http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120806K.shtml

dont forget why we are there in the first place people

Oil for Sale: Iraq Study Group Recommends Privatization
By Antonia Juhasz
AlterNet.org

Thursday 07 December 2006

The Iraq Study Group may not have a solution for how to end the war, but it does have a way for its corporate friends to make money.
In its heavily anticipated report released on Wednesday, the Iraq Study Group made at least four truly radical proposals.

The report calls for the United States to assist in privatizing Iraq's national oil industry, opening Iraq to private foreign oil and energy companies, providing direct technical assistance for the "drafting" of a new national oil law for Iraq, and assuring that all of Iraq's oil revenues accrue to the central government.

President Bush hired an employee from the U.S. consultancy firm Bearing Point Inc. over a year ago to advise the Iraq Oil Ministry on the drafting and passage of a new national oil law. As previously drafted, the law opens Iraq's nationalized oil sector to private foreign corporate investment, but stops short of full privatization. The ISG report, however, goes further, stating that "the United States should assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise." In addition, the current Constitution of Iraq is ambiguous as to whether control over Iraq's oil should be shared among its regional provinces or held under the central government. The report specifically recommends the latter: "Oil revenues should accrue to the central government and be shared on the basis of population." If these proposals are followed, Iraq's national oil industry will be privatized and opened to foreign firms, and in control of all of Iraq's oil wealth.

The proposals should come as little surprise given that two authors of the report, James A. Baker III and Lawrence Eagleburger, have each spent much of their political and corporate careers in pursuit of greater access to Iraq's oil and wealth.

"Pragmatist" is the word most often used to describe Iraq Study Group co-chair James A. Baker III. It is equally appropriate for Lawrence Eagleburger. The term applies particularly well to each man's efforts to expand U.S. economic engagement with Saddam Hussein throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. Not only did their efforts enrich Hussein and U.S. corporations, particularly oil companies, it also served the interests of their own private firms.

On April 21,1990, a U.S. delegation was sent to Iraq to placate Saddam Hussein as his anti-American rhetoric and threats of a Kuwaiti invasion intensified. James A. Baker III, then President George H.W. Bush's secretary of state, personally sent a cable to the US embassy in Baghdad instructing the U.S. ambassador to meet with Hussein and to make clear that, "as concerned as we are about Iraq's chemical, nuclear, and missile programs, we are not in any sense preparing the way for preemptive military unilateral effort to eliminate these programs."*

Instead, Baker's interest was focused on trade, which he described as the "central factor in the US-Iraq relationship." From 1982, when Reagan removed Iraq from the list of countries supporting terrorism, until August 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, Baker and Eagleburger worked with others in the Reagan and Bush administrations to aggressively and successfully expand this trade.

The efficacy of such a move may best be described in a memo written in 1988 by the Bush transition team arguing that the United States would have "to decide whether to treat Iraq as a distasteful dictatorship to be shunned where possible, or to recognize Iraq's present and potential power in the region and accord it relatively high priority. We strongly urge the latter view." Two reasons offered were Iraq's "vast oil reserves," which promised "a lucrative market for U.S. goods," and the fact that U.S. oil imports from Iraq were skyrocketing. Bush and Baker took the transition team's advice and ran with it.

In fact, from 1983 to 1989, annual trade between the United States and Iraq grew nearly sevenfold and was expected to double in 1990, before Iraq invaded Kuwait. In 1989, Iraq became the United States' second-largest trading partner in the Middle East: Iraq purchased $5.2 billion in U.S. exports, while the U.S. bought $5.5 billion in Iraqi petroleum. From 1987 to July 1990, U.S. imports of Iraqi oil increased from 80,000 to 1.1 million barrels per day.

