It looks as though the countries that opposed us on the war to liberate Iraq are about to discover the price of their opposition. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz has issued a statement that 26 prime rebuilding contracts for Iraq will only be open for bidding from coalition partners and contributing nations.

Good!

Why should countries that worked against us reap the rewards of (primarily) American and British blood, sweat and tears?  France and Russia had lucrative oil deals with Saddam, for which they were willing to oppose the US and keep Saddam in power. According to the Global Energy Network Institute:

In early 1999, French oil company Total merged with Belgian oil company Petrofina to create TotalFina, the world's sixth-largest oil company and the third-largest oil company in Europe. In 2000, TotalFina merged with Elf Aquitaine to create TotalFinaElf.
During the 1990s, Total and Elf Aquitaine reportedly negotiated with Iraq on development rights for the Majnoon and Nahr Umr oil fields. Majnoon is the largest of Iraq's oilfields slated for post-sanctions development, with reserves of 12-30 billion barrels. In July 2001, angered by France's perceived support for the U.S. "smart sanctions" plan, Iraq announced that it would no longer give French companies priority in awarding oil contracts, and would reconsider existing contracts as well.

According to Business Week:

Lukoil is Russia's biggest, most globally diversified oil company, and Baku native Vagit Alekperov, its first and only CEO, is its global strategist.
In 1997, Alekperov signed a $20 billion, 23-year deal with the Saddam regime to extract 5 billion barrels of oil from Iraq's West Qurna field. Five years later, Lukoil has not drilled a single well there. It can't develop the Qurna field, which would boost its reserves by more than 25%, while U.N. sanctions are in place.

No wonder France and Russia labored so long and hard to get the United Nations to lift the sanctions on Iraq.  No wonder they wanted Saddam to continue to rule.  Germany and China were also major beneficiaries of keeping Saddam in power, according to the Heritage Foundation's research.

So who was pulling whose strings here?  Saddam had France, Russia, Germany and China over a barrel, to make a bad pun of it.  Those were the countries that most benefitted from Saddam's iron-fisted rule of Iraq, and their price was open opposition to the United States. They chose to stand by Saddam instead of us.  They worked to convince Saddam that he could stand against the United States -- with their eager help, of course. France, Russia, Germany and China were also Saddam's top weapons suppliers.

If you want to dance, the saying goes, you have to pay the piper.  Those countries danced with Saddam for years.  Time to pay up.