Future of Iraq: The spoils of war

[Roland99]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2132569.ece

Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.

The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.

The huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to critics who say the Iraq war was fought for oil. They point to statements such as one from Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said in 1999, while he was still chief executive of the oil services company Halliburton, that the world would need an additional 50 million barrels of oil a day by 2010. "So where is the oil going to come from?... The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies," he said.

Oil industry executives and analysts say the law, which would permit Western companies to pocket up to three-quarters of profits in the early years, is the only way to get Iraq's oil industry back on its feet after years of sanctions, war and loss of expertise. But it will operate through "production-sharing agreements" (or PSAs) which are highly unusual in the Middle East, where the oil industry in Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world's two largest producers, is state controlled.

[MadMaddie]

1. Um...I hope the Democrats push a "War Profiteering law"

because many heads of companies like the oil companies will be prosecuted...

Also, they need to find out who met with Cheney during that Energy Meeting because that is where they devised their plans...

[pretzel4gore]

2. better idea;arrest all the pigs and utilize their stolen wealth

thank god for global warming, the pigs can cook....broil...hahaha

[Crunchy Frog]

3. I can just imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth

when some future Iraqi government declares those contracts to be null and void, and no international legal authority in the world will uphold their legitimacy.

Do these people really think the Iraqis are just going to sit back and let them steal their oil wealth? It's not like it's gone really well so far.

[LynnTheDem]

5. Iraqis always knew it was all about stealing their oil;

When asked what they thought were the three main reasons why the United States invaded Iraq, 76 percent gave "to control Iraqi oil" as their first choice.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060817/17iraq.htm

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/9865/1/142 /

http://www.umich.edu/news/index.html?Releases/2006/Jun06/r061406a

[Crunchy Frog]

8. They probably got a bit of a clue

when our troops secured the oil ministry and oilfields, while allowing everything else to be completely ransacked.

Hell, we couldn't even be bothered to secure ammo dumps where the material for the IEDs are coming from, or the Tuwaitha facility, or any of the places that would likely have been harboring WMDs, had they existed.

I found this interesting article from around the time of the invasion. http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/04/16/1050172643920.html

[LynnTheDem]

9. Forget the ammo dumps...bush didn't even order the nuclear plant

secured...AFTER being warned several times by the IAEA to secure it; the same IAEA who'd had the plant kept secured for over a decade. Until bush's invasion left it unsecured & looted.

(I mean HELLO MFing RIGHTWINGNUTS! If bush really had thought Iraq had nukes, dontcha think he woulda ordered the nuclear plant be secured??! Bloody fucking 'ell how any American could be so damn fucking ignorant as to support such a transparantly lying MFer like bush! No wonder USA is conmen's #1 country to swindle people.)

[Crunchy Frog]

10. I remember when that was going on.

Collected a bunch of articles about it. I remember people were going in and emptying sealed containers filled with radioactive waste, and using them as receptacles for food and milk and drinking water, while our forces sat by and did NOTHING. I remember reading about villagers getting radiation sickness.

This reminiscing is getting me pissed off!:)

Everything that was happening at the time was so blatantly transparent that I still can't believe anyone buys the notion of our elected officials innocently and naively going along because they believed Bush was telling the truth.:rofl:

[LynnTheDem]

11. Crunchy, you knew; I knew; a lot of DUers knew; even a lot of republicans knew.

And most all the above who knew did, in fact, speak out publicly.

Several -Republicans included- even spoke out on the House floor.

Even several Republicans voted HELL NO to bush's IWR.

Any official who says s/he "didn't know" or was "duped"?

They are either stupidly incompetent...or liars.

Or both.

None of which qualifies them to take any part in running this nation.

[LynnTheDem]

4. George w. bUsh already admitted the reason for his invasion was OIL;

GREELEY, Colo., Nov. 4 -- During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, President Bush and his aides sternly dismissed suggestions that the war was all about oil. "Nonsense," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld declared. "This is not about that," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

Now, more than 3 1/2 years later, someone else is asserting that the war is about oil -- President Bush.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/04/AR2006110401025.html?nav=hcmodule

[CHIMO]

6. From More Than 3 Years Ago

Iraq is Not America’s to Sell – Author and Journalist Naomi Klein on America’s Corporate Control of Iraq

NAOMI KLEIN: I think the global anti-war movement is in the process of shifting gears into becoming an anti-occupation movement and we saw some large anti-occupation protests on October 25, and much of the debate has focused on whether the call should be to bring the US troops home or to replace - bring all the foreign troops home - or to replace them with international peacekeeping. I think that is an important debate, but I think that it's missing a really important point, which is so that there is another front, to the attack on Iraq, to this war. And it is a front we're not hearing about when we keep hearing that it is a mess, it is a disaster, it's a quagmire, a morass, which is the economic front of the war on terror and the attack on Iraq.

And that side of the war is actually going very, very well. It’s going so well, in fact, that the economists called the new rules in Iraq a capitalist's dream and described the rules that Paul Bremer, the chief US occupier in Iraq, as a wish list for foreign multinationals. This wish list, which was granted as part of the now infamous Orders 39, which was on September 19, was a transformation of the Iraqi economy, using basically traditional IMF structural adjustment policies, but in one fell swoop. So Orders 39 announced that, contrary to Iraq’s constitution, which places clear restrictions on foreign ownership of the Iraqi economy and deems essential services protected and not able to be privatized, these were just completely overthrown and 200 Iraqi state firms were put up for privatization and foreign firms were allow 100% ownership of those firms. In addition, they were also given, as part of this wish list, the ability to take 100% of their profits out of the country. So, all the rules that, you know, are the battleground of in terms of international trades were granted. In addition to this, a tax cut for the highest income earners was granted from 45%, which is the tax rate for corporations in Canada to 15% flat tax. So it was as wish list, a kind of capitalist dream to attract investment, to create investment opportunities. What has become clear is that these contracts are illegal. Now I think that four - I’ll come back to that.

But for the anti-occupation movement, it is important to understand that even if every troop were to come home tomorrow and a so-called sovereign Iraqi government were to come into power, Iraq would still be privatized. It would be privatized by these laws that were written by another country. It would be privatized by foreign companies that would be controlling their essential services. And it would be colonized by the fact that they have now 70% unemployment because of attacks on the public sector. That is cold logic and we - colonization and we need to have this economic exercise. It’s become very, very clear that we have a very strong weapon in our arsenal in terms of countering this economic occupation of Iraq and that is that this economic - this shock therapy, this structural adjustment of Iraq, that is the other side of the war, which is not a mess, but it is going very, very well - is completely illegal.

This is something that has been reported on in the business press because it is very much of interest to businesses thinking about taking advantage of this wish list. When the Security Council gave their stamp of approval by recognizing the US and Britain as the occupying power in Iraq, they stated very clearly that as occupiers, they needed to abide by the 1907 Hague regulations and the 1949 Geneva conventions, which govern the rules for an occupying force. What these regulations state very, very clearly is that an occupying power can change laws as it relates to security, but the Hague regulations state that unless absolutely prevented - that is a quote - unless “absolutely prevented”, the occupying power must respect the laws in the country.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/10/159203&mode=thread&tid=25

[Roland99]

7. And from Suskind's book on O'Neill where he mentioned the map of Iraqi oilfields.

[Robbien]

12. "It would be privatized by these laws that were written by another country."

It can't get much sadder than that.

[Erika]

13. and paid for by U.S. troops

No, it can't be much sadder than that.

[Roland99]

14. Blood for oil. Been going on for a century now.

The US has replaced the British as the colonizer.

[VegasWolf]

15. Never happen. This is the very reason Bush CANNOT leave Iraq. He will lose

all rights to the oil if the US is forced to withdraw from Iraq. Hence, the new kill more American children, err, surge. The US cannot win and the US will not control the oil.

[Roland99]

17. And will that long-term 20% of profits go toward the deficit spending that got us there?

Shit no!

Right into the oil companies' overflowing coffers.

[VegasWolf]

18. My guess is that ALL profits wil go to one or another religious sector in Iraq. nt

[daleo]

16. Would it even work?

Iraqis seem to know the fine art of sabotaging oil infrastructure.

[VegasWolf]

19. True, but on the upside they won't need to sabatoge it once they've kicked the American occupiers

out of their country and thier civil war has been resolved for one religious sector or the other.

[Contrite]

20. Blood and oil: How the West will profit from Iraq's most precious commodity

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2132574.ece

[uppityperson]

21. k&r, how about a couple more recs to get on greatest?

See, it IS about the oil.

[Blue_Tires]

22. kick

too late to rec

[Contrite]

23. Can't do it; thread is too old now

Maybe it should be cross-posted in GD?

[uppityperson]

24. well bah for bad timing. Here is a GD link...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x3064957

[Javaman]

25. And was this war about anything else? nt

[Roland99]

26. Nope, and neither will the next one (Iran).

[Ian_rd]

27. Future of Iraq: The spoils of war (New Iraqi law to grant extraction rights to western oil giants)

Future of Iraq: The spoils of war
How the West will make a killing on Iraqi oil riches
The Independent (UK)
By Danny Fortson, Andrew Murray-Watson and Tim Webb
Published: 07 January 2007

Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.

The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.

The huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to critics who say the Iraq war was fought for oil. They point to statements such as one from Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said in 1999, while he was still chief executive of the oil services company Halliburton, that the world would need an additional 50 million barrels of oil a day by 2010. "So where is the oil going to come from?... The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies," he said.

Full Story

[Jacobin]

28. they might as well give extraction rights on Saturn

this reminds me of the $20 million in the federal budget for an Iraq victory party.

A teensy weensy bit optimistic, seeing as how our asses are going to be tossed out soon and we control NONE of the country except the Green Zone

[aquart]

29. I was about to say the same thing.

They don't ever intend to let us have that oil. And we don't deserve it, either.

[VegasWolf]

30. The only thing being extracted in Iraq will be the US. Bush has spent all this blood and

won't get any oil once he is kicked out.

[mod mom]

31. WTF? What about re-building the country we waged an immoral war on?

[TomClash]

32. Not the Spoils but the Point nt

[Heidi]

33. Kick. (nt)

[underpants]

34. Iraq to give Western companies control of oil: report

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/01/08/iraq-oil.html

The Iraqi government plans to introduce a law that will give control of the country's huge oil reserves to Western oil companies, a British newspaper says.

The government is drafting a law based on "production-sharing agreements (PSAs)," which will give major companies rights on Iraq's oil for up to 30 years, the Independent on Sunday reported.

Platform's Greg Muttitt said the U.S. government, international oil companies and the International Monetary Fund had been asked to comment on the draft Iraqi legislation, but many members of the Iraqi parliament have not seen it. ( <---They can muster a quorum for at least the last 5 weeks, most of them are in London FYI)

The U.S. has denied that. For example, in 2003, then Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld called the idea "utter nonsense."

Speaking to the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera, he said: "We don't take our forces, and go around the world and try to take other people's real estate or other people's resources, their oil. That's just not what the United States does."

[acmavm]

35. Oh geez, this ought to piss off everyone.

edit: Everyone meaning the Iraqi people, Shi'ite, Sunni, and Kurd

[underpants]

38. I was wrong the Iraqi Parliament is still meeting....in London

http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-colin1231.artdec31,0,6437488.column?coll=hc-utility-local
I have just returned from a 10-day tour dealing with the problems of the Middle East, including a meeting with the Iraqi parliament, although that was in London, which is where the Iraqi parliament meets now that it is no longer convenient to meet in Iraq, because none of the surviving members of the Iraqi parliament live in Iraq anyway.


Trying to start up the parliament in Iraq was a disaster because there were 275 members, only 14 of whom made it to the last Baghdad meeting. The London meeting drew 190, and they served a nice lunch. There was a lot of discussion - speaking of musicals - on how to get good seats for "Billy Elliot - The Musical." Elton John is incredibly popular in Iraq. ... I don't know how many of you know that.

[The Backlash Cometh]

48. No way would the private oil corporations be able to harvest that oil

without the military backing of a supernation.

Know of any?

[acmavm]

51. Crap, what do you think they'd have to name the troop

escalation to cover this?

