Bush's Crude Intentions in Iraq

With the U.S. consuming a quarter of the world's petroleum, President Bush courageously admitted the obvious during his 2006 State of the Union address: "America is addicted to oil."

While recognizing that you have a problem is laudable, and the first step on the road to recovery, we must now be honest with ourselves and ask some tough questions.

Knowing that addiction can drive normally kind, law-abiding people to steal or even to violence in the single-minded pursuit of a fix, is America guilty of such behavior in Iraq?

With the third largest proven oil reserves in the world -- estimated to be around 115 billion barrels -- and much left to be discovered, Iraq does have quite the stash.

Critics of the war have never shied from making this connection. Neither, for that matter, have the vast majority of the Iraqi people.

According to one recent poll, 76 percent of Iraqis believe that the real reason for the invasion was a U.S. desire "to control Iraqi oil."

The Bush administration, on the other hand, despite its ever-evolving rationale for attacking Iraq -- from nonexistent WMDs to spreading democracy in the Middle East -- has consistently denied such crude motives.

"This is not about oil," Defense Secretary Rumsfeld flippantly told Al Jazeera on the eve of the invasion, "and anyone who thinks it is, is badly misunderstanding the situation."

Recent moves in Washington, however, tell a different story.

President Bush and the Democrat-led Congress are currently putting intense pressure on the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to pass a controversial new oil law as one of the main "benchmarks" that must be met to show political progress.

In what amounts to little more than high stakes blackmail, U.S. lawmakers included language in the $100 billion war supplemental that threatens to cut off reconstruction aid if these targets are not reached by the time General Petraeus makes his much-anticipated report to Congress, which is now set for September 11th.

While U.S. officials and the mainstream media have generally billed this law as a measure that will equitably distribute Iraq's massive oil revenues -- projected to reach $31 billion this year -- between the country's different sectarian groups, this is far from a complete or accurate picture of its contents.

Rather than originating in Baghdad, the law was first conceived within the bowels of the State Department prior to the war. The U.S. then brought in BearingPoint, a private contractor, to assist Iraq's Ministry of Oil with the actual writing of the text.

After its completion, in a thoughtful gesture to their occupiers, executives from the major U.S. oil companies and the International Monetary Fund were given the opportunity to offer their comments on the draft. Only then was the Iraqi Parliament shown the law.

The end result is hardly surprising.

Except for three vague sentences that deal with revenue sharing, the rest of a 33-page draft of the law effectively lays the foundation for the privatization of Iraq's oil industry, which was nationalized in 1972.

Under the proposed law, international oil companies could be granted 30 year-long contracts that would give them far greater ownership of and profits from Iraqi oil fields than they would be allowed by other possible models for the development of the country's oil sector. Indeed, every other major oil producer in the region -- including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iran -- maintains a nationalized oil system that forbids foreign control of its oil reserves.

According to Antonia Juhasz, an analyst with Oil Change International, the oil law would also not require foreign companies "to invest their earnings in the Iraqi economy, partner with Iraqi companies, hire Iraqi workers or share new technologies."

To the great consternation of the Bush administration, the oil law has been stalled in the Iraqi Parliament for months.

Somehow, amidst the horrific violence that surrounds them, the Iraqi people are catching wind of the grave threat that this law poses to their country's long-term economic prosperity, and are voicing their opposition.

"We reject this kind of agreement absolutely," Faleh Abood Umara, general secretary of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, said in a recent interview. "The law will rob Iraq of its main resource: its oil. It will undermine the sovereignty of Iraq and our people."

This may in fact be one of the few issues that actually unites all Iraqis. According to a poll released several weeks ago, almost two out of three Iraqis -- including a majority of every ethnic and religious group -- oppose the privatization of their oil resources.

Trade unions, oil experts, and various political parties in Iraq are all organizing against the law. And having already gone on strike in June, the influential oil workers union has threatened to do so again should the law pass in its current form.

Recently, six female Nobel Peace Prize laureates added their voices to the growing chorus of opposition. In a public statement, they urged: "The U.S. government should leave the matter of how Iraq will address the future of its oil system to the Iraqi people to be dealt with at a time when they are free from occupation and more able to engage in truly democratic decision-making."

If this war is not about oil and we have even some regard for the will of the Iraqis, Congress must prove it by taking this disastrous benchmark off the table.

