It’s About The Oil, Stupid
No matter how much the Bush Administration disputes that we went to Iraq for oil, only the most ardent Kool-Aid drinker believes that claptrap about WMD, or bringing democracy to Iraq, or even bringing about Armageddon so Jesus can come back and claim his followers. (Please, Lord. Make it soon. They’re driving the rest of us nuts.) Since when did a bunch of oil billionaires give a crap about democracy anywhere, especially a country that has the third-largest oil reserves in the world?
Here’s some more proof that we’re in Iraq for the oil: A new law the U.S. helped draft that would divide Iraq’s oil fields among BP, Shell and Exxon:
Iraq’s massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.
The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.
. . .
Oil industry executives and analysts say the law, which would permit Western companies to pocket up to three-quarters of profits in the early years, is the only way to get Iraq’s oil industry back on its feet after years of sanctions, war and loss of expertise. But it will operate through “production-sharing agreements” (or PSAs) which are highly unusual in the Middle East, where the oil industry in Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world’s two largest producers, is state controlled.
Opponents say Iraq, where oil accounts for 95 per cent of the economy, is being forced to surrender an unacceptable degree of sovereignty.
Aren’t you glad we brought democracy to Iraq now! Cheap oil: a cause worth fighting and dying for! Somehow, it just doesn’t look good on a bumper sticker.