[The Backlash Cometh]

57. Operation Protect George Bush's Fat Ass Cronies for the American Way.

[Ian_rd]

61. OK How about this ...

True, law or no law, there ain't no oil in Iraq worth the cost of extracting with the violence there now and the violence sure to be created by this law. Instead of just a ridiculously optimistic thought that the oil wells will fall under stable hands of a U.S.-friendly Iraq, this may be a move for the far future:

The way things are going now, the U.S. is going to fail miserably and pull out, and the Iraqi government is going to be taken over by anti-U.S. extremists. After stability is achieved - even Taliban style - the Big Oil Companies who were guaranteed accesss with this law will sue the new Iraqi government for refusing to abide by their previous agreement, and as a consequence the new and starving Iraq could be threatened with economic sactions by the IMF/World Bank and resolutions from the U.N. possibly resulting in the new government being pressured enough to let Exxon et al get those profits they were promised under the Bush/Maliki regime.

[The Backlash Cometh]

65. Or...a strategic number of Lieberman style Democrats go to the

darkside and the Dems continue what Bush began?

[Ian_rd]

66. "Lieberman-style" not required.

The Democratic Party in its current form is the party that Bill Clinton built - a very pro-business party that supported NAFTA and the agenda of the WTO, one of the greatest blows to the working class. Unless we manage to shift the Dem Party back to labor and middle-class interests, I doubt Big Oil would find much resistance with either party in pursuing those oil-drilling rights until Rapture.

[The Backlash Cometh]

68. True. That will be a dark shadow that Hilary will have to walk through

if she decides to become president. She'll have to run against Bill's record and how she feels about those failed programs.

[ShortnFiery]

36. Ding! Ding! Ding! FOLLOW THE MONEY - there's your answer. n/t

[Jcrowley]

37. New headline to reflect reality

Western Oil Companies to Maintain Control of Iraqi Oil thanks to Western Puppet Government.

Petrocolonialism News at 11.

[Dover]

39. Which is also why the auto industry continues to make gas guzzlers.

"Hey there's plenty of gas! See, there's nothing the U.S. and several thousand dead Iraqis can't solve. And you thought you were going to have to buy those efficient little cars...oh ye of such little faith in our military prowess!"

[NashVegas]

40. Here's the Sunday Independent's Story - " Future of Iraq: The spoils of war"

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2132569.ece

Underpants, I'm so glad you found a link for this story, with today's date on it. Can you imagine, if this had fallen off the radar? I only came across it by reading TPM.


The only way this could pass the Iraqi congress is with massive bribes, IMO.

[underpants]

41. I ran into this looking up the Iraqi Parliament

and how they haven't been able to muster a quorum in over a month..even in London.

[stillcool]

42. has the fat lady sung?....

this story has been waiting for an ending for a while now...

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/asection/la-oe...
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 security when deciding whether to go into business in Iraq.
..........................................................
Further, the Iraq Study Group would commit U.S. troops to Iraq for several more years to, among other duties, provide security for Iraq's oil infrastructure. Finally, the report unequivocally declares that the 79 total recommendations "are comprehensive and need to be implemented in a coordinated fashion. They should not be separated or carried out in isolation."
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.

[underpants]

43. Bremer's Rule #39

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11936

A few of these rules, left over from the Bremer occupation period, as collected last year by Foreign Policy in Focus, the independent Washington research outfit:

Order #39: Privatize the country's 200 state-owned enterprises, permit 100 percent foreign ownership of Iraqi businesses, allow for complete repatriation of profits without tax. No requirements for reinvestment, hiring local labor, or provisioning public services. Labor rights non-existent.

----------------------

The Bremer Orders

Iraq's laws are being replaced and the BearingPoint contract implemented by L. Paul Bremer, Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq. The Bremer Orders most relevant to this discussion are detailed below.

Bremer Order #39: Foreign Investment

Bremer Order #39, enacted on September 19, 2003, has five key elements: (1) Privatization of state-owned enterprises; (2) 100% foreign ownership of businesses in all sectors except oil and mineral extraction, banks and insurance companies (the latter two are addressed in a separate order); (3) "national treatment" of foreign firms; (4) unrestricted, tax-free remittance of all funds associated with the investment, including, but not limited to, profits; and (5) 40 year ownership licenses which have the option of being renewed.

http://www.ifg.org/analysis/globalization/IraqTestimony.html

[stillcool]

46. while new to me...there's been so

much written about all of this. If just one stray 'if' would come to a conclusion I would have more faith in the idea of sanity. I just hate hanging out in mid-air.

