Iraq, China to revive Saddam-era oil deal as Baghdad seeks investment

[cyberpj]

Wow. Won't this piss off Iraq's "liberators"? This seems like a really big deal!

Iraq, China to revive Saddam-era oil deal as Baghdad seeks investment
The Associated Press
Published: October 28, 2006

BEIJING China and Iraq are reviving a 1997 deal worth US$1.2 billion (€850 million) signed by Beijing and Saddam Hussein's government to develop an Iraqi oil field, Baghdad's oil minister said Saturday.

Officials will meet next month to renegotiate the agreement over the al-Ahdab field, said Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani. He was wrapping up a three-nation tour to secure investment to revive his country's oil industry.

"If agreement is reached very quickly then I expect them to start working right away," al-Shahristani said at a news conference.

China is the world's second-largest oil consumer and has been investing heavily in trying to secure access to foreign supplies.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/10/28/asia/AS_FIN_C...

[Theduckno2]

1. More fuel for a coup?

Maybe the Iraqis would denominate their oil deals in Euros? That would do it.

[LynnTheDem]

2. China gets their oil the old-fashioned way.

They buy it.

America under bush invades, destroys & slaughters nations to steal it.

[stillcool]

3. By Pepe Escobar

'Stability First': Newspeak for rape of Iraq
By Pepe Escobar

The coalition of the drilling
World public opinion must switch to red alert. The real, not virtual, future of Iraq will be decided in December. The whole point is a new oil law - which is in fact a debt-for-oil program concocted and imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This is the point of the US invasion - a return on investment on the hundreds of billions of dollars of US taxpayers' money spent. It's not war as politics by other means; it's war as free-market opening by other means - full US access to the epicenter of the energy wars and the perfect geostrategic location for "taming", in the near future, both Russia and China.

Very few observers have detailed what's at stake. In US corporate media the silence is stratospheric.

US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman duly landed in Baghdad this past summer, insisting that Iraqis must "pass a hydrocarbon law under which foreign companies can invest". Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani was convinced, and said the law would be passed by the end of 2006, as promised to the IMF.

No wonder: the Green Zone US Embassy colossus has always made sure that the US controls - via well-paid Iraqi servants - the Petroleum Ministry, as well as all key management posts in key Iraqi ministries. The draft hydrocarbon law was reviewed by the IMF, reviewed by Bodman and reviewed by Big Oil executives. It was not and it will not be reviewed by Iraqi civil society: that was left to the fractious Iraqi parliament - which can be largely bought for a fistful of dinars.

The Bush administration needs somebody to sign the law. The nation of Iraq as it emerged out of British imperial design is an artificial construct that can only be "tamed" by a hardcore strongman a la Saddam. It has to be "our" strongman, of course: when Saddam started to act independently he was smashed. Insistent rumors of a US-engineered coup to replace the hapless current premier Nuri al-Maliki have surfaced of late. Poor Maliki, if he clings to a minimum of integrity, can't possibly sign the oil law. Enter the Washington/Green Zone-backed strongman a la Saddam: a likely candidate is former interim premier Iyad Allawi, who ordered the destruction of Fallujah in late 2004.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HJ27Ak03.html

[cyberpj]

4. In US corporate media the silence is stratospheric.

"No wonder: the Green Zone US Embassy colossus has always made sure that the US controls - via well-paid Iraqi servants - the Petroleum Ministry, as well as all key management posts in key Iraqi ministries."

[stillcool]

5. it is frightening...

how much harder it is today, than say a year ago, to find articles like this. The conversational reality in this country ..a little fiction with a little fact, built on a false foundation is so balatantly absurd, that I can not take it in anymore, regardless of who's dishing it out. I admire this author's apparent ease at stringing words together that cut to the bone of my perception.

[cyberpj]

6. Somewhere here on DU I saw the list. We're near the bottom re: Free Press.

If someone had told me I'd see that in my lifetime I'd have said they were nuts.

No one to fight for us. And not enough of us outraged enough to fight for ourselves.