On September 19th the occupying Coalition Provisional Authority issued Order 39, 'a blueprint for transforming Iraq into a market economy' according to the Financial Times. This has been explained to British corporations by Windrush Communications in mouth-watering terms: 'The reconstruction of Iraq’s infrastructure is planned to begin in earnest over the next five years at a cost of more than $100 billion. At least half of this figure will account for projects to be sub-contracted to outside companies.'

Windrush themselves plan to be safely seated on this gravy train – by acting as middle-men between the US occupation (plus their Iraqi elite bureaucrats) and various companies that seek to take over the infrastructure of Iraq.

Their recent 'Iraq Procurement Conference: Meet the Buyers' was billed as bringing together '...over 200 companies and organisations from around the world ... to discuss the wide range of economic opportunities available. The event was open to interested businesses and organisations from all countries, immediately following the awarding of up to $18.4 billion in contracts from the US Congress and prior to the handover from the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to the new Iraqi government on 30 June.' (see Babylonian Times for further details of the 'handover')

The scale of contracts available is also described in a breathless list by Windrush as: 'housing and construction, oil and gas, energy and power, automotive and transport, railways and roads, telecommunications, information technology, water and wastewater, agriculture, finance, insurance, healthcare, education and culture, tourism and security. Other industrial sectors include petrochemicals, minerals, cement, paper, consumer goods, light manufacturing, electronics, machinery and transport equipment, food processing and packaging, and textiles and leather.'

However, they do not seem to be totally happy with people in the UK knowing about this sell-off process. On the 23rd of November 2004, the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the charges against two protestors who had disrupted Windrush’s ‘Iraq Procurement Conference’ in April 2004.

The prosecution depended on the protestors having interfered with a ‘lawful activity’; yet there is plenty of evidence that the corporate buy-out of Iraq is not lawful at all. In a leaked memo dated March 26th 2003, UK Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith advised Prime Minister Blair that in his view, 'the imposition of major structural economic reforms would not be authorised under international law'. In another report Juliet Blanch, a partner at the London-based international law firm Norton Rose, had stated that when it came to the CPA selling off Iraqi assets 'Most [experts] believe that their actions are not legal', and could be in breach of the 1907 Hague Regulations and the Fourth Geneva Convention. These regulations and conventions were brought in to prevent plunder – in the past this meant the stripping of crops from fields by invading armies, the rounding up of animals for slaughter and the looting of banks and houses. Nowadays, the control and exploitation of services and industries represents a far more lucrative form of plunder; loot that keeps on giving.

Most of Iraq's industry, services and communications are in a state of disarray after ten years of sanctions and off-on bombing. Pro-corporate voices state that only the companies have the economic muscle to get Iraq going again, and that business are simply picking up the pieces created by the Ba’athist dictatorship.

This ignores the fact that the governments of Saddam and the US occupation authorities both had a common interest – in preventing the public taking control of the economy. Corporate control of the Iraqi infrastructure is attractive to the US and UK occupiers, not only because it will mean an influx of cash for their friends and backers, but also because it is a good way to keep the levers of power in as few hands as possible. One example of this process can be found in Southern Iraq. The Mitsubishi Company built power generators in the town of Hartha twenty years ago.

Now the area suffers from blackouts, and the desalination plants are often out of action, which means undrinkable water and a damaged system. Although the local power plant workers have managed to get 25% power back, while Mitsubishi hold the blueprints and the spare parts nothing more can be done. The Mitsubishi Company has the contract to rebuild Hartha’s power, but is staying out of Iraq for another two years and refuses to release the plans to the plant workers. In this case, but not only in this case, the promise by a corporation to ‘rebuild’ Iraq has actually resulted in a brake on reconstruction.