Blood and oil: How the West will profit from Iraq's most precious commodityThe 'IoS' today reveals a draft for a new law that would give Western oil companies a massive share in the third largest reserves in the world. To the victors, the oil? That is how some experts view this unprecedented arrangement with a major Middle East oil producer that guarantees investors huge profits for the next 30 years.
Sunday, 7 January 2007
So was this what the Iraq war was fought for, after all? As the number of US soldiers killed since the invasion rises past the 3,000 mark, and President George Bush gambles on sending in up to 30,000 more troops, The Independent on Sunday has learnt that the Iraqi government is about to push through a law giving Western oil companies the right to exploit the country's massive oil reserves.
And Iraq's oil reserves, the third largest in the world, with an estimated 115 billion barrels waiting to be extracted, are a prize worth having. As Vice-President Dick Cheney noted in 1999, when he was still running Halliburton, an oil services company, the Middle East is the key to preventing the world running out of oil.
Now, unnoticed by most amid the furore over civil war in Iraq and the hanging of Saddam Hussein, the new oil law has quietly been going through several drafts, and is now on the point of being presented to the cabinet and then the parliament in Baghdad. Its provisions are a radical departure from the norm for developing countries: under a system known as "production-sharing agreements", or PSAs, oil majors such as BP and Shell in Britain, and Exxon and Chevron in the US, would be able to sign deals of up to 30 years to extract Iraq's oil.
[snip]
"Three outside groups have had far more opportunity to scrutinise this legislation than most Iraqis," said Mr Muttitt. "The draft went to the US government and major oil companies in July, and to the International Monetary Fund in September. Last month I met a group of 20 Iraqi MPs in Jordan, and I asked them how many had seen the legislation. Only one had."
Britain and the US have always hotly denied that the war was fought for oil. On 18 March 2003, with the invasion imminent, Tony Blair proposed the House of Commons motion to back the war.
"The oil revenues, which people falsely claim that we want to seize, should be put in a trust fund for the Iraqi people administered through the UN," he said.
Read the rest here:
7 comments:
Let's see, we liberated the country from a brutal dictator who killed his own people, fought down terrorists bent on overrunning the place, helped them get the government up and running, have spent billions and billions of dollars and thousands of American lives, and the Iraqis are allowing US and British companies to come in and get oil?
Good.
"The oil revenues, which people falsely claim that we want to seize, should be put in a trust fund for the Iraqi people administered through the UN," he said.
I don't think the Iraqis are that dumb. Just look at the list of things the UN has done well:
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Iraqi oil belongs to the Iraqi people.
They did not ask us to invade their country and depose Saddam Hussein. We invaded Iraq on bad intelligence. We invaded the country because George W. Bush was a lazy, incurious dupe who listened to a cabal of neocons and to the execrable Karl Rove who convinced Bush that he would be a popular war president. Rove is utterly without any redeeming character, and Bush less for what he has wrought.
At the very least, Bush should have listened to Gen. Shenseki who actually knew what it would take to secure the country after invasion--instead he listened to the neocons who knew nothing about war.
We've decimated the country, thousands of their citizens have been killed. For what?
Robert Mugabe kills (present tense) his own people. Why aren't you demanding we invade Zimbabwe and liberate the poor citizen who suffer under his murderous regime?
This was a war to support the neocons' plan to weaken Israel's enemies and to grab the oil for Dick Cheney and his energy barons.
You believe the Iraqis are "allowing" the US and Britain to grab their natural resources?
Whew!
Neither of us has the full evidence as to why we went into Iraq in the first place. And I'm not interested in trying to rehash the old arguments, as that territory has been well trod.
In general, unless some national interest is served, we shouldn't be invading country after country to liberate the people. It's always a tossup any time we do anything that ends up as nation building.
As for Mugabe, there's something to be said for assassination.
But as for the standard conspiracy line that everything was orchestrated to enrich Dick Cheney, it's as oft-repeated as your other mantras about the Bush administration. And most of it has no evidence to back it up.
So yes, I do believe the Iraqis have control of their oil, and they signed companies ready to do drilling (as they can't drill over here) to get it out of the ground for them.
I don't see anyone losing here, do you?
Because you are an American, you see nothing wrong with American companies extracting the wealth from other nations' natural resources.
Have you ever read the history of Guatemala and the United Fruit? How we the United State of America overthrew a democratically elected regime who wanted to nationalize its own natural resources? It's an interesting history, and the famous P/R innovator, Edward Bernays, had a hand in the overthrow of Guatemala's government (after, of course, we called it Communist). That made it okay--to meddle in another country's affairs and keep the US in control of its natural resources.
Also, see Chile and Salvatore Allende.
And you actually believe we take other people's resources because they want us to?
patrick m: This war has killed more than 1.2 million Iraqis and left millions of Iraqi refuges. Even Hussein create that much suffering and death in Iraq. Iraq is a place with no more real freedom now than under Sadaam Hussein, especially if you are a woman, lgbt, or a Christian.
As for the UN, it has done a wonderful job fighting global disease epidemics and fighting poverty. You should research subjects before spouting off on them.
Shaw: Because I'm an American, I know what free markets can eventually do.
Okay, just read some Wikipedia on General Fruit. I don't know every detail, but in this case, it appears, in the end, we were wrong to do what we did. It looks like it was a case of standard Cold War paranoia, along with a business acting as businesses in political markets do. I do see your point, though. Now depending on how things shake out in Iraq, it may or may not be a repeat of that very same scenario.
But as it is not just one company, and the Iraqi government WAS democratically elected (luless you've got that conspiracy theory waiting next), then I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. For now.
Libhom: Glad you're up on propaganda. Most of those casualties and refugees are due to foreign terrorists still fighting their jihad against us and the Iraqi government. As for the freedom, that's up to the Iraqi government now. Not every dead body is the responsibility of the "evil" USA.
As for the UN, you forced me to have to research what I already knew. And in this situation, we're talking about letting the UN get handle on oil control and revenues. I'm assuming you're familiar with the UN's Oil for Food Program. If that's what you call a "wonderful job", then perhaps you need to do the research. I have yet to casually come across anything (and you can post links if you've got them) of UN programs that produce real results. And the idea that this organization, which likes to cater to terrorist countries on occasion, that possesses no real power but that which we give it, and that fancies itself as a world government (ha!), has any chance to do better than private industry, is laughable. In fact, let me go now so I can laugh some more.
patrick m: Let's review some facts.
Most of the over 1.2 million Iraqis killed were killed by US troops.
The problems with the oil for food program were the result of the British and Americans interfering with the ability of the UN administration to run the program. The biggest problem that the UN has is that rightist politicians in the big five powers insist on sabotaging its work.
The far right talking points you are repeating make no sense if you take the time to go beyond the corporate media to learn about what is actually going on in the world.
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