The ongoing saga of the Iraqi oil patch pie adds a new chapter, courtesy of the Thursday New York Times, and its above-the-fold front pager, "American Adviser to Kurds Stands to Reap Oil Profits."
In today's installment, we learn that Peter Galbraith, former ambassador, foreign policy expert to Joe Biden and John Kerry, and son of the famed economist John Kenneth Galbraith, is in line to reap $100 million dollars -- maybe more -- from contracts between a Norwegian oil company and the autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq. As an advisor to DNO, Galbraith and a partner received a 10% stake in a large Kurdish oil field back in 2004.
What's more, Galbraith has long championed the idea of partitioning Iraq, presumably into three regions that roughly encompass the country's three stakeholder groups (Shiite, Sunni and Kurd).
Why does this matter?
For one thing, the American-created central government in Baghdad has long insisted that it has sole constitutional authority over all of Iraq's oil. For another, giving the central government time to devise an equitable oil agreement between the stakeholders was the main goal President Bush touted when he announced "the surge" in January 2007.
Later that same year, in September, Hunt Oil of Dallas announced an oil production-sharing agreement with the grand poobahs of the Kurdistan region. At the time, Bush briefly feigned concern:
"I knew nothing about the deal. I need to know exactly how it happened. To the extent that it does undermine the ability for the government to come up with an oil revenue-sharing plan that unifies the country, obviously I'm - if it undermines that, I'm concerned."
Nine months later, in June 2008, Ray Hunt himself crowed about it at a dinner in his honor. D Magazine's online blog "Front Burner," in a piece titled "Oilman Hunt Sees A 'Soft Partition' For Iraq," quoted the longtime Bush crony parroting the Galbraith line:
"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...American democracy is not one-size-fits-all, but, as an example of what freedom can do, it's remarkable that this can happen."
Freedom's just another word for "I'm gettin' mine, boys!" Galbraith apparently figured that out years earlier.
Remarkably, the latest story in the Times states that "Mr. Biden and Mr. Kerry, who have been influenced by Mr. Galbraith's thinking but do not advocate such a partitioning of the country, were not aware of Mr. Galbraith's oil dealings in Iraq..."
Say what? Vice President Biden may not favor partition now (he's not in charge of foreign policy), yet just like Galbraith, he advocated it for years, and recently. In fact, he co-wrote a 2006 op-ed promoting it -- in the Times, no less! -- and hyped it as one of his great ideas on cable chat shows when running for president in '07.
Partition may or may not be a wise course. Still, how does Joe's historic support not merit a passing reference in the paper's story today?
Alan Greenspan noted 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." Since I've previously blogged about this at Huffington Post, I'll just say it again:
Desert Storm in 1990 was also about oil, but Bush the Elder tacitly signaled that the motivation was to protect Kuwait's oil fields, which is why much of the world (including Arab neighbors) approved of the limited military action. "No-fly" zones over Iraq, continued by Bill Clinton for eight years, ultimately turned Baghdad's Bully into the mother of all empty suits.
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, at least publicly, 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?
How wonderful for the Iraqi's -- they stand to profit immensely.
International trade occurred before the Iraq war. Now it resumes. The Fact is international trade does not depend on war.
BTW Bush and Cheny do not own or control any part of the many corporations involved. These corporations did not benefit from the war, these trade agreements do not depend on the war. These corporations would be involved in the oil trade even if the war had not happened. There is nothing sinister or even remotely wrong about this trade -- so long as the industrialized world runs on oil, such trade will occur.
This only reflects healthy international trade -- not a criminal conspiracy. There is nothing evil or wrong here, unless you are a socialist and hate/fear capitalism.
Yes those corporations will make profits and those corporations will also employ millions of people, who depend on that employment to feed, cloth, and provide shelter for their families.
Anyone got a problem with that?
don't stumble over the dead bodies.
Al-Qaeda attacks began in 1992, with coordinated bombings of two hotels in Aden, Yemen, killing one Australian tourist. In an interview with Abdel Bari Atwan, Bin Laden has claimed al-Qaeda responsibility for the 1993 attack on U.S. troops in Mogadishu, the bombing of the National Guard Training Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 1995, and the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia.
August 1998, Al-Qaeda operatives carried out the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing more than 200 people and injuring more than 5,000 others.
December 1999 al-Qaeda planned attacks against U.S. and Israeli tourists visiting Jordan. Jordanian authorities thwarted the planned attacks and put 28 suspects on trial.
January 2000, the planned bombing of LAX failed when bomber Ahmed Ressam was caught at the US-Canadian border with explosives in the trunk of his car.
Al-Qaeda was directly involved in coordinating the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, along with the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, and the September 11 attacks which resulted in the deaths of 3,000 innocent men and women.
Preferably in properly punctuated and complete sentences.
There is nothing illegal about forming a corporation.
There is nothing illegal about becoming it's CEO.
As the CEO of a private sector business it is not anyone's business (except his board of directors and share-holders) how big a bonus he received.
It certianly is not your business -- unless you are a stock-holder.
It is not illegal to receive a bonus.
Fact: Iraq oil remains in Iraqi control. No material resources have been sequestered or moved across international boarders -- except under the legal agreements governing international trade, trade which profits Iraq.
Fact: Iraq oil remains in Iraqi control. No material resources have been sequestered or moved across international boarders -- except under the legal agreements governing international trade, trade which profits Iraq and Afghanistan.
It should be noted that President Obama continues Cheny's and Bush's sacrificing of Iraqi, Afghani, European and American lives to Mammon.
The $100Bs of Afghan oil & gas have already been auctioned off and the corrupt re-up'd leader of Afghanistan, every bit as corrupt as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is preparing to sign the contracts.
Not one word in the world media, and not one penny to the Afghan people.
Putting one's money where one's mouth is doesn't necessarily mean the same thing as putting one's mouth where the money is.
Is there no way that policy when involved with this much money can be made transparent so we see just who is going to benefit prior to our national interests promoting specific action? Not bloody likely.
For all its drawbacks, capitalism when untainted by government corruption and interferrence, is possibly the most transparent and competitive system that does the best job at seeing to the fairest distribution of wealth. If anyone is making that much money it should be open to others to compete for it, and not simply handed off to one's yachting buddies.
Who is Gustavson Associates, Denver, and who did they know to get the Afghan auction contract?
http://afghanistanpetroleum.com
Karbala area’s, Iraqi troops used chemical weapons of mass destruction (including Mustard Gas, Mustard Gas and Tabun, Mustard Gas and Nerve Agent, and Mustard Gas and CS) 15 times resulting in the deaths of approximately 42,701 people.
Imagine how the world would be different if Saddam Hussein had not been such a murderous monster.
"The film focuses on petroleum politics, and the global influence of the oil industry, whose political, economic, legal, and social effects are experienced by a CIA operative (George Clooney), an energy analyst (Matt Damon), a Washington attorney (Jeffrey Wright), and a young unemployed Pakistani migrant worker (Mazhar Munir) in an Arab country in the Persian Gulf."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syriana