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US wants to privatise Iraq's oil
"Leaks from the state department's 'future of Iraq' office show Washington plans to privatise the Iraqi economy and particularly the state-owned national oil company. Experts on its energy panel want to start with 'downstream' assets like retail petrol stations. This would be a quick way to gouge money from Iraqi consumers. Later they would privatise exploration and development."
Read the small print: the US wants to privatise Iraq's oil
No one here believes this is a humanitarian war
Jonathan Steele in Damascus
Monday March 31, 2003
The Guardian
In this highly politicised city where anger over the invasion of Iraq alternates with pride in the resistance, there is one sure way to lighten the mood. Suggest that George Bush and Tony Blair launched their war because of Saddam Hussein's suspected weapons of mass destruction. Hoots of derision all round. Whether they are Syrians or members of the huge Iraqi exile community, everyone here believes this is a war for oil. In nearby Jordan and across the Arab world the view is the same.
Some suggest a second motive - Washington's desire to strengthen Israel. Under one theory US hawks want to break Iraq into several statelets and then do the same with Saudi Arabia, to confirm the Zionist state as the region's superpower. Others cite Donald Rumsfeld's recent comments about Iran and Syria as proof that war on Iraq is designed to frighten its neighbours, who happen to be the leading radicals in the anti-Zionist camp.
Oil is the war aim on which all Arabs agree. While the Palestinian intifada is resistance to old-fashioned colonialism with its seizure and settlement of other people's land, they see the Iraqi intifada as popular defence against a more modern phenomenon. Washington does not need to settle Iraqi land, but it does want military bases and control of oil.
Many Arabs already define this neo-colonial war as a historic turning point which might have as profound an effect on the Arab psyche as September 11 did on Americans. Arabs have long been accustomed to seeing Israeli tanks running rampant. Now the puppet-master, arrogant and unashamed, has sent his helicopter gunships and armoured vehicles to Arab soil.
The US has mounted numerous coups in the Middle East to topple regimes in Egypt, Iran and Iraq itself. It has used crises, like the last Gulf war, to gain temporary bases and make them permanent. In Lebanon it once shelled an Arab capital and landed several hundred marines. But never before has it sent a vast army to change an Arab government. Even in Latin America, in two centuries of US hegemony, Washington has never dared to mount a full-scale invasion to overthrow a ruler in a major country. Its interventions in the Caribbean and Central America from 1898 to 1990 were against weak opponents in small states. Three years into the new millennium, the enormity of the shift and the impact of the spectacle on Arab television viewers cannot be over-estimated. Is it an image of the past or future, they ask, a one-off throw-back to Vietnam or a taste of things to come?
Blair sensed Arab suspicions about the fate of Iraq's oil when he persuaded Bush at their Azores summit to produce a "vision for Iraq" which pledged to protect its natural resources (they shrank from using the O word) as a "national asset of and for the Iraqi people". No neo-colonialism here.
Unfortunately, the small print is different, as could be expected from an administration run by oilmen. Leaks from the state department's "future of Iraq" office show Washington plans to privatise the Iraqi economy and particularly the state-owned national oil company. Experts on its energy panel want to start with "downstream" assets like retail petrol stations. This would be a quick way to gouge money from Iraqi consumers. Later they would privatise exploration and development.
Even if majority ownership were restricted to Iraqis, Russia's grim experience of energy privatisation shows how a new class of oil magnates quickly send their profits to offshore banks. If the interests of all Iraqis are to be protected, it would be better to keep state control and modify the UN oil-for-food programme, which has been a relatively efficient and internationally supervised way of channelling revenues to the country's poor.
Drop the controls on Iraq's imports of industrial goods. End the rule that all food under the programme has to be imported, thereby penalis ing Iraqi farmers and benefiting rich exporters in Canada, Australia and the US. But maintain the programme for several years to keep helping the 60% of Iraqis who depend on subsidised food (it will be more after this war) rather than channel revenues to a new Iraqi government or a World Bank-administered trust fund which will be under pressure to pay it to US construction companies to repair the infrastructure which Bush's war machine has destroyed. US and UK taxpayers should finance the peace as they have financed the war. Iraqi oil earnings must stay out of US and British hands.
