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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

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lchic - 12:49am Oct 11, 2002 EST (# 4795 of 4800)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

holding over 11 billion barrels of oil; the firm plans to invest $4 billion over the lifetime of the field to develop it. To the annoyance of the Bush administration, Russia and Iraq even reached a deal a few weeks ago on “economic co-operation” in energy and related sectors, rumoured to be worth as much as $40 billion.

There are now over 30 deals signed and ready to be implemented the moment that sanctions are lifted. Compared with most international norms, Iraq's beleaguered leader has offered terms that seem pretty generous. For example, say analysts at Deutsche Bank, plausible rates of return are “of the order of 20%”. Some of these contracts are for exploring the vast western desert of Iraq, which some experts suspect could hold huge new reserves.

All this must be bad news for those excluded from the party: the Americans. Yet they do not seem too worried. That is because there is one teeny doubt about all these deals. Will they be worth the paper they are written on when Mr Hussein one day becomes a former dictator?

American oilmen insist that any new regime would tear up existing contracts. After all, they were signed by a ruthless tyrant with companies eager to keep him in office. Why would any democratic Iraqi government, especially one brought to power by America's efforts, honour them? The head of the Iraqi National Congress, an umbrella opposition group, has openly declared that “American companies will have a big shot at Iraqi oil”—if he gets to run the show. Assorted other opposition leaders have been touring Texas making similar promises to the oil giants.

Things could get messy, even so. The fractured and incoherent Iraqi opposition may be prepared to say anything to win friends and credibility. But Deutsche Bank's oil experts argue that, although a change of Iraqi regime would mean that “some kind of legal clear-out is inevitable, the history of political overthrows shows that root-and-branch bureaucracies survive intact, and there is a clear hope that the contracts will remain valid.”

That is why Russia's oil barons are pursuing a dual strategy to preserve their contracts. They are lobbying President Vladimir Putin to extract from America, in return for Russian support for an invasion, a promise to honour their contracts. Vagit Alekperov, boss of Lukoil, claimed recently that he had received “guarantees” from Mr Putin of such a deal. The Russians are busy schmoozing junior Iraqi bureaucrats in the hope that some will still be there if Mr Hussein goes.

Luis Giusti, a former boss of PDVSA, Venezuela's state oil company, points to his own country's recent experience. When Hugo Chavez ran for office he vowed to tear up contracts signed by the old government with foreign investors, arguing that they were exploitative. Once in office, the famously wacky leader did not dare to revoke the contracts.

It is hard to imagine that the American giants would not find some way to get a piece of the action in Iraq—or “Klondike on the Shatt Al Arab,” as some call it—post-Saddam. Still, his last-minute manoeuvring means they will probably have plenty of legal wrangles ahead of them. Things could get especially complicated if any regime change were the result of an internal coup rather than a more clear-cut invasion. The dictator could yet make trouble even from his grave.

lchic - 01:00am Oct 11, 2002 EST (# 4796 of 4800)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1378764

lchic - 01:09am Oct 11, 2002 EST (# 4797 of 4800)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Blair-Putin TheTimes

Blair ""
Mr Putin feels that he has received scant compensation for his co-operation with the West, in particular for backing the US-led war in Afghanistan and admitting the American military to the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.

President Bush has since done little to fulfil his promise to help to remove the Jackson-Vanik amendment, a punitive trade sanction that was imposed on the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Mr Putin also faces serious political problems over Iraq because Russian businessmen have made hundreds of millions of pounds in recent years through lucrative oil deals with Saddam’s regime.

Mr Blair said he recognised that Russia had legitimate concerns about its economic and commercial interests in Iraq, which include loans worth around $10 billion (£6.6 billion). Mr Putin is expected to seek assurances that Russia’s outstanding business contracts with Iraq will be honoured by any successor government in Baghdad.

Mr Blair also sought to ease Russian fears that America’s real objective was to give US companies access to Iraq’s oil fields. Mr Putin is understood to want guarantees that a new Iraqi government would not flood the international oil market, depressing the price of Russia’s own oil exports.

“If oil was our concern, then there are a thousand easier ways to do this — we would be doing a deal with Saddam,” Mr Blair said.

Backing Mr Putin’s war in Chechnya will be more problematic for Mr Blair. America’s Human Rights Watch organisation urged him yesterday to take a tough line with Mr Putin over his treatment of Chechen rebels, saying that Russia’s abuses could not be ignored in return for its support on Iraq.

Mr Blair said that he would once again raise the question of human rights, but Russia was entitled to protect its territory and take measures to counter terrorism. “I have always been perhaps more understanding than others about the problems President Putin faces on this,” he said.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-442982,00.html

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