U.S. Efforts to Rebuild Iraq's Banks Hit Snags

Reuters

The U.S. government's efforts to reconstruct Iraq's banking sector have been plagued with problems surrounding the new and untested government in Baghdad, no rule of law, and increasingly reluctant bank partners.

A consortium of banks led by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. has delayed signing the contract it was awarded to run the Trade Bank of Iraq -- the first major financial institution to help Iraqis borrow to rebuild their government and businesses, according to several sources familiar with the situation who asked not to be named.

A J.P. Morgan spokesman declined to comment.

snip

But the consortium led by J.P. Morgan has had unsettled issues among the 13 member banks, sources said, like where the bank will be located -- and lingering questions for the U.S. Treasury Department and other government agencies that have a say in the deal.

Only a few problems:

Need personnel - appointed, agreed to, and provided with security.

Need a response to the offer to manage/set-up this Bank - which in turn means a request for information so as to have a request for proposals - but the US folks at the Pentagon do not know how to put one together - based on the questions asked about "how would you" manage Iraq's two largest commercial banks, Rafidain and Rasheed - being too broad and representing no clear plan of action.

Or ya - besides Security, the Banks want a legal system and a government in place that will enforce the new legal system - courts would be nice to offer recourse when a creditor failed to make a payment.

Thank Goodness our Adults in Charge of the Whitehouse/Pentagon had this planned out before we rushed to war because of the imminent threat of Iraq starting a college physics course in atomic energy at Baghdad University that might lead to a "Nuclear Program".

Have their star intelligence performer advise. You know, the one who hadn't been in Iraq for 25 years but gave them all the good intelligence???? Of course, he would have to stay out of Jordan, or else be arrested for bank fraud.

...could run the Bank of Iraq. He's qualified, he can't account for the 1 Trillion the Pentagon lost over recent years; the Comptroller General of the US gives him a D in accounting; and now he can't give an accounting of the 66 billion he was allocated for the war last spring which was supposed to last to May 2004. Congress just authorized him another 60 billion plus. He has enough money squirreled away to finance Iraq and Israel for a decade, unless it already made it's way to Switzerland.

Dov Zakheim will probably be running the American bank business. Nothing, I mean nothing surprises me anymore.

That will exclude anyone and every firm connected with Dimbo's mis-administration.

...and got to know him pretty well. By banker I mean a member of a family who owned a bank which he was expected to take an executive position in. I was curious about why he would rather work at a salaried job than on easy street in the family bank. He replied, "Because, I am not a crook."