Bush Will Win His War On Iraq in a Few Weeks, But Our Troops Will Keep on Dying

Someday your children and grandchildren, if they're smart enough, will

be talking about how their grandparents so stupid they let Bush and

his cronies rip off Iraq's oil and gouge Americans at the pump. For

generations to come Americans will be paying through the nose for gas

and George Bush and his cronies will be laughing all the way to the

bank.

Most Americans probably think that Iraq's oil reserves are way down on

the list of oil-rich countries. However, there are some estimates that

place Iraq's reserves at more than Saudi Arabia's. If If true, this

would mean that Iraq has roughly a quarter of all of the world's oil

and Iraq's oil production costs are among the lowest in the world.

Iraq's oil comes in enormous fields that can be tapped by relatively

shallow wells, producing a high flow rate. Iraq's oil is generally of

high quality because it has attractive chemical properties, notably

high carbon content, lightness and low sulfur content, that make it

especially suitable for refining into the high-value products.

About now you're probably thinking, "Well that all sounds great. That

means oil prices are going to go down not up." That's flat-out wrong

Budweiser-breath. The last time the oil companies had control of

Iraq's oil, they held back on production to maximize profits from

their other wells. That's one reason Saddam kicked their asses out and

nationalized his oil, like the rest of the Middle East. Bush and his

daddy have been trying to get the contracts back ever since. Here's an

excerpt from an article:

"Oil Companies Hold Down Production in Iraq

By John M. Blair

The following is an excerpt from The Control of Oil (New York:

Pantheon, 1977).

In this excerpt, John Blair shows how the US and UK companies held

down production in their Iraq concessions, in order to maximize their

worldwide profits. In spite of protests from the Iraq government, and

opposition from their French partner, the Anglo-American companies

maintained this policy until nationalization in 1972. In the last part

of this excerpt, we see the active role of the US State Department in

defending the oil companies' interests. . ."

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/history/1976blairoil.htm

Once the contracts are signed, there's no way on God's green earth,

they can be invalidated. Come war, pestilence, regime change, or the

second coming of Christ, those contracts will hold. The only option

the Iraqi people will have is to continue the insurgency for 20 or 30

years until the contracts expire. Even then, Bush wins since that

would keep the oil of the market. Below is a copy of an example

article describing the ripoff. Note while you're reading it, by the

way, the key role the World Bank plays in managing Iraq's oil. Now

guess who just happens to be President of the World Bank? I doubt if

you would ever guess, so I'll tell you. It's none other than the

infamous Paul Wolfowitz who is the former U.S. Deputy Defense

Secretary and the "intellectual architect" of the Iraq war. Paul

Wolfowitz is one of the most powerful and famous Neocon Jews in the

world.

"Mortgaging Iraq's oil wealth

News|Bretton Woods Project|31st January 2007|update 54|url printable

version -->

As a "key ingredient" of IMF lending and debt relief, Iraq's

government has just presented a new draft petroleum law to its cabinet

that could permit up to two-thirds of Iraq's known reserves to be

exploited by multinational oil companies under contracts lasting for

20 years.

The law could also dictate the future of the country's oil sector and

determine the future shape of the Iraqi federation, as regional

governments battle with Baghdad over resource revenues. Approval by

parliament is expected in the coming weeks. Quietly negotiated outside

of the country by the IMF, government ministers, US officials and

multinational oil companies, this policy would be a radical change for

Iraq's oil industry, which has been in the public sector for more than

three decades. It would also break from normal practice in the Middle

East.

The 'Standby Arrangement' (SBA) signed between Iraq and the IMF in

December 2005 (see Update 49) committed Iraq to draft a new petroleum

law by end 2006 to allow foreign investment in the country's oil

industry. The arrangement was signed before the new Iraqi government

had been appointed and one week after the December 2005 elections thus

denying Iraqi voters a chance to react through the ballot box. It

provided a future financing facility, allowed the cancellation of 30

per cent of Iraq's debt owed to the Paris Club of creditor nations and

included requirements for the controversial and sudden slashing of

public fuel subsidies. The latter led to a hike in fuel prices,

subsequent street protests and the resignation of the oil minister.