If Downing Street has a better grasp than Washington of the need not to appear to be occupying Iraq, it was equally misinformed about Iraqis' views of invasion. Both governments confused hatred of Saddam with support for war. War has its own dynamic, trapping millions in the desperate business of daily survival. Naturally they blame US and British troops for the chaos. Yet, even before the first bomb fell, most Iraqis were against "liberation" by force.
People living under Saddam Hussein's rule do not give opinions easily but British and US officials should have done a better job of talking to Iraqis in Jordan and Syria who are in close touch with their families in Iraq.
On the eve of the war, I interviewed 20 Iraqis in Amman individually or in groups of two or three friends for an hour each on average. They included Sunni and Shia, property owners, artists, factory workers and several unemployed. Most were fierce critics of the Iraqi president. But on the over-riding issue of whether Bush should launch a war, a majority was opposed. Nine were against, four were torn and only seven were in favour. Now that war is no longer a theoretical option but a reality affecting every Iraqi at home and abroad, patriotic feelings are stronger.
Western governments apparently confined their research to people with a narrow vested interest. They financed exiled politicians who want a share in US-supplied power and then talked to them as though they were independent. They listened to businessmen eager to cash in when the US privatises the economy. They were fascinated by nostalgic Hashemite monarchists.
The voices of the poor and the professional classes were not deemed of interest, although these are the people who benefited from the surge in social investment from 1975-85 and later fell back under sanctions. London and Washington convinced themselves that Saddam Hussein had ruined the economy without asking whether Iraqis shared this view. If they now divert Iraq's oil revenues, they will be following a long tradition of blunder and exploitation.
No one here believes this is a humanitarian war
Jonathan Steele in Damascus
Monday March 31, 2003
The Guardian
In this highly politicised city where anger over the invasion of Iraq alternates with pride in the resistance, there is one sure way to lighten the mood. Suggest that George Bush and Tony Blair launched their war because of Saddam Hussein's suspected weapons of mass destruction. Hoots of derision all round. Whether they are Syrians or members of the huge Iraqi exile community, everyone here believes this is a war for oil. In nearby Jordan and across the Arab world the view is the same.
Some suggest a second motive - Washington's desire to strengthen Israel. Under one theory US hawks want to break Iraq into several statelets and then do the same with Saudi Arabia, to confirm the Zionist state as the region's superpower. Others cite Donald Rumsfeld's recent comments about Iran and Syria as proof that war on Iraq is designed to frighten its neighbours, who happen to be the leading radicals in the anti-Zionist camp.
Oil is the war aim on which all Arabs agree. While the Palestinian intifada is resistance to old-fashioned colonialism with its seizure and settlement of other people's land, they see the Iraqi intifada as popular defence against a more modern phenomenon. Washington does not need to settle Iraqi land, but it does want military bases and control of oil.
Many Arabs already define this neo-colonial war as a historic turning point which might have as profound an effect on the Arab psyche as September 11 did on Americans. Arabs have long been accustomed to seeing Israeli tanks running rampant. Now the puppet-master, arrogant and unashamed, has sent his helicopter gunships and armoured vehicles to Arab soil.
The US has mounted numerous coups in the Middle East to topple regimes in Egypt, Iran and Iraq itself. It has used crises, like the last Gulf war, to gain temporary bases and make them permanent. In Lebanon it once shelled an Arab capital and landed several hundred marines. But never before has it sent a vast army to change an Arab government. Even in Latin America, in two centuries of US hegemony, Washington has never dared to mount a full-scale invasion to overthrow a ruler in a major country. Its interventions in the Caribbean and Central America from 1898 to 1990 were against weak opponents in small states. Three years into the new millennium, the enormity of the shift and the impact of the spectacle on Arab television viewers cannot be over-estimated. Is it an image of the past or future, they ask, a one-off throw-back to Vietnam or a taste of things to come?
Blair sensed Arab suspicions about the fate of Iraq's oil when he persuaded Bush at their Azores summit to produce a "vision for Iraq" which pledged to protect its natural resources (they shrank from using the O word) as a "national asset of and for the Iraqi people". No neo-colonialism here.
