Blood and oil: How the West will profit from Iraq's most precious commodity

[cal04]

The 'IoS' today reveals a draft for a new law that would give Western oil companies a massive share in the third largest reserves in the world. To the victors, the oil? That is how some experts view this unprecedented arrangement with a major Middle East oil producer that guarantees investors huge profits for the next 30 years
So was this what the Iraq war was fought for, after all? As the number of US soldiers killed since the invasion rises past the 3,000 mark, and President George Bush gambles on sending in up to 30,000 more troops, The Independent on Sunday has learnt that the Iraqi government is about to push through a law giving Western oil companies the right to exploit the country's massive oil reserves.

And Iraq's oil reserves, the third largest in the world, with an estimated 115 billion barrels waiting to be extracted, are a prize worth having. As Vice-President Dick Cheney noted in 1999, when he was still running Halliburton, an oil services company, the Middle East is the key to preventing the world running out of oil.

Now, unnoticed by most amid the furore over civil war in Iraq and the hanging of Saddam Hussein, the new oil law has quietly been going through several drafts, and is now on the point of being presented to the cabinet and then the parliament in Baghdad. Its provisions are a radical departure from the norm for developing countries: under a system known as "production-sharing agreements", or PSAs, oil majors such as BP and Shell in Britain, and Exxon and Chevron in the US, would be able to sign deals of up to 30 years to extract Iraq's oil.

PSAs allow a country to retain legal ownership of its oil, but gives a share of profits to the international companies that invest in infrastructure and operation of the wells, pipelines and refineries. Their introduction would be a first for a major Middle Eastern oil producer. Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world's number one and two oil exporters, both tightly control their industries through state-owned companies with no appreciable foreign collaboration, as do most members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Opec.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2132574.ece

[stillcool]

1. It's like hanging a noose...

between a rock and a hard place...either way Iraq's going to swing....

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHO20070104&articleId=4347
The "Demonization" of Muslims and the Battle for Oil
by Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, January 4, 2007
USS Enterprise Strike Group
The "Demonization" of Muslims and the Battle for Oil
he ultimate objective, combining military action, covert intelligence operations and war
propaganda, is to break down the national fabric and transform sovereign countries into open
economic territories, where natural resources can be plundered and confiscated under "free
market" supervision. This control also extends to strategic oil and gas pipeline corridors
(e.g. Afghanistan).

.............................
It is worth noting that the triggering of sectarian divisions and "civil wars" is
contemplated in the process of redrawing of the map of the Middle East, where countries are
slated to be broken up and transformed into territories. The map of the New Middle East,
although not official, has been used by the US National War Academy. It was recently
published in the Armed Forces Journal (June 2006). In this map, nation states are broken up,
international borders are redefined along sectarian-ethnic lines, broadly in accordance with
the interests of the Anglo-American oil giants (See Map below). The map has also been used
in a training program at NATO's Defense College for senior military officers.

MAP OF THE NEW MIDDLE EAST

Note: The following map was prepared by Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters. It was published in
the Armed Forces Journal in June 2006, Peters is a retired colonel of the U.S. National War
Academy. (Map Copyright Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters 2006).
US sponsored "civil wars" have also been conducted in several other strategic oil and gas regions including Nigeria, the Sudan, Colombia, Somalia, Yemen, Angola, not to mention
Chechnya and several republics of the former Soviet Union. Ongoing US sponsored "civil
wars", which often include the channelling of covert support to paramilitary groups, have
been triggered in the Darfur region of Sudan as well as in Somalia, Darfur possesses
extensive oil reserves. In Somalia, lucrative concessions have already been granted to four
Anglo-American oil giants.

"According to documents obtained by The Times, nearly two-thirds of Somalia was allocated to
the American oil giants Conoco, Amoco , Chevron and Phillips in the final
years before Somalia's pro-U.S. President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown and the nation
plunged into chaos in January, 1991. Industry sources said the companies holding the rights
to the most promising concessions are hoping that the Bush Administration's decision to send U.S. troops to safeguard aid shipments to Somalia will also help protect their multimillion-dollar investments there." (America's Interests in Somalia, Global Research, 2002)

[JohnyCanuck]

5. The More Things Change.... (you know what comes next)

Major-General Smedley Butler (1881-1940)

SNIP

In his book War is a Racket, 1935, Butler opens with these lines:

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope.... the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it.... I must face it and speak out."

In “Time of Peace,” Common Sense, Nov. 1935, Butler said:

"There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its ‘finger men’ (to point out enemies), its ‘muscle men’ (to destroy enemies), its ‘brain men’ (to plan war preparations), and a “Big Boss” (super-nationalistic capitalism).

It may seem odd for a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups.

I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras “right” for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927, I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.... (my emphasis /JC)

http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/butler.html

[Jcrowley]

2. That's pretty much the deal

Privatizing the entire region of course the larger goal and securing the energy supplies is numero uno factor. The US military machine not only goes after the loot but also depends on it for it's survival. A very wicked feedback loop.




Crude Designs:
The Rip-Off of Iraq’s Oil Wealth
By Greg Muttitt
PLATFORM with Global Policy Forum,
Institute for Policy Studies (New Internationalism Project)
New Economics Foundation
Oil Change International and War on Want
November 2005
For pdf version, click here



A CONTRACTUAL RIP-OFF

The debate over oil “privatisation” in Iraq has often been misleading due to the technical nature of the term, which refers to legal ownership of oil reserves. This has allowed governments and companies to deny that “privatisation” is taking place. Meanwhile, important practical questions, of public versus private control over oil development and revenues, have not been addressed.

The development model being promoted in Iraq, and supported by key figures in the Oil Ministry, is based on contracts known as production sharing agreements (PSAs), which have existed in the oil industry since the late 1960s. Oil experts agree that their purpose is largely political: technically they keep legal ownership of oil reserves in state hands (3), while practically delivering oil companies the same results as the concession agreements they replaced.

<snip>

POLICY DELIVERED FROM AMERICA TO IRAQ

Production sharing agreements have been heavily promoted by oil companies and by the US Administration.

The use of PSAs in Iraq was proposed by the Future of Iraq project, the US State Department’s planning mechanism, prior to the 2003 invasion. These proposals were subsequently developed by the Coalition Provisional Authority, by the Iraq Interim Government and by the current Transitional Government. The Iraqi Constitution also opens the door to foreign companies, albeit in legally vague terms.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2005/crudedesigns.htm

[dipsydoodle]

3. It was made clear

in the (US written) Iraq constitution that Irag would keep proceeds of all existing wells but only receive royalties on oil derived from new wells. I'm guessing their constitution will go down the tubes if the country is divided into three anyway.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

4. the EHMs have been busy

:mad: