IRAQ GETS AMERICAN SEEDS OF DEMOCRACY
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people to make them preoccupied with procuring their daily bread so they do not have the chance to demand their political and individual freedoms."2o That such articles would appear in light of Order 81 was hardly surprising. Neither was it surprising that Bremer's CPA would vigorously try to silence such criticisms of its food policy given the stakes for the entire GMO project. Iraq, USA and the IMF Dictates On November 21, 2004, the leading representatives of the Paris Club of creditor governments issued a proclamation on how they would handle the estimated $39 billion Iraqi government debt owed to the industrial countries at large, as part of the estimated $120 billion foreign debts from the Saddam Hussein era. Despite the overthrow of the regime of Saddam Hussein, Washington was initially not about to wipe the slate clean and declare the old debts illegitimate. The Paris Club governments agreed to new terms on the limited $39 billion state-owed debts only after heavy pressure from US Iraq Special Debt Negotiator, James Baker III. Baker was no novice negotiator. He engineered the election of George W. Bush in 2001 through an appeal to the Supreme Court, and he is one of the closest advisers of the Bush family. In the ensuing horse trading with its OECD allies, the US Government was quite happy to press for a major write-off of old Iraqi debt to Paris Club creditors, for the simple reason that most of that debt was owed to Russia, France, Japan, Germany and other countries. The United States held a minor $2.2 billion of the total debt. The Paris Club members issued an official press statement: The representatives of the Creditor Countries, aware of the exceptional situation of the Republic of Iraq and of its limited repayment capacity over the coming years, agreed on a debt treatment to ensure its long term debt sustain ability. To this end, they recommended that their Governments deliver the following exceptional treatment: