Word: embargos
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Among the hardest hit are American rice growers. Iraq bought about $143 million worth of the staple from the U.S. in fiscal 1989 -- or 25% of the U.S. export total. The embargo came as painful news for producers, since world prices for rice had fallen 28% during the previous year. Nor are rice growers the only farmers feeling the pinch. Before the invasion, Baghdad was buying $350 million worth of other U.S. grains annually, including wheat, corn, barley and soybeans...
Japanese and German banks and trading firms are saddled with more than their share of Iraqi debt. Japanese trading companies hold about $5 billion in unpaid Iraqi bills, German banks about $2 billion. The embargo also leaves 40 German companies stuck with $2 billion in debt on business deals that have been partly completed but not paid for. Some of those losses will be covered by Hermes Kreditversicherung AG, the German state export-insurance program, but as much as $1.2 billion in trade with Iraq and Kuwait is not insured. Large diversified conglomerates like Daimler-Benz, Mannesmann and Ferrostaal...
...smart money is on this month. Top officials in the U.S. and French governments, among others, are already saying that if anything happens it is likely to happen then. Patience with the U.N. trade embargo against Iraq may be wearing thin, and the armed alliance in Saudi Arabia could be showing rifts. Action may be necessary to stave off dissolution...
...been pursuing a two-track policy. On the military side, a well-armed coalition of nearly 317,000 troops is threatening Iraq with war if Saddam does not pull his forces out of Kuwait. On the diplomatic side, these same allies have imposed a tough economic embargo that they hope brings Saddam to his senses -- and to a peaceful resolution of the crisis -- first. But, as Bush tried to make clear this week, it is impossible to have one without the other: Saddam has to believe in the war threat if diplomacy is to have a prayer...
Industry has been more directly hit by the lack of spare parts, and many long-term building projects have had to be postponed, but cannibalizing and improvising can make a lot of difference. Another major effect of the embargo has been to cut Iraq's ability to pay for its imports with oil revenues. Here, too, Saddam can find ways around the restrictions. For one thing, he confiscated some $1 billion in gold in the Kuwaiti treasury. Libya's Muammar Gaddafi has reportedly been offering him credit. In addition, Saddam runs a police state that can easily squelch discontent about...