Killing hundreds of thousands Iraqis to get Iraqs oil

New Oil Law Seen as Cover for Privatisation
Emad Mekay

WASHINGTON, Feb 27 (IPS) - The U.S.-backed Iraqi cabinet approved a new oil law Monday that is set to give foreign companies the long-term contracts and safe legal framework they have been waiting for, but which has rattled labour unions and international campaigners who say oil production should remain in the hands of Iraqis.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a close ally of Washington, called the law "another founding stone in state-building."

Yet critics, including Iraqi oil professionals, engineers and technicians in the unions, are instead advocating for technical service contracts, meaning a company would come in and offer services such as building a refinery, laying a pipeline, or offering consultancy services, get their fees and then leave.

"It is a much more equitable relationship because the control of production, development of oil will stay with the Iraqi state," said Jasiewicz.

"That is the model that Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait generally operate. There's no other country in the Middle East with the kind of oil reserves that Iraq has that would consider signing a production-sharing agreement," she said. "It's a form of privatisation and that's why those countries haven't signed these because it's not in their interests."

Its always been the oil.

What was it Bush said last year when talking about Iraq?

“If they control oil resources, then they pull oil off the market in order to run the price up, and they will do so unless we abandon Israel, for example, or unless we abandon allies.”

What did House of Representatives Subcommittee on Africa Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) say about oil?

”African oil should be treated as a priority for U.S. national security post 9-11, and I think that post 9-11 its occurred to all of us that our traditional sources of oil are not as secure as we once thought they were” From the symposium African Oil: A Priority for U.S. National Security and African Development.

What was it Carter said about oil?
State of the Union Address 1980
January 23, 1980

“The crises in Iran and Afghanistan have dramatized a very important lesson: Our excessive dependence on foreign oil is a clear and present danger to our Nation's security.

…the overwhelming dependence of the Western democracies on oil supplies from the Middle East;

Afghanistan is of great strategic importance: It contains more than two-thirds of the world's exportable oil.

The Soviet Union is now attempting to consolidate a strategic position, therefore, that poses a grave threat to the free movement of Middle East oil.

This situation demands careful thought, steady nerves, and resolute action, not only for this year but for many years to come. It demands collective efforts to meet this new threat to security in the Persian Gulf and in Southwest Asia. It demands the participation of all those who rely on oil from the Middle East.”

And in 1991 a World Bank study found that Somalia and Sudan are highest on the list of to become oil production countries. Just incase you wonder why U.S and its allies are in Somalia.



It’s always been the oil.