Unfortunately, the small print is different, as could be expected from an administration run by oilmen. Leaks from the state department's "future of Iraq" office show Washington plans to privatise the Iraqi economy and particularly the state-owned national oil company. Experts on its energy panel want to start with "downstream" assets like retail petrol stations. This would be a quick way to gouge money from Iraqi consumers. Later they would privatise exploration and development.
Even if majority ownership were restricted to Iraqis, Russia's grim experience of energy privatisation shows how a new class of oil magnates quickly send their profits to offshore banks. If the interests of all Iraqis are to be protected, it would be better to keep state control and modify the UN oil-for-food programme, which has been a relatively efficient and internationally supervised way of channelling revenues to the country's poor.
Drop the controls on Iraq's imports of industrial goods. End the rule that all food under the programme has to be imported, thereby penalis ing Iraqi farmers and benefiting rich exporters in Canada, Australia and the US. But maintain the programme for several years to keep helping the 60% of Iraqis who depend on subsidised food (it will be more after this war) rather than channel revenues to a new Iraqi government or a World Bank-administered trust fund which will be under pressure to pay it to US construction companies to repair the infrastructure which Bush's war machine has destroyed. US and UK taxpayers should finance the peace as they have financed the war. Iraqi oil earnings must stay out of US and British hands.
If Downing Street has a better grasp than Washington of the need not to appear to be occupying Iraq, it was equally misinformed about Iraqis' views of invasion. Both governments confused hatred of Saddam with support for war. War has its own dynamic, trapping millions in the desperate business of daily survival. Naturally they blame US and British troops for the chaos. Yet, even before the first bomb fell, most Iraqis were against "liberation" by force.
People living under Saddam Hussein's rule do not give opinions easily but British and US officials should have done a better job of talking to Iraqis in Jordan and Syria who are in close touch with their families in Iraq.
On the eve of the war, I interviewed 20 Iraqis in Amman individually or in groups of two or three friends for an hour each on average. They included Sunni and Shia, property owners, artists, factory workers and several unemployed. Most were fierce critics of the Iraqi president. But on the over-riding issue of whether Bush should launch a war, a majority was opposed. Nine were against, four were torn and only seven were in favour. Now that war is no longer a theoretical option but a reality affecting every Iraqi at home and abroad, patriotic feelings are stronger.
Western governments apparently confined their research to people with a narrow vested interest. They financed exiled politicians who want a share in US-supplied power and then talked to them as though they were independent. They listened to businessmen eager to cash in when the US privatises the economy. They were fascinated by nostalgic Hashemite monarchists.
The voices of the poor and the professional classes were not deemed of interest, although these are the people who benefited from the surge in social investment from 1975-85 and later fell back under sanctions. London and Washington convinced themselves that Saddam Hussein had ruined the economy without asking whether Iraqis shared this view. If they now divert Iraq's oil revenues, they will be following a long tradition of blunder and exploitation.
For more information:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,276...
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... american, or even british/european, owned oil multi-nationals are the only corporations allowed to develope iraq's oil, from the exploration, pumping, infrastructure, refinement and distribution stages, then the charges that this war has been in large part about oil and neo-colonialism are totally justified.
if, however, IRAQI oil companies are allowed to handle the exploration, pumping, infrastructure, refinement and distribution stages, then the charges have much less ground to stand on.
so this bears paying some close attention to. because these contracts and dealings will be done as quietly as possible. they'll probably only be news in the back pages of industry journals, or the back pages of the WSJ, in a place where they'll be purposely hard to find. if american corporations get all the contracts, then it's just plain as day what is going on...
if, however, IRAQI oil companies are allowed to handle the exploration, pumping, infrastructure, refinement and distribution stages, then the charges have much less ground to stand on.
so this bears paying some close attention to. because these contracts and dealings will be done as quietly as possible. they'll probably only be news in the back pages of industry journals, or the back pages of the WSJ, in a place where they'll be purposely hard to find. if american corporations get all the contracts, then it's just plain as day what is going on...
>if, however, IRAQI oil companies....
And what, pray tell, are the names of ANY Iraqi oil companies?
The people of the middle east did not invent the procedures by which oil is drilled, pumped, and refined. They don't have a clue how to do it unless shown how. So it's not who's pumping the oil, it's a matter of does a portion the profits from the oil sales go towards helping the Iraqi people.
