Iraq Study Group May Not Be A Plan To End War-BUT-It Does Ensure OIL STAYS IN US HANDS

[kpete]

Oil for Sale: Iraq Study Group Recommends Privatization
By Antonia Juhasz, AlterNet. Posted December 7, 2006.

The Iraq Study Group may not have a solution for how to end the war, but it does have a way for its corporate friends to make money.

In its heavily anticipated report released on Wednesday, the Iraq Study Group made at least four truly radical proposals.

The report calls for the United States to assist in privatizing Iraq's national oil industry, opening Iraq to private foreign oil and energy companies, providing direct technical assistance for the "drafting" of a new national oil law for Iraq, and assuring that all of Iraq's oil revenues accrue to the central government. President Bush hired an employee from the U.S. consultancy firm Bearing Point Inc. over a year ago to advise the Iraq Oil Ministry on the drafting and passage of a new national oil law. As previously drafted, the law opens Iraq's nationalized oil sector to private foreign corporate investment, but stops short of full privatization. The ISG report, however, goes further, stating that "the United States should assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise." In addition, the current Constitution of Iraq is ambiguous as to whether control over Iraq's oil should be shared among its regional provinces or held under the central government. The report specifically recommends the latter: "Oil revenues should accrue to the central government and be shared on the basis of population." If these proposals are followed, Iraq's national oil industry will be privatized and opened to foreign firms, and in control of all of Iraq's oil wealth.

The proposals should come as little surprise given that two authors of the report, James A. Baker III and Lawrence Eagleburger, have each spent much of their political and corporate careers in pursuit of greater access to Iraq's oil and wealth.

more at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/45190
via:
http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/

[notadmblnd]

1. Control of the flow of the oil.... that's what it's all about

a very different thing (in their minds) than wanting the oil.

[aquart]

2. What brass balls.

Syria and Iran should reject the report immediately simply based on that.

[Junkdrawer]

3. Antonia Juhasz was on DemocracyNow this morning...

You can catch it again at 9:50 am eastern at http://www.democracynow.org or later there will be a transcript.

[Junkdrawer]

17. Transcript up now...

ANTONIA JUHASZ: Yeah, absolutely. And good morning, Amy. It’s a completely radical proposal made straightforward in the Iraq Study Group report that the Iraqi national oil industry should be reorganized as a commercial enterprise. The proposal also says that, as you say, Iraq’s oil should be opened up to private foreign energy and companies. Also, another radical proposal: that all of Iraq’s oil revenues should be centralized in the central government. And the report calls for a US advisor to ensure that a new national oil law is passed in Iraq to make all of this possible and that the constitution of Iraq is amended to ensure that the central government gains control of Iraq’s oil revenues.

All told, the report calls for privatization of Iraq’s oil, turning it over to private foreign corporate hands, putting all of the oil in the hands of the central government, and essentially, I would argue, extending the war in Iraq to ensure that US oil companies get what the Bush administration went in there for: control and greater access to Iraq's oil.

....

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/07/1452236

[marmar]

4. And in the end, that's what it's all about with these mofos.

I think Howard Zinn is right:

I start from the supposition that the world is topsy turvy, that things are all wrong, that the wrong people are in jail, and the wrong people are out of jail, that the wrong people are in power, and the wrong people are out of power. I start from the supposition that we don't have to say too much about this, because all we have to do is think about the state of the world today and realize that things are all upside-down.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

5. Iraq has no oil industry.

Or any other industry for that matter.

As for privatisation, I'm a bit confused. The report says:

"Oil revenues should accrue to the central government and be shared on the basis of population."

So what part of it is to be privatised if the revenue is still being collected by the central government?

[Junkdrawer]

6. "commercial enterprise" - Recommendation 63: (pg. 85)

RECOMMENDATION 63:

• The United States should encourage investment in Iraq’s
oil sector by the international community and by international
energy companies.

• The United States should assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize
the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise, in order
to enhance efficiency, transparency, and accountability.

• To combat corruption, the U.S. government should urge
the Iraqi government to post all oil contracts, volumes,
and prices on the Web so that Iraqis and outside observers
can track exports and export revenues.

• The United States should support the World Bank’s efforts
to ensure that best practices are used in contracting. This
support involves providing Iraqi officials with contracting
templates and training them in contracting, auditing, and
reviewing audits.

• The United States should provide technical assistance to
the Ministry of Oil for enhancing maintenance, improving
the payments process, managing cash flows, contracting
and auditing, and updating professional training programs
for management and technical personnel.

http://www.usip.org/isg/iraq_study_group_report/report/1206/index.html

Private companies manage the business (through contracts) and then pay royalties to the central government.

