[U.S. President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki: Who is pulling the strings here?]
Comment: Republican presidential nominee John Mccain came under intense fire for saying he wanted to stay in Iraq for another 100 years, so where’s the shitstorm over this? The U.S. is blackmailing Iraq by withholding $50 bn of Iraqi money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York until the Iraqi government signs a security agreement that will allow the U.S. to operate 50 military bases in Iraq, retain control over its airspace and win legal immunity for all American soldiers and contractors there indefinitely. Patrick Cockburn of The Independent, who has broken this potentially explosive story, writes:
“Iraq’s foreign reserves are currently protected by a presidential order giving them immunity from judicial attachment but the US side in the talks has suggested that if the UN mandate, under which the money is held, lapses and is not replaced by the new agreement, then Iraq’s funds would lose this immunity. The cost to Iraq of this happening would be the immediate loss of $20bn. The US is able to threaten Iraq with the loss of 40 per cent of its foreign exchange reserves because Iraq’s independence is still limited by the legacy of UN sanctions and restrictions imposed on Iraq since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in the 1990s.”
You can also read about it here in the Washington Post. This should finally expose the farce of Iraqi sovereignty, but U.S. officials will continue to get away with speaking of the “sovereign” Iraqi government with impunity before uncritical news pundits and a largely uninformed, uncritical American audience — although they seem to be gradually coming around in increasing numbers. Lou Dobbs rants and rages every night on CNN about the threat to American sovereignty posed by outsourcing of U.S. companies and jobs to foreign countries, can you imagine if another country had 50 military bases on U.S. soil, control over U.S. airspace and the ability to intervene in the U.S. Federal Reserve? I think his head would explode.
The Green Line 