Eric Stoner is a writer based in New York, whose articles have appeared in The Nation and a variety of newspapers. He can be reached through his website, at: ericstoner.net

Comments

[WWWoDMOCRATSoORG]

Call GOP contributor and war contractor General Electric Corporation at 203 373 2211 and ask for the public relations department. Tell the person in public relations that you want the GE CEO to get Bush to end the war in Iraq and then Bush resign with Cheney and until that happens you will not buy any GE products and that you also told your friends about this.

[WWWoDMOCRATSoORG]

Call GOP contributor and war contractor General Electric Corporation at 203 373 2211 and ask for the public relations department. Tell the person in public relations that you want the GE CEO to get Bush to end the war in Iraq and then Bush resign with Cheney and until that happens you will not buy any GE products and that you also told your friends about this.

[Grannysue]

Listen I think it's obvious that this is a corrupt administration, and there are probably a good many on both sides of the isle that need to be removed. It's not about showing the world, it's about our children and grandchildren's future. It's about what is right, it cannot be about which party you belong to. It cannot be about abortion, gay marriage, or if one of the Telle Tubbies is light in the loafers. It also cannot be about letting millions of undocumented people across our borders. Not in this day and age people.
So now it must be about OUR COUNTRY and taking it back. Our Constitution has been trampled, our Middle Class and Poor have paid a tremendous price both in the blood of their children or spouses or husband or wive's, but also in the trillion dollar deficit that we are going to have to face as a nation.
We cannot rule this country from the left or from the right, but rather the CENTER. You bring both parties together and come up with something in the center. It's called compromise. It's not cutting and running, and it's not withdrawl immediately, it's about what is the safest thing to do for our troops that are there, what is the smartest way to bring them home. We already know that Iraq is going to break up into onclaves of each sect. And there will be much more blood, Bush opened Pandora's box, him and Cheney and all the good little Neocons cannot put it back again. Now we the public need to put our country back together again, for our's and future generations sake.

[Grannysue]

It's always been about the oil. I NEVER voted for Jr. either time, I'm an independent but this guy has been a crook since he was a seed in his Daddy's oil reserve! Why do you think Bush and Cheney don't want to leave Iraq? Because they made a real sweet deal with the Saudi's and now it might get all screwed up. Oh my, they can't piss off the Shiek now can they? Our men and women and thousands of Iraqi's have died for these two vial corrupt people's greed! If I were the parent of any of those killed I would make a trip to D.C. to have a news confrence on the Capitol's steps with this report and confront every single Democrat and Republican that came down the steps. Of course it would be wonderful to confront Jr. but him and Cheney will be in the bomb shelter!

[gilbaker]

On May 12, 2007, the New York Times reported that for the past four years 300,000 barrels of Iraqi oil PER DAY have gone unaccounted for, and could have been "siphoned off through corruption." The Times estimated the value of this missing crude at "$5 to $15 million daily. That translates to approximately $15 BILLION over the past four years! Given that the U.S. military and its contractors have been guarding Iraq's oil resources since the invasion, are we honestly to believe that George W and his boss Dick Cheney have no idea where all that missing oil is?

[factanonverba]

It isn't just about oil. Iraq was the neocons' experiment on government. They destroyed every aspect of Iraqi civil society and arrogantly expected the Iraqis to sit idly by and watch their country plunder. Iraq had a functioning state health care system courtesy of oil revenues until 1991 when Hussein blundered into an invasion of Kuwait. After 1991, the health care system faltered but it was still state run in 2003. Privatized. The electrical grid, a state entity. Privatized. Now Iraq's electrical capacity is destroyed in Sunni and Shiite areas. The military disbanded. Now militias abound. The state ministry of culture gone and the museums looted. Milton Friedman and the University of Chicago school of economics, this is the sum of your work.

[Misanthrope2]

I hate Friedman, Coase, Calabresi (look that one up), Strauss and the other fascists from the Chicago School of Economics but remember Obama taught there. He fit right in. He is no rebel despite what his supporters like to project on him.

[Misanthrope2]

Even such a law would not cause the oil to flow. The war is about stopping the flow of oil.

The Iraq war was to stop Iraq from increasing oil output from 3 million barrels a day to 12 million barrels a day (Saudis produce 9 million barrels a day) as soon as the sanctions were lifted.

Iraq was ready to amp up oil production and had signed contracts with French and German companies.

We attacked and oil production never went up. In fact, it is down from 3 million to 2 million barrels a day.

