Iraq strikes deal with US on war strategy--"a broad strategic agreement"

[rodeodance]

But its a secret.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061222/ts_afp/iraq_061222163810

Iraq strikes deal with US on war strategy

by Jim Mannion Fri Dec 22, 11:43 AM ET

BAGHDAD (AFP) - US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has left
Iraq after striking "a broad strategic agreement" to avert all-out war, as British troops seized Iraqi police accused of carrying out a massacre.


Gates, under massive pressure to come up with a plan to pull Iraq out of chaos and bring 129,000 US troops home, said he would report his findings and impressions to
President George W. Bush as early as the weekend.

"This is a very difficult situation," said Gates at the US military headquarters in Iraq after a three-day fact-finding visit, as the crackle of gunfire and roar of military aircraft reverberated in the distance Friday.

"But I believe, based on what I have heard and seen both from American commanders and the Iraqis, that things are moving in a positive direction."

Gates said the embattled Iraqi government had put forward concrete plans to restore security in the war-shattered country, but gave no details. Nor would he say whether sending more US troops to Iraq was part of the plan...................

[tiptoe]

1. The next BS phase in Iraq: a nixonian "We've got a secret plan to prevent all-out war."

("shhhhh...just in case, we'll be dusting off the draft machinery.")

[Red1]

2. Anyone Supprised?

"But I believe, based on what I have heard and seen both from American commanders and the Iraqis, that things are moving in a positive direction."

Shrubs lips, chenys words,

Our new Sec of Defense, what a shame.

[stillcool]

3. Oil Contracts?...

It's still about oil in Iraq
A centerpiece of the Iraq Study Group's report is its advocacy for securing foreign companies' long-term access to Iraqi oil fields.
By Antonia Juhasz, ANTONIA JUHASZ is a visiting scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and author of "The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time."
December 8, 2006
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/a...
WHILE THE Bush administration, the media and nearly all the Democrats still refuse to explain the war in Iraq in terms of oil, the ever-pragmatic members of the Iraq Study Group share no such reticence.
Page 1, Chapter 1 of the Iraq Study Group report lays out Iraq's importance to its region, the U.S. and the world with this reminder: "It has the world's second-largest known oil reserves." The group then proceeds to give very specific and radical recommendations as to what the United States should do to secure those reserves. If the proposals are followed, Iraq's national oil industry will be commercialized and opened to foreign firms.
For any degree of oil privatization to take place, and for it to apply to all the country's oil fields,Iraq has to amend its constitution and pass a new national oil law. The constitution is ambiguous as to whether control over future revenues from as-yet-undeveloped oil fields should be shared among its provinces or held and distributed by the central government.

This is a crucial issue, with trillions of dollars at stake, because only 17 of Iraq's 80 known oil fields have been developed. Recommendation No. 26 of the Iraq Study Group calls for a review of the constitution to be "pursued on an urgent basis." Recommendation No. 28 calls for putting control of Iraq's oil revenues in the hands of the central government. Recommendation No. 63 also calls on the U.S. government to "provide technical assistance to the Iraqi government to prepare a draft oil law."

This last step is already underway. The Bush administration hired the consultancy firm BearingPoint more than a year ago to advise the Iraqi Oil Ministry on drafting and passing a new national oil law.
Plans for this new law were first made public at a news conference in late 2004 in Washington. Flanked by State Department officials, Iraqi Finance Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi (who is now vice president) explained how this law would open Iraq's oil industry to private foreign investment. This, in turn, would be "very promising to the American investors and to American enterprise, certainly to oil companies." The law would implement production-sharing agreements.
Much to the deep frustration of the U.S. government and American oil companies, that law has still not been passed.
In July, U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman announced in Baghdad that oil executives told him that their companies would not enter Iraq without passage of the new oil law. Petroleum Economist magazine later reported that U.S. oil companies considered passage of the new oil law more important than increased securitywhen deciding whether to go into business in Iraq.

All told, the Iraq Study Group has simply made the case for extending the war until foreign oil companies — presumably American ones — have guaranteed legal access to all of Iraq's oil fields and until they are assured the best legal and financial terms possible.
We can thank the Iraq Study Group for making its case publicly. It is now our turn to decide if we wish to spill more blood for oil.

[Morgana LaFey]

4. Moving in a positive direction?

If it gets any more positive, we will be utterly defeated, routed, decimated.

Pyrrhic victory and all.