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University of Maine and War Profiteering

MPAC Newsletter, November 2003

By Ilze Petersons, Eric Olson and Doug Allen

Editorial Note: The three authors of this article have all been active with the Maine Peace Action Committee. Doug Allen, a University of Maine philosophy professor; was a founder of MPAC in 1974 and has served as faculty advisor and as an active member ever since. Ilze Petersons, Coordinator of the Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine, has been active with MPAC for over 20 years. While a UMaine graduate student in the 1980s, Eric Olson was one of the most active MPAC members and he has remained a part of MPAC over the years.

Why should Maine citizens be concerned about the University of Maine’s sponsorship of a conference on "Doing Business in Iraq"? The Bangor Daily News (Nov. 1) quoted founder of the U.S.-Iraq Business Alliance, Dennis Sokol, who sees only profit-making opportunities in Iraq: "When there are diamonds and gold out in the streets, you don’t wait a couple of years to pick it up."

But many of us ask who will pay the price for these corporate profit gems. Our troops and Iraqi civilians who are dying so that the wealthy elite can make a financial killing in Iraq? Mainers and other Americans who see billions of their tax dollars poured into private contracts for rebuilding Iraq? Iraqis who have suffered under Saddam, sanctions, and war and now offer a great opportunity for the war-profiteering "gold rush" by multinational corporations?

Should the University of Maine be a willing partner and benefit from the war profiteering of corporations who will pay $850 to attend the conference to hear about "investment opportunities, the privatization of the country’s rich oil fields, security needs and priority development such as communications and health care"? The BDN (Bangor Daily News) also reported that the University has paid $1500 to become one of the forty members of the Alliance, along with for-profit corporations paying from $5000 - $25,000 to join.

On September 19, L. Paul Bremer’s U.S.-controlled Coalition Provisional Authority issued Order 39 by decree. These new "laws," promoted by the Alliance, allow foreign investors to own 100 percent of any Iraqi asset except oil and real estate and to remit profits and royalties when they choose. They reduce import tariffs to 5 percent, allow foreign banks to take over Iraq’s banking system, and, according to U.S.-appointed finance minister, Kamel al-Gailani, offer Iraq as "one of the most open countries in the world" for the huge corporations attending the UMaine conference.

According to Geov Parrish of Working for Change, foreign firms will be able to bid on l92 of Iraq’s public sector companies. "The plan allows for more access to the Iraq economy than almost any other developing nation, with lower taxes, no limit on the amount of money that may be taken out of the country, no requirements that Iraqis be hired or otherwise benefit from the successful bidders’ operations." According to Rania Masri of the Institute of Southern Studies, "A handful of Bush-connected corporations are poised to make billions in profit while U.S. troops are killed almost daily and Iraq plunges deeper into a colonial nightmare."

If the U.S.-Iraq Business Alliance respects Iraq’s right to seek "to have a free, fair and open democratic society that will make its own decisions," as the executive director of the Alliance claims, how can he also predetermine for the Iraqi people that "It’s the American private sector that will restore Iraq’s greatness" (as quoted in the BDN). Furthermore, the Alliance was formed in June 2002, fully eight months prior to the time President Bush announced he had finally decided to invade Iraq. Clearly, the profit motive was in play long before the President promoted his questionable case for attacking. Can an invasion and subsequent economic transformation on these terms lead to democracy for the Iraqis? We think not.

This past October the U.S.-Iraq Alliance sponsored a conference in London similar to one being sponsored by the University of Maine. It was attended by about 100 private companies, mainly from Britain and the U.S., to discuss investment opportunities in post-Saddam Iraq. Corporate delegates were greeted by protestors from Voices UK, a group opposed to the war in Iraq. A spokesperson for the protestors said: "After thirteen years of war and economic sanctions, Iraqis need a reconstruction process that they control and which is centered on their needs. What we are seeing is war profiteering on a grand scale, and cronyism. Not only are there concerns about how much ordinary Iraqis will benefit, but it is actually delaying the reconstruction of the country with potentially catastrophic consequences. It is outrageous that the U.S. and Britain, having illegally invaded and occupied Iraq, are now forcing their free market ideology on the country whilst selling its assets off in what can only be described as a 'fire-sale.'"

A recent study by the Center for Public Integrity found that the ten largest contracts granted without competitive bidding in Iraq were major campaign donors to President Bush. The top contractor was Halliburton, the company headed by Vice President Cheney before he resigned to run with Bush in 2000. The second largest contractor was Bechtel, with former Secretary of State George Shultz on its board of directors. The keynote speaker for the "Doing Business in Iraq" conference will be Caspar Weinberger, who was Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan and formerly vice president and general counsel of the Bechtel Group Companies.

The University of Maine may sponsor this conference under the guise of academic freedom, but we question its priorities and academic integrity. We question the University’s complicity with the business of the exploitation of the Iraqi people by multinational corporations so closely entwined with the Bush administration, and without the necessary structures in place for Iraqis to decide their own future democratically.

Postscript: Since the writing of the above OpEd, published in the BDN on November 8-9, there have been several remarkable unexpected developments. On Nov. 11, two days before the Doing Business in Iraq Conference was to take place at a private country club 150 miles away, the University of Maine and the U.S.-Iraq Business Alliance announced that they had postponed the corporate conference until next March! By this time, opposition had grown at the University of Maine and throughout the state of Maine, and peace and justice activists now had a tremendous sense of accomplishment and even a sense of victory.

Critics decided to go ahead with a protest rally scheduled for Nov. 12 since the basic issues of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, militarism and imperialism, corporate globalization and domination, war profiteering and university complicity still remain. The rally had a high level of energy, was very well attended, and received extensive media coverage. It reflected both positive feelings about our effectiveness in exposing what was happening and in mobilizing such remarkable opposition and at the same time the determination to build and become even more effective in stopping the war profiteers.

Students and others had previously decided to hold an alternative "conference" or teach-in in which there were serious analyses of root causes and policies and a real exchange of ideas. Entitled "The University’s Role in The Buying and Selling of Iraq," the very well-attended lively teach-in took place on Nov. 20. Along with a presentation by the President of the University of Maine, the other presenters analyzed the history of Iraq and U.S.-Iraq relations, militarism and globalization, and the military-industrial-academic complex.

This very important struggle continues. For valuable information on the UMaine U.S.-Iraq Business Alliance "Doing Business in Iraq" Conference controversy and for background information and analysis of related issues, check out: www.peacectr.org and http://deep_blade.tripod.com/journal.