In a Major Step, Saudi Arabia Agrees to Write Off 80 Percent of Iraqi Debt

Source: Washington Post

Saudi Arabia has agreed to forgive 80 percent of the more than $15 billion that Iraq owes the kingdom, Iraqi and Saudi officials said yesterday, a major step given Saudi reluctance to provide financial assistance to the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad.

But Iraqi Finance Minister Bayan Jabr said in an interview that Russia was holding out on debt forgiveness until talks begin on concessions that Russian oil and gas companies had under Saddam Hussein. Russian Embassy officials in Washington declined to comment late yesterday.

The Bush administration has been working for months to persuade other governments to follow the U.S. lead and write off all of their shares of Iraq's debts, which Jabr said total $140 billion. Iraq also owes $199 billion in compensation for the Persian Gulf War that followed Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, analysts said.

Today, Iraq could never fulfill its financial obligations. They total about $380 billion, including foreign debt; Gulf War compensation, 40 percent of which is owed to Kuwait; and unpaid contracts, Barton said.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/17/AR2007041701950.html?hpid=topnews

I predict $5.00 a gollon gas in the near future. They are not going to give away 15 billion dollars just to be nice.

...Iraq might never have invaded Kuwait. Imagine how different history might be then since it was the presence of US bases in Saudi Arabia (established to 'Liberate Kuwait') that spawned Al Queda. The Iraq economy was feeling the pinch of 8 years of war debt amassed during the Iran-Iraq war which Saddam believed was a war to defend the Sunni Arab homeland against the onslaught of Shiia Persians. He wanted the Saudis and the Kuwaitis to forgive Iraqi debt as a recognition of this and to agree to strict production quotas so that Iraq could pay off its western arms dealer.

And we gave a similar amount to Israel as "compensation".

Pretty cozy little bunch of fiefdoms, eh?

--p!