Even with a new law, it is in the interests of the Oil Companies to stop that oil from flowing. If they wanted it to flow, it would be flowing by now.

The oil companies and the Saudis are very happy with the current arrangement.

[SamThornton]

Here's the really nutty part of the Bush equation: his Iraq adventure neither increases the amount of oil available on the market, decreases the price of that oil, nor guarantees more access to oil for the United States. In fact, his actions have accomplished the exact opposite of all those possibilities.

One more chapter in the stunning record of intellectual, practical, and moral failure of the Republican agenda. With friends like this, who needs enemies? Osama must be proud of them.

[mrkerb]

al-Maliki should turn the tables on Bush and say "Sure, we'll allow foreign control of the oil, it just cannot be the US. I'll accept Russia, France, the U.N....."

[leftLibertarian]

Oil and Bush go together like Oil and Cheney.

[texanna]

GWB told us exactly why we invaded Iraq on the eve of Shock and Awe by talking directly to the Iraqi people and warning them about not doing anything to the oil fields. He showed us exactly why we invaded Iraq when the ONLY thing protected when we toppled Saddam was the oil. The traditional media didn't hide any of this, the majority of Americans simply chose to ignore the information because of America's oil addiction. We continue to ignore reality by pretending that the odious Hydrocarbon Law is anything but what it truly is -- felony theft on a grand scale! So what if Congress hasn't specifically referred to the Hydrocarbon Law, we all know what they're talking about when they talk about benchmarks. Our addiction prevents the conversation about whether to stay or go from being held in honest terms. No addict wants to be confronted with the ugly truth of their addiction and the effects that addiction has on others!

[Sundialsvc4]

We must(!) face, with absolutely brutal honesty, what has always been the truth for oh so long.

If we don't, then ladies and gentlemen, what we will soon see happening right before our eyes is (read my lips) "World War Three: The Return of the Nukes." And oh by-the-by, the United States of America would be the aggressor.

Is what I'm saying "horrible?" Horrible is not the word for it. But we would be foolhardy to ignore the simple lessons of history: it CAN happen, and it WILL happen unless forcibly stopped.

"Forcibly stopped?" What, by force? By a bullet? Oh, no, no, no. By law.

We must not "accept" what these officials have done. What they have done is illegal both in United States and in International law, and impeachment is now mandatory. If these men and women are not impeached, then what they have done will become precedent.

If they are impeached, tried, and imprisoned with no hope of pardon (or escape), the world will see.

The rest of the world is not as ignorant or blissful as we; they have been there before, and there is no reason whatsoever for them (or for us) to go there again.

[outnow]

Why are the Democrats going along with operation Iraqi Liberation (oil)? $$$$$$$$$$$$$$~!!!!!!!

[Rowland]

Al Gore said of our objective in Iraq, "To get our troops out of there as soon as possible while simultaneously observing the moral duty that all of us share " including those of us who opposed this war in the first instance " to remove our troops in a way that doesn"t do further avoidable damage to the people who live there."

It's plain the attempt to get Iraq to pass the Hydrocarbon Law is not happening and the Sharing Agreements will not happen. The Unity Gov. there is reaffirming an oil production agreement with China.

It's proving true that the Shia cannot be depended upon to share revenues with the Sunnis so that the civil war will rage on whether we are there or not but certainly a bloodbath if we are not there.

For these reasons, to carry out Mr. Gore"s approach, it will be necessary to tilt in favor of Sunni control of the oil revenues because they will have to share the money with the Shia and Kurds to get the oil out of the ground. This can be done by re-deploying our troops to the six oil pipeline terminals out of the country and patrolling by air along the borders to prevent oil exports by truck. Also the banking must be controlled to assure that the oil is not pirated away from Sunni control.

To offset this unstable condition, the Shia and Kurds must control the reconstruction, reparations and infrastructure rebuilding so that down the road, there really is a nation there with enough balance to suppress the insurgency and civil war.

The re-deployment must be coordinated with the UN so that American greed is ultimately removed from the equation. The object of the UN involvement is to get the US out; first from the interior of the country and then from the re-deployment.

If there is no attempt to restore the balance of the status quo ante, any withdrawal will be bloody and will prevent the United States from recovering its composure around the world for years to come.

[FlowerGirl]

Is anyone ready for an
"I TOLD YOU SO"?

Now why do you suppose the StinkWeed is interested in Iran?