 DUBAI: Saudi billionaire Prince Dillweed Alwaleed bin Talal branded on Monday US policies in Iraq a âfiascoâ but said American troops should not pull out any time soon due to the perilous security situation. âClearly, the United States misunderstood the ballgame completely in Iraq... yes, itâs a fiasco,â he told an Arab media forum in Dubai.
| Gee, we sure changed things there dramatically, unless you're the kind of guy who likes being fed into a shredding machine ... |
âIraq is a very complicated country and I am not sure the policies of the United States are actually good for Iraq.â Alwaleed is a nephew to King Abdullah, a global investor and a prominent figure both inside the kingdom and internationally. But Alwaleed said ending the US occupation of Iraq - a demand of several Arab governments - would not fix the problem. âIn the short term, the United States canât leave at all, it cannot withdraw (troops) for the sake of the Iraqis. It can only do so when Iraq is ready.â
One US mistake in Iraq was allowing hundreds of newspapers and several television stations to be set up, he said.
| The nerve of letting non-billionaires speak up. |
âRight now, the last thing Iraqis need is so many voices quarrelling through the media. This is not the time for the luxury of having so many TV channels and 200 newspapers, you canât impose US democracy in Iraq,â said Alwaleed, who owns stakes in US media conglomerates such as Time Warner Inc. and News Corp.
| We may not be imposing 'US democracy', but we're imposing a lot more democracy than Iraq had before. Wanna see us try it in neighboring countries? |
In a newspaper interview published on Monday, Alwaleed said he would not invest in Iraq now due to the chaos gripping the country and advised other entrepreneurs to do the same. âYou donât go and invest when you have civil strife, when you have a country thatâs disintegrating, when you have war and killings,â he told the Saudi daily Arab News. âIraq is dangerous for any investor to go there. Almost every investor who went there lost his shirt. I will only go to stable countries.â
So says the traveling investor. Iraq has plenty of capital -- first, an industrious people, second oil. They'll manage nicely once the insurgents die settle down. |
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