U.S. taxpayers footing bill for cheap Iraqi gasoline

[Nottingham]

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/2122995

U.S. taxpayers footing bill for cheap Iraqi gasoline
By MICHAEL HEDGES
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Mahmoud Ali, a gap-toothed 15-year-old, worked steadily under a penetrating sun at his rather monotonous job outside the large Mansur filling station here.

Taking turns with his two uncles, Ali waited in line in the family's 1982 Chevrolet to get a tank of cheap gasoline, which the locals call benzene, at the station subsidized by the Iraqi Oil Ministry.

After filling up the faded white Chevy, the men pulled the vehicle to a curb. There, they siphoned the fuel into 20-liter plastic jugs to sell at triple the posted price to other drivers too frustrated to wait in the lengthy lines.

Then, one of the men drove the Chevy back to the line to sweat it out until another full tank of fuel could be secured.

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So according to this article the Iraqis are now since the US taking over importing oil and the prices are cheap because our government is paying to keep it cheap! hey Bush can ya do that for the Taxpayer here in AMERICA! It must be nice! :bounce:

[trotsky]

1. What the...?

Does he think Iraq is going to cast some electoral votes in the next election or something?!? Unbelievable. Here we are, rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure while ours crumbles. Nice legacy, *.

[Prodemsouth]

9. No, but he knows many moron Americans don't care.

"Go ahead chimpy fuck us..let me fill up my monkey mobile (SUV) so you and your friends, Saudi Arabia will make even more money". And don't get me started on the defeatist elitist "on our side" who will help him get a second term.

[realFedUp]

2. Howabout going solar on any new building

as long as we're building, build green.

[True_Blue]

3. Ain't that a hoot!

We have to import oil to a country with the world's second-largest oil reserves!

Halliburton must be creamin their jeans over all the free money!

[Pale_Rider]

6. 30 cents a gallon?

I haven't seen gas selling for 30 cents a gallon since I was a child! Everybody should think about this the next time they try to fill up the family SUV!

Selling fuel at three times its state-set price about 100 yards from a line of 14 working pumps would be a hard dollar to earn in another economy.

But it works here in Iraq, because the low-octane, government-subsidized fuel sells for less than a dime a gallon. Even working-class Iraqis earning a few dollars a day are willing to pay outrageous mark-ups to avoid the line.

[pw]

4. We broke it, we bought it

Can you imagine just how angry people are to have to wait in line for gas over there at all, even if the price is subsidized? The more important thing about this is the admission that Halliburton isn't going to get Iraq's domestic refining industry rebuilt any year soon.

[nolabels]

5. I am never thinking 283 billion +is a cheap price for access to Iraq's...

oil. When one considers * thrashing of foreign policy to obtain this goal, it might rise to much higher levels when considering the costs analysis. *’s need to keep the US addicted to oil is a major corner stone for this mis-administration wouldn’t you think?

http://www.padrigu.gu.se/EDCNews/Reviews/Renner0302.html

Renner, Michael, 2003, "The Road from Kyoto to Baghdad" (submitted to EDC News, also available from UPI.)

-
Summary: There is a clear link between US inability to address its oil addiction - as witnessed by its denounciation of the Kyoto Protocol - and present preparations for war in Iraq, writes Michael Renner, Senior Researcher at Worldwatch Institute, in this column, submitted in response to a previous EDC News call for urgent research on the issue.

The struggle over climate policy, pitting the United States primarily against Europe, is in large measure on over the nature of the economy of the future. While a both desirable and necessary shift from fossil fuels to renewables now is entirely feasible (see the column by Lester Brown, published concomitantly with this piece), the US under the Bush administration has chosen to expand its dependence on fossil fuels.

Replacing the present regime in Iraq by means of war would serve multifold aims of such a strategy. War reparations would force a new regime to flood the world market with cheap oil, under US aegis. Not only would OPEC be entirely side-stepped, but so would the burgeoning industry now developing promising renewables.
(snip)

[NNN0LHI]

7. And look who is pumping it

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/world/6478702.htm

Iraqi gas station attendant has motorists doing double take

AL OUJA, Iraq - (KRT) - Saddam Hussein, dressed in a greasy blue jumpsuit, spends his afternoons pumping gas at this sleepy village's service station, just south of his hometown of Tikrit.

Or at least that's how it looks to visiting motorists who pull in for a fill-up and quickly do a double take at Mohammed Hussein Daoud, with his unmistakeable heavy jowls, bushy mustache and big dark sunglasses.

"All of us around here have one grandfather," an ancestor nine generations back, "so it's inevitable," explains the 54-year-old Saddam look-alike. "My name is similar, and so is my face."

Similar doesn't begin to describe Daoud's resemblence to the missing dictator, a distant cousin who for a time attended the same grade school. Though Daoud was never recruited as one of Saddam's official stand-ins, he could be his double: Same paunch, same bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrows, same lined face and sagging cheeks. All he lacks is a rifle in his raised hand.

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[LivingInTheBubble]

8. Shame there was no picture. eom

[Nottingham]

11. Baaawaaahaaa!! Saddam !! Baaawaaahaa! thats cute!!

very sick humor but its cute!! :bounce:

[snippy]

10. Democrats should raise hell about this story. It would hurt Whistle Ass.

A whole lot of people who know nothing about politics or government but support Whistle Ass anyway would be really pissed if they knew the US is paying to import gasoline into Iraq so that it can be sold for ten cents a gallon. It is an excellent political issue because the facts are so easy to understand and the explanation is too complicated for many to understand.

[E_Zapata]

12. I saw a classic bumper sticker on a gargantuan SUV yesterday:

It was at a stoplight and the white SUV was in front of me. I had to back up to be able to look up at the whole back of the SUV. It was one of those super deluxe luxury monstrosities.

The bumper sticker:

"I look forward to the day when the military is holding bakesales to buy bombs and schools are fully funded."

(or whatever that cute little coined phrase was that's been out for years.)

Where was my laser-seeking moran incinerator gun when I needed it most? Drat!

Some people are so fucking clueless I almost want to turn the gun on myself to stop my brain from imploding.