Probe International

(May 21, 2003) Russia is ready to discuss the issue of Iraq’s debts at the Paris Club of creditors, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov said. The question is, "Will the debts be reflected in the draft resolution of the UN Security Council on Iraq?"

(April 21, 2003) As the last remnants of Saddam regime crumbled, the US treasury secretary, John Snow declared Iraq’s citizens should not have to pay back the debts racked up by their former dictator.

(April 21, 2003)Americans will probably be torn by our natural inclination to support the sanctity of contract, and the contradictory feeling that the Iraqi people should not have their futures blighted by debts incurred by a bloody tyrant.

(April 21, 2003) Few doubt that vast Iraqi assets have been secretly transferred out of the country for years, and especially in the prewar months…Taken together, Saddam’s huge haul is now terrorism’s central bank account.

(April 19, 2003) The repayment of some Iraqi debt, despite regime change, is crucial to rebuilding Iraq’s credibility in international credit markets. The payment of war reparations is not.

(April 18, 2003) There is a doctrine that has gained some acceptance in international law that might be able to help Iraq solve its debt problems. This is the "doctrine of odious debts."

(April 18, 2003) With reparations and commercial obligations, the country’s destitute denizens are saddled with more than $16,000 in debt per capita. Iraqi debt equals 15-20 times the country’s gross national product.

(April 18, 2003) There is a moral dimension to the Iraqi debt issue that deserves a good deal more discussion than it has gotten so far. Should those who lend money to despots expect to get their money back if the despot is toppled?

(April 18, 2003) In this paper, Hishow argues that Russia has rejected the American proposal for debt relief in Iraq and favours using Iraq’s debt to drive negotiations to improve its own economic position in post-Saddam Iraq. [Published in German]

(April 17, 2003)Chairman of the Duma’s Committee on the State Debt and Foreign Assets, Vladimir Nikitin, called the American proposals for debt relief "more than bizarre". Iraq’s debt to Russia – some "well verified and grounded" $8 billion – is not negotiable.

(April 17, 2003) Outside Iraq, the usual repositories of economic data, like the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund, have scant knowledge of what has been going on inside the country since the 1980s.