This is something I've been advocating since 2003. Na. Gah. Happen.
RAW STORY
Published: Monday December 18, 2006
In a commentary published in Monday's Wall Street Journal, Senators Hillary Clinton (NY-Dem) and John Ensign (NEV-Rep) ask the Bush Administration to set up an Iraq Oil Trust, so that revenues can get distributed to the country's "ordinary" citizens and to further demonstrate that the United States is not in Iraq just for the sake of oil.
"For the sake of our soldiers and for the future of Iraq, it is time we place greater rights and responsibilities of citizenship in the hands of the Iraqi people," the two Senators write. "This includes a stake in oil revenues, which are central to political reconciliation and an end to the sectarian violence."
Excerpts from commentary:
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We have urged for three years that the Bush administration pursue an Iraq Oil Trust, modeled on the Alaskan Permanent Fund, guaranteeing that every individual Iraqi would share in the country's oil wealth. Oil revenues would accrue to the national government and a significant percentage of oil revenues would be divided equally among ordinary Iraqis, giving every citizen a stake in the nation's recovery and political reconciliation and instilling a sense of hope for the promise of democratic values.
The implications would be vast. • The future of Iraq's oil reserves remains at the heart of the political crisis in Iraq, as the regional and sectarian divides in Iraq play out over the division of resources and revenues. As the Iraq Study Group writes, "The politics of oil has the potential to further damage the country's already fragile efforts to create a unified central government." An Iraq Oil Trust would chart an equitable path forward for dividing oil revenues in a way that transcends the divide among Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis.
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Senators_Clinton_Ensign_ask_Bush_to_1218.html