[TahitiNut]

10. It's a question of who holds title to the fields or the crude.

It's one thing if the Iraqi government hires companies to perform services for some fixed term and compensation arrangement and quite another if the title to such assets is held by some private interest (global corporation) with some arrangement that a royalty or tax is paid based on some measure of 'success' in exploiting those assets. It should be realized that the entire history of Middle Eastern oil is rife with such arrangements - and that's the basis on which MAJOR disruptions occurred when the Saudis (and other national government) forced out Standard Oil and assumed national ownership in the middle of the 20th century.

We must be very aware that a 'title' exists solely on the basis of some government law and the enforcement (using military and police powers of the state) by that government. Even adherence to whatever 'royalty' or 'tax' arrangement is supposedly established is assured solely by such enforcement. Enforcement is a COST - a COST borne by the nation/government.

When the title (ownership and control) is held by the government/nation, we call it "nationalization." That's a word that strikes fear into the black hearts of global privateers. It's an act that these privateers use the full might and influence of the US military to prevent or reverse. (And then the People of the U.S. bear the costs - in lives - of coercing foreign interests to 'privatize' assets after which such people lust.)

It seems clear that the ISG is setting a condition - that condition is that Iraq cannot go the route of Chavez' Venezuela and hold title to all such assets in the name of the nation - i.e. a nationalized oil industry.

[Junkdrawer]

11. I wonder what "World Bank best practices" are...

As I posted above, that's the language in the ISG report. "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" may cover this...

[Jacobin]

7. Hate to tell you this, but we don't have control of their oil

Insurgent attacks on oil infrastructure for JUST THE PAST 11 MONTHS:

