I just read an article in the NY Times about the divisiveness of various Iraqi politicians and ministers over drafting and enacting the national oil law. The law must be implemented as spelled out in articles 108, 109, and 111 of the Iraqi constitution. The fact that these articles exist are no doubt the work of L. Paul Bremer and friends when they so kindly 'helped' Iraq draft its constitution.
Article 108 is pretty cool. The full text is as follows:
Article 108:
Oil and gas are the ownership of all the people of Iraq in all the regions and governorates.
Seems fair, and I can see its inclusion in the constitution. Article 109 talks about revenue sharing among the population and, oddly, seems to imply that development of the oil reserves is an imperative event and that necessary strategic policies will have to be developed.
Kind of a strange thing to put in a constitution.
Article 111 basically says that regional law trumps national law in disputes not spelled out in the constitution. I'm certain this will be one of items amended in the constitution. I'm sure we want it nationalized and hence the difficulties signing it into law.
How important is the national oil law? Well,Petroleum Economist magazine reported that U.S. oil companies considered passage