Iraqis Want German Business Know-How

The German government and the Iraqi governing council want to deepen economic cooperation between their countries. Germany has the “experience and capacities necessary for Iraq’s reconstruction,” the governing council’s president, Abdel Aziz Al-Hakim, said after meeting with German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer in Berlin on Thursday. German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder offered Al-Hakim Germany’s support during the transition to a market economy as well as with debt reduction. The U.S. government recently excluded companies from Germany and other countries opposed to the Iraq war from bidding for billions of dollars worth of reconstruction contracts.