http://www.iags.org/iraqpipelinewatch.htm


2006
286. January 1 - a bomb exploded near a gas station near Daura. Three civilians were injured.
287. January 1 - attack on pipeline supplying petroleum products to a power plant near the Daura refinery cut capacity at the plant to 30%.
288. January 1 - riots broke out in Kirkuk. Hundreds of demonstrators, protesting fuel shortages, set two gas stations and offices belonging to the national oil company on fire.
289. January 4 - a rocket-propelled grenade attack destroyed 20 fuel tankers in a convoy of 60 heading to Baghdad from Bayji. "Islamic Army" claims responsiblity.
290. January 4 - Rahim Ali Sudani, a director-general at the oil ministry, and his son were killed in a drive-by attack on their car.
291. January 4 - nighttime mortar attack on gas pipeline in Bagwan, about 16 miles northwest of Kirkuk.
292. January 5 - a bomb exploded on an oil pipeline in Bagwan, about 16 miles northwest of Kirkuk.
293. January 15 - Insurgents attacked a checkpoint installed to monitor an oil pipeline, killing one guard and injuring three others south of Baghdad.
294. January 25 - a bomb exploded under a pipeline linking an oilfield near Kirkuk with the terminal at Ceyhan, causing a fire and a partial reduction in pumping.
295. January 25 - security forces defused two bombs that had been placed under pipeline in the Dibis area north of Kirkuk.
296. February 1 - attack on an oil pipeline in Muhwailha, 40 miles south of Baghdad.
297. February 2 - attack on oil pumping station feeding one of two export pipelines from Kirkuk to Ceyhan.
299. February 2 - Insurgents mounted an IED attack on oil stabilization plant at Kirkuk.
300. February 3 - mortar shells hit an oil facility near Kirkuk.
301. February 6 - insurgents used an IED to breech the oil pipeline that feeds the al-Daura oil refinery with crude oil.
302. February 17 - insurgents blew up the main pipeline feeding crude oil from Kirkuk to a refinery in Daura.
303. February 24 - An explosion set fire to an oil pipeline south of Samarra.
304. February 25 - attack on a pipeline near Bayji.
305. February 28 - Iraqi Security Forces arrested an unknown number of security guards responsible for providing protection to the oil infrastructure in the Kirkuk area. The guards have been accused of providing help to insurgents who are trying to destroy the Baghdad-Bayji-Kirkuk oil pipelines.
306. March 1 - attack on pipeline near Taji.
307. March 1 - an oil pipeline was burning in Musayyib, following a rocket-propelled grenade attack. Gunmen shot at firefighters as they rushed to the scene, wounding two of them. Arriving a short time later, police engaged the insurgents in an hour-long gunbattle.
308. March 2 - guards with Iraq's oil protection service killed one man and detained three others as they were trying to plant bombs under a pipeline west of Kerbala, south of Baghdad.
309. March 2 - attack on an oil pipeline connecting the Al-Daura refinery and Al-Musayyib power plant, in southern Baghdad, causing a fire.
310. March 8 - 9:00am explosion at the Basra headquarters of the Southern Oil Company damaged the fuel section's building; unclear if caused by bomb or mortar.
311. March 14 - insurgents launched an attack on an oil pipeline near Hawijah.
312. March 18 - iocket attack against oil installation near Kirkuk.
313. March 18 - rocket was fired against the North Oil Company HQ.
314. March 19 - Raad Al Asali, the director of an oil products company in Mosul was killed as he left his home.
315. March 21 - insurgents attacked an natural gas pipeline northeast of Tikrit with an IED resulting in breeching of the pipeline and ignition of the gas.
316. March 21 - two oil workers were shot and killed in Bayji.
317. March 25 - insurgents mounted a mortar attack on Bayji oil refinery during a VIP visit.
318. March 30 - insurgents blew up a pipeline transporting oil from Kirkuk to the Bayji refinery, at a point near a village 30 miles southwest of Kirkuk.
319. March 30 - insurgents shot dead eight workers at Iraq's largest oil refinery in Bayji. Another man was wounded when the gunmen ambushed the workers' minibus at a roadblock as it drove out of the refinery.
320. March 31 - Blast underneath oil pipeline that runs from Bayji to Daura.
321. April 1 - roadside bomb blast near oil pipeline 44 miles (70 km) south of Basra kills two members of Iraq's Facility Protection Services (FPS); no damage to the pipeline.
322. April 10 - three Oil Protection Force workers were injured when an IED detonated in a Toyota Caprice vehicle which they were investigating. The incident occurred to the north of Az Zubayr near the Al Swadi Gas Station.
323. April 12 - an attempt to shoot the director of the Northern Gas Company Director failed.
324. April 26 - two Iraqi army soldiers, who were guarding an oil pipeline, were shot dead by armed men in two vehicles near the town of Balad.
325. April 29 - the Northern Gas Company was attacked with rockets. The attack targeted three critical Oil and Gas plants in Kirkuk. These are at present under reconstruction and refurbishment. Initial assessments indicate that up to 16 rounds of 57mm were received from two separate firing points. There was no damage reported and no loss of operational capability. The firing point was believed to have been a white pick up truck, located to the SW of the plant.
326. April 30 - Iraqi Police discovered a Katyusha rocket near Kirkuk. The rocket had been placed on a pile of rocks at an angle with a timer attached, possibly targeting the Northern Oil Company. Iraqi EOD disarmed the rocket without incident.
327. May 6 - six engineers working for Iraq's state-owned Northern Oil Company were kidnapped while they were returning from a meeting in Kirkuk.
328. May 8 - insurgents attacked an oil pipeline with an IED at 45 km south from Baghdad. There were no casualties in the attack, but the oil pipeline had to be closed due to the blast. The pipeline carries oil from Dora refinery in Baghdad to Musayyib power station.
328. May 10 - attack on an oil pipeline pipeline carrying oil from Daura refinery to Mussayyib power station.
329. May 15 - attack on pipeline in the Daura refinery.
330. May 16 - insurgents assaulted a car park in northeast Baghdad, killing 18 people and injuring at least 37. Iraqi police said the gunmen shot five guards who were looking after the garage in the Shaab neighbourhood. They then detonated an IED on a parked oil tanker. The bomb killed 13 people.
331. May 20 - a member of the Facilities Protection Service was killed having been shot by two unknown gunmen in the Hayy ar Risalah district of Basrah.
332. May 21- gunmen killed two policemen working in the Oil Protection Facilities in the town of Ar Riyad 40 miles southwest of Kirkuk.
333. May 21 - in al yusufiyah, insurgents detonated an IED on an oil pipeline, starting a massive blaze.
334. May 21 - two Oil Protection Service officers were killed in a drive-by shooting in Tikrit.
335. May 28 - a local government worker who works in an oil refinery was murdered. He was shot twice in the neck in the Abu Al Khasib region of Basra Province by four unknown males on two motorbikes.
336. May 31 - insurgents carried out a rocket attack against an oil pipeline in Riyadh.
337. May 31 - a three vehicle convoy was escorting a pipeline repair team from the Ministry of Oil when it was ambushed with an IED in the Rasheed District in south-western Baghdad. After the initial explosion insurgents then engaged the convoy with small arms fire from a plantation near the Al Taji Gas Factory. Two Iraqi police officers were wounded in the attack.
338. May 31 - a security patrol was ambushed with two IEDs the Ad Daura Oil Refinery in southern Baghdad. It is reported that one security officer was wounded in the attack. 339. June 1 - in northern Iraq gunmen opened fire on Col. Ziyad Tariq, deputy-commander of the oil protection force in Kirkuk, killing him and a bodyguard and wounding another bodyguard as they left a restaurant. Also, a maintenance unit from the oil protection force was attacked by gunmen southwest of Kirkuk and two members were wounded.
340. June 6 - four Northern Oil Company employees were kidnapped on their way to the Ajeel oil site.
341. June 8 - Gunmen in Baghdad kidnapped the director general of the State Company for Oil Projects, Muthana al-Badri in Aazamiya, northern Baghdad.
342. June 9 - in Kirkuk gunmen attacked soldiers guarding a pipeline, wounding three of them and killing one civilian. also on the road between the oil-refinery town of Baiji and Tikrit, gunmen killed three oil engineers.
343. June 12 - six people have been killed in a roadside bomb attack in the southern Daura district in Baghdad. The blast targeted a bus carrying workers to Baghdad's main oil refinery and comes a day after al-Qaeda in Iraq vowed to carry out large-scale after the killing of its leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
344. June 16 - an employee of the Northern Gas Company was similarly shot dead near the oil city of Kirkuk.
345. June 27 - a suicide car bomb exploded at a gas station in Kirkuk, killing at least three civilians and wounding 14 people who were lined up to get fuel.
346. June 27 - three Iraqi policemen from a unit assigned to protect oil facilities in northern Iraq were injured by a roadside IED. A security source said the three men were injured when a bomb exploded as their patrol passed by in an area north of Kirkuk.
347. July 3 - early morning attack section of Yumurtalik pipeline in the city of Hassan about 40 miles southeast of Kirkuk.
348. July 9 - a sabotage attack along Iraq's vital northern oil export route to Turkey fractured both pipelines and repairs will take at least two weeks.
349. July 11 - insurgents killed an engineer working for the North Oil Company, along with his driver, while he was heading to work in Kirkuk.
350. July 11 - insurgents attacked a convoy carrying security personnel tasked with protecting oil facilities south of Mosul, killing at least 10 troops and injuring scores of others. The troops had been ambushed while on a routine inspection of oil pipes in the region. 351. July 13 - attack on a security patrol of the Northern Oil Company in Kirkuk killed three policemen and wounded six civilians.
352. July 16 - the head of Iraq's North Oil Company, Adel Qazaz, was kidnapped in northern Baghdad.
353. July 28 - attack near Samarra on a pipeline connecting Bayji and the Daura refinery.
354. July 31 - Iraq’s northern pipeline carrying crude from the northern oilfields to Turkey's Ceyhan port was sabotaged and ruptured, delaying the restart of export from a previous attack on 9 July 2006.
355. August 13 - insurgents shot and killed a colonel in the Oil Protection Facilities, a security body charged with guarding Iraq's oil infrastructure. He was shot while waiting at gas station north of Tikrit, 110 miles north of Baghdad.
356. August 13 - approximately 63 Iraqis were killed and another 140 wounded when bombs exploded in the vicinity of a building, rupturing a gas pipeline and causing a gas explosion near the Hawra market in southeast Baghdad.
357. September 1 - an IED attack targeting an oil pipeline on the outskirts of Musayyib south of Baghdad cut supply to a major electricity station. The pipeline feeds Musayyib's electricity station, which provides power to the cities of Karbala, Najaf, Hillah and Diwaniyah.
358. September 3 - attack on an oil pipeline near Kirkuk.
359. Septmebr 10 - a shooting attack near Bayji. Gunmen in two cars ambushed a bus carrying oil employees, killing four people and wounding one.
360. September 13 - an oil installation guard was wounded in a clash with gunmen who tried to blow up an oil pipeline in al-Fatha using an IED,in an area 20 miles south of Kirkuk.
361. September 17 - an oil pipeline was damaged by an IED in the town of Balad, 55 miles north of Baghdad. 362. September 18 - two militants who attempted an attack a gas tanker were arrested in the area of Shuwan, eastern Kirkuk. The attackers were attempting to hijack the tanker.
363. September 20 - a suicide truck bomb detonated at a police checkpoint at the entrance of a Baghdad oil refinery in southern Baghdad, killing three people and wounding 13 others.
364. September 22 - a pipeline carrying crude oil from the fields around Kirkuk to the refinery in Baiji was ruptured during a mortar attack.
365. September 26 - an IED ruptured gas pipeline at Bayji. No one was hurt when insurgents blew up the pipeline, which connects the Bayji refinery and a gas field.
366. September 29 - two fuel tankers were hit with roadside IEDs southwest of Samarra.
367. October 5 - an IED planted under an oil pipeline was detonated near the village of Ishaqi north of Baghdad. The explosion set fire to the pipeline linking the refinery in Bayji and the refinery in al-Daura.
368. October 7 - a roadside IED hit a fuel tanker being escorted by American troops near Samarra, sending plumes of black smoke into the air.
369. October 28 - a roadside IED targeting security forces guarding an oil industry facility wounded two police officers in eastern Baghdad.
370. October 30 - gunmen attacked a police centre assigned to oil, facilities protection in the city of Bayji, killing two policemen and destroying a police car.
371. November 1 - a roadside IED detonated near the convoy of the security advisor of the Governor of Salah ad Din Province in Bayji. He was unharmed but two of his guards were wounded.
372. November 2 - Gunmen killed a guard of the Northern Oil Company in Kirkuk.
373. November 2 - Sarkot Hikmat Shawkat, an officer with the city's Oil Protection Police, was killed in a drive-by shooting.
374. November 2 - insurgents set up a fake security checkpoint and killed the drivers of two fuel trucks and kidnapped three other people near Baquba.