After his appointment in May 2006, the new oil minister, Husayn al-

Sharistani, began drafting legislation to govern Iraq's oil sector.

Provisions of the draft law are based around a system of long-term

contracts with international companies - they would invest in

infrastructure and operation of the wells in exchange for a

significant share of revenues, as well as control over production and

development decisions.

The precise details of the draft law are yet to be made public, but

most policymakers have referred to a type of contract known as

production sharing agreements (PSAs) - the form favoured by

multinational oil companies. PSAs are legal agreements, designed to

replace a weak or missing legal framework as in the case of Iraq. PSAs

have recently generated headlines in Russia for the unfavourable

economic deal the government received in relation to the Sakhalin 2

oil and gas project, signed in the mid-90s when the country was

undergoing rapid economic liberalisation and political turmoil.

According to Greg Muttitt, a researcher for UK-based oil industry

watchdog PLATFORM, "Along with the US and UK governments, the IMF and

World Bank are forcing a policy on Iraq which favours the interests of

oil multinationals at the expense of the Iraqi people."

The degree of regionalisation in the control of oil and resulting

revenues is crucial to the country's future stability and national

cohesion. While the Kurdish and Shia populations want independent

control of their oil-rich territories, Sunni Arabs located in the oil-

poor centre of the country want the federal government to guarantee

they're not excluded from the profits. The Kurdish Regional Government

has already signed agreements of its own with oil companies which have

since been declared invalid by Baghdad.

The UK newspaper The Independent, which obtained an earlier copy of

the draft, stated in a January editorial that the draft law was

presented to parliament in December 2006 following three consultations

- with the US government and major oil companies in July and with the

IMF in September. The Iraqi people and parliamentarians were not given

the same opportunity to scrutinise it. As late as December, Muttitt

asked at a meeting of Iraqi MPs how many of them had seen the draft

oil law: "Out of twenty, only one had seen it."

At a meeting in Jordan, also in December, leaders of Iraq's five trade

union federations - between them representing hundreds of thousands of

workers - called for a fundamental rethink of the forthcoming law.

They criticised the major role for foreign companies in the draft law

and rejected "the handing of control over oil to foreign companies,

whose aim is to make big profits at the expense of the Iraqi people,

and to rob the national wealth, according to long-term, unfair

contracts, that undermine the sovereignty of the state and the dignity

of the Iraqi people". Angry at their exclusion from the drafting

process, they called for a delay to the law, to allow proper

consultation and public debate. "The Iraqi people refuse to allow the

future of oil to be decided behind closed doors".

Bank-Fund collaboration

The World Bank is also heavily involved in Iraq's petroleum sector

strategy. Appendix III of Iraq's request for an SBA from the IMF

clearly states that the World Bank is the lead institution for

sectoral strategies including the petroleum sector. In violation of

the World Bank's good governance and anti-corruption rhetoric, PSAs

could prolong and exacerbate poor governance by allowing investors in

the oil and gas sector to effectively bypass the weak or absent legal

and regulatory frameworks. Heike Mainhardt-Gibbs, consultant to US-

based NGO Bank Information Center said ""PSA-driven development of the

oil sector stands to make it even more difficult to ensure that the

necessary changes will be made to improve overall governance, such as

the creation of checks and balances across government agencies and

economic and social sectors. Given this potential, the PSA contract

model promoted by the World Bank may lead Iraq down the path of the

resource curse".

http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/art.shtml?x=548947

http://www.brookings.edu/views/op-ed/fellows/luft20030512.htm

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2002/12heart.htm

http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m29687&s1=h1

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_allen_l__070111_repackaging_failure_.htm

http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-webb080107.htm