Iraqi Blocs Opposed to Draft Oil Bill

[cal04]

Source: EDWARD WONG and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

Kurdish and Sunni Arab officials expressed deep reservations on Wednesday about the draft version of a national oil law and related legislation, misgivings that could derail one of the benchmark measures of progress in Iraq laid down by President Bush.

The draft law, which establishes a framework for the fair distribution of oil revenues, was approved by the Iraqi cabinet in late February after months of protracted negotiations. The White House was hoping for quick passage to lay the groundwork for a political settlement among the country’s ethnic and sectarian factions. But the new Kurdish concerns have created doubts about the bill even before Parliament is to pick it up for debate.

The issue comes at a delicate moment for Mr. Bush, who on Wednesday began negotiations with Congressional Democrats over a new war-spending measure.

The president vetoed a $124 billion bill on Tuesday because it included timetables for troop withdrawals, and a House vote on Wednesday fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto, with 222 voting in favor and 203 opposing the override.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/03/world/middleeast/03iraq.html?hp

[Old and In the Way]

1. Well there it is. If anything will unite the warring factions, it will be the rejection

of this bill. We might see the 1st unifying government action when all 3 segments of the Iraqi population reject this bill. And wait to word gets out to the general population that the USA is trying to steal their #1 resource by legislative fiat. I wonder how this will rachet up the violence against our soldiers.

Maybe, just maybe, the mainstream media will discover Big Oil's Golden Egg and might start asking questions about it.

[Tom Joad]

2. Isn't the Oil law supported by both the Dems and Repubs in Congress?

Is this part of the benchmarks Kerry demands of the govt?

[Jack Rabbit]

3. If Iraq is really a soveign state where the parliament represents the people

that bill will go in flames.

[rodeodance]

4. "a delicate moment for Mr. Bush, "-----oh that is funny

[rosesaylavee]

5. "Mass theft from the Iraqi people..."

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/48605/

"Under Iraq's pending oil law, as much as two-thirds of Iraq's known reserves would be developed by multinationals, amounting to mass theft from the Iraqi people."

Damn these criminals. They have no shame, do they?

[Bruce McAuley]

6. All of Bush's marbles are in this oil bill...

This is the REAL reason for the "surge".
This gives the oil to Exxon, under the table of course, and sets up the future 30 years so we will tell the Iraqis what will be done with the oil, and that it will always sell oil only in Dollars, not Euros.
Without the passage of this bill, there's no way for Exxon and George to win. He will go to any length to get it passed, even if we have to station troops in the halls of their parliament.
Only then can we retreat to our forts and fortified embassies, not to emerge unless the Iraqis nullify the deal.
If they're smart they will. This bill gives the money to Exxon, and a sop to the Iraqi people.

Bruce

[slipslidingaway]

7. Kucinich Statement on the Iraq Supplemental Conference

Report HR 1591

http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=63687

"Washington, Apr 25 - WASHINGTON, DC — Following passage of the supplemental conference report this evening, Congressman Dennis Kucinich released the following statement:

This “Supplemental” is a plan to extort Iraq’s oil wealth under the guise of a plan to end the war. Funds for the security of the Iraqi government are contingent upon Iraq giving up control of oil. This legislation is a repugnant, high pressure tactic to force Iraq to pass a “hydrocarbon act” which will effectively privatize the oil wealth of Iraq. The key deception is that the hydrocarbon act, which sounds like an environmental law, lets Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds “share” whatever is left after US oil companies take unconscionable profits. This bill is not a plan for peace. It is blood for oil. It is a guarantee of more war and the continued U.S. occupation of Iraq."


Extortion (0.00 / 0)

At the bottom of this link.

http://www.prairiestateblue.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3005

"I understand the problems that people are having with the hydrocarbon law being a give-way to Western oil corps, although I am not familiar enough with the draft law to judge for myself. However, I didn't understand Kucinich's charge of "extortion".
Well, at the end of Title I (which is the section of the law covering war funding), there is language which withholds 50% of US assistance to Iraq until a hyrdocarbon law is passed:.."


Who is on the right side of this issue, Kucinich or many of the other Dems who favor this clause in the Iraq Supplemental bill???

[slipslidingaway]

8. Whose Oil Is It, Anyway?

http://priceofoil.org/thepriceofoil/war-terror/iraqi-oil-law/nyt-whose-oil-is-it-anyway/

snip>>

"A new oil law set to go before the Iraqi Parliament this month would, if passed, go a long way toward helping the oil companies achieve their goal. The Iraq hydrocarbon law would take the majority of Iraq’s oil out of the exclusive hands of the Iraqi government and open it to international oil companies for a generation or more.

In March 2001, the National Energy Policy Development Group (better known as Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force), which included executives of America’s largest energy companies, recommended that the United States government support initiatives by Middle Eastern countries ‘’to open up areas of their energy sectors to foreign investment.'’ One invasion and a great deal of political engineering by the Bush administration later, this is exactly what the proposed Iraq oil law would achieve. It does so to the benefit of the companies, but to the great detriment of Iraq’s economy, democracy and sovereignty.

