And the gravy train rolls on....

Oxfam has expressed outrage over the man the Bush junta has put in charge of agricultural reconstruction in Iraq. From the Guardian/UK:

Dan Amstutz is a former senior executive of Cargill, the biggest grain exporter in the world, and served in the Reagan administration as a trade negotiator in the Uruguay round of world trade talks.

Oxfam is concerned that his involvement is an example of the potentially damaging commercialization of the reconstruction effort in Iraq, which it would prefer to see conducted under the auspices of the United Nations.

Kevin Watkins, Oxfam's policy director, said Mr Amstutz would "arrive with a suitcase full of open-market rhetoric", and was more likely to try to dump cheap US grain on the potentially lucrative Iraqi market than encourage the country to rebuild its once-successful agricultural sector.

"Putting Dan Amstutz in charge of agricultural reconstruction in Iraq is like putting Saddam Hussein in the chair of a human rights commission," Mr Watkins said.

Oxfam is worried that Amstutz will advance the commercial interests of American grain companies by busting open the Iraqi market, and leave the Iraqi agricultural sector unprotected from cutthroat US competition at the crucial early stages of its reconstruction.

Full story here, via Common Dreams.