Pepsi is back in Iraq.

Pepsi production returning to Iraq - JIM FITZGERALD, Associated Press Writer Wednesday, January 7, 2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (01-07) 13:29 PST WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) -- PepsiCo Inc. plans to resume producing Pepsi-Cola in Iraq, using the same bottler that distributed fake Pepsi after economic sanctions forced the company out of the country. PepsiCo, headquartered in Purchase, said Wednesday it has signed an agreement with Baghdad Soft Drinks Co., Iraq's largest bottler, to make and distribute Pepsi, 7-Up and other soft drinks in central Iraq by the end of June. "Iraqis have been great supporters of Pepsi over many years, and we're delighted to resume local production," Saad Abdul-Latif, president of the Middle East/Africa region of PepsiCo International, said in a news release.

Mark Morford adds a little to Abdul-Latif's quote:

"Because if there's one thing a bloody decimated war-ravaged piss-poor violence-torn rubble-strewn hate-wary completely miserable nation needs as it's being violently and unhappily occupied by the world's least welcome and most obnoxious superpower, it's syrupy sticky heavily carbonated high-sugar American-made fizzy crappy drinks that feed more dollars directly into the American corporate maw," he really, really should have added. "Pepsi: It quenches your brutally severed limbs!"