Compromise on Oil Law in Iraq Seems to Be Collapsing

[babsbunny]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/13/world/middleeast/13baghdad.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

By JAMES GLANZ
Published: September 13, 2007
BAGHDAD, Sept. 12 — A carefully constructed compromise on a draft law governing Iraq’s rich oil fields, agreed to in February after months of arduous talks among Iraqi political groups, appears to have collapsed. The apparent breakdown comes just as Congress and the White House are struggling to find evidence that there is progress toward reconciliation and a functioning government here.


Herbert Pfarrhofer/ European Pressphoto Agency
Hussain al-Shahristani, the Iraqi minister of oil, negotiated the original deal.

The Reach of War
Senior Iraqi negotiators met in Baghdad on Wednesday in an attempt to salvage the original compromise, two participants said. But the meeting came against the backdrop of a public series of increasingly strident disagreements over the draft law that had broken out in recent days between Hussain al-Shahristani, the Iraqi oil minister, and officials of the provincial government in the Kurdish north, where some of the nation’s largest fields are located.

[rocktivity]

1. I can't imagine WHY it's collasping

You'd think that ANY government would jump at the chance to give away the majority of its revenues to foreigners, grant them representation WITHOUT taxation, allow them to police themselves, and not require them to hire native citizens.

Jim Hightower explains it all for you in his trademark two minutes flat.

:headbang:
rocknation