Why should Maine citizens be concerned about the University of Maine’s sponsorship of a conference on “Doing Business in Iraq”? The Bangor Daily News (Nov. 1-2) quoted the founder of the U.S.-Iraq Business Alliance, Dennis Sokol, who sees only profit-making opportunities in Iraq. “When there are diamonds and gold out in the streets, you don’t wait a couple of years to pick it up.”

But many of us ask who will pay the price for these corporate profit gems. Our troops and Iraqi civilians who are dying so that the wealthy elite can make a financial killing in Iraq? Mainers and other Americans who see billions of their tax dollars poured into private contracts for rebuilding Iraq? Iraqis who have suffered under Saddam, sanctions and war and now offer a great opportunity for the war-profiteering “gold rush” by multinational corporations?

Should the University of Maine be a willing partner and benefit from the war profiteering of corporations that will pay $850 to attend the conference to hear about “investment opportunities, the privatization of the country’s rich oil fields, security needs and priority development such as communications and health care”? The BDN also reported that the university has paid $1,500 to become one of the 40 members of the alliance, along with for-profit corporations paying from $5,000 to $25,000 to join.

On Sept. 19, Paul Bremer’s U.S.-controlled Coalition Provisional Authority issued Order 39 by decree. These new “laws,” promoted by the alliance, allow foreign investors to own 100 percent of any Iraqi asset except oil and real estate and to remit profits and royalties when they choose. They reduce import tariffs to 5 percent, allow foreign banks to take over Iraq’s banking system, and, according to U.S.-appointed finance minister, Kamel al-Gailani, offer Iraq as “one of the most open countries in the world” for the huge corporations attending the UMaine conference.

According to Geov Parrish of Working for Change, foreign firms will be able to bid on l92 of Iraq’s public-sector companies. “The plan allows for more access to the Iraq economy than almost any other developing nation – with lower taxes, no limit on the amount of money that may be taken out of the country, no requirements that Iraqis be hired or otherwise benefit from the successful bidders’ operations.” According to Rania Masri of the Institute of Southern Studies, “A handful of Bush-connected corporations are poised to make billions in profit while U.S. troops are killed almost daily and Iraq plunges deeper into a colonial nightmare.”

If the U.S.-Iraq Business Alliance respects Iraq’s right to seek “to have a free, fair and open democratic society that will make its own decisions,” as the executive director of the alliance claims, how can he also predetermine for the Iraqi people that “It’s the American private sector that will restore Iraq’s greatness” (as quoted in the BDN)? Furthermore, the alliance was formed in June 2002, eight months prior to the time President Bush announced he had finally decided to invade Iraq. Clearly, the profit motive was in play long before the president promoted his questionable case for attacking. Can an invasion and subsequent economic transformation on these terms lead to democracy for the Iraqis? We think not.

This past October the U.S.-Iraq Business Alliance sponsored a conference in London similar to one being sponsored by the University of Maine. It was attended by about 100 private companies, mainly from Britain and the United States, to discuss investment opportunities in post-Saddam Iraq. Corporate delegates were greeted by protesters from Voices UK, a group opposed to the war in Iraq.

A spokesperson for the protesters said: “After 13 years of war and economic sanctions Iraqis need a reconstruction process that they control and which is centered on their needs. What we are seeing is war profiteering on a grand scale and cronyism. Not only are there concerns about how much ordinary Iraqis will benefit, but it is actually delaying the reconstruction of the country with potentially catastrophic consequences. It is outrageous that the United States and Britain, having illegally invaded and occupied Iraq, are now forcing their free market ideology on the country whilst selling its assets off in what can only be described as a fire-sale.”

A recent study by the Center for Public Integrity found that the 10 largest contracts granted without competitive bidding in Iraq were major campaign donors to President Bush. The top contractor was Halliburton, the company headed by Vice President Cheney before he resigned to run with Bush in 2000. The second largest contractor was Bechtel, with former Secretary of State George Shultz on its board of directors. The keynote speaker for the “Doing Business in Iraq” conference will be Caspar Weinberger who was secretary of defense under President Ronald Reagan and formerly vice president and general counsel of the Bechtel Group Companies.

The University of Maine may sponsor this conference under the guise of academic freedom, but we question its priorities and academic integrity. We question the university’s complicity with the business of the exploitation of the Iraqi people by multinational corporations so closely entwined with the Bush administration and without the necessary structures in place for Iraqis to decide their own future democratically.

This commentary was written by Douglas Allen, a University of Maine philosophy professor, Ilze Petersons and Eric T. Olson, a UMaine alumnus. All three are members of the Peace & Justice Center of Eastern Maine. More than 100 people have additionally signed this commentary in support.