Billionaire Texan Helps Divvy Up Iraq's Oil, Now Admits It's the Bush Legacy
Last September, Hunt Oil of Dallas quietly revealed it had signed an oil production-sharing agreement with the grand poobahs of Iraq's Kurdistan region, in defiance of the central government in Baghdad, the one America created.
The Bush administration briefly feigned mild concern and then went out for cocktails.
The issue: The Kurds claim the Iraqi constitution gives them power over resources within their region, while Baghdad insists it has sole constitutional authority over all of Iraq's oil.
It's surprising the news media was never all over this story, and virtually nothing has been said or written in the nine months following the deal's announcement. Until now, and it comes from the horse's mouth.
Hunt Oil honcho and longtime Bush family contributor/crony Ray Hunt was honored this week at a Dallas business dinner, and the online blog of D Magazine quotes him during the Q&A as saying his play for oil is "going very well." He waxed on:
"I went to sign the contract myself....They also have their version of the Texas Rangers there, who are able to keep the terrorists out of the area....So, we went in and negotiated the contracts we have....We've completed all the pre-work, and we're ready to drill a well right now. Now other people are saying, 'Maybe we should take a second look at this.' So, our company in some small way might be causing other companies to take a second look at a part of Iraq."I think that, in the end, you'll end up with a soft partition of Iraq, a very decentralized government, with authority granted to three provinces. The Kurds I think will end up being an example....and people will say, 'This is happening in Kurdistan; we want it to happen in Iraq [as a whole].' American democracy is not one-size-fits-all, but, as an example of what freedom can do, it's remarkable that this can happen."
What's this about "American democracy" and "freedom?" What do Jefferson and Madison have to do with this mess?
Granted, autonomous provinces make it easier to grab a piece of the Iraqi oil patch pie without going through Baghdad. Yet how does this fit with the main goal Bush famously promoted when he announced "the surge" in January 2007: giving the central government time to devise a fair and equitable oil agreement between all three stakeholder groups in Iraq (Shiite, Sunni and Kurd). That agreement still doesn't exist, by the way.
In the interim, outfits like Hunt ink side deals with the Kurds, while Iraq's Oil Ministry is letting other companies "pre-qualify" for investment opportunities as it waits on the parliament to produce a nationwide agreement. None of this business gets serious press coverage here at home, even though it has propelled the entire war from the beginning.
Are oil interests now Iraq's fourth stakeholder group, and wasn't that always the objective?
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan certainly thinks so. As he bluntly wrote in his 2007 memoir The Age of Turbulence: "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."
Desert Storm in 1990 was also about oil. The difference is that Bush the Elder sent signals, and most inherently knew the motivation was to protect Kuwait's oil fields, even if Washington wouldn't openly admit it. That's why much of the world (including Arab neighbors) approved of the limited military action to stabilize the region by forcing the Iraqi army back across its own border. The addition of "no-fly" zones (continued by the Clinton administration) ultimately turned Saddam Hussein into a paper tiger.
Ah, but the son also rises.
Immediately after 9/11, Bush the Lesser held a megaphone at Ground Zero, promising that "the people who knocked down these buildings will hear all of us soon." That should have meant al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden, but it morphed into Saddam's mythical mushroom clouds and WMDs. Then it became freeing the Iraqi people from tyranny, and finally it arrived at the fantastical notion of remaking the Middle East, at all cost and with our blood.
Remaking it for whom, exactly? Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon-Mobil, our Chevron shining bright?
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I think it is a shame that the US taxpayer has already bought the oil, and needs to pay Hunt a second time. Why can't this oil be placed into the strategic petroleum reserve directly without it being on the market? Then it could be used to defray the cost of gasoline domestically.
I don't know why this surprise anyone this was what its all about the major oil companies in the United States don't care what the cost of the oil is. Their going to refine it into gasoline put a big profit in it and sell it to us dumb ass's. This is why they have not built a refinery in the past twenty years because they want to control the market. The only thing they need to have a big profit is oil availability which Iraq give them.
If this was about oil, it is the most expensive oil America ever bought. Let's see $2 trillion/2million barrels/day *10 year= $270/barrel. And that's just for the right to BUY it at whatever market price it will become available in the future.
:-)
Yeah, your right. The important question is what are people going to do about it.
We could start with an aggressive General Attorney; maybe John Edwards.