And what, pray tell, are the names of ANY Iraqi oil companies?
The people of the middle east did not invent the procedures by which oil is drilled, pumped, and refined. They don't have a clue how to do it unless shown how. So it's not who's pumping the oil, it's a matter of does a portion the profits from the oil sales go towards helping the Iraqi people.
>So it's not who's pumping the oil, it's a matter of does a portion the profits from the oil sales go towards helping the Iraqi people.<
hmmm... does a portion of the sales go towards helping the iraqi people...
this is exactly what i'm talking about. ALL of it should go towards helping the iraqi people. not a fucking arbitrary portion of it.
this is why if an america or european corporation gets it's hands on the oil, only a portion of it WILL go to the iraqi people. the rest of it will go to wealthy share holders thousands of miles away.
i take your point that there are probably not any iraqi oil corporations persay. but that doesn't mean that outside american oil companies rushing in like a bunch of sharks who smell a feeding frenzy (because they KNOW iraq has no oil corporations that could be any competition) is ethical or right.
why not send the iraqi's a bunch of american consultants and experts that could help start an IRAQI oil corporation? that way it would be in the hands of the iraqi's, where it should be. and america would just be there to help, rather than to rush in, take over, and plunder.
and to the charge that that will take too long, i'll point out that iraq, despite all the probelms the last 12 years, HAS been exporting oil. and instead of that profit going straight to saddam's regime, or being blocked by an embargo, why not take those billions and use them to help iraq rebuild AND to help create an IRAQI oil corporation that will work. that should provide enough funds for the short term. once that IRAQI oil corporation is up and running, the profits will just start growing and growing, and going DIRECTLY to the iraqi people.
if you say that the oil belongs to the iraqi people, YOU CAN'T SAY THAT THE PROFITS DON'T. that's total unfair bullshit. you can't separate the two. what makes oil so goddamn important IS THE MONEY IT'S WORTH. that's the crucial thing to any nation. if the oil is their's, then so is the money it generates.
hmmm... does a portion of the sales go towards helping the iraqi people...
this is exactly what i'm talking about. ALL of it should go towards helping the iraqi people. not a fucking arbitrary portion of it.
this is why if an america or european corporation gets it's hands on the oil, only a portion of it WILL go to the iraqi people. the rest of it will go to wealthy share holders thousands of miles away.
i take your point that there are probably not any iraqi oil corporations persay. but that doesn't mean that outside american oil companies rushing in like a bunch of sharks who smell a feeding frenzy (because they KNOW iraq has no oil corporations that could be any competition) is ethical or right.
why not send the iraqi's a bunch of american consultants and experts that could help start an IRAQI oil corporation? that way it would be in the hands of the iraqi's, where it should be. and america would just be there to help, rather than to rush in, take over, and plunder.
and to the charge that that will take too long, i'll point out that iraq, despite all the probelms the last 12 years, HAS been exporting oil. and instead of that profit going straight to saddam's regime, or being blocked by an embargo, why not take those billions and use them to help iraq rebuild AND to help create an IRAQI oil corporation that will work. that should provide enough funds for the short term. once that IRAQI oil corporation is up and running, the profits will just start growing and growing, and going DIRECTLY to the iraqi people.
if you say that the oil belongs to the iraqi people, YOU CAN'T SAY THAT THE PROFITS DON'T. that's total unfair bullshit. you can't separate the two. what makes oil so goddamn important IS THE MONEY IT'S WORTH. that's the crucial thing to any nation. if the oil is their's, then so is the money it generates.
"why not send the iraqi's a bunch of american consultants and experts that could help start an IRAQI oil corporation?"
And these consultants, do they work for free? No. Who pays them? The Iraqi oil companies. Where does the money come from? Iraqi oil. Even with your plan, only a portion goes to help the Iraqi people. Which is a portion more than they have been getting lately.
That's just capitalism 101. And yes, capitalism will save and feed the world.
And these consultants, do they work for free? No. Who pays them? The Iraqi oil companies. Where does the money come from? Iraqi oil. Even with your plan, only a portion goes to help the Iraqi people. Which is a portion more than they have been getting lately.
