R
Raymond
Guest
Sell Off Your Oil Wealth and Ye Shall be Free
America's Lust For Oil in Iraq -The Reason For the War
The Neo Cons want the oil privatized to major US oil firms.
By James Houle
The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) plan for the Middle
East was fleshed-out in a policy paper issued in early 2002 entitled
"Moving the Iraqi Economy from Recovery to Sustainable Growth" and
produced at the American Heritage Foundation by Aaron Cohen and Gerald
O'Driscoll. Reissued by the State Department in February 2003, it
provided the rationale for the Bush oil policy for Iraq in those heady
days after the thunderous advance up the road to Baghdad. They
proposed to sell off all of the oil resources of Iraq, currently held
in trust by the Iraqi National Oil Company (INOC), to major US oil
firms. Privatization of Iraqi oil, literally the sale of rights to own
and exploit the country's oil and gas resources, was trumpeted as the
cure for all ailments. The nationalization of the country's oil by the
socialist government in the 1960s, they explained, has resulted in
corruption, mismanagement and a failure to expand production.
Nationalization has been used to "keep a precious and profitable
resource in the hands of the ruling elite". Privatization, by
contrast, would sell these resources to private oil, increase
production rapidly, reduce prices, and allow Iraq to leave OPEC (the
Saudi-dominated cartel that controls oil supply and keeps prices
high). Getting Iraq out of OPEC would increase oil revenues, the Neo
Cons explained and thus "dampen oil price fluctuations, ensuring
stable oil prices in the world market on a price range lower than the
current $25 to $30 a barrel". (In actual fact, Saudi Arabia, the swing
producer in the Middle East with considerable flexibility in its
production rates, has more often acted to hold oil prices in line,
preventing price spikes that could lead the US to seriously conserve
energy.)
Cont'd
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11293.htm
Oil for Sale: Iraq Study Group Recommends Privatization
Read the Small Print: The US Wants to Privatize Iraq's Oil
No one here believes this is a humanitarian war. It's been about
Iraq's oil from the beginning..
Oil is the war aim on which all Arabs agree. While the Palestinian
intifada is resistance to old-fashioned colonialism with its seizure
and settlement of other people's land, they see the Iraqi intifada as
popular defense against a more modern phenomenon. Washington does not
need to settle Iraqi land, but it does want military bases and control
of oil.
The US has mounted numerous coups in the Middle East to topple regimes
in Egypt, Iran and Iraq itself. It has used crises, like the last Gulf
war, to gain temporary bases and make them permanent. In Lebanon it
once shelled an Arab capital and landed several hundred marines. But
never before has it sent a vast army to change an Arab government.
Even in Latin America, in two centuries of US hegemony, Washington has
never dared to mount a full-scale invasion to overthrow a ruler in a
major country. Its interventions in the Caribbean and Central America
from 1898 to 1990 were against weak opponents in small states. Three
years into the new millennium, the enormity of the shift and the
impact of the spectacle on Arab television viewers cannot be over-
estimated. Is it an image of the past or future, they ask, a one-off
throw-back to Vietnam or a taste of things to come?
Iraqi oil earnings must stay out of US and British hands.
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0331-08.htm
"To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire;
and where they make a desert, they call it peace."
-Calgacus
America's Lust For Oil in Iraq -The Reason For the War
The Neo Cons want the oil privatized to major US oil firms.
By James Houle
The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) plan for the Middle
East was fleshed-out in a policy paper issued in early 2002 entitled
"Moving the Iraqi Economy from Recovery to Sustainable Growth" and
produced at the American Heritage Foundation by Aaron Cohen and Gerald
O'Driscoll. Reissued by the State Department in February 2003, it
provided the rationale for the Bush oil policy for Iraq in those heady
days after the thunderous advance up the road to Baghdad. They
proposed to sell off all of the oil resources of Iraq, currently held
in trust by the Iraqi National Oil Company (INOC), to major US oil
firms. Privatization of Iraqi oil, literally the sale of rights to own
and exploit the country's oil and gas resources, was trumpeted as the
cure for all ailments. The nationalization of the country's oil by the
socialist government in the 1960s, they explained, has resulted in
corruption, mismanagement and a failure to expand production.
Nationalization has been used to "keep a precious and profitable
resource in the hands of the ruling elite". Privatization, by
contrast, would sell these resources to private oil, increase
production rapidly, reduce prices, and allow Iraq to leave OPEC (the
Saudi-dominated cartel that controls oil supply and keeps prices
high). Getting Iraq out of OPEC would increase oil revenues, the Neo
Cons explained and thus "dampen oil price fluctuations, ensuring
stable oil prices in the world market on a price range lower than the
current $25 to $30 a barrel". (In actual fact, Saudi Arabia, the swing
producer in the Middle East with considerable flexibility in its
production rates, has more often acted to hold oil prices in line,
preventing price spikes that could lead the US to seriously conserve
energy.)
Cont'd
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11293.htm
Oil for Sale: Iraq Study Group Recommends Privatization
Read the Small Print: The US Wants to Privatize Iraq's Oil
No one here believes this is a humanitarian war. It's been about
Iraq's oil from the beginning..
Oil is the war aim on which all Arabs agree. While the Palestinian
intifada is resistance to old-fashioned colonialism with its seizure
and settlement of other people's land, they see the Iraqi intifada as
popular defense against a more modern phenomenon. Washington does not
need to settle Iraqi land, but it does want military bases and control
of oil.
The US has mounted numerous coups in the Middle East to topple regimes
in Egypt, Iran and Iraq itself. It has used crises, like the last Gulf
war, to gain temporary bases and make them permanent. In Lebanon it
once shelled an Arab capital and landed several hundred marines. But
never before has it sent a vast army to change an Arab government.
Even in Latin America, in two centuries of US hegemony, Washington has
never dared to mount a full-scale invasion to overthrow a ruler in a
major country. Its interventions in the Caribbean and Central America
from 1898 to 1990 were against weak opponents in small states. Three
years into the new millennium, the enormity of the shift and the
impact of the spectacle on Arab television viewers cannot be over-
estimated. Is it an image of the past or future, they ask, a one-off
throw-back to Vietnam or a taste of things to come?
Iraqi oil earnings must stay out of US and British hands.
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0331-08.htm
"To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire;
and where they make a desert, they call it peace."
-Calgacus
