The Battle for Iraq's Cell Phones

Mother Jones has a new report, Crossing the Lines, on the backroom wheeling and dealing over "one natural resource Saddam Hussein never managed to exploit -- the nation's cellular phone frequencies... Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), whose district includes many Qualcomm employees, had tried to wrap his favored company in the flag. He denounced the cellular system used by Iraq's neighbors as 'an outdated French standard,' and proposed a law that would effectively mandate Qualcomm on Iraq." Qualcomm's patented standard was turned down, but according to the documents and emails Mother Jones says it has obtained, the battle didn't end there.

Comments

Re:'an outdated French standard,'

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

"(GSM originally stood for ),"

Whoops. GSM originally stood for "Groupe Systeme Mobile", French for "Mobile System Group". It was later rebranded "Global System for Mobile communication".

Pillaging Iraq

[GOD_ALMIGHTY]

For those interested, Harper's has a really interesting article on the mechanics of the corruption in the reconstruction contracts. Baghdad Year Zero - Pillaging Iraq in pursuit of a neocon utopia

This may be more palatable if you feel Mother Jones goes off the deep end sometimes.