[rodeodance]

70. thanks

[donkeyotay]

71. May I suggest a bonus?

If the Democrats actually get uppity about killing our children and bankrupting our country for oil, the oil companies could put in place their own private security and have the taxpayers subsidize it through OPIC (Overseas Private Investment Corporation, which contrary to its name is a government entity that helps out impoverished corps like Enron.)

This would keep the taxpayers on the hook for any loses, while employing those private defense contractors. Twofer!

[jpak]

44. Repeat after me...

It's not about oil!!1111

It's not about oil!!1111

It's not about oil!!1111

It's not about oil!!1111

It's not about oil!!1111

It's not about oil!!1111

It's not about oil!!1111

It's not about oil!!1111

It's not about oil!!1111

It's not about oil!!1111

(but unfortunately childrens - it is - and we knew this all along).

:grr:

[ohio2007]

45. What army will protect the flow of oil?

The Iraqi's cn't even afford to repair what's broke with their pipeline infrastructer let alone stop the 'freedom fighters' from destroying more pipelines

[underpants]

47. Welcome to DU

:hi:

[Doctor_J]

49. So the mission really WAS accomplished

now that we know what all those people really died for.

[VegasWolf]

50. Once Bush's puppet government is gone, these contracts won't be worth the paper

that they are printed on. Bush must win Iraq to enforce these contracts, unfortunately he can't win Iraq.

[Jacobin]

52. Great. Now all we have to do is give ourselves control of the country

And with the surge, that'll be fixed in a jif!!

:eyes:

[Zodiak]

53. Anyone in the Iraqi parliament who votes for this

had better stay in London. This is really going to piss off the entire Iraqi poplation.

They have been told for many years repeatedly that his was not about their oil, even though rumor on the streets say it was. Giving this rumor official governmental sanctin will destroy what little credibility and legitimacy the Iraqi government has with its people.

So either this is done in anticipation for a cut and run (to secure profts when we aren't there), or for the creation of more chaos and bloodshed as an excuse to stay there. There is absolutely no upside to this for any party involved, including the US (although I will allow for Bushco not to see how this cannot benefit us).

[underpants]

54. Maybe all of this was done to make sure the Russians didn't get control of it

or at least to cut off any influence they might have or that they could get in the future.

:shrug: this just popped into my head :shrug:

[Zodiak]

59. Maybe, but that certainly shoots down the idea that these

assholes have faith in "market forces" and went in there altruistically. Not to mention that if that was the reason for invasion, it is a clear war-crime. War for resources is patently illegal.

And any nation that truly thought they were the best and most innovative in the world should have little to fear from Russia gaining influence over "last century's" energy source through diplomatic and economic means. Unless, of course, they know they are a paper tiger.

I would say China is just as much of a target as Russia in this, as well.

[underpants]

60. Right

It is interesting how Russia kept all of its human intel going even at the end of the Soviet rule. They had tentacles everywhere it seemed and still do to some extent. We yelled VICTORY after the Cold War and dropped everything like a hot rock.

Yeah "market forces" usually aren't seen to include your nation's military for other than security and keeping your businesses a going concern.

[Megahurtz]

55. Fucking Sick!!!

:puke:

[Ian_rd]

56. Why would the Iraqi government go along with this?

I don't get it. I understand that the Iraqi government is largely a puppet of the White House (who in turn is a puppet of Big Oil), but why would the Iraqi government agree to this? There is no clearer way for the fragile government to say: "Yes! We are puppets of American oil companies who want to rob our natural wealth just as you all suspected! Let the kidnappings and assassinations begin!"

What threats could the White House use to get this law passed that are worse than the consequences from the insurgents and the general Iraqi population who will surely greet this law with intense anger and violence?

[underpants]

58. No threats just money

London is expensive you know

[leesa]

86. Well, some would like a pass out of Iraq. Maliki, for one. If he can get enough votes

pulled together, maybe he can escape Iraq alive.

[Gregorian]

62. executive order 13303

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13303

This was when I absolutely knew it was about oil.

SOTU speech "We have no ambitions in Iraq." Wah, wah, wah. Bushit.

[Marie26]

63. How'd they pull that trick?

This proves that Maliki is a puppet government.

[xxqqqzme]

64. I thought control of the oil fields transferred

to 'western' corporations on Jan 1, 2007. that was bremer's contribution to the overall mess.