I must have missed it. Where is the outrage over the recently leaked proposed Iraq Security Agreement giving indefinite and virtually complete control of Iraq to the US? Operation Iraqi Freedom, my ass....
Stop it! Stop it right now!
We're supposed to be talking about lapel pins and "winning."
This kind of talk just distracts us from our "crusade."
The American legacy is a history of oil exploitation. Bush is just one who is caught into a heated debate the way his behavior that shows how he manipulates the government for his and his groups'' personal rushes They believe this is a world for riches and super riches. He has the power of the only world super power. He even own a piece of U.S. Supreme Court. Does everyone remember the excitement when you receive a reward from a game? Bush did it by giving everyone $300.00 tax money a while ago. They will label anyone as a Marxist if do it opposite. See what Tom Dalay did recently. It is really a broken democracy. Such democracy is just for a group of riches. Can you say it is a crime to get rich? No. Then we need a teaching of intelligence creation. So, the logic goes. They are the intelligent creature. The rest should be waited for that they would put foods on your tables. Bravo.
However, We hope you do not think like that if you do not want to be a slave for them..
Hours ago I tried to post this comment: 3-7 trillion dollars spent in order for Hunt to be worth 10 or 20 billion more. One hell of a return on investment.
Sure. It wasn't his 3 trillion dollars, we're paying that.
I'm beginning to think this is the new way of doing business--taxpayer funded corporate expansion. Very efficient, when you think about it. There's no expense, and no loss to the corporation since this is funded by US tax dollars. Just profit.
Truth and lies are never told in the bush administration unless they get something out of it. When two oil men like bush and cheney run the show like the have for all of these years it only makes sense that we have such high oil/fuel/gas prices as they are probably filling up their off shore accounts fortheir retirement from office. The books on these guys have been written and the truth told many times before and yet people don't read the books and the MSM has little use for pissing off the administration as the bulk of MSM is owned by the friends of bush and republicans. Like the color codes we had during other elections to scare the hell out of the people who don't read the gas/fuel crisis is another ploy to manipulate us and it will work again because peopel don't read the books nor pay attention to those who try to tell them the truth. Now the republicans are working on the global warming theyy have long denied in washington so if our economy can withstand the oil barons and bush and cheney until Barack gets in there maybe we havea chance...
It is amazing to me.....all these so called news media outlets can come with all kinds of guilt by association about the candidates and try to put doubt & fear into people. true/false, and this kind of stuff is going on right up under our noses.
How ironic for Bush and Cheney to have to use all of their ill-gotten money on legal fees when they become indicted for war crimes.
Can't wait for all the "Patriot Scoundrels" to start ratting each other out! Really want to see Cheney, Rumsfeld & Wolfowitz do the perp walk...
Here it is, folks, for those of you with deep enough craniums and smarts to understand .
The criminals in our government at work.
Another reason that charges of fraud and misleading the givernment should be filed against this administration, making all treaties, agreements and contracts null and void upon further review once we get these criminals, God help us, out of the White House.
They will need to be void so these agreements do not hold us hostage to situations that although they may be great for the businesses involved, can very possibly work against the best interest of the majority of the American People.
"....Forme
Heh, Between 3 and 7 trillion dollars wasted in Iraq so Ray Hunt can be tens of billions of dollars richer. Great ROI there, rethugs.
This is the so-called "freedom" promised to Iraq by America and Bush:
http://www
BULLSHIT!
It's kind of funny, isn't it. Republicans are Confederates. (think of Lincoln) They want states' rights in everything and talk of shrinking the federal government so they can "drown" it in a bathtub. Yet in Iraq they want a national government that is secular!! And what is it they want for America? Republicans are the most shallow bunch of stooges that exist.
Think for a second, if the breakup of Yugoslavia had a U.S. Military force there insisting on a national government to include Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, Boz/Hersogovs, Montenegrans, and Macedonians (not to mention Kosovian Albanians) into one federal government
It's always been about oil. Would Bush invade Sudan? Heeeeelll no! Cheney just whispered in his ear 'what a great legacy to bring freedom to the Middle East' and off he went. Cheney and his Enron energy buddies wanted the oil. And it looks like they will get it. Unless the Iraqis manage to drive out the Cheney military, giving Cheney the oil may be the only way they get their country back.
Sudan has lots of oil.
Is it ours yet?
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