oily truth

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Oily Truth Emerges in Iraq

 

By Juan Gonzalez

 

02/23/07 " NYDN " -- - -Throughout nearly four years of the daily mayhem and

carnage in Iraq, President Bush and his aides in the White House have scoffed at

even the slightest suggestion that the U.S. military occupation has anything to

do with oil.

 

The President presumably would have us all believe that if Iraq had the world's

second-largest supply of bananas instead of petroleum, American troops would

still be there.

 

Now comes new evidence of the big prize in Iraq that rarely gets mentioned at

White House briefings.

 

A proposed new Iraqi oil and gas law began circulating last week among that

country's top government leaders and was quickly leaked to various Internet

sites - before it has even been presented to the Iraqi parliament.

 

Under the proposed law, Iraq's immense oil reserves would not simply be opened

to foreign oil exploration, as many had expected. Amazingly, executives from

those companies would actually be given seats on a new Federal Oil and Gas

Council that would control all of Iraq's reserves.

 

In other words, Chevron, ExxonMobil, British Petroleum and the other Western oil

giants could end up on the board of directors of the Iraqi Federal Oil and Gas

Council, while Iraq's own national oil company would become just another

competitor.

 

The new law would grant the council virtually all power to develop policies and

plans for undeveloped oil fields and to review and change all exploration and

production contracts.

 

Since most of Iraq's 73 proven petroleum fields have yet to be developed, the

new council would instantly become a world energy powerhouse.

 

" We're talking about trillions of dollars of oil that are at stake, " said Raed

Jarrar, an independent Iraqi journalist and blogger who obtained an Arabic copy

of the draft law and posted an English-language translation on his Web site over

the weekend.

 

Take, for example, the massive Majnoon field in southern Iraq near the Iranian

border, which contains an estimated 20 billion barrels. Before Saddam Hussein

was toppled by the U.S. invasion in 2003, he had granted a $4 billion contract

to French oil giant TotalFinaElf to develop the field.

 

In the same way, the Iraqi dictator signed contracts with Chinese, Russian,

Korean, Italian and Spanish companies to develop 10 other big oil fields once

international sanctions against his regime were lifted.

 

The big British and American companies had been shut out of Iraq, thanks to more

than a decade of U.S. sanctions against Saddam.

 

But if the new law passes, those companies will be the ones reviewing those very

contracts and any others.

 

" Iraq's economic security and development will be thrown into question with this

law, " said Antonia Juhasz of Oil Change International, a petroleum industry

watchdog group. " It's a radical departure not only from Iraq's existing

structure but from how oil is managed in most of the world today. "

 

Throughout the developing world, national oil companies control the bulk of oil

production, though they often develop joint agreements with foreign commercial

oil groups.

 

But under the proposed law, the government-owned Iraqi National Oil Co. " will

not get any preference over foreign companies, " Juhasz said.

 

The law must still be presented to the Iraqi parliament. Given the many

political and religious divisions in the country, its passage is hardly

guaranteed.

 

The main religious and ethnic groups are all pushing to control contracts and

oil revenues for their regions, while the Bush administration is seeking more

centralized control.

 

While the politicians in Washington and Baghdad bicker to carve up the real

prize, and just what share Big Oil will get, more Iraqi civilians and American

soldiers die each each day - for freedom, we're told.

 

Juan Gonzalez is a Daily News columnist. Email: jgonzalez

 

I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to

tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of war, corporations have been

enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money

power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the

prejudices of the people until all the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and

the republic is destroyed. I feel, at this moment, more anxiety for the safety

of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my

suspicions may prove groundless. " Lincoln in a letter to Col. William F. Elkins

on November 21, 1864