Little progress seen on Iraq goals

[ProSense]

Little progress seen on Iraq goals

By MATTHEW LEE and ROBERT BURNS, Associated Press Writers 26 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Congressional auditors have determined that the Iraqi government has failed to meet the vast majority of political and military goals laid out by lawmakers to assess President Bush's Iraq war strategy, The Associated Press has learned.

The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, will report that at least 13 of the 18 benchmarks to measure the surge of U.S. troops to Iraq are unfulfilled ahead of a Sept. 15 deadline for Bush to give a detailed accounting of the situation eight months after he announced the policy, according to three officials familiar with the matter.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the report has not been made public, also said the administration is preparing a case to play down its findings, arguing that Congress ordered the GAO to use unfair, "all or nothing" standards when compiling the document.

The GAO is to give a classified briefing about its findings to lawmakers on Thursday. It is not yet clear when its unclassified report will be released but it is due Sept. 1 amid a series of assessments called for in January legislation that authorized Bush's plan to send 30,000 more troops to Iraq, where there is now a total of more than 160,000 troops.

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Earthtimes.org
Iraq oil law up in Sept., official says
Posted on : 2007-08-16 | Author : General News Editor
News Category : World

WASHINGTON, Aug. 16 (UPI) A top official in the Iraqi Embassy in Washington expects the oil law to top Parliament's agenda when lawmakers return to session at the start of next month.

Ghaleb El-Anbaki, third secretary and head of the Iraqi Embassy's political affairs department, told UPI the oil debate is "a sensitive issue," one related to history and entwined with the country's future.

"This will come up on the first item on the agenda of the next session of Parliament," he said, adding the Kurdistan Regional Government and Iraq's central government have compromises on "technical" issues, such as sharing power.

There has been no announcement on any deal, however, as Parliament is on recess this month. The oil law has been negotiated for more than a year but is stuck on issues such as the extent of federalism in controlling the exploration, development and production of the third-largest reserves in the world. Also unresolved is the extent foreign and private companies will be allowed into the sector.
Ben Lando, UPI Energy Editor
Copyright 2007 by United Press International
Print Source :
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/94429.html

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2007/0822holdupoil.htm
What Is Holding Up the Delivery
of the Long-Awaited Iraqi Oil Law?
By Munir Chalabi *
Z Net
August 22, 2007

As deadline after deadline and benchmark after benchmark passes and with all the pressure imposed by the IMF, the US Administration, the US oil lobby and International Oil Companies (IOCs) on the Iraqi government, the oil law, against all the odds, refuses to be born.

Despite all the attempts by the Occupation's Governing Council (GC) and its appointed puppet, Allawi's Government, as well as the efforts by both of the elected governments, several US/IMF deadlines have passed including one in December 2006, then in March, May and the latest one in July 2007, but the draft of the law has not even been presented officially to the Federal Parliament in Baghdad.

In parallel with all these deadlines and benchmarks, we have seen several versions of the drafts for the new Iraqi oil law leaked one way or another to the international press. This includes one in June 2006, another on January 15, then February 15, June 25, and finally July 3, 2007. Many international political analysts and oil experts cannot comprehend how such unprecedented pressure can fail to produce results.

The answer to this is to be found within the methodology used in investigating the reasons behind the failure of the US Administration in achieving their objectives. Analysts must not only look for external influences on any US plan in Iraq but they should also study and analyze the internal Iraqi causes affecting the success or the failure of the plan.

Prominent Iraqis criticise oil law
By Ahmed Janabi

Al-Chalabi says Iraqi oil experts must be consulted
A statement, signed by 419 Iraqi oil experts, economists and intellectuals, expresses grave concern that the newly proposed law would deprive Iraq from its most vital natural resource, oil, and give foreign oil companies ultimate domination over Iraq's oil wealth.
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Iraq's oil experts insist that their country enjoys a remarkable experience in the oil industry, and it does not need foreign help to develop the country's oil infrastructure.

Al Jazeera spoke to Kamal al-Kaisi, a former oil ministry official and Iraq's representative to Opec 1979-1985. He said: "The question is: Do we really need that oil law? Is it really that urgent, and cannot wait until Iraq is better off?

"Iraq has achieved the nationalisation of oil in 1973, we ran our oil industry effectively for decades, before and after the nationalisation, and our experience has become a model for the region's countries.

Production-sharing agreements, which would allow foreign oil companies to invest in oil, and pay a profit margin to the government have been widely criticised by Iraqi oil experts.

Al-Kaisi said: "If we want to increase oil production, then we do not need to risk our necks by surrendering our oil to foreign companies, it could be done internally. Iraq is full of high-quality oil engineers. All we need is to borrow some money, may be, but we definitely do not need the production share agreements (PSA).

"The nation is in ruins, people are afraid to stay in their own homeland, foreign troops are occupying the country, the government alliance is falling apart - among many other problems. Is the oil law a priority in such circumstances?

The proposed oil law licenses PSA for the first time in decades. The law states that foreign oil companies would pay 12% profit margin to the Iraqi government. Oil experts say this is an unjustifiably small figure in the light of the current high oil prices.
Source: AlJazeera