Iraqis Will Never Accept this Sellout to the Oil Corporations

[marmar]

from the Guardian UK, via Common Dreams:


Published on Tuesday, January 16, 2007 by the Guardian / UK
Iraqis Will Never Accept This Sellout to the Oil Corporations
The US-controlled Iraqi government is preparing to remove the country's most precious resource from national control
by Kamil Mahdi

Today Iraq remains under occupation, and the gulf between those who profess to rule and those who are ruled is filled with blood. The government is beholden to the occupation forces that are responsible for a humanitarian catastrophe and a political impasse. While defenceless citizens are killed at will, the government carries on with its business of protecting itself, collecting oil revenues, dispensing favours, justifying the occupation, and presiding over collapsing security, economic wellbeing, essential services and public administration. Above all, the rule of law has all but disappeared, replaced by sectarian demarcations under a parliamentary facade. Sectarianism promoted by the occupation is tearing apart civil society, local communities and public institutions, and it is placing people at the mercy of self appointed communal leaders, without any legal protection.

The Iraqi government is failing to properly discharge its duties and responsibilities. It therefore seems incongruous that the government, with the help of USAid, the World Bank and the UN, is pushing through a comprehensive oil law to be promulgated close to an IMF deadline for the end of last year. Once again, an externally imposed timetable takes precedence over Iraq's interests. Before embarking on controversial measures such as this law favouring foreign oil firms, the Iraqi parliament and government must prove that they are capable of protecting the country's sovereignty and the people's rights and interests. A government that is failing to protect the lives of its citizens must not embark on controversial legislation that ties the hands of future Iraqi leaders, and which threatens to squander the Iraqis' precious, exhaustible resource in an orgy of waste, corruption and theft.

Government officials, including the deputy prime minister, Barham Salih, have announced that the draft oil law is ready to be presented to the cabinet for approval. Salih was an enthusiast for the US-led invasion of Iraq, and the Kurdish militia-led administration he represents has signed illegal oil agreements that it is now seeking to legalise. Given that parliament has not been meeting regularly, it is likely that legislation will be rushed through after a deal brokered under the auspices of the US occupation.

Iraq's oil industry is in a parlous state as a result of sanctions, wars and occupation. The government, through the ministry of oil's inspector general, has issued damning reports of large-scale corruption and theft across the oil sector. Many competent senior technical officials have been sacked or demoted, and the state oil-marketing organisation has had several directors. Ministries and public organisations are increasingly operating as party fiefdoms, and private, sectarian and ethnic perspectives prevail over the national outlook. This state of affairs has negative results for all except those who are corrupt and unscrupulous, and the voracious foreign oil corporations. The official version of the draft law has not been published, but there is no doubt that it will be designed to hand most of the oil resources to foreign corporations under long-term exploration- and production-sharing agreements. ....(more)

The complete editorial is at: http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0116-30.htm

[acmavm]

1. Without a doubt the people who have been fighting for all this

time to get the US and its buddies out of their country will absolutely go insane when the only asset that country has ends up in US/UK hands.

And that kind of thievery says all that needs to be said about the governments of both countrys. The thugs in charge have murdered thousands, our and theirs, for oil.

[On the Road]

2. In Five Years,

The Iraq government, whatever it is at that time, may feel independent and strong enough to reverse the Bush policy and renationalize the oil industry.

Which, of course, will lead to their demonization a la Hugo Chavez. And a possible attempt to overthrow the government again.

[Demeter]

3. I Give It 5 Weeks, Once the US Is Kicked Out

and for that, I'm guessing before the elections.

[yurbud]

6. even old school methods didn't get to Chavez. Did you see THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED?

[On the Road]

7. I Agree, Chavez is Not Going to be Overthrown

and whatever new regime is in charge of Iraq five years from now is going to remain in power also. The US is going to have no more taste for going back in than the country did for intervening in Vietnam a second time. That could either be a good or bad thing.

[yurbud]

8. it will be good if those regimes have popular support like Chavez

so those people can deal with us as equals, not peons waiting for the patron to throw them whatever scraps he chooses.

[Matilda]

4. The stupidity of Big Oil and Bushco is breathtaking.

The most elementary common sense has been over-ruled by their greed.

No way will there be acceptance of this takeover. The violence is going to get so much worse, and
in the end, the Iraqis will win, although God knows what will be left of their country.

Bush and his cohorts have learned nothing, understood nothing, and will achieve nothing.

[yurbud]

5. vote this up!