LA Times Op/Ed on Iraq Study Group: It's Still About Oil In Iraq ("...spill more blood for oil.")

[Hissyspit]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-juhasz8dec08,0,4717508.story?coll=la-opinion-center

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

WHILE THE Bush administration, the media and nearly all the Democrats still refuse to explain the war in Iraq in terms of oil, the ever-pragmatic members of the Iraq Study Group share no such reticence.

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The report makes visible to everyone the elephant in the room: that we are fighting, killing and dying in a war for oil. It states in plain language that the U.S. government should use every tool at its disposal to ensure that American oil interests and those of its corporations are met.

It's spelled out in Recommendation No. 63, which calls on the U.S. to "assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise" and to "encourage investment in Iraq's oil sector by the international community and by international energy companies." This recommendation would turn Iraq's nationalized oil industry into a commercial entity that could be partly or fully privatized by foreign firms.

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The U.S. State Department's Oil and Energy Working Group, meeting between December 2002 and April 2003, also said that Iraq "should be opened to international oil companies as quickly as possible after the war." Its preferred method of privatization was a form of oil contract called a production-sharing agreement. These agreements are preferred by the oil industry but rejected by all the top oil producers in the Middle East because they grant greater control and more profits to the companies than the governments. The Heritage Foundation also released a report in March 2003 calling for the full privatization of Iraq's oil sector. One representative of the foundation, Edwin Meese III, is a member of the Iraq Study Group. Another, James J. Carafano, assisted in the study group's work.

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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. We can thank the Iraq Study Group for making its case publicly. It is now our turn to decide if we wish to spill more blood for oil.

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[izzie]

1. I believe Paul Brennan did all this. Business was privatized and

if I recall the reading 100 percent of all profits could be taken from the country if any out corp. set up a business. And one of those laws he put in was the law could not be changed. Look back at those rules Brennan did. And I am sure the bases were to protect the laws we had put in. So many army's have moved into countries to make sure businesses were run by 'our' rules. Do you recall the stamp act? India and the East Indian Co? Why the Boxer's got so mad? Profits and greed are at work as always. When the Brits 'ruled' the world they had bases over the whole world for their navy to keep the lines of profit open and the profits came back to that little Island and about 10,000 people at the top. The study group is made up of people who think like this. Bush thinks this way and has said just about that. Heck he even left a tax to the people of one city so he could buy a parking lot for a baseball team that he made millions off and I am willing to bet most ave. people can not even buy a ticket to go to.

[acmavm]

2. Paul Bremer?

[izzie]

5. Guess I got name wrong but he was the guy put in to run Iraq.

I think their was a General or ex-gen then this guy. Then we handed it over with this vote thing.

[acmavm]

6. Tommy Franks was the general. He fucked up completely

so they put another criminal incompetent in by the name of J. Paul Bremer.

[izzie]

9. Frank I think was in the army these men were party people.

Some one from the WH set them up to sort of just re-set up the country. I bet they never got out of the Saddam palace. Both seemed to have made one big mess. Like having me take over and trying to run China or some such thing. Course since I can not speak to them it helps.

[JohnyCanuck]

3. The Surreal Politics of Premeditated War

The Surreal Politics of Premeditated War
by R.W. Behan

SNIP

At the State Department, a policy-development initiative called “The Future of Iraq” was undertaken which would accomplish this. The date was April, 2002, almost a full year before the invasion. The “Oil and Energy Working Group” provided the cover. Iraq, it said in its final report:, “should be opened to international oil companies as quickly as possible after the war…the country should establish a conducive business environment to attract investment in oil and gas resources.”

“Capture” would take the form of “investment,” and the vehicle for doing so would be the “production sharing agreement.” In exchange for investing in development costs, oil companies would “share” in the subsequent production. What would happen, though, if the companies’ investments were only minimal, but their shares of the production were disproportionately, obscenely large?

That’s the way it will work out. Production sharing agreements (PSA’s) are in place covering 75% of the undeveloped Iraqi fields, and the oil companies, soon to sign the contracts, will earn as much 162% on their “investments.” The “foreign suitors” are not quite so foreign now: the players on the inside tracks are Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, BP-Amoco and Royal Dutch-Shell.

The use of PSA’s, instead of alternative methods of financing infrastructure, however, will cost the Iraqi people hundreds of billions of dollars in just the first few years of the “investment” program.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1203-21.htm

[izzie]

7. I believe this new rules took in all businesses.

They are on this PC some place I am sure. But I recall some thing about who Iraq hospitals could buy drugs and stuff from. How cars would be sold. We knocked the home grown making of clothing right out of the country so more jobs were lost. Over night they privatized a country that was a well fare state and after 10 years of the West bombing them and cutting out letting goods into the country. It had to be a mess. But then Bush is doing that all over this country. How long do you think you would have public parks with Bush and Co. Be truthful. The rich would own them and not the state, town and put in the water works also. Prifits would be the only thing

[fasttense]

4. You are so right

It does remind you of the East Indian Co. and the US. Good old neocon Bremer wrote a constitution for the Iraqis that is a neocon's wet dream. It outlaws Unions and tariffs, opens their borders to anyone, and has destroyed the local industry. Corporations have dumped their products on Iraq destroying local production. Iraq local businesses have dried up. Iraqis can't get jobs because of all the cheap labor coming across their borders brought in by any corporation that can afford it. Open border advocates need to take a good hard look at what has happened in Iraq to see how wonderful an idea open borders really are.

[Hissyspit]

8. .