You know, I’ve never really been one of those ‘no blood for oil!’ people when it comes to trying to make sense of Bush’s true intentions in invading Iraq. Maybe I thought it was just too simple and obvious, and therefore unlikely to be the real reason. Surely, I thought, the true objective was something a little more secretive. For a while there, I figured Bush’s penchant for warmongering was rooted in the rather primitive ‘thrill’ that having the world’s most powerful military and all it’s toys at one’s disposal brings. A myriad of other reasons have been postulated by others (Bush did it for his dad, for Israel, for God, etc.). Maybe it’s shortsighted for me to downplay the ‘all of the above’ option. I’m not sure. There’s been some buzz around the internet lately, however, that would make it appear that this was really all about oil after all:
Claiming the Prize: War Escalation Aimed at Securing Iraqi Oil
At any time within the next few days, the Iraqi Council of Ministers is expected to approve a new “hydrocarbon law” essentially drawn up by the Bush Administration and its U.K. lackey, the Independent on Sunday reports.
The new bill will “radically redraw the Iraqi oil industry and throw open the doors to the third-largest oil reserves in the world,” say the paper, whose reporters have seen a draft of the new law. “It would allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil companies in the country since the industry was nationalized in 1972.” If the government’s parliamentary majority prevails, the law should take effect in March.
As the paper notes, the law will give Exxon, BP, Shell and other carbon cronies of the White House unprecedented sweetheart deals, allowing them to pump gargantuan profits from Iraq’s nominally state-owned oilfields for decades to come.
As the author suggests, ‘victory’ may be close at hand. It’s not the ‘victory’ that Bush’s supporters had in mind, I’m sure (but they’ll no doubt stand by his side and defend him unconditionally).
More from the article in the Independent:
The huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to critics who say the Iraq war was fought for oil. They point to statements such as one from Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said in 1999, while he was still chief executive of the oil services company Halliburton, that the world would need an additional 50 million barrels of oil a day by 2010. “So where is the oil going to come from?… The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies,” he said.
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.
It is interesting to not that this little piece of Iraqi legislation seems to be virtually ignored by the American media. Maybe they figure it’s a non-story; The war was obviously for oil, after all.
