about the only Democrat openly oppossed to the benchmark....
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/24/1422/Kucinich Claims War Masks the Real Objective: Iraqi Oil
by Stephen Koff
WASHINGTON - It’s all about Iraq’s oil - rich, abundant, and coveted by multinational companies waiting to line their deep pockets.
Or so said Rep. Dennis Kucinich Wednesday in an unusual hourlong address on the House floor. He laid out his contention that the White House and Democratic-led Congress are helping oil companies grab a stake in Iraq’s vast oil fields while claiming to be interested merely in winding down the Iraq war.
The claim has brought Kucinich derision within his own Democratic Party. Leaders reject the suggestion that they would help “privatize” Iraqi oil. And Republicans dismiss him altogether, with Republican Party spokesman Dan Ronayne saying, “It sounds like congressman Kucinich is trying to get noticed with a nutty conspiracy theory.”
But elements of Kucinich’s claim appear to be based on theories about geopolitics and oil as much as on any conspiracy.
At the heart of the issue is a measure that, if ratified by the Iraqi parliament, would set the stage for rebuilding the war-torn country’s oil industry. Oil in Iraq, with the world’s third-biggest reserves, could pay for massive reconstruction and modernization.