http://thinkprogress.org/2007/08/18/sestak-oil-law/Sesktak Warns Iraqi Oil Law Contains ‘Undue Ability Of U.S. Oil Companies To Control Iraqi Profits’
Alternet’s Joshua Holland reported recently, “If passed, the Bush administration’s long-sought ‘hydrocarbons framework’ law would give Big Oil access to Iraq’s vast energy reserves on the most advantageous terms and with virtually no regulation.” The framework law proposes to hand over effective control of as much as 80 percent of the country’s oil wealth.
A recent poll showed that all Iraqi ethnic and sectarian groups across the political spectrum oppose the principles enshrined in the oil law, and 419 Iraqi oil experts, economists and intellectuals recently signed their names to a statement expressing grave concern over the bill. The head of the Iraqi Federation of Union Councils said recently, “If the Iraqi Parliament approves this law, we will resort to mutiny.”
While the Bush administration has prodded the Iraqi government to pass the oil-sharing agreement, few members of Congress have voiced alarms over the details in the current bill. Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) recently told ThinkProgress that more attention needs to be paid to the oil legislation. “Who knows what’s in that,” he said. Sestak continued:
The indications from a draft of several months ago that the Kurds were using, is that…there is an undue ability of our oil companies to control the Iraqi profits by controlling the infrastructure and the wells that are there. I mean they {U.S. oil companies} are going to get much more, if the draft is correct, of profits than we would under a normal oil sharing agreement, of these oil companies to a country like Saudi Arabia or others.
Heaven forbid that at the end of this time, after all this, if we find out that there’s undue advantage given to our oil companies.Watch it/read transcript at link~
In the interview, Sestak also distanced himself from the opinions of Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack. “Even though I have great respect for Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack and their article in the New York Times, I disagree,” said Sestak. He said the security improvements that are being made in Anbar actually pre-date the escalation. Moreover, he argued these improvements in one part of the country don’t mean much if political success can’t follow:
The political situation is the absolute end game. Because even though you might be able to have an improvement in the military security, how long do we have to be there to change the minds, to the change the hearts of the Iraqis?
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