Will the Iraq Oil Bill Increase Violence in Iraq?

[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."

more...

[maddezmom]

1. Can it get any worse? more rivers of blood today...pic

Residents gather at the scene of a car bomb blast in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, May 6, 2007. A car bomber ripped through a commercial district in western Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 27 people and wounding dozens, in one of the deadliest attacks in the capital in recent days. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)



An Iraqi boy stands in front of a wall riddled with bullet-holes in Baghdad, 06 May 2007. Insurgents attacked an Iraqi police station in Samarra north of Baghdad on Sunday with a car bomb and small arms fire, killing six members of the force.(AFP/Ahmad Al Rubaye)

[acmavm]

2. "Chief among these benchmarks is ...

...the requirement that Iraq pass a new national oil law."

Is there any question at all that this isn't going to cause more violence. This is right up there on a par with guarding the Oil Ministry and lettting everything else go to hell.

Anybody that questions the motivation behind this 'war'needs shock therapy.

[leftchick]

3. I vote for knowingly

If we know about this how in the hell can they not?...

<snip>

RAED JARRAR
Iraq consultant for the American Friends Service Committee, Jarrar wrote the recent piece "The New Oil Law Will Increase Violence in Iraq," which states: "The new oil law is a direct intervention in Iraq's domestic policies. It will result in nothing more than increasing the Iraqi-Iraqi imposed violence, and the Iraqi occupation fight. The best oil law is the law that the Iraqis will choose after the last U.S. soldier leaves." Jarrar translated the proposed law into English.

[TahitiNut]

4. Corporate colonialism ... privateering.

This is at the core of the raison d'etre for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Among the 'base' of Cheney/Bush, this is the essence of "win" v. "lose."

[MADem]

5. Here is another article with a regional perspective on the issue

I cannot understand the purpose of the generosity of the PSAs in this agreement frankly, unless they are on a prorated basis solely to compensate for things like terrorism to oil fields or pipelines, or the requirement to pay grossly inflated salaries due to death threats--or all of the above. IF, and that is a big IF, Iraq actually does want foreign companies to run their fields for them (and that's a big WHY? right there), it's reasonable for them to charge a price for their trouble (either in cash or in product) but the reason they are seeking this payment percentage given the current price per barrel is either greed, asset risk, or both. It sure isn't due to extraction difficulty, as this article notes:


http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/0D09B919-D28A-4CC4-A79F-0EE500239225.htm
The proposed bill, approved by the Iraqi government in February after months of wrangling, opens the country's oil sector to foreign investors 35 years after it was nationalised.

"The law is designed for the benefit of US oil companies," Ramzy Salman, an Iraqi economist who worked for the Iraqi oil ministry for 30 years, said. "If approved, it would take things back to where they were before the nationalisation of Iraq's oil in 1972."

But he said the situation would be reversed when Iraqis regained their "true sovereignty".

'Serious gaps'
Salman said: "If there is something that should be worked on, it is the constitution.
"The constitution contains serious gaps in terms of who is in charge of the oil and its revenues ... oil in Iraq being under every Iraqi river, desert, marsh and farm."


The new law, if approved, would authorise production share agreements (PSAs), which offer huge profits for foreign oil companies.
PSAs are normally ideal for poorer countries exploring virgin lands or wanting to extract oil from fields where the resource is well below the surface and are designed to protect investors from the risks involved in such exploration projects. ...

The whole article is pretty instructive. The interesting pieces are that the Russkies and the Chinese had a "PSA" piece of the pie under Saddam of around ten percent , and this bit, which is the money quote, really:

The draft law would give Iraq's provinces a free hand in giving exploration and production contracts, which some fear will lead to a decline in the authority of the central government over the country's main resource.

Observers say that if the new law is approved, it will also encourage separatists in the oil-rich provinces to split off.

Eventually the break-up of Iraq would be impossible to prevent.

Divide and conquer, eh?

But hey, the Democrats are not "unwitting" in this move, I suspect. They know what they are voting for, and WHY. It's REALPOLITIK time.

This war has cost us BILLIONS. We have a deficit that is so far up our asses we can taste it, and if we don't get moving, our great-grandkids will be tasting it too.

What better way to chop away at that problem while at the same time laying it squarely at BushCo's feet (NOW, while HE is still in charge) than approving this access to a reasonably priced (and needed) resource as we finally get off our asses and try to play 'catch up' on the alternative energy front?

I mean, realistically, we can't be letting our friends who live in the heavily populated (and frequently Democratic) states with SNOW and COLD freeze to death, now can we? They've GOT to be able to afford to heat their homes in winter, after all--and five buck a gallon oil ain't gonna do that for them, is it?

They're lying down with Big Oil knowing full well what they are doing. It's warm now, but it's cold as hell in February...and that's why.

[cooolandrew]

6. If we did make the oil joint owned by all Iraqis, ...

... then eventually you actually would see a spread of democracy through the middle east because government would work for the people. Though this will never happen but it is the answer.