Will the Iraq Oil Bill Increase Violence in Iraq? [View All]

[babylonsister]

http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/0504-07.htm

Will the Iraq Oil Bill Increase Violence in Iraq?
Institute for Public Accuracy News Release Directly Refutes Lead NYT Article


WASHINGTON - May 4 -The lead story in the New York Times today is headlined "A Draft Oil Bill Stirs Opposition from Iraqi Blocs; Sunnis and Kurds Balk; Benchmark in Danger..." The piece states that the proposed Iraqi oil law "establishes a framework for the distribution of oil revenue" and that "the White House was hoping for quick passage to lay the groundwork for a political settlement among the country's ethnic and sectarian factions."


ANTONIA JUHASZ
Juhasz is a Tarbell Fellow at Oil Change International and a visiting scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies.

She said today: "The Democratic leadership is ... focusing on 'benchmarks' that the Iraqis must meet. Chief among these benchmarks is the requirement that Iraq pass a new national oil law. Contrary to the spin used to sell this benchmark to both the American and Iraqi public, this so-called 'revenue sharing plan' for Iraq's oil is but a minor portion of the new oil law -- it's three sentences, which haven't even been agreed upon, in a 40-page document I doubt most members of Congress have read. The major provisions of the REST of the law turn over the Iraq oil industry to quasi-privatization and foreign ownership. So the Democrats who are demanding that the Iraqis pass this oil law are -- knowingly or not -- doing the bidding of Big Oil."

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