Ouch! / Au!

New York Times:

U.S. Bars Iraq Contracts for Nations That Opposed War

WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 — The Pentagon has barred French, German and Russian companies from competing for $18.6 billion in contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq, saying the step "is necessary for the protection of the essential security interests of the United States."

The directive, which was issued by the deputy defense secretary, Paul D. Wolfowitz, represents perhaps the most substantive retaliation to date by the Bush administration against American allies who opposed its decision to go to war in Iraq.

But then again - we're making so much money on the sale of nuclear technology to China...

Update: German media realize, something's going terribly wrong here...: FAZ: "Kriegsgegner müssen draußen bleiben", SPIEGEL: "USA strafen europäische Kriegsgegner ab".

German translation:

New York Times:

Die USA sperren Irak-Aufträge für Länder, die gegen den Krieg waren

Das Pentagon hat französische, deutsche und russische Firmen von Angeboten für die 18,6 Milliarden US-Dollar-Verträge zum Wiederaufbau des Irak ausgeschlossen. Das Pentagon sagte, der Schritt "ist notwendig, um die essentiellen Sicherheitsinteressen der US zu schützen".

Die Anordnung, die vom stellvertretenden Verteidigungs-Staatssekretär, Paul D. Wolfowitz, erlassen wurde, stellt vielleicht die wesentlichste Antwort der Bush-Administration bis zum heutigen Tag gegen amerikanische Alliierte dar, die gegen die Entscheidung zum Krieg gegen den Irak waren.

Auf der anderen Seite: wir verdienen ja so viel Geld durch den Verkauf nuklearer Technologie an China...

Nachtrag: Deutsche Medien erkennen, daß hier etwas ziemlich dumm läuft: FAZ: "Kriegsgegner müssen draußen bleiben", SPIEGEL: "USA strafen europäische Kriegsgegner ab".

(Hat tip: N. Klaric)

Comments

[hans ze beeman]

So what. Saudi Arabia and Iran will nicely compensate for this, won't they? Germany's exports had growth rates of 25% in Iran last year...

[Werner]

Good move. Why should coalition and Iraqi security forces die to enable and protect German, Russian or French investments? These countries are not 'enemies of war' but of regime change, Iraqi reconstruction and possible wider reform in the region, as intended by the Bush administration, no matter how potentially beneficial the outcome of these changes would be. In short, these countries turned this into an anti-American power game. That they are not rewarded is at least understandable. Chirac was very concerned about the economic costs of Iraqi liberation - that way, he is for once right about something.

[Wurst]

inzwischen heisst die Überschrift beim Spiegel:

"Bush rächt sich an den Kriegsgegnern"

[James Versluys]

The Americans did seem to time this poorly- right as they were going to ask European governments for help. I tend to think it was just a bungle on the part of the State Departments timing list, but some are thinking it was planned (cue ominous music) by Paul Wolfowitz in order to keep things on a bad track with France and Germany and Belgian.

Well, I'm tired of the Left getting all the fun of making up conspiracy theories. I have a new conspiracy theory of my own: we actually fought French troops that had gone to get exceedingly dark tans in some salons near the Fountainbleu, and that the entire war was avoided so assiduously by the French because they were the ones who actually flew the planes into the World Trade Center. So it was them all along. so we really fought French troops. Hell, it explains why we beat the Iraqi army so easily.

[flursn]

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,278454,00.html

France, Germany, Great Britain, Netherlands, Sweden and Austria declared they will spend less money on the new members of the European Union than projected. No, they say, that's not retaliation for Poland's and Spain's insistence on the agreements of Nice (Nizza) that say that both countries get equal voting rights as compared to nations with much more citizens.

How comes that especially France and Germany howled when the US declared they will bar them from getting the US tax payers' money, crying "unfair retaliation", while they do exactly the same to intractable Poland and Spain?