That's just capitalism 101. And yes, capitalism will save and feed the world.
... that STAYS in iraqi hands, the better. the salaries of these consultants would be miniscule compared to the "fees" charged against the iraqi oil by american oil corporations for rendering services accross all the stages of IRAQI oil production.
the bigger the iraqi portion, the better. that's the point.
now, about capitalism...
in order for capitalism to feed and clothe the world, the fees charged against the world for services rendered by expansionist capitalism (i.e., perpetually growing markets and profits) will include war, environmental destruction, famine, war, poverty for many, and massive wealth for few. interestingly, the world will model any capitalist society. as there are a few who are wealthy, some who are o.k., and many who are poor in any random capitalist country, so there will be a few countries who are blessed with wealth, some countries where things are o.k., and many countries where life is fucking difficult to say the least. this stratification will exist as long as capitalism exists. this is what it takes for capitalism to do the job. this is the nature of capitalism. some think it's fine, while others have a problem with it. this is the nature of humanity.
admittedly, capitalism is all we got right now, "the best of the worst", but if it doesn't work, and it doesn't feed, clothe and make life better for EVERYBODY, then there's gonna be Big Trouble. i can guarantee it. this is the nature of humanity.
the bigger the iraqi portion, the better. that's the point.
now, about capitalism...
in order for capitalism to feed and clothe the world, the fees charged against the world for services rendered by expansionist capitalism (i.e., perpetually growing markets and profits) will include war, environmental destruction, famine, war, poverty for many, and massive wealth for few. interestingly, the world will model any capitalist society. as there are a few who are wealthy, some who are o.k., and many who are poor in any random capitalist country, so there will be a few countries who are blessed with wealth, some countries where things are o.k., and many countries where life is fucking difficult to say the least. this stratification will exist as long as capitalism exists. this is what it takes for capitalism to do the job. this is the nature of capitalism. some think it's fine, while others have a problem with it. this is the nature of humanity.
admittedly, capitalism is all we got right now, "the best of the worst", but if it doesn't work, and it doesn't feed, clothe and make life better for EVERYBODY, then there's gonna be Big Trouble. i can guarantee it. this is the nature of humanity.
so much make me to bealive the usa people can't have the irak's oil under the international laws it's say any country of the world must to have them own independence, it mean so much as i can't go to anothers countries to take them own independece, or then nonebody can mean as to be independent, also i heared so much after and before the planes crash in the new york towers, that tragedy were prefixed by the usa people , it means the usa people buid that towers with illegal materials and expensive and as for them necesary. to have them ready the towers to mean of the war to some country or countries, i personaly heared of some persons someting like nobody is goin to bealive as them were build to have them ready to fall in case the usa people nead them as war strategy, in this case the usa country realy nead of a mean like that one, as that crash in new york to can spend the war to irak, and to can have the united nation atoritation to spend that war. in this case because the usa country is runing out of it's oil reserves, and them nead of that nasty perverse mean of war just to can catch to a country with oil, in this case to irak, aslo it make me to bealive the usa country are ready to make, them newest sclaves, just to work for them, and i belive any couintry have it's own right to be independet and to fight for it's own fredomm.
in this case the irak's country, the irak goverment dosn't made the attak, but a terrorist group paid for the usa people so much this is the truh, i dosn'n car to bealive another it is, i know so much the usa people war satrategy them always involve to people with lies and them pay to make them the truh.
For more information:
http://0790760798
I left a few things out. Aside from consultant fees, there is the equipment costs and start-up costs for the enterprise. Any way you do it, Iraq will need to spend a lot of money buying from foreign countries to rebuild. This is why Iraq invaded Kuwait in the first place, to pay for rebuilding. The cost of hiring already-established companies to do the rebuilding is a fraction of the costs to build Iraqi oil companies -- which needs to be done anyway in the long term -- but for quick start-up, getting some of those proceeds to the Iraqi people, they will most likely go for the quickest path. Hiring out for now, while they build for themselves.
I suppose they could buy inferior French equipment, but since France armed and supported Saddam in the first place, that might not be politically correct.
I suppose they could buy inferior French equipment, but since France armed and supported Saddam in the first place, that might not be politically correct.
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