Friday 29th of March 2024

mission accomplished .....

mission accomplished .....

 

"By 2010 we will need [a further] 50 million barrels a day. The Middle East, with two-thirds of the oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize lies."

US Vice President Dick Cheney, then Halliburton chief executive officer, London, autumn 1999.

US President George W Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney might as well declare the Iraq war over and out. As far as they - and the humongous energy interests they defend - are concerned, only now is the mission really accomplished. More than half a trillion dollars spent and perhaps half a million Iraqis killed have come down to this.

On Monday, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's cabinet in Baghdad approved the draft of the new Iraqi oil law. The government regards it as "a major national project". The key point of the law is that Iraq's immense oil wealth (115 billion barrels of proven reserves, third in the world after Saudi Arabia and Iran) will be under the iron rule of a fuzzy "Federal Oil and Gas Council" boasting "a panel of oil experts from inside and outside Iraq". That is, nothing less than predominantly US Big Oil executives.

The law represents no less than institutionalized raping and pillaging of Iraq's oil wealth. It represents the death knell of nationalized (from 1972 to 1975) Iraqi resources, now replaced by production sharing agreements (PSAs) - which translate into savage privatization and monster profit rates of up to 75% for (basically US) Big Oil.

Sixty-five of Iraq's roughly 80 oilfields already known will be offered for Big Oil to exploit. As if this were not enough, the law reduces in practice the role of Baghdad to a minimum. Oil wealth, in theory, will be distributed directly to Kurds in the north, Shi'ites in the south and Sunnis in the center. For all practical purposes, Iraq will be partitioned into three statelets. Most of the country's reserves are in the Shi'ite-dominated south, while the Kurdish north holds the best prospects for future drilling.’

US's Iraq Oil Grab Is A Done Deal

the curse .....

‘Many regular Iraqis now seem to view oil as a curse. "We are being punished because Saddam nationalized Iraqi oil. I heard from my teachers at school in the 1970s that Europe and America would not let that go unpunished," said Salim Alwan, a police officer in Falluja.

"I wish we did not have oil in this country," said Numan Hany, a teacher from Mosul. "That way the United States would not have invaded our country, and we would have lived on the two great rivers and the land on which our grandfathers lived in dignity."’

War On Iraq: Is Big Oil Going To Control Iraq’s Reserves?

noam chomsky connects the dots .....

‘Let's talk about the recently passed Iraqi oil law. It's well known that the law was drafted in the U.S. and then consulted on by very few Iraqis all loyal to Prime Minister Noori al-Maliki, then finally pushed through the Iraqi parliament. This law paves the way for regionalization and privatization of Iraqi oil. What's the U.S. economic agenda in Iraq and will it be able to carry that agenda out, given the disastrous nature of the occupation so far?’

War, Neo-Liberalism & Empire In The 21st Century