Iraq buys $4.2 billion in Russian weapons-document

[MugenOne]

GORKI, Russia (Reuters) - Russia announced on Tuesday it has signed $4.2 billion in arms deals with Iraq, making it the largest weapons supplier to the Middle East country after the United States.
The deals, disclosed in a Russian government document issued at a meeting between Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, give Russia a big boost at a time when the future of its arms sales to Libya and Syria is uncertain.

           Iraq had been all but off limits for Russia's defense industry after the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 which ousted Saddam Hussein, one of Moscow's biggest weapons customers.


           President Vladimir  Putin had vocally opposed the invasion and Moscow has struggled to claw  back a share of the markets in energy, arms sales and infrastructure  projects in Iraq.


           "After the fall of Saddam Hussein, it looked like the country was lost forever" as a Russian arms customer, said Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Russian security and defense think tank CAST. "This is absolutely sensational."


           The contracts will  help Russia maintain its position as the world's second-biggest arms  seller after the United States, Pukhov said.

news.yahoo.com/iraq-buys-4-2-billion-russian-weapons-document-141633988.html

Nice way to repay us! What if G Dub is still around?

 

[manualman]

I’m not terribly sure Iraqis in general think they owe us much thanks. Sure, we removed Saddam, but an awful lot of people died in the process and their country turned into a magnet for every lunatic jihadi in the Islamic world for a decade. Not to mention that they went from nearly a first world standard of living to third world status in the process.

I’m not a lefty propagandist and I voted for GWB twice (the second time grudgingly), but I’m lucid enough to realize that if I were an Iraqi I’d probably not be a big fan of the USA either. It’s predictable that given back their autonomy the Iraqis are going to use that autonomy to send a message that they aren’t our puppets.

 

[KP3243]

This is why I give Mitt Romeny a lot of credit for at least sniffing out what Russia is trying to do even though he was mocked for saying it he is dead on that Russia is trying to shift global power.

 

[SamH]

I’m not terribly sure Iraqis in general think they owe us much thanks. Sure, we removed Saddam, but an awful lot of people died in the process and their country turned into a magnet for every lunatic jihadi in the Islamic world for a decade. Not to mention that they went from nearly a first world standard of living to third world status in the process.

I’m not a lefty propagandist and I voted for GWB twice (the second time grudgingly), but I’m lucid enough to realize that if I were an Iraqi I’d probably not be a big fan of the USA either. It’s predictable that given back their autonomy the Iraqis are going to use that autonomy to send a message that they aren’t our puppets.

Over 100,000 Iraqis a year were dying due to the UN imposed trade sanctions. The number that died from the war are a small fraction of that total.

 

[manualman]

Over 100,000 Iraqis a year were dying due to the UN imposed trade sanctions. The number that died from the war are a small fraction of that total.

I’m sure that’s a big consolation to the Iraqi mom’s whose sons and husbands were killed. You can make a case for this on dry statistics, but numbers are meaningless in such situations. From the street level in Iraq, I suspect they see the change as simply transitioning from one form of brutality to another. When Sadaam killed his own people, they blamed him for it. When US forces killed Iraqis to remove Saddaam, they blame us for it. Human nature.

No criticism of our guys who did what they had to do, but war sucks. There’s no sense in expecting an occupied country to be happy about it or to adore their occupiers.

 

[sainthumbert]

Nice way to repay us! What if G Dub is still around?

Repay us (the United States) for what? Invading their country? If G Dub was still around the same thing would probably have happened. Not much of a story as far as I am concerned.

 

[endaman]

Remember there were no weapons of mass destruction, Saddam was not behind 9/11. These was lots of Oil as was the case when George Senior was in Power.