Eagleburger and Baker had much to do with that skyrocketing trade. In December 1983, then undersecretary of state Eagleburger wrote the U.S. Export-Import Bank to personally urge it to begin extending loans to Iraq to "signal our belief in the future viability of the Iraqi economy and secure a U.S. foothold in a potentially large export market." He noted that Iraq "has plans well advanced for an additional 50 percent increase in its oil exports by the end of 1984." Ultimately, billions of loans would be made or backed by the U.S. government to the Iraqi dictator, money used by Hussein to purchase U.S. goods.

In 1984, Baker became treasury secretary, Reagan opened full diplomatic relations with Iraq, and Eagleburger became president of Henry Kissinger's corporate consultancy firm, Kissinger Associates.

Kissinger Associates participated in the U.S.-Iraq Business Forum through managing director Alan Stoga. The Forum was a trade association representing some 60 American companies, including Bechtel, Lockheed, Texaco, Exxon, Mobil, and Hunt Oil. The Iraqi ambassador to the United States told a Washington, D.C., audience in 1985, "Our people in Baghdad will give priority - when there is a competition between two companies - to the one that is a member of the Forum." Stoga appeared regularly at Forum events and traveled to Iraq on a Forum-sponsored trip in 1989 during which he met directly with Hussein. Many Kissinger clients were also members of the Forum and became recipients of contracts with Hussein.

In 1989, Eagleburger returned to the state department now under Secretary Baker. That same year, President Bush signed National Security Directive 26 stating, "We should pursue, and seek to facilitate, opportunities for U.S. firms to participate in the reconstruction of the Iraqi economy, particularly in the energy area."

The president then began discussions of a $1 billion loan guarantee for Iraq one week before Secretary Baker met with Tariq Aziz at the state department to seal the deal.

But once Hussein invaded Kuwait, all bets were off. Baker made a public plea for support of military action against Hussein, arguing, "The economic lifeline of the industrial world runs from the Gulf and we cannot permit a dictator such as this to sit astride that economic lifeline."

Baker had much to gain from increased access to Iraq's oil. According to author Robert Bryce, Baker and his immediate family's personal investments in the oil industry at the time of the first Gulf War included investments in Amoco, Exxon and Texaco. The family law firm, Baker Botts, has represented Texaco, Exxon, Halliburton and Conoco Phillips, among other companies, in some cases since 1914 and in many cases for decades. (Eagleburger is also connected to Halliburton, having only recently departed the company's board of directors). Baker is a longtime associate and now senior partner of Baker Botts, which this year, for the second year running, was recipient of "The International Who's Who of Business Lawyers Oil & Gas Law Firm of the Year Award," while the Middle East remains a central focus of the firm.

This past July, U.S. Energy Secretary Bodman announced in Baghdad that senior U.S. oil company executives would not enter Iraq without passage of the new law. Petroleum Economist magazine later reported that U.S. oil companies put passage of the oil law before security concerns as the deciding factor over their entry into Iraq. Put simply, the oil companies are trying to get what they were denied before the war or at anytime in modern Iraqi history: access to Iraq's oil under the ground. They are also trying to get the best deal possible out of a war-ravaged and occupied nation. However, waiting for the law's passage and the need to guarantee security of U.S. firms once they get to work, may well be a key factor driving the one proposal by the Iraq Study Group that has received great media attention: extending the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq at least until 2008.

As the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group are more thoroughly considered, we should remain ever vigilant and wary of corporate war profiteers in pragmatist's clothing.

So fucking what.

To have privatized companies, you must have an instilled sense of personal and economic liberty. I think the Iraqi government may be lacking in those.

