Bush threatens a veto, but he might well be bluffing.

[Flabbergasted]

If the Iraqis Get Revenue Sharing, Exxon Gets Their Oil
George Bush's Land Mine


March 30, 2007

George Bush has a land mine planted in the supplemental appropriation legislation working its way through Congress.

The Iraq Accountability Act passed by the House and the companion bill passed in the Senate contain deadlines for withdrawing our troops from Iraq, in open defiance of the President's repeated objections.

He threatens a veto, but he might well be bluffing. Buried deep in the legislation and intentionally obscured is a near-guarantee of success for the Bush Administration's true objective of the war-capturing Iraq's oil-and George Bush will not casually forego that.

This bizarre circumstance is the end-game of the brilliant, ever-deceitful maneuvering by the Bush Administration in conducting the entire scenario of the "global war on terror."

The supplemental appropriation package requires the Iraqi government to meet a series of "benchmarks" President Bush established in his speech to the nation on January 10 (in which he made his case for the "surge"). Most of Mr. Bush's benchmarks are designed to blame the victim, forcing the Iraqis to solve the problems George Bush himself created.

One of the President's benchmarks, however, stands apart. This is how the President described it: "To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country's economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis." A seemingly decent, even noble concession. That's all Mr. Bush said about that benchmark, but his brevity was gravely misleading, and it had to be intentional.

The Iraqi Parliament has before it today, in fact, a bill called the hydrocarbon law, and it does call for revenue sharing among Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. For President Bush, this is a must-have law, and it is the only "benchmark" that truly matters to his Administration.

Yes, revenue sharing is there-essentially in fine print, essentially trivial. The bill is long and complex, it has been years in the making, and its primary purpose is transformational in scope: a radical and wholesale reconstruction-virtual privatization-of the currently nationalized Iraqi oil industry.

If passed, the law will make available to Exxon/Mobil, Chevron/Texaco, BP/Amoco, and Royal Dutch/Shell about 4/5's of the stupendous petroleum reserves in Iraq. That is the wretched goal of the Bush Administration, and in his speech setting the revenue-sharing "benchmark" Mr. Bush consciously avoided any hint of it.

The legislation pending now in Washington requires the President to certify to Congress by next October that the benchmarks have been met-specifically that the Iraqi hydrocarbon law has been passed. That's the land mine: he will certify the American and British oil companies have access to Iraqi oil. This is not likely what Congress intended, but it is precisely what Mr. Bush has sought for the better part of six years.

http://uruknet.info/?p=m31746&s1=h1

[John Q. Citizen]

1. If congress didn't intend it. why is it in their bill? n/t

[Flabbergasted]

4. Indeed. But they will claim they didn't read that part.

[Turbineguy]

2. Is there a summary of that Iraq Oil Bill floating around?

I would like to know some of the details. Production sharing is common and includes provisions for pumping and transportation costs. If the Iraqis have no investment to make, 20% might not be so far off the norm.

20% of 115 billion barrels at $65 per barrel comes to about $1.5 trillion. It's kind of weird that the US is spending nearly a trillion dollars on a war when we could have just bought it at the market price of $30 per Barrel when we invaded Iraq.

So I wonder if there is a US tax of $10 per barrel to pay for the war (actually the tax should be higher because you don't want to finance the cost over the length of the oil supply).

[GregD]

3. WTF is the deal here?

Why are our Dems allowing this shit?