http://www.progressive.org/mag_wx061307> Bush Pushes Iraq Oil Law for ExxonMobil
> June 13, 2007 By Matthew Rothschild, Progressive Talk
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> With Iraq going to hell, and the al-Maliki government failing to meet one benchmark after another, Bush is getting desperate.
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> On Sunday, he sent Admiral Fallon, the chief U.S. commander in the Mideast, to lean on Prime Minister al-Maliki.
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> On Tuesday, John Negroponte, former U.S. ambassador to Iraq and the UN, flew to Baghdad to lean on al-Maliki.
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> And what were they leaning on him for, above all?
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> Passage of the new oil bill, which would turn over Iraqi’s liquid treasure to foreign corporations like ExxonMobil.
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> This is the paramount concern of the Bush Administration.
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> It is being sold to the American people as a way to equalize revenues to various segments of Iraqi society.
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> But the true reason for it is to line the pockets of U.S. oil executives.
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> “The law would transform Iraq’s oil industry from a nationalized model closed to American oil companies except for limited (although highly lucrative) marketing contracts into a commercial industry, all-but-privatized, that is fully open to all international oil companies,” Antonia Juhasz, author of “The Bush Agenda,” wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times on March 13.
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