If the original post is trying to imply that the war in Iraq was started up to increase the global exploitation of Iraqi oil fields, this not very good evidence. I don't it should be much of a suprise that recommendations from a globalized capitalist economy like the US would include using the country's natural resources to fund it's troubled economy. I honestly can't think of a better way for the Iraqi economy to improve itself than to increase the flow of oil and start taxing away at it.

i think the oil could flow and could help the iraq economy without the exploitation of exxonmobil and friends. they do not have a monopoly on pumping and extraction. and if you think the recommendation is to "fund iraqs troubled economy" i would say you are mistaken. i think the main motive would be american corporate control of the reserves, and the massive profits that obviously come with it

and i dont think we need much more evidence that we invaded for the oil, unless you have seen some WMD's that i havent.

typical answer.

i guess most dont give a shit that we invaded a country based on lies spoon fed to the public, and helped destabalize the country and region, and helped in the slaughter of 500,000 innocent civilians, just so the american petro energy industry could gets its tentacles on the worlds second largest oil reserves so it can exploit it like they have every where else on the planet. i would love to know if your answer would be the same if it was the chinese who invaded and planned on taking control of the worlds 2nd largest oil reserves. you and the rest of this country would be going ape shit, probably calling for some type of militray action against china, kind of similar to what happened when Iraq invaded Kuwait (remember that), but i guess it is different because it is the red, white, and blue. but anyway, your right, who gives a shit? it is only innocent lives, chaos, and destruction being funded by you and me so exxon can take control of more oil, and exploit more countries out of their natural wealth, and then can exploit you at the gas pump.

perhaps you would prefer to talk about the war on christmas or a 4 year old wiping his nose on a teachers chest? they seem to be the only topics on the ND recently that you can get a good discussion about?

So....who else is there to extract the oil, then? Can they do a better job than ExxonMobil & friends?



Well, from your own article:



Not sure why Big Bad Oil would want the revenue to accrue to the gov't if they wanted to get all the profits.



So, because reason A was false, we have to assume that reason B is true?

If you've read any of my previous posts on the subject, you'll know that I utterly despise war, and starting the war in Iraq in particular because it was an unnecessary one that I wouldn't have started even if Saddam did have WMD because we already had that country locked down with sanctions, and that removing Saddam would result in civil war (which is becoming more evident every day). I definitely do care that the US has destablized the country and region and that massive loss of life had occurred.

I just think that the whole "War for Oil" reason is an awfully contrived one in an attempt to bash Big Business in whatever way they can. If all we wanted from the region was oil, we could have just kissed and made up with Saddam without all this fuss--after all, who cares what regime we're supporting in order to quench the thirst for oil, right? Hell, if we REALLY wanted oil, we'd tell Israel to go take a hike like Ahmadinejad wants in Iran, right?

sorry, i havent studied your previous posts we agree on that

i disagree, i think oil is the blatantly obvious reason for the invasion, sometimes things arent as complicated as we would like them to be it worked up until 1990, but i think the previously mentioned sanctions prevented this, not to mention we hate foreign competition i care and i am sure you do to Hell, if we REALLY wanted oil, we'd tell Israel to go take a hike like Ahmadinejad wants in Iran, right?[/quote]



so what reason do you think we invaded for if not oil, and obviosuly not for WMD? i will check back for this answer, and please dont tell me we just made an intelligence mistake

You roll your eyes, but your ignorance of people's actual positions here has never stopped you from making big fat assumptions about them, has it?


And a lot of the time it's not a simple as you'd like it to be, simon.


Kissing and making up implies removing the sanctions.


Yeah, but we're not talking about YOU. We're talking about big evil oil companies, right? They have no ethics, right?


I have no doubt that control of Middle East oil was a factor in the decision to invade Iraq. In fact, the administration has as much as said so. They just say things about "securing the region" and "protecting national security interests", which include our access to Middle Eastern oil.

But your simple-minded view that we invaded to set up American oil companies to pillage the oil reserves of Iraq for their own profit is delusional and paranoid. It's just poorly thought out. Making money from this war for Bush and Cheney and their friends was an afterthought, one that is certainly being pursued though.

You want to understand why this invasion happened, just read neo-con papers from the late 90's about their delusions of spreading democracy in the Middle East by force in order to make the 21st century a time of American domination of world politics. The architects of this war had much greater delusions of grandeur than simply making a buck.

If it's so blatant and uncomplicated, what's the smoking gun, then? Any links?



Well, the US played a major role in putting those sanctions in place and enforcing them. They seemed willing to forgo having their citizens purchase oil there in exchange for them. I have no idea what you mean by foreign competition.



Yep, I was being facetious there.



Well, considering I would have been opposed to invading Iraq even if Saddam did have WMD, the intelligence mistake excuse doesn't fly with me, either.

My guess as to the real reason is one that's far worse than "War for Oil"--that the US wants to establish a military presence in the heart of the Middle East in order to intimidate Iran and Syria and keep them in check--and possibly have a launching pad for attacks on them if they make a wrong step. Look no further than Bush's "Axis of Evil" speech and you'll see how he wants to intimidate Iran. I've always seen the Iraq invasion as a war that begets more war, be it the inevitable civil war or wars on a greater scale.

There's a couple problems with this. One, is a little four letter acronym called OPEC. Which renders all of the bitching and moaning in this thread as moot.

The second problem is reality. In the fantasy world of my2hands, oil assets should be kept the property of a state simply to keep Exxon/Mobil out. Nevermind BP/Shell. And completely ignore Total/Fina out of France. We just gotta keep big American oil in check. Well, how about a reality check. Exxon/Mobil is not the only uber huge oil company on the face of the earth. In fact, they are not even the largest oil company on the face of the earth. Coincidentally, the largest run oil companies, and the largest most valuable companies on earth, all happen to be state run oil companies. Coincidentally, those companies dwarf what even ExxonMobil does. And coincidentally, most of those state run oil companies aren't exactly tokens for humanity.



What foriegn competition? I thought it was just Exxon/Mobil out there? And what are you insinuating about the sanctions. They were completely inneffective.

In my opinion, you are deranged. Look at what you posted in here. It's just crazy talk. No sane individual would write all that. I mean, do you really fundamentally grasp the entire timeline from GWI until now? Do you fully understand what Saddam's ambitions were? Do you really understand how driven France and Russia were at keeping Saddam propped up simply to cover up their own wrongdoings and extend contracts to Total/Fina in a post santions era in Iraq?

I'm not one for reading long winded government reports. But the Kay reports and Duelfer reports, if you actually read what's actually in it, is scary as shit.

But no. You're probably right. Iraq would have been better off with Saddam still in power. With the sanctions removed, so that France could have oil contracts within a state run oil company, led by a dictator. And yeah, you're probably spot on about the war being for oil too.



We already had numerous proxies for this. Djibouti, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Jordan, Uzbekistan...

You'll have to excuse our Marine friend, he's a translator not a tactician.

Having military bases in Iraq allows for a LAND INVASION of Iran or Syria, that cannot be launched from any of those other countries. Only Jordan has a border with Syria, and the Jordanians would never let us base 200,000 troops in their country, regardless of the King's mother.

I mean, do you think we could have invaded Iraq with such ease if we didn't have 200,000 troops in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait ready to start the "land rush" at the shotgun blast?

This is a good point. If the US was really under the "War for Oil" banner an Iraq withdrawal from OPEC would do wonders for that cause.

I don't think we'd ever get into a ground war with Iran. Especially with the situation we have now. I don't even think we'd do it pre GWII. It's too big. Iran would be an airwar.

So far as Syria goes, doesn't Syria share a border with Saudi Arabia as well? I could be wrong on this. What about Turkey? How friendly is Turkey with Lebanon? We almost had a northern front via Turkey, and I'd fathom a guess that the only reason we didn't was because of the Kurd's.

I don't think we invaded Iraq to use it as a proxy for ground wars. again, I don't think that's really needed. I think it was done moreso to put political pressure on surrounding nations. Unfortunately, this has been quite a failure over the course of the last year, year and a half or so.

I think mostly, you're right. Syria does not share a border with Saudi Arabia, but Turkey does. It seemed like the reasons Turkey didn't allow us to stage from there for this war were many, and complicated, the Kurdish issue not the least of their concerns.