[The Cleaner]

8. Executive Order 13303: Bush Shields Oil Companies from Litigation, 2003

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

The Bush/Cheney administration has moved quickly to ensure U.S. corporate control over Iraqi resources, at least through the year 2007. The first part of the plan, created by the United Nations under U.S. pressure, is the Development Fund for Iraq, which is being controlled by the United States and advised by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The second is a recent Bush executive order that provides absolute legal protection for U.S. interests in Iraqi oil...

Executive Order 13303 decrees that "any attachment, judgment, decree, lien, execution, garnishment, or other judicial process is prohibited, and shall be deemed null and void," with respect to the Development Fund for Iraq and "all Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products, and interests therein."

In other words, if ExxonMobil or ChevronTexaco touch Iraqi oil, it will be immune from legal proceedings in the United States. Anything that could go, and elsewhere has gone, awry with U.S. corporate oil operations will be immune to judgment: a massive tanker accident; an explosion at an oil refinery; the employment of slave labor to build a pipeline; murder of locals by corporate security; the release of billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The president, with a stroke of the pen, signed away the rights of Saddam's victims, creditors and of the next true Iraqi government to be compensated through legal action. Bush's order unilaterally declares Iraqi oil to be the unassailable province of U.S. corporations.

In the short term, through the Development Fund and the Export-Import Bank programs, the Iraqi people's oil will finance U.S. corporate entrees into Iraq. In the long term, Executive Order 13303 protects anything those corporations do to seize control of Iraq's oil, from the point of production to the gas pump -- and places oil companies above the rule of law.

Source: http://reclaimdemocracy.org/weekly_2003/oil_corporations_iraq_immunity.html

[IndyOp]

9. Sons of Bitches. "US Interests" = "Steal Resources with Impunity" (n/t)

[bluerum]

12. Had to make some concessions to the squatter in chief and his

sidekick - evil dick chainy and the corporate puppet masters.

[cosmicdot]

14. yep, maybe the ISG just incorporated Cheney's Energy Task Force

report ... the blueprint of Big Oil's plans for the Caspian Sea basin

... as think-tanked by such organizations as the Council on Foreign Relations and the Heritage Foundation, and as carried out by the Chimp-in-Chief/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice/et al

c.1999

http://www.treemedia.com/cfr/ (from 1999)
http://www.treemedia.com/cfr/homepage/overview/overview2.html
http://www.treemedia.com/cfr/library/library.html
http://www.treemedia.com/cfr/library/geopolitics/jaffemaps.html#map1

the ISG: Stay the Course for Big Oil

Jim Baker/Kissinger/Cheney et al have another Caspian footprint country in their pocket:
Azerbaijan http://www.usacc.org/contents.php?cid=2 (north of Iraq, just west of the Sea, south of Russia, eastward of Georgia)


Oil Politics: America and the Riches of the Caspian Basin. The geopolitical location of Afghanistan->Iraq in relation to the Caspian Sea

[The Backlash Cometh]

13. Nationalize oil...

...and American corporations will come up with plans to an alternative energy choice.

[Junkdrawer]

15. Iran nationalized oil in the 50s and we installed the Shah...

And, boy howdy, did the Iranians love the Shah... :sarcasm:

[Junkdrawer]

16. Kick

:kick:

[Junkdrawer]

18. .