local companies from Saudi Arabia and other Iraqi neighbors, including Turkey, to get involved in bidding for the new contracts. Yet both Saudi Arabia and Turkey made no secret of their opposition to the US invasion and refused to supply the US with base facilities from which to launch their attacks on Saddam’s regime.
Is it significant that the administration member who declared the exclusion, in particular of France and Germany, from the bidding process was none other than US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a neo-conservative, who is credited with being the real power behind the Donald Rumsfeld-run Pentagon?
The hawks around Bush are strong on retribution and short on subtlety. They can plausibly argue that America can spend its taxpayers’ dollars where it wants but Wolfowitz has not left it at that. He has rubbed salt into the wounded pride of the excluded countries by citing the need to preserve “national security” and so exclude opponents of the invasion. Once again, when it comes to Iraq, there seems to be confusion and lack of direction in US policy. If Wolfowitz is speaking for the White House, then William Lash was inviting Saudi companies to waste time and money going after contracts in the second bidding round.
If, however, Wolfowitz was making policy on the hoof, then it is time the White House intervened and brought him into line. America’s job in Iraq is hard enough as it is. The mess it is in would have been avoided if hawks such as Wolfowitz had listened to America’s friends in the region. Yet the neo-conservative members of this US administration seem intent upon making the problems even worse than they already are.
State Department and the Department of Commerce are probably seething at this latest intervention by a Defense Department that does not even have direct responsibility for the letting of contracts. And even if Wolfowitz’s remarks do actually reflect presidential policy, they were unnecessary. The US did not have to announce the exclusions. They could have become obvious from the winning bids. By shooting off at the mouth, Wolfowitz has damaged the international cooperation necessary to reconstruct Iraq. Worse, he has played into the hands of the forces of anarchy that are ranged against the Americans in that country.
