Iraqi scholars, pols, & oil workers say REJECT Bush-coerced hydrocarbon law

[yurbud]

Scholars, politicians, and oil technocrats got together at a conference and were pretty unified in their opposition to the Hydrocarbon Law the Bushies shoved down the Iraqis throats. Some snippets of their comments are the excerpts below.

For some reason, this isn't in the American news feeds, even though its from Dow Jones Newswires.

As always the question is, if there is even the perception that we might be screwing the Iraqis out of their oil wealth, how real is this "War on Terror" since this will only incite more hatred of the United States?

Some Iraqi Politicians Urge Rejection Of Draft Oil Law

Released : Saturday, March 10, 2007 7:07 AM

Mar 10, 2007 (Dow Jones Commodities News Select via Comtex) --By Hassan HafidhOf Dow Jones Newswires

EXCERPTS:

"This critical draft law would revive foreign companies' control on Iraqi oil wealth that Iraq had gotten rid of years ago," Faidhi said.

The nationalization of the oil industry in the early 1970s under Saddam Hussein was a hugely popular move, and many Iraqis worry about foreigners exploiting their fields.

Saleh al-Mutlak, head of the National Dialogue, a Sunni party represented in the Iraqi parliament, echoed Faidhi's remarks.

"Iraqis are suspicious that if the law is passed at this critical time that Iraq is passing through, they would think it would be passed in order to serve the interest of foreign companies," he said.

"This law would also further divide the Iraqi people because most of them would oppose it," Mutlak told Dow Jones Newswires on the sideline of the conference which was attended by parliamentarians representing three blocs at the Iraqi parliament.

Issam al-Chalabi, former Iraqi oil minister during the government of Saddam Hussein, and a veteran Iraqi oil expert, criticized the draft oil law, saying prominent Iraqi oil experts weren't allowed to take part in discussions of the legislation and that it wasn't published in the media in order that the Iraqi people could see it.

"We are with issuing a hydrocarbon law that would regulate Iraq's oil industry, but enough time should be given to draft the law before submitting it to the parliament for approval," he said.

FULL TEXT:
http://www.macroworld.net/m/m.w?lp=GetStory&id=245184201

MORE ON IRAQI REACTION TO OIL LAW

What Iraqi oil workers think of the deal
http://www.basraoilunion.org

More Iraqi reaction
http://www.niqash.org/content.php?contentTypeID=171

OIL MOTIVE for Iraq War resources
http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2006/09/iraq-oil-war-resources.html

[OneBlueSky]

1. make no mistake . . . the entire BushCo fiasco in Iraq is based on oil . . .

and their desire to have their oil industry cohorts completely control it . . . everything else is just window dressing . . .

what BushCo is doing is stealing the oil from the Iraqi people to benefit themselves and their corporate co-conspirators . . . in a sane world, this would constitute a crime of historic proportions that would be denounced by every nation in the region -- nay, every (sane) nation in the world . . . it would also be denounced by the real leaders in this country -- if there are any left . . .

but, alas, the world we now live in becomes more insane with each passing day . . . "round and round it goes, and where it stops, nobody knows" . . .

when the ancient Chinese said "may you live in interesting times," I doubt that this is what they had in mind . . .

[yurbud]

2. and if the democrats were serious about ending the war, they would pull on this thread

[yurbud]

3. I could never figure out why that Chinese saying was a curse until Bush.