Iraq: Not Many Taken In by Marshall Plan Analogy, Will Dunham

Opinion, September 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

Iraq: Not Many Taken In by Marshall Plan Analogy

Will Dunham

Reuters, Arab News

WASHINGTON, 29 September 2003 — British statesman Winston Churchill called the Marshall Plan — the colossal US aid package that helped Western Europe back to its feet after World War II — “the most unsordid act in history.”

Now this “unsordid act” has leapt from the history books into today’s political rhetoric, as President George W. Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others invoke the memory of the Marshall Plan in seeking congressional approval of Bush’s costly reconstruction efforts in Iraq.

But historians questioned the comparison. And some leading congressional Democrats said Bush’s actions run counter to the spirit of the Marshall Plan, named for its architect, Nobel Peace Prize laureate George C. Marshall. “If they want to give money to Iraq to make them a nice democracy, that’s OK with me. But we ought not to fool ourselves that we’re doing a Marshall Plan,” said Larry Bland, a leading authority on the Marshall Plan and editor of the Marshall Papers at the George C. Marshall Foundation in Lexington, Virginia.

“The economic elite isn’t kidded. So it’s political spin rather than reality. We’re not going to do a Marshall Plan for them. We’re going to do a big, expensive influx of money,” Bland added. “The short answer from my perspective is that it is definitely not a valid comparison,” added Imanuel Wexler, a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Connecticut who wrote “The Marshall Plan Revisited,” a definitive book on the economic aspects of the plan.

Marshall, a retired general who served as secretary of state under President Harry Truman, saw the plan as a way for the United States to foster economic recovery in Europe and contain Soviet influence.

Through aid aimed at restoring various industries, the United States gave $13.3 billion from 1948-1952 to 16 nations, most in Western Europe but also Greece and Turkey. The Soviets refused aid and prevented Eastern European nations from accepting it. Bland said the Marshall Plan was not intended to rebuild the ruined infrastructure of a country, but rather restore trade and halt inflation.

Most Americans viewed it as “an act of generosity,” Bland added, although it did not hurt that nations receiving aid were soon able to buy American products.

The Marshall Plan cost $100 billion in today’s dollars, when accounting for inflation, Bland said, and even more as a percentage of the overall US economy.

Bush wants Congress to approve $20.3 billion for Iraqi reconstruction — $15 billion for infrastructure needs and $5 billion for creating security forces. The money is part of an $87 billion package to pay for US operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2004 fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.

In his speech last Tuesday to the UN, Bush said this was “the greatest financial commitment of its kind since the Marshall Plan.” Paul Bremer, US civil administrator in Iraq, told the Senate Appropriations Committee the funds “bespeak grandeur of vision equal to the one which created the free world at the end of the World War II.”

Wexler said that unlike Iraq, the Marshall Plan nations had economic and political environments that enabled the funding to be used effectively.

Some Democrats dislike administration references to the Marshall Plan.

“The reconstruction of Europe was undertaken in the context of the spirit of internationalism, multilateralism and collective security that led to the formation of the United Nations, NATO, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund,” said Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia.

“The same can hardly be said — hardly be said — today. Come on,” added Byrd.

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).