Democratic presidential candidates must not cower in their corners ... it is incumbent on them to demonstrate real leadership by speaking out against the theft of Iraqi oil ... standing up to bush on the war means NOT letting him get away with the new "OIL LAW" that will give private, BIG OIL corporations control and ownership of Iraq's oil wealth for the next thirty years ...
Passage of the new "OIL LAW" will drain critical resources and the major source of revenue from the Iraqi people ... the poverty this corporate theft will impose will greatly magnify the internal strife in Iraq making peace within the next thirty years virtually impossible ... it also guarantees an American military presence to guard the oil pipelines and the oil fields for at least the same period of time ... is this the message we, as Americans, want to send to the world? is destroying a country and then stealing their oil the values we want America to project? like a fox guarding its captured prey, this will put the US in direct confrontation with Iran and other powers in the Middle East ... an act of aggression against Iraq or its US controlled puppet government will become an attack on "US interests" (i.e. "our" oil) and will likely cause the next major war in the Middle East ...
no candidate who refuses to criticize this international rape should be supported! whether the US is desperate to obtain this Iraqi oil or not, there is no excuse for stealing it from the Iraqis ... the US invasion of Iraq has always been about "blood for oil" and the new OIL LAW proves it ... under bush, the US has used its military to procure oil and profits for private, commercial organizations in the oil industry ... it is time for Democrats to stand up against this theft and project "Democratic values" for all the world to see ...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1991074,00.html
The US-controlled Iraqi government is preparing to remove the country's most precious resource from national control
by Kamil Mahdi
The Iraqi government is failing to properly discharge its duties and responsibilities. It therefore seems incongruous that the government, with the help of USAid, the World Bank and the UN, is pushing through a comprehensive oil law to be promulgated close to an IMF deadline for the end of last year. Once again, an externally imposed timetable takes precedence over Iraq's interests. Before embarking on controversial measures such as this law favouring foreign oil firms, the Iraqi parliament and government must prove that they are capable of protecting the country's sovereignty and the people's rights and interests. A government that is failing to protect the lives of its citizens must not embark on controversial legislation that ties the hands of future Iraqi leaders, and which threatens to squander the Iraqis' precious, exhaustible resource in an orgy of waste, corruption and theft. <skip>
Iraq's oil industry is in a parlous state as a result of sanctions, wars and occupation. The government, through the ministry of oil's inspector general, has issued damning reports of large-scale corruption and theft across the oil sector. Many competent senior technical officials have been sacked or demoted, and the state oil-marketing organisation has had several directors. Ministries and public organisations are increasingly operating as party fiefdoms, and private, sectarian and ethnic perspectives prevail over the national outlook. This state of affairs has negative results for all except those who are corrupt and unscrupulous, and the voracious foreign oil corporations. The official version of the draft law has not been published, but there is no doubt that it will be designed to hand most of the oil resources to foreign corporations under long-term exploration- and production-sharing agreements.
The oil law is likely to open the door to these corporations at a time when Iraq's capacity to regulate and control their activities will be highly circumscribed. It would therefore place the responsibility for protecting the country's vital national interest on the shoulders of a few vulnerable technocrats in an environment where blood and oil flow together in abundance. Common sense, fairness and Iraq's national interest dictate that this draft law must not be allowed to pass during these abnormal times, and that long-term contracts of 10, 15 or 20 years must not be signed before peace and stability return, and before Iraqis can ensure that their interests are protected. <skip>
The US, the IMF and their allies are using fear to pursue their agenda of privatising and selling off Iraq's oil resources. The effect of this law will be to marginalise Iraq's oil industry and undermine the nationalisation measures undertaken between 1972 and 1975. It is designed as a reversal of Law Number 80 of December 1961 that recovered most of Iraq's oil from a foreign cartel. Iraq paid dearly for that courageous move: the then prime minister, General Qasim, was murdered 13 months later in a Ba'athist-led coup that was supported by many of those who are part of the current ruling alliance - the US included. Nevertheless, the national oil policy was not reversed then, and its reversal under US occupation will never be accepted by Iraqis.
Kamil Mahdi is an Iraqi academic and senior lecturer in Middle East economics at the University of Exeter.
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