[Emillereid]

67. Mission accomplished!

[lovuian]

69. This is what the Iraq War was all about

but really its a joke on us for we will have a hard time getting it out... unless stability happens

[NashVegas]

72. kick

..

[Joanne98]

73. Western companies may get 75% of Iraqi oil profits

Western companies may get 75% of Iraqi oil profits
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/western-companies-may-get-75/story.aspx?guid=%7B09CFDDFD-E299-4659-A8C3-5ADE6E26579E%7D

Last Update: 7:34 PM ET Jan 8, 2007

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
Iraq's massive oil reserves may be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies - which could end up grabbing up to 75% of the beleagured nation's oil profits - under a law seen coming before the Iraqi parliament within days, the Independent reported on its Web site Monday.

A draft of this controversial law, which the U.S. government has been helping to craft and has been seen by the Independent, would give oil giants such as BP PLC (BP), Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA) and ExxonMobil Corp. (XOM) 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and let these foreign oil companies undertake their first large-scale operations in the country since the industry was nationalized in 1972.
Oil industry executives and analysts say the law, which would allow Western companies to pocket up to three-quarters of profits in the early years, is the only way to get Iraq's oil industry back on its feet after years of sanctions, war and loss of expertise. However, opponents say Iraq, where oil accounts for 95% of the economy, is being forced to surrender an unacceptable degree of sovereignty, the Independent reported.

Supporters counter that the 75%-profit provision will last only until they have recouped their initial drilling costs. After that, they would collect about 20% of profits, according to industry sources in Iraq. This is still twice the industry average for such deals.
Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister, Barham Salih, who chairs the country's oil committee, is expected to unveil the legislation as early as Monday and the government hopes to have the law enacted by March, according to the report.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/western-companies-may-get-75/story.aspx?guid=%7B09CFDDFD-E299-4659-A8C3-5ADE6E26579E%7D

Newspaper Web site: http://www.ft.com

[Lautremont]

74. And there it is, the real casus belli.

I'm terribly surprised by this news. Yes, terribly.

[MichiganVote]

75. Shocked. And to think we'll get the priviledge of paying for it all....

over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over

[Joanne98]

76. We're paying taxes to the oil companies....

It goes in the front door and out the back.

[oblivious]

77. What? Nothing for Polish Oil and Gas Company?

[superconnected]

78. That profit switch after the costs are covered will never happen.

They'll invent costs. Just like the movie industry does so that nobody can realize their share in the profits who signs for net profit percentage.

[Joanne98]

79. Exactly

[Robbien]

80. Plus Iraq will never get the 25% due them. You know BigOil

will bill Iraq for all operating expenses down to clothing and meal allowances. There will be nothing left above the bribes paid to corrupt politicians. That is the only way BigOil knows how to set up these kind of agreements.

[newscott]

81. I just assumed they have been pumping the oil out as fast as they can

right now.

[Rose Siding]

82. "I bring you the stately matron called CHRISTENDOM..."

"I bring you the stately matron called CHRISTENDOM -- returning bedraggled, besmirched and dishonored from pirate raids......with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies. Give her soap and a towel, but hide the looking-glass."

Dec. 31, 1900.

Give her the glass; it may from error free her
When she shall see herself as others see her.

-A Salutation Speech from the Nineteenth Century to the Twentieth
Taken down in shorthand by Mark Twain

http://abeefsandwich.typepad.com.nyud.net:8090/a_beef_sandwich_w_sweet_a/images/bushflag.jpg

[snot]

83. And if anyone still believes the AUTONOMOUS Iraq gov't

executed Saddam so fast over our objections . . .

[amandabeech]

84. Iraqis of all religions and ethnicities would join guerrilla groups

to prevent any international oil company from doing much of anything in Iraq. The sabotage at the pipelines would be enormous. Right now, no oil is flowing through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline because is has been so badly damaged.

Once we're out of there, another Iraqi government would probably be forced by public opinion to re-nationalize Iraqi oil.

Any international oil companies going in to Iraqi should be prepared to lose everything that they invest in the Iraqi fields, pipelines and refineries. We'll see which ones actually put down some dough.

[NashVegas]

85. worth a kick

..

[TrogL]

87. What about the existing contracts?

Even if they were signed under Saddam, a contract is a contract.