U.S. Shuts Out France, Germany for Iraq Work

Reuters/Lycos.com ^ | December 09, 2003 | Sue Pleming

[lainde]

bttt

[anotherGerman]

Easy. You promised them contracts (see above). And please - take a look at what they "contributed" (Denmark sending a SUBMARINE!)

[anotherGerman]

Yeaaah. Come on, you can do better. Next time use even BIGGER letters. That would rooooooooooock. You know what - almost no one here cares about not getting contracts in Iraq. It´s not like everyboy is whining about it.

[anotherGerman]

France, Germany, and Russia have been illegally profiteering from UN sanctions against the former regime in Iraq for years

HOW IS THAT SO? PLEASE PROVIDE SOURCES!

[anotherGerman]

Yes but it is making headlines because of the political dimenson, not the economical.

[longjack]

Yes but it is making headlines because of the political dimenson, not the economical.

Right.

Now that Germany can sell their nuclear power plants that are too harmful for the German environment to China at 50 billion a pop, who needs American contracts.

longjack

[cyberjet31]

Yeaaah. Come on, you can do better. Next time use even BIGGER letters. That would rooooooooooock. You know what - almost no one here cares about not getting contracts in Iraq. It´s not like everyboy is whining about it.

You know, after looking at your profile and seeing that you are a German in Germany, I see where you are coming from, but don't care. I do, on the other hand, doubt that Germany would do most of the whining, it would be your neighbor france who will, probably, in time do the whining.  I am American and have every right to cheer on my country when I think that we did something that we should have done.  We liberated the Iraqis from the evil dictator Saddam and we liberated the French, Germans, and other European countries from the evil leader from the evil Hitler.  In Iraq, the main fighting forces were the US, UK, Australia, and Poland.  Some other countries tried to help as best they could. 

Now there are all these things that have to be done, contracts for rebuilding.  Who should get them? Well, unless your country's name is one of the following, then probably not your country:

Britain, Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, Australia, South Korea, Poland,  or even (but less likely to benefit that much) Albania, Bulgaria, Denmark, Honduras, Hungary, Kazakhstan and the Philippines.

                                                                            

Oh, by the way...Who said anyone was whining about Not getting contracts. I simply applauded the US for its decision.

 

[proud American in Canada]

thank you for the post and the ping--

On the Canadian radio station about ten minutes ago, the news announcer said, "Well, Canada will pay the price for not supporting the U.S. during the Iraq war. The US has decided that only nations supporting the coalition will be allowed to bid on contracts that amount to $18 billion dollars."

Then there was a pause, and the announcer said, "Canada WILL be allowed to bid on subcontracts, however."

If true, that is a HUGE loophole that needs to be adressed asap.

[proud American in Canada]

yes it is great news...

but please see my previous post. It's been announced up here that Canada (and therefore, I suppose, France, Germany, etc.) will be allowed to bid on subcontracts.

That's a major loophole that I hope is quickly closed.

[proud American in Canada]

Great news--

but as I just heard on the radio up here, apparently the non-allies will be allowed to bid on subcontracts.

If this is true, please close the loophole, President Bush! :)

[proud American in Canada]

great post at #67.. :)

Please see subsequent posts--I just heard on the radio that apparently bidding on subcontracts will be allowed. I hope not.

[cyberjet31]

Hey,

Thanks. Yeah, I hope they fix that subcontract thing too. We are doing fantastic so far, so it would not hurt to think that it will keep going well. :)

[proud American in Canada]

"it would be your neighbor france who will, probably, in time do the whining."

Last night Jean Chretien was given a huge, champagne-soaked goodbye party in Paris, where Jacques Chirac said, "Canada and France stood shoulder to shoulder for the rule of law," and opposed the "unilateral invasion" of Iraq, blah blah blah....

I can't wait until Jean Chretien leaves, this Friday, Dec. 12. :)

[Colonel_Flagg]

Glad to hear this if it's true.....they deserve to be shut out of the UN too!

Close .. they can have the UN. It's us that needs to be rid of it.

[MD_Willington_1976]

Well the Swiss are cool enough (I like there machine gun in the home policy) but a lot of ABB cash flows to Deutschland, Group Schneider will indirectly make some coinage from any deal since they own Square D...

Alstom (British) is also taking a beating in the customer support area with a lot of European utilities bailing on them for lack of customer service, actuially a lot of European utilities are not happy with any of their domestic suppliers.

A lot of the equipment that is generating power in Iraq is older stuff Iraq bought from France, Britain and Russia...

Iraq was the leader in power generation in the ME with pretty much everything tied to an electrical grid.

The first Gulf war crippled there power grids as most of the older equipment ended up blown to bits or shorted out and fired up.

I think the people figure that the average person can just go over and plop down and plug in a power grid and off you go...most are ignorant to the fact that electricity does not just come from the recepticle on the wall.

[longjack]

I just checked in over at "Spiegel". It looks like the Bush's 'exclusion clause' has got some people PO'd.

The article, which I skimmed, says that Russia, France, Germany and Canada and the the WTO will check to see if the clause is legal.

The article says that on the website of the authority giving information on the contracts the names of countries whose firms are allowed to apply is listed. That's got some noses bent out of shape.

I don't have time to translate since I'm at work, but here's the link for German readers.

"Der Spiegel"....WTO prüft Ausschlussklausel für Kriegsgegner

longjack

[LibertyLight]

Friendship and Loyalty Do Mean Something.

[cyberjet31]

Oh wait...Germany IS "whining about it". Well, at least their chancellor is. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1503&e=24&u=/afp/20031211/ts_afp/iraq_us_rebuild_un_germany_031211164216

[anotherGerman]

Ok, my wrong estimation. But I am pretty sure that this is a political power play thingie, our trade with Iraq was really rather insignificant.

[cyberjet31]

Political, i think not...It reminds me of a childrens story, I don't know if you have ever heard of it, called something like "the little red hen" and this hen wanted to make some food, so she asked who wanted to go get some grain and all the animals "i wont" except for one who said "i will". Then she started to make the food (i believe it was bread) and she said "who will help me bake the bread" and all the animals said "i wont" except the same one who said "i will". Then it was ready, and the hen said "who will help me eat this bread?" Every animal said "I will" but the hen said something like "I'm sorry, but only one of you did ANY work helping me make this bread, so only the one who helped me will have any"

Also, there is one thing you cant forget about this whole situation. This is American tax money. We paid this out of our own pockets. President Bush is doing his job, that is to speak for us, and he knows darn well the anger that americans had toward russia, germany, but mostly, oh so much, france; he knows that we don't want OUR money given to them after that whole thing when our tempers have not all cooled down. I mean, a lot of us even boycotted french products!

So in a single post, thats pretty much why...there is also a security reason, but I didn't really read into it much.