Posted on 12/25/2003 3:06:34 PM PST by freedom44
The Iraqi Governing Council is considering returning properties that were confiscated from departing Jews after the establishment of Israel, a senior source within the council told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.
He said a 1951 law, which had deprived fleeing Iraqi Jews of their properties, is now under review. The aim of the revision is to restore the properties to their rightful owners.
"We are determined to return all the properties that were taken from the Iraqi Jews and all the others," he said.
In the meantime, he said he had assured representatives of Iraqi Jews who want to visit Iraq that they would be welcome and that the council would ensure their security.
He also said that Israel is to be frozen out of the bidding for lucrative reconstruction contracts: "We have no problem dealing with Jewish businessmen or with Israelis as private citizens," he said, "but we do not feel we owe anything to the State of Israel."
The source said there have been no contacts with Israeli officials since they were recently rebuffed while attempting to negotiate a "back-door" oil deal with the Kurds in northern Iraq.
Also to be denied access to contracts by the governing council are France, Russia, and China, the three permanent members of the UN Security Council that obstructed a UN resolution to legitimize military action to topple Saddam Hussein.
The source also said he believes both the Syrian and Jordanian regimes are now extremely vulnerable – Jordan, because of its activities before Saddam was overthrown, and Syria because of its activities since his downfall.
He revealed that the US administration in Iraq and the council have solid evidence of direct, top-level Syrian complicity in attacks against American and Iraqi security forces.
One of the two Iraqis captured with Saddam in the Tikrit area had acted as Saddam's personal envoy to Syrian President Bashar Assad until just six weeks before his arrest.
He also said that suicide bombers from various Arab countries had crossed into Iraq from Syria, carrying Syrian documents.
In one case, a Yemeni suicide bomber's mission was aborted when the massive bomb concealed in the truck he was driving failed to detonate. The would-be attacker, who had arrived in Iraq less than 48 hours before embarking on his mission, was carrying Syrian documents.
He said he believes the Syrian regime has attempted to make life as difficult – and as bloody – as possible for the Americans to dissuade them from turning their sights on Damascus once the security threats in Iraq are contained.
He also said that the governing council has acquired evidence that incriminates the most senior members of the Jordanian royal family in allegedly illegal and corrupt dealings with Saddam.
The council, he added, had acquired thousands of documents which expose a network of politicians throughout the Arab world and Europe – including the Vatican – who had accepted huge payments from Saddam in the form of "oil contracts" which were traded by the Iraqi regime on their behalf.
The documents, which were unearthed from the files of the Mukhabarat (secret police), the state oil company, and in Saddam's personal office, expose a vast and complex paper trail that reveals not only the identity of the corrupt politicians, but also how their cash was laundered.
One leading Jordanian politician received more than $3 million in a bank account in Cyprus, the favored first stop in the laundering process. There is also evidence, he said, the Jordanian authorities had established a sophisticated operation for providing front companies that allowed Saddam to trade on the international market in defiance of UN sanctions. Vast "commissions" were paid to individual Jordanians for this.
The source said he believes it unlikely the Hashemite throne will survive the detailed revelations that will emerge in the coming months. The governing council, he said, has already informed the Jordanian government that it has halted the arrangement by which Jordan was permitted to purchase Iraqi oil at substantial discounts.
"We will sell to them on the same terms as we sell to Guatamala," he said. "They will not have another cent from us."
And he said Iraq will end all exports of oil through the port of Aqaba, a major source of Jordanian income, within two years, by which time Iraq will have completed the reconstruction of its own storage and export facilities.
Saying that the absence of a hostile regime in Baghdad has reduced Israel's strategic dependence on the Hashemite kingdom as a buffer against Iraq, he predicted that Jordan would, sooner rather than later, become a Palestinian state.
He also revealed that Palestinians who had been living in Iraq – and who were perceived to have been among Saddam's staunchest champions – have been stripped of their Iraqi citizenship and ordered to leave the country. Most are believed to have settled in Jordan.
He laughed when asked whether there has been any communication between the new Iraqi leadership and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. He said many members of the governing council are personally well-disposed toward Israel, and he insisted that the new Iraq would not be hostile to it.
At the same time, however, he said Israel had failed to provide any assistance to the Iraqi National Congress, or even take up its offer of cooperation, while it was operating in exile.
Earlier, Ahmed Chalabi, head of the INC and now the most senior member of the Iraqi Governing Council, told the Post he feels he was ill-treated when he visited Israel to meet with then-prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
At a time when the INC was seeking to build alliances in the region, he had proposed cooperation between it and Israel. Netanyahu's immediate response, he said, was to suggest that he arrange for Chalabi to meet with the head of the Mossad.
Chalabi was deeply offended by the suggestion and said he felt Netanyahu's response to his offer was "racist," indicating that he regarded him as nothing more than a potential Arab spy for Israel.
The source added that when senior members of the Iraqi Governing Council, led by Chalabi, were taken to see Saddam under arrest, he justified his past actions and insisted that all his decisions had been taken "for the sake of Baghdad and Jerusalem."
Catch phrase of the day.
Surprising if it happens.
This policy, of refusing to allow Palestinians to settle in other parts of the Arab world, has been followed by both the US and Israel in areas which are under their control. They see it as a means to retaliate against the Palestinians, but in the long term, it maintains their nationalism.
George Galloway we know about.
I wonder if any of those contracts were in the name of Bill, Hillary, Chelsea, Roger...or Buddy?
Put Algore "I never would have started this war" Junior on that list, too.
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