Looks like the conflict Georgia vs. Russia is about Europe's Gas Market

[AlphaCentauri]

One more conspiracy theory:

its more likely that Georgian president started this war to convince Europe to buy Gas from Iraq and quit the Russian supply than what some say about Russia taking Georgia back.

Monday, June 23, 2008
Iraqi energy experts have told Al Jazeera that oil and gas fields in the western Anbar province may soon begin pumping gas to European markets.

Mukhtar al-Ani, an Iraqi oil consultant, said: "In early January, the Ministry of Oil held talks with a number of potential companies regarding development of the huge Akkas gas field in the north-western desert of Anbar province."

According to the ministry, Akkas, which lies 40km from the Syrian border, is believed to contain up to seven trillion cubic feet of gas, which accounts for six per cent of Iraq's estimated total of 112 trillion cubic feet. The field is capable of producing up to 500 million cubic feet per day if fully developed.

Akkas is also close to existing Syrian gas facilities.

"Iraq earlier signed a preliminary agreement with Syria to supply it with 50 million cubic feet of gas a day from the existing five wells in Akkas ... The Syrians are eager to revive this agreement," al- Ani said.


http://english.aljazeera.net/business/2008/06/2008619125519100415.html

Who will benefit from destroying the Russian Europe relations?

June 19, 2008
Deals with Iraq are set to bring oil giants back

Four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power.

Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company — along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq's Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq's largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials and an American diplomat.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/19/africa/19iraq.php

The same group that benefited from the Iraq war, amazing!

[grannie4peace]

1. so that is what rove has been up to over there

[AlphaCentauri]

2. may be, playing corporate chess with tax payers dollars

[Terran]

3. Read this (far more plausible explanation)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3821571

[stillcool]

4. I think it has something to do with this:

Map 7. American Bases Located in Central Asia

[AlphaCentauri]

5. Interesting to see all those military bases in undemocratic countries

so we defend democracy? eh!

[stillcool]

6. I'd love to see a map of this...

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chalmers_Johnson/Chalmers_Johnson_page.html
excerpted from the book
Nemesis
The Last Days of the American Republic
by Chalmers Johnson

p140
The worldwide total of U.S. military personnel in 2005, including those based domestically, was 1,840,062 supported by an additional 473,306 Defense Department civil service employees and 203,328 local hires in overseas bases, according to the Pentagon, contained 32,327 barracks, hangars, hospitals, and other buildings, which it owns, and 16,527 more that it leased. The size of these holdings was recorded in the inventory as covering 687,347 acres overseas and 29,819,492 acres worldwide, making the Pentagon easily one of the world's largest landlords.
These numbers, although staggeringly big, do not begin to cover all the actual bases we occupy globally. The 2005 Base Structure Report fails, for instance, to mention any garrisons in Kosovo (or Serbia, of which Kosovo is still officially a province)-even though it is the site of the huge Camp Bondsteel built in 1999 and maintained ever since by the KBR corporation (formerly known as Kellogg Brown & Root), a subsidiary of the Halliburton Corporation of Houston. The report similarly omits bases in Afghanistan, Iraq (106 garrisons as of May 2005), Israel, Kyrgyzstan, Qatar, and Uzbekistan, even though the U.S. military has established colossal base structures in the Persian Gulf and Central Asian areas since 9/11. By way of excuse, a note in the preface says that "facilities provided by other nations at foreign locations" are not included, although this is not strictly true. The report does include twenty sites in Turkey, all owned by the Turkish government and used jointly with the Americans. The Pentagon continues to omit from its accounts most of the $5 billion worth of military and espionage installations in Britain, which have long been conveniently disguised as Royal Air Force bases. If there were an honest count, the actual size of our military empire would probably top 1,000 different bases overseas, but no one-possibly not even the Pentagon knows the exact number for sure.

[reorg]

7. These oil contracts mentioned in your post are not going to be signed anytime soon, apparently

Iraq seen abandoning most short-term oil contracts
08.17.08, 2:19 PM ET

By Missy Ryan

BAGHDAD, Aug 17 (Reuters) - Iraq is likely to abandon plans to sign up to $3 billion in short-term oil contracts, a U.S. diplomat said, putting in doubt deals that would give foreign oil firms their first major foothold in the country for decades.

"It appears that on present form (the Iraqi government) probably won't proceed with most of these or all of them," Charles Ries, coordinator for Iraq's economic transition at the U.S. embassy, told reporters in Baghdad on Sunday.

...

The short-term contracts were to be followed by far more valuable longer-term development contracts, for which dozens of foreign energy firms are expected to bid.

As the June 2009 deadline for finalizing those long-term contracts approaches, it has appeared more likely that the short-term bridge contracts could be discarded.

Iraqi officials have insisted they would not give preferential treatment in bids for long-term contracts to companies that participated in the short term deals.

...

http://www.forbes.com/reuters/feeds/reuters/2008/08/17/2008-08-17T181937Z_01_LH595703_RTRIDST_0_IRAQ-OIL-UPDATE-3.html

[AlphaCentauri]

9. Never say never

All it will take is to convince the different regions to renew the contracts, see Articles 108 - 109 of the Iraqi constitution.

Yet the present arrangements for oil and gas contracts in Iraq is mandated by a combination of regional, federal and constitutional rights, which lawmakers are attempting to balance in the best interests of political stability. To this point, Ms. Rahman argues that these criticisms either misunderstand or misrepresent the nature of Iraqi Kurdistan's oil and gas law: 'The law is quite clear. Under Article 108 of the Iraqi Constitution, the Kurdistan National Assembly has the power to pass its own laws and to sign contracts. We have therefore passed our own oil and gas law, while we wait for the federal hydrocarbons law to be finalized. Also, under the current political agreement between the KRG and Baghdad, the KRG receives 17 per cent of Iraq's budget. Therefore, only 17 per cent of the revenues from the oil contracts signed by the KRG will go to Kurdistan.
http://www.kurdishglobe.net/displayArticle.jsp?id=CE62AB7E0AAA0564E787C7E569C13997

[bemildred]

8. Try this instead:

Russia crushes Europe's energy strategy

ROME — Russia's adventure in Georgia has been described as a "warlet," a contained firing spree that wound up and down within a week. But to Europe's energy markets, it was the equivalent of wide-scale carpet bombing.

With the North Sea oil and natural gas fields running out of puff, Europe, in particular the European Union, is more dependent than ever on imported energy. The biggest single supplier is Russia, whose pipelines snake across Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova before poking into central and western Europe.

Russia's energy supplies are cherished. Germany, France and Italy have almost no oil and gas of their own. Russia's Gazprom, the world's biggest gas company, supplies 40 per cent or more of Europe's gas imports. The company, controlled by the Russian state and led by Dmitry Medvedev before he became Russia's President, is the equivalent of a one-country gas OPEC.

By 2020, Gazprom's exports to the EU are expected to rise by more than 50 per cent. The company is unafraid to wield its mighty power. For four days in 2006, it stopped supplying gas to the Ukrainian market because of a contract dispute.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080818.wrreguly18/BNStory/International

[AlphaCentauri]

10. It does not make to much sense NATO condemning Russia

while they are depending on them, there is a plan B somewhere and that maybe Iraq.