By Andrew Tilghman - June 30, 2008, 10:07AM
A couple weeks ago, we learned that Iraq's oh-so-very-sovereign Ministry of Oil was about to award a round of
no-bid contracts to several western oil companies that would bring the large multinationals back into Iraq for the first time in more than 35 years.
The Bush Administration
insisted that they were not going to interfere in this deal, which was between Iraq's democratic leaders and private-sector companies.
But today's
New York Times reportconfirms what many people have suspected for years -- that U.S. officials are working behind the scenes to influence the future of Iraq's massive oil reserves.
In their role as advisers to the Iraqi Oil Ministry, American government lawyers and private-sector consultants provided template contracts and detailed suggestions on drafting the contracts, advisers and a senior State Department official said.
...
The American government lawyers provided specific advice, the State Department official said, like: "These are the clauses you may want. You will need a clause on arbitration. You will need this clause to make this work."
Near the end of the story, the Times reports:
Advisers from the State, Commerce, Energy and Interior Departments are assigned to work with the Iraqi Oil Ministry, according to the senior diplomat. In addition, the United States Agency for International Development has a contract for Management Systems International, a Washington consulting firm, to advise the oil and other ministries. The agency's program is called Tatweer, the Arabic word for development.
A Washington consulting firm? Actually, Management Systems International is a
subsidiary of a massive Australian company,
Coffey International Ltd. focusing on mining, oil and gas infrastructure projects.
And guess who some of their
clients are? Global oil companies including Cheveron, Royal Dutch Shell and BP.
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