TRILLIONS NEEDED: Figures coming out of a meeting of seven Nobel laureates and some 150 US economists place the administrative cost of the US-Iraq war at a minimum of $100 billion, and the cost of rebuilding Iraq at $2 trillion (2 followed by 12 ciphers).

For a more realistic accounting, add on collateral expenditures and intangibles.

Those billions were burned and trillions more will be spent in the name of Freedom for Iraqis. That translates to Iraqi Freedom from Saddam Hussein, whom the US wants to replace with somebody more disposed to agree with American designs in the Middle East.

The billions that the US is pouring into its invasion of Iraq will be paid by American taxpayers. As for the trillions for Iraq’s rehabilitation, where that staggering amount will come from is still being debated.

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TRIO LEFT OUT: Three powers — France Germany and Russia — who had refused to join the US invasion can sense that they are being left out in the allocation of post-war contracts. They are frantically meeting to see how they can leverage and grab a piece of the action.

Begging the US for some scraps would be unthinkable, so the trio is pressing the United Nations’ playing a key role in the rebuilding of Iraq. They would be marginalized, as outsiders looking in, if the US would have a big say in the awarding of the contracts.

If allowed to manage reconstruction, the US could be expected to look more kindly on its favorite American contractors and the so-called “coalition of the willing” supporters.

The Philippines being one of those willing supporters, the Arroyo administration is making it known that it expects to be allocated at least 100,000 jobs for Filipinos workers. How cheap naman, di po ba?

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DEBT WRITEOFF: On another aspect of the financial front, Germany is horrified at suggestions by the US that international debts of Iraq be condoned. Iraq owes Germany $4 billion, which is actually a small part of total Iraqi debts estimated at $130 billion, but Germany is not ready to let it go.

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund themselves might just get embroiled in the debate over rehab spending. The US is suggesting that the purse strings of the two agencies, which it controls, be loosened if more funds are needed for Iraq.

While the US, being the biggest stakeholder, has a big say in the two agencies, their officials are cautious about the US idea. They talk of first consulting the rest of the members.

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DISTORTED VIEW: US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is mad that films of runaway looting in Baghdad were being shown again and again on worldwide TV, thereby giving a distorted picture of what was going on in the Iraqi capital.

While Rumsfeld is right about the distortion, we think his own view is distorted.

Rumsfeld failed to mention also, perhaps deliberately, that the same films showing statues of Saddam Hussein being toppled to the applause of a watching crowd were also being shown again and again like the looting scenes.

That endless repetition of tight shots of the statue-toppling might give the wrong impression that Iraq has a forest of such statues, all of which are now being cut down like timber to the applause of “free Iraqis.”

If you look closely, you will note that some of those stomping on the fallen statue (as it is with pictures and vandalized murals if Saddam) are obviously performing for the TV news cameras.

It happens everywhere, even here in Metro Manila: Take away the TV crews and the scene would simmer down.

This is not to say that the statue-toppling did not happen. It did, but the same shots of the incident repeated in hypnotic repetitive sequences could, to borrow Rumsfeld’s term, “distort” the total picture.

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IRAQIS IN TRANSITION: On the looting captured on TV, Rumsfeld is not angry because of media’s lack of balance per se, but because the documented anarchy has projected worldwide America’s failure to keep the peace after winning the war.

Under world conventions, the occupying power (the US in the case of Baghdad) has the duty to secure the place and maintain order.

But the films showed American troops watching the rampage and doing nothing. Some soldiers even waved friendly gestures to the looters. That’s bad, and Rumsfeld knows it and is angry.

He tried rationalizing the looting by saying that the Iraqis were moving from a repressed to a liberated state and such behavior was normal during the transition.

Assuming he is right, still the US occupation forces should have done something to restore order. Some of the officers argued that they were soldiers, not policemen, that their mission orders did not include arresting looters.

Their superiors should tell them about international law clearly mandating that the occupation force has that responsibility.

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NOT ONLY THE POOR: The argument that Iraqis were so deprived during the reign of Saddam that they are now just trying to grab material things that were denied them cannot apply universally.

There were TV shots of obviously well-off and well-dressed Iraqis driving off with their loot in their cars and pickups.

Iraqis living in the US and other places abroad must be embarrassed no end with the looting. That’s how low war and the vacuum in its aftermath can drag the human person caught in the life-and-death conflict.

With the US forces unwilling to act, decent Iraqis whose homes and businesses had been threatened took up arms (many of them were lugging Russian AK rifles) to fend off looters.

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EFFECTS OF EMBARGO: To understand the widespread want that has degraded Iraqis, we must remember that aside from Saddam controlling the oil business in the past, the Iraqi people were also subjected to a decade of deprivation by the trade embargo imposed on it after the Gulf War.

During that period where Iraq was unable to conduct its own oil trade, there was a glaring drop in the quality of life of Iraqis. Proceeds of the sale of Iraqi oil, conducted under the auspices of the United Nations, did not go to Iraq. They went to an escrow fund administered by the world body.

Then came the US invasion that reduced to rubble key points of targeted communities and disrupted normal commerce and essential services.

All that contributed to the sorry economic state of the Iraqi people who had already suffered under Saddam. Other parties aside from the fallen dictator must share the blame for the deprivation of Iraqis.