How many justifications/excuses have we heard for invading Iraq? First and foremost there were those WMDs, threats that loomed over our television sets each and every time President Bush or a spokesperson for his administration hit the video hustings to bang the drum for war. Close behind was the claim of a connection between Saddam and 9/11. He and Al Queda were supposed to be the best of best friends, don’t you know.
Then it was the atrocities Iraq’s regime committed: why, Saddam was the evilist dictator the world had known since Hitler or Stalin! And never forget the call to spread the gospel of freedom and democracy to the oppressed people of Iraq, and hopefully thereafter to the entire Middle East. Yes, bringing the vote and McDonald’s franchises to the poor, deprived muslims of the world was truly a worthy goal. Why count the cost in blood spilled (ours and theirs) or monies spent (mostly ours paid direct to Halliburton, et al.) in pursuit of such wondrous outcomes?
Oh yes, there’s been no end of high minded justifications for this war. The one reason, however, that never gets discussed, the looming elephant in the halls of Congress and the White House and our media mega-conglomerates, is rarely exposed to public view, no doubt because of its essentially base character. Yet throughout history it has been one of the principle causes of war: sheer, unabashed Greed. Or in this case specifically, the desire for profits from oil:
Iraqis face the dire prospect of losing up to $200bn [that’s $200 billion, for those of you unfamiliar with British notation] of the wealth of their country if an American-inspired plan to hand over development of its oil reserves to US and British multinationals comes into force next year. A report produced by American and British pressure groups warns Iraq will be caught in an “old colonial trap” if it allows foreign companies to take a share of its vast energy reserves.
Yes. You read that right. The reason we fought this war was so large multi-national British and American Oil Companies could make a killing developing Iraqi crude. Seems hard to believe, does it? Not really. When you wash away all the other justifications what else is left?
We know now Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, other than the ones invented by Mr. Chalabi and friends as cover for promoting a rush to war. And we know there was never any link between the events of 9/11 and Saddam except on the lips and tongues of Cheney and Rumsfeld. The great and glorious democracy we’ve brought them is filled with torture chambers and ethnic massacres just like Saddam’s regime (only the victims have changed). After all those phony excuses are stripped away, the one true reason still remains, staring us in the face, just waiting for us to admit its existence.
The Iraqi government has announced plans to seek foreign investment to exploit its oil reserves after the general election, which will be held next month. Iraq has 115 billion barrels of proved oil reserves, the third largest in the world.
According to the report, from groups including War on Want and the New Economics Foundation (NEF), the new Iraqi constitution opened the way for greater foreign investment. Negotiations with oil companies are already under way ahead of next month’s election and before legislation is passed, it said.
The groups said they had amassed details of high-level pressure from the US and UK governments on Iraq to look to foreign companies to rebuild its oil industry. It said a Foreign Office code of practice issued in summer last year said at least $4bn would be needed to restore production to the levels before the 1990-91 Gulf War. “Given Iraq’s needs it is not realistic to cut government spending in other areas and Iraq would need to engage with the international oil companies to provide appropriate levels of foreign direct investment to do this,” it said.
Yesterday’s report said the use of production sharing agreements (PSAs) was proposed by the US State Department before the invasion and adopted by the Coalition Provisional Authority. “The current government is fast-tracking the process. It is already negotiating contracts with oil companies in parallel with the constitutional process, elections and passage of a Petroleum Law,” the report, Crude Designs, said.
Maybe this was the real reason for Mr. Chalabi’s visit last week. As everyone knows, board room deals are always hashed out in advance of any public announcement.
So, here’s my stock tip of the week. Better buy your oil stocks now before their Iraqi deals get finalized. Since you and I are paying for the war with our taxes (and some with our family members) the least we can do is get our slice of George Bush’s big investment opportunity.
Big mouthed Murtha is standing up there and he won’t back the hell down! Make the deals and hope it all sticks! Gotta pull out by the 2006 elections anyhow or else the repubs will lose! Talk about deadline stress! I never thought BushCo was much good at dealing with deadlines either. The repubs will lose anyhow, these guys still don’t get it. They split this nation in our darkest hours after 9/11 and the real culprit is still at large. After the split they eventually broke the spirit of their supporters who hung on longer and gave them chances to clean themselves up……there is no recovering from this and when the investigations begin I wouldn’t want my name on shit! Next fall the paper shredders in the Whitehouse are going to be working round the clock!
The situation with Iraq’s oil is complicated. Jerome a Paris is probably our best resource for understanding the complexities of large energy projects. But I think it is inaccurate to say that the Iraqis will lose 200 billion. Iraq does not have the financing to make the investments, nor do they have the infrastructure to do the projects alone. They need foreign capital to get the oil and gas out of the ground and to the market. The main thing that has changed is that US and Anglo corporations are now in the running to get those contracts, whereas previously they were totally shut-out.
But I think it would be more accurate to say that American companies stand to make 200 billion that previously would have been divided between France, Russia, and China. Iraq probably stands to lose nothing.
And hopefully, a government that at least has pretensions to be representative will show better results in sharing the national wealth with the people than Saddam did.
It all depends on what happens to Iraq over the next year.
then what about the World Bank? Why does the money they need have to come with strings? What happened to Saddam’s gold that we seized?…..and damn it Booman, our corporations were in the oil for food scandal too, and are they in the running now to get those contracts or are they just “getting those contracts now”?
we could have another fucking Chavez on our hands, and that’s fucking fine by me!
Iraq needs more than cold hard cash. They need companies like Kellogg Brown and Root, Exxon/Mobil, that have the expertise and equipment to make the projects profitable. Iraq’s options are the same as Libya’s, Kazachstan’s, Azerbaijan’s, and Iran’s. They can choose which internationals to work with, but they can’t choose not to work with any of them.
They play them off against each other to get the best percentage deal for themselves. America has a lot of leverage. But it doesn’t mean we are stealing from them if we get the contract. It’s more like we are stealing from other potential partners who don’t have a fair chance to bid.
and what kind of leverage are saying that America has? The 9 billion missing dollars that we know of could buy a whole lot of “expertise”. Are you familiar with the oil patch and the amount of “expertise” that the oil patch requires? I was hired to babysit a new well in Gillette WY and run hourly tests on the oil being pumped and I’m not much of a damned expert, but it was easy money over the weekend. Drilling crews always seemed to be experts of sort and also careful as hell to try and not lose any fingers….the older ones though always seem to have one missing! A new well requires a “battery” to be built and things of course must be maintained, someone was building and maintaining the fields before we got there though……SHIT BOOMAN! They aren’t exactly babies when it comes to oil……..the first well there was what, 1927? They are on their second generation oil patch workers by now…..this a fucking take over in my God Damned opinion.
They have to be third and maybe forth generation oil field workers there now!