#3
BBC Monitoring
No place for Russia in US plans for post-war settlement in Iraq - paper
Source: Argumenty i Fakty, Moscow, in Russian 5 Mar 03

The head of the Kremlin administration, Aleksandr Voloshin, who very rarely goes on foreign visits on his own, met President Bush and other top-ranking US officials in Washington last week. Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov went to Beijing and the "giant of Russia's Middle East policy", Yevgeniy Primakov, was dispatched to Iraq.

The details of the meetings are being kept secret. However, according to some reports, the aim of the Washington talks was an attempt to preserve mutual understanding with the USA and the relations between Putin and Bush which have been established in recent years. This is particularly important after we found ourselves in the antiwar team together with France, Germany and China. Ivanov's trip to Beijing, incidentally, was a routine "synchronizing of the watches" on the Iraq and North Korea problems. As for Primakov, according to Argumenty i Fakty experts, his aim was to persuade Saddam Husayn to comply with the UN Security Council resolutions in full in order not to give a pretext for aggression. Judging from the fact that Baghdad has started destroying its missiles, the mission was successful.

On the other hand, it looks as if we are not very successful in getting guarantees from the USA that our interests in Iraq will be taken in account. Argumenty i Fakty has been given to understand by a source in Washington that a post-war settlement in Iraq has already been decided with representatives of the Iraqi opposition who will succeed Husayn. The matter was not decided in our favour. According to information available to Argumenty i Fakty, the division of the country will be based on the principle "the winner gets all". The four companies which will divide Iraq's oil fields among themselves are already known. They are Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP Amoco and Royal Dutch Shell. Another two giants, Halliburton and Backtel, will get contracts for the restoration of oil wells and pipelines. The privatization of the Iraqi oil will be run on the basis of a scheme similar to loan auctions in Russia in 1996. There is a joke in Washington political circles that they will use "Russian know-how" in Iraq. The gist of it is that oil corporations will give a new Iraqi government big loans on conditions which are impossible to meet. The loans will be secured against the oil fields. As soon as the Iraqi authorities delay payments, the oil fields will become the property of the Americans.

The aim of the operation is, of course, to put oil prices under control. According to some estimates, after Husayn is deposed, the price of a barrel of oil will drop to 15 dollars by the end of 2003. This will give the US economy a chance to overcome stagnation prior to presidential elections and will help Bush to be re-elected. Russia would be in the opposite position. If oil prices drop prior to the [State] Duma and presidential elections [14 Dec 2003 and 14 Mar 2004 respectively], we will have problems with the budget. This explains the authorities' current efforts to prevent a war.

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