Since the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration has been aggressive in shepherding the oil law toward passage. It is one of the president’s benchmarks for the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a fact that Mr. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Gen. William Casey, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and other administration officials are publicly emphasizing with increasing urgency."

[Truth2Tell]

9. It's gross that the New York Times

gets away with describing this oil law - over and over - in all it's reporting - only and exclusively, as one "which establishes a framework for the fair distribution of oil revenues".

That's it. That's all they have to say about the law itself. The rest is about the politics.

No mention of the fact that this law constitutes a radical privatization of Iraqi oil resources for a generation to come - and a radical and ideologically driven paradigm shift of the Iraqi economy to boot. Zippo.

That's lame journalism.

And btw, why do so many Democrats support "benchmarks" or "milestones" so openly related to the looting of Iraq's oil? Is that really one of the best issues upon which to hinge further American lives?

[DLnyc]

12. I agree, for the most part. But one op-ed slipped thru 3/13/07

The Times has most definitely (and most dishonestly) been 'reporting' about the revenue-sharing aspects of the bill (which are good, probably) without ever (almost) mentioning that the bill also effectively strips away Iraqi ownership of the vast majority of their oil reserves.

BUT, on 3/13/07 the Times apparently slipped up and published this very interesting op-ed by Antonia Juhasz (which is quoted, in part, in #8 above):

http://www.bushagenda.net/article.php?id=369

[Truth2Tell]

16. True, there has been a teeny weeny bit

of critical commentary in the Times and elsewhere in the MSM. But not much.

But as for the REPORTING in the Times - well, that's where they like to establish the terms of national debate - establish the conventional wisdom, if you will. And in that regard, the new law is all about "distribution" of oil, not "ownership" of resources.

[cqo_000]

13. I guess someone from the NYT is watching closely

They dropped the bit about the law being fair from the article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/03/world/middleeast/03iraq.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp


I don't suppose they will apologize either for trying to mislead the public again, it's much easier to appear as passive unwilling dupes when your caught publicizing Bush propaganda.

[donkeyotay]

14. It's annoying alright. Teevee news says the Kurds don't want to share

with the Sunnis. No mention of the part about privatization. No wonder Cheney never released any info on his energy meetings. I guess the map of the Iraqi oil fields is as close as we'll ever come to any admission that this fraud of a government planned this war, and installed His Fraudulence, specifically for the purpose. No wonder the administration is so stupendously bad at governing. They never planned to govern, but only to loot. Washington is looking like a post-Saddam Baghdad redux, and we can only remark that we didn't know there were that many vases.

Hi, Truth2Tell:hi:

[Tom Joad]

10. Who in the US congress is joining Iraqi people in opposing this bill?

Are there more than a handful.

I think the US congress is *demanding* this bill pass.

(see my rant about congress and this war here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x810146

[nealmhughes]

11. Ok, only a puppet would give away 2/3 of the country's main income to multinationals.

So, now the Kurds and Sunnis will make common cause against the Shia, and the government will fall because the people of the Shia sect will take to the street over the theft. . .
Iraq is not S.A. or Kuwait or the other Arabian Peninsular states which have oil and low population so that the mere royalties alone will support the citizens on that money alone. Such is not the case with Iraq or Iran!
77 Millions of citizens in Iran. 25 Million in Iraq. These states do not need "outsiders" to manage their finances or their oil supplies.
If I am not mistaken, Iraq in its present iteration has twelve provinces. However, the oil is not equal in distribution across all provinces, with Kirkuk and Basra having the most: Kurdish/Assyrian for the former and Shia in the latter case. Should more money go to Arbil or Mosul or Kirkuk (wherever the final iteration of an Iraqi federation places the autonomous Kurdish Zone) and Basra to the detriment to al Anbar or the other provinces?
The obvious solution, to me, is to have the monies on a per capita system: a cut for each citizen in terms of national/provincial costs for education, transportation, police (when they come back), health care, etc. rather than impoverishing a few provinces and enriching the others.
Not doing this will only result in a new divide: the have nots and the haves. The haves would then move to the have provinces for medical, education, work, etc. leaving them resented as "outsiders" if they came from the "have not" provinces.
To take control away from the people is a theft, the largest ever in the history of mankind save the various partitions of Poland, should Royal Dutch Shell, Texaco, BP, et al. do anything more than walk around with drool coming from their mouths at the envy of the Iraqi Central Oil Ministry.

[slipslidingaway]

15. This should be one of the most important topics for discussion

yet there is hardly any talk of this important law and how it will efect the people of Iraq.

:banghead:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=810146&mesg_id=812770

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=26371&mesg_id=26371

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=806439&mesg_id=807408