January 23, 2004

Ignore that noise, just dominos falling ...

Remember how so many people were shoveling scorn onto the administration for its "diplomatic ineptitude" in announcing a tough Iraq contracts policy just before negotiating with our faux allies on Iraqi debt relief? And remember how they mostly did not admit that they had been wrong, when France, Germany and Russia capitulated immediately thereafter? Did not admit that they were wrong, but just dropped the subject and tried to pretend it never happened?

Well, they are still pretending, and its still happening. We could have hardly asked countries like Kuwait to compromise their more-or-less legitimate debts before the truly odious ones were reduced. Now that's happening, and Cori Dauber has winkled the news out of some very obscure corners of newspapers, such as this, from page 8 of the NYT:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 21 � Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III has secured pledges from four Persian Gulf nations to reduce their holdings of Iraq's debt, a senior State Department official said Wednesday.

The official said negotiations with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar had been far more difficult than earlier discussions with Russia, France, Germany, Japan and other large creditor nations in Europe and Asia....

Posted by John Weidner at January 23, 2004 8:48 AM
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