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BAKER TAKES THE LOAF

PRESIDENT'S BUSINESS PARTNER SLICES UP IRAQ

by Greg Palast


Well, ho ho ho!

It's an early Christmas for James Baker III.

All year the elves at his law firm, Baker Botts of Texas, have been
working day and night to prevent the families of the victims of the
September 11 attack from seeking information from Saudi Arabia on the
Kingdom's funding of Al Qaeda fronts.

It's tough work, but this week came the payoff when President Bush
appointed Baker, the firm's senior partner, to restructure the debts
of the nation of Iraq.

And who will net the big bucks under Jim Baker's plan?

Answer: his client, Saudi Arabia, which claims $30.7 billion due from
Iraq plus $12 billion in reparations from the First Gulf war.

PUPPET STRINGS

Let's ponder what's going on here.

We are talking about something called "sovereign debt."

And unless George Bush has finally 'fessed up and named himself Pasha
of Iraq, he is not their sovereign.

Mr. Bush has no authority to seize control of that nation's assets nor
its debts.

But our President is not going to let something as trivial as
international law stand in the way of a quick buck for Mr. Baker.

To get around the wee issue that Bush has no legal authority to mess
with Iraq's debt, the White House has crafted a neat little
subterfuge.

The official press release says the President has not appointed Mr.
Baker.

Rather Mr. Bush is "responding to a request from the Iraqi Governing
Council."

That is, Bush is acting on the authority of the puppet government he
imposed on Iraqis at gunpoint.

I will grant the Iraqi "government" has some knowledge of
international finance; its key member, Ahmed Chalabi, is a convicted
bank swindler.

The Bush team must see the other advantage in having the rump rulers
of Iraq pretend to choose Mr. Baker; the US Senate will not have to
review or confirm the apappointment.

If you remember, Henry Kissinger ran away from the September 11
commission with his consulting firm tucked between his legs after the
Senate demanded he reveal his client list.

In the case of Jim Baker, who will be acting as a de facto US Treasury
secretary for international affairs, our elected Congress will have no
chance to ask him who is paying his firm.... nor even require him to
get off conflicting payrolls.

This takes the Bush administration' Conflicts-R-Us appointments
process to a new low.

Or maybe there's no conflict at all.

If you see Jim Baker's new job as working not to protect a new Iraqi
democracy but to protect the loot of the old theocracy of Saudi
Arabia, the conflict disappears.

Iraq's debt totals something on the order of $120 billion to $150
billion, depending on who's counting.

And who's counting is very important.

Much of the so-called debt to Saudi Arabia was given to Saddam Hussein
to fight a proxy war for the Saudis against their hated foe, the
Shi'ia of Iran.

And as disclosed by a former Saudi diplomat, the kingdom's sheiks
handed about $7 billion to Saddam under the table in the 1980's to
build an "Islamic bomb."

Should Iraqis today and those not yet born have to be put in a
debtor's prison to pay off the secret payouts to Saddam?

James Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank, says 'No!'

Wolfensohn has never been on my Christmas card list, but in this case
he's got it right: Iraq should simply cancel $120 billion in debt.

Normally, the World Bank is in charge of post-war debt restructuring.

That's why the official name of the World Bank is "International Bank
for Reconstruction and Development."

This is the Bank's expertise.

Bush has rushed Baker in to pre-empt the debt write-off the World Bank
would certainly promote.

"I FIXED FLORIDA"

Why is our President so concerned with the wishes of Mr. Baker's
clientele?

What does Bush owe Baker?

Let me count the ways, beginning with the 2000 election.

Just last week Baker said, "I fixed the election in Florida for George
Bush."

That was the substance of his remarks to an audience of Russian big
wigs as reported to me by my somewhat astonished colleagues at BBC
television.

It was Baker, as consiglieri to the Bush family, who came up with the
strategy of maneuvering the 2000 Florida vote count into a Supreme
Court packed with politicos.

Baker's claim to have fixed the election was not a confession; it was
a boast.

He meant to dazzle current and potential clients about his Big In with
the Big Boy in the White House.

Baker's firm is already a top player in the Great Game of seizing
Caspian Sea oil.

(An executive of Exxon-Mobil, one of Baker Botts's clients, has been
charged with evading taxes on bribes paid in Kazakhstan.)

ALL IN THE FAMILY

Over the years, Jim Baker has taken responsibility for putting bread
on the Bush family table.

As Senior Counsel to Carlyle, the arms-dealing investment group, Baker
arranged for the firm to hire both President Bush 41 after he was
booted from the White House and President Bush 43 while his daddy was
still in office.

Come to think of it, maybe I'm being a bit too dismissive of the Iraqi
make-believe government.

After all, it's not as if George Bush were elected by voters either.

It would be more accurate to say that TWO puppet governments have
agreed to let the man who has always pulled the strings come out from
behind the curtain, take a bow, take charge -- then take the money and
run.

________________________________________________________

"***** the Jews. They didn't vote for us"

Bush Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III (reported in The New
Republic, 3/30/92).

Harry