rainesco
Financial coordinator for Iraq
Sat May 17 14:22:04 2003
208.152.73.113

Social Network Diagram for Peter McPherson
http://www.namebase.org/cgi-bin/nb06?_MCPHERSON_M_PETER

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http://www.transnational.org/pressinf/2003/pf183_AmericansInIraqPart2.html

PETER McPHERSON

Financial coordinator for Iraq
The man chosen to control Iraq's oil revenue, manager of Iraq's central Bank
Former USAID, Deputy Treasury Secretary and, you guessed it, energy adviser...

Former U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Peter McPherson has been named financial coordinator for Iraqi reconstruction, Treasury Secretary John Snow has announced. In an April 25 news release, Snow said that McPherson will serve as the principal financial and economic policy advisor to Jay Garner, chief of the U.S. Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) in Iraq. McPherson's background includes service as administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) from 1981 to 1987. He is currently president of Michigan State University. In a separate announcement, Snow said that Treasury Deputy General Counsel George Wolfe will serve as the deputy financial coordinator of the Iraq reconstruction office. The two officials and will work closely with Iraqis to assist in rebuilding the finance ministry, the central bank and the banking system in Iraq, Treasury said.

Here is the bio of McPherson. Like most other info on the net it does not mention that McPherson is also Chair of the Secretary of Energy Avisory Board for the US Department of Energy. With an expertise in both finance matters and energy, Pherson must be uniquely competent.

And, so, he is. He is the man centrally placed in the US draft resolution to the UN. Here is Column Lynch's report for the Washington Post Service of May 9:

Under the system proposed by the administration, the proceeds of Iraq's oil revenues would be placed in an Iraqi Assistance Fund held by the Central Bank of Iraq, which is being managed by Peter McPherson, a former deputy treasury secretary and Bank of America executive.

The United States and its allies would have the sole power to spend the money on relief, reconstruction and disarmament operations and to pay ''for other purposes benefiting the people of Iraq.'' The ''funds in the Iraqi Assistance Fund shall be disbursed at the direction of the [U.S.-led coalition], in consultation with the Iraqi Interim Authority,'' the resolution states.

He is a friend of vice-president Cheney, according to the Washington Post. We have not been able to find evidence that he has any particular qualifications or experience in post-war civilian reconstruction, socio-political and economic development, nation-building or reconciliation.

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Nat Hentoff
Terrorizing the Press
'Could I Be Bombed? Or Be Thrown Behind Bars?'
Aimbabwe is now one of the world's worst places for freedom of the press.
http://villagevoice.com/alertrd.php3?article=44188

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Petition to reject nomination of BushBlair for Nobel
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/302184339?ts=1053115191&sign

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On democracy: One step forward, two steps back
http://www.hillnews.com/marshall/051403.aspx

No one in the Bush administration has been a more dogged or influential proponent of democratizing Iraq and the Middle East than Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. Say what you will about the wisdom of regime change or how we went about it, Wolfowitz clearly believes that a democratic Iraq is a good thing in itself and in the strategic interests of the United States.

But that fact only makes his recent remarks on Turkish television all the more difficult to explain.

Last week, Wolfowitz gave an interview to CNN-Turk, a joint venture of CNN and a Turkish media conglomerate. When asked about the future of U.S.-Turkish relations, Wolfowitz said that if Turkey wanted to get back into America’s good graces, the Turks would have to admit they were wrong to deny the U.S. permission to use their territory as a staging ground for invading Iraq and, in essence, apologize.

That’s a rough demand for a fellow democracy and a longtime ally. But what raised the ire of many Turks was another of Wolfowitz’s statements: the Bush administration, he said, was disappointed that the Turkish military “did not play the strong leadership role on that issue [i.e., the Iraq debate] that we would have expected.”

Outside the context of Turkish politics, that statement might seem obscure or insignificant. But in Turkey the meaning seemed painfully clear: The United States wished the Turkish military had either overruled the elected government or perhaps even pushed it aside in favor of one more subservient to U.S. demands.

As numerous Turkish commentators have noted, that’s an odd stance for a country now presenting itself as the champion of Middle Eastern democracy. But it’s particularly ill-conceived at the present moment in Turkish political history.

Turkey has been a multiparty democracy for a little more than half a century. But it’s been democracy within clearly defined limits. The founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, created a state that was Western-oriented and secular. And the Turkish military has long seen itself as the guardian of this tradition. On several occasions, when the generals believed the country was veering toward anarchy or Islamism, they either deposed the government outright or forced their will upon it from behind the scenes.

Over the decades, the military played a pivotal role in keeping Turkey united, secular, pro-Western, and —- contradictory as it may seem —- democratic.

But in recent years it’s become increasingly clear that Turkey will never be truly democratic or truly Western so long as the military is the true power in the state. Nor will it ever be accepted as part of Europe so long as it uses repressive policies to check ethnic pluralism or impose a strict ban on Islamic political expression on a population that is predominantly secular, but still overwhelmingly Muslim.

Present-day Turkey is struggling to find a way to accommodate a greater degree of religious freedom and ethnic pluralism within a state-structure that remains secular, Western, and democratic.

The latest test came last November when a new, reformist, Islamically oriented party, the AKP, won a plurality of the popular vote and a decisive majority of the seats in parliament. Any victory of an “Islamist” party is bound to raise concern in Washington – and understandably so. But “Islamist” means something very different in Turkey than it does anywhere else in the Middle East. And Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s government has shown every sign of upholding the country’s secular and pro-Western principles. It not only struggled mightily to secure U.S. permission to launch a northern front from Turkey —- in the face of almost unanimous public opposition —- it has also aggressively pressed Turkey’s case for admission to the European Union.

In other words, Turkey is currently struggling to accomplish something very similar to what we’re trying to demonstrate in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East: that pluralism, democracy and Islam can peaceably coexist. It doesn’t say much for our sincerity or seriousness if we push the generals to step in the moment we can’t get the elected government to do our bidding. (It’s not even shrewd politics since the Turkish military had its own reasons for resisting our plans for Iraq.)

There’s nothing special about saying you want democracy. The real question is whether you still want democracies —- full-fledged, multi-party, rule-of-law democracies —- even when they disagree with you. If the U.S. is serious about spreading democracy in the Middle East, that’s a question we’ll have to confront again and again. Paul Wolfowitz’s comments leave his answer to that question in serious doubt.

Josh Marshall is editor of talkingpointsmemo.com . His column appears in The Hill each Wednesday.

Email: Joshua@j-marshall.com
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International Herald Tribune Thursday, May 15, 2003
The Long Reach of Leo Strauss
by William Pfaff
http://www.iht.com/articles/96307.html

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