Iraqi Oil: A Benchmark or a Giveaway?
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=iraqi_oil_a_benchmark_or_a_giveawayA strike by Iraqi oil workers in early June threw into question the conditions that some in the U.S. Congress would place on ending the U.S. occupation of Iraq. At the same time, Iraqi nationalists have grown more vocal in their accusations that the occupation itself has an economic agenda, centered on seizing control of the country's oil.
Across the political spectrum in Washington, many now demand that the Maliki government meet certain benchmarks, which presumably would show that it's really in charge in Iraq. But there's a particular problem with the most important benchmark that the Iraqi government is being pressured to meet: the oil law. The problem is, in Iraq, it may be the single most unpopular measure the United States is trying to get the government to enact.
In the United States, this law is generally presented as a means to share the oil wealth among different geographic regions of the country. Many Iraqis, however, see it differently. They look the proposed law and see instead the way its welcomes foreign oil companies into the oil fields. They see the control it would give those oil companies over setting royalties, deciding on production levels, and even determining whether Iraqis get to work in their own industry.
In early June, the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU) shut down the pipelines from the Rumeila fields near Basra, in the south, to the Baghdad refinery and the rest of the country. It was a limited strike to underline its call for keeping oil in public hands, and to force the government to live up to its economic promises.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki responded by calling units of the 10th Division of the Iraqi army and surrounding the strikers at Sheiba, near Basra, on June 5 and 6. According to reports in the Basra news media, U.S. aircraft flew over the strikers as well. The Prospect has asked the Combined Press Information Center in Baghdad to confirm or deny these overflights; as yet, it has not done so.
Maliki also issued arrest warrants for the union's leaders. On June 6, the union postponed the strike until June 11. Facing the possibility that a renewed strike could escalate into shutdowns on the rigs themselves -- or even the cutoff of oil exports, which would shut down the one of the few income streams that the national government can claim -- Maliki blinked. He agreed to the union's principal demand: Maliki said he would hold implementation of the oil law in abeyance until October, while the union gets a chance to pose objections and propose alternatives. Continued...
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=iraqi_oil_a_benchmark_or_a_giveaway
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