Publication notice: 16^th September

Leading British think-tank calls on United Arab Emirates to exercise global leadership, and write off Iraq’s debts.

The new economics foundation (nef) – the London-based economic “think-tank of the year” – is calling on Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid al-Maktoum, prime minister of the United Arab Emirates to use the occasion of the annual meetings of international creditors, to exercise global leadership, and write off Iraq’s debts of $17.5 billion. nef will be in Dubai for the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank.

“This action by Sheikh Maktoum and the leaders of the UAE, would set an example for other creditors, and give the suffering men, women and children of Iraq the chance of a future” said Ann Pettifor, a director at the new economics foundation. Ms Pettifor noted further, “after the Second World War, the children of Germany were given a future when the Allies wrote off Nazi debts under the London Accord. The Sheikh and other Arab leaders should play a similar enlightened role in Iraq. The rewards for the people of the UAE would be growing peace and security for the region as a whole.

Contact in Dubai:  Ann Pettifor, Mary Murphy on 07770 886 146, Romilly Greenhill 07812 605131.

Notes to Editors:

• For more information on Iraq’s debt visit www.jubileeiraq.org For more information on the new economics foundation and Jubilee Research, visit www.neweconomics.org, and www.jubileeresearch.org

• According to Exotix[1] Iraq owes $17.5 billion to UAE and Gulf (Excluding Kuwait)  – Iraq’s second biggest creditor. (Saudi Arabia is owed $25 billion and is the biggest creditor).

• There is widespread consensus that debts incurred by Iraq dictator, Saddam Hussein, are odious, and in the words of Paul Wolfowitz (Deputy US Defence Secretary) “were lent to the dictator to buy weapons and to build palaces and to build instruments of repression”.  (10 April). 

• Pentagon adviser Richard Perle has said “This is money that should never be collected. If you loan to a dictatorship, don’t expect to be repaid if a democracy emerges.” (11 June).

• The new economics foundation, which hosts Jubilee Research, led global awareness of Third World Debt through the international Jubilee 2000 campaign, endorsed by the Pope, President Clinton, Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bono of U2, and Mohammed Ali - has long condemned British loans to Saddam Hussein. Britain is owed $1.6 billion by Iraq. In 1983 Margaret Thatcher announced a £250 million loan to Iraq, along with the conversion of $200 million of cash contracts into credit. The last three loans were extended after Saddam Hussein gassed 5000 Kurds at Halabja on 16 March 1988. Alan Clark MP, the Minister for Trade said: “We have made clear to the Iraqi government our condemnation of the use of chemical weapons. At the same time, we should not lose sight of the importance of developing economic relations with Iraq and the provision of export credits is a major contribution to this.” Falluja 2, a chemical plant the CIA and Joint Intelligence Committee identified last year as a key component in Iraq’s chemical warfare arsenal, was secretly built by a British company, Uhde Ltd of Hounslow in 1985, with the backing of the government-backed Export Credit Guarantee Department, which paid £300,000 in compensation to the company after final checks on the plant, completed in May 1990, were interrupted by the Gulf War.

• Ms Pettifor will be holding a press conferenceWednesday, 17^th September 2003 at 4 pm in Gulf Room 5, on the 33^rd Floor of the Fairmont Dubai onSheikh Zayed Rd.

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