January 25, 2007

Today the UNCC paid a further $391.5m of Iraqi money to 7 Governments for distribution to 44 successful claimants. The largest amount ($326.5m) went to the Kuwaiti government and companies, followed by $20m to Saudi Arabia. An American company recieved $10m. The total Iraq has paid to date is now $21.8bn

January 21, 2007

John Taylor, who was US Treasury Undersecretary for International Affairs until 2005, has written an insiders account of the Bush Administration's financial policies: GLOBAL FINANCIAL WARRIORS - The Untold Story of International Finance in the Post-9/11 World The Washington Post explains that: "In telling the story of how Iraq's debt was forgiven, for example, he explains that Washington had agreed to adhere to a previously hammered-out set of international debt-restructuring rules. But the administration, he writes, had determined that if it didn't like the direction in which these consensual policies were headed, it planned simply to strike out on its own unilateral course."

January 12, 2007

US Secretary of State Rice is about to begin a Middle Eastern tour. Speaking at a hearing at the Senate earlier today on Iraq, she said the United States was trying to win the support from the Arab Gulf countries to write off the Iraqi debts. "We have negotiated for the Iraqis 80 percent debt relief from most of the Paris Club debtors and 100 percent from ourselves and several others. We are trying to get the Gulf States to do the same."