CDMA Pushed on Postwar Iraq [link via Slashdot]

A coalition is underfoot in the U.S. Congress to replace European with American cell phone technology in Iraq as soon as the conflict is over and the country rebuilds.
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The current reconstruction plan involves using U.S. funds to install a European-based wireless technology known as GSM (define) for a new Iraqi cell phone system. Issa's bill (HR 1441) would give preference to American companies, including QUALCOMM.

"If European GSM technology is deployed in Iraq, much of the equipment used to build the cell phone system would be manufactured in France, Germany, and elsewhere in western and northern Europe. Furthermore, royalties paid on the technology would flow to French and European sources, not U.S. patent holders," Issa said in his letter to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and USAID Administrator, Ambassador Wendy Chamberlain.

Idiots!!! Now, this coupled with the now-infamous Halliburton contract, seriously undermines the US claims that this war is simply about liberating Iraq or dethroning the tyrant Saddam.

Ohh! and I don't think only the Americans are to blame for this. What do you say to Tony Blair who rushed to US when it became apparent that the British were left in the lurch when it came to the post-war reconstruction contracts which the US companies are winning without even going through a formal bidding process!