By Irwin Arieff
ReutersMay 21, 2003
Billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros said yesterday that he was setting up a watchdog group to guard against any abuse by the United States in managing Iraq's oil resources while the coalition occupies Baghdad. Soros, during a news conference at UN headquarters, also said he hoped that Iraq would not repay all its foreign debt stemming from Saddam Hussein's years in power - in order, he said, to discourage the practice of lending money to dictators.
''I personally would favor not paying in full the debts incurred by the Saddam Hussein regime,'' Soros said. ''I think that would send a very healthy signal to the financial markets and others that extending credit to dictatorships is not without risk.'' Citing reports that a handful of US corporations were winning huge reconstruction contracts from Washington without competitive bidding, Soros said many people around the world feared that the United States might abuse its authority while it and close ally Britain occupy postwar Iraq. ''It is very much in the interest of the United States to allay these fears, and we want to help,'' he said.
A US-drafted resolution pending in the UN Security Council would give the United States and Britain wide-ranging powers to run Iraq and control its oil industry until a permanent government is set up, a process some analysts say could take years. Soros is an outspoken critic of President Bush's doctrine justifying a preemptive war against any country the United States deems a threat, as occurred in Iraq. The billionaire said he planned to set up a watchdog group because the draft resolution would fail to provide sufficient safeguards.
He called on the Security Council's 14 other member nations to press for changes in the draft that would give the United Nations a greater role in monitoring Iraq's oil program during the occupation, and he encouraged the United States to disclose fully all it was doing with Iraq's oil resources. The Security Council is expected to vote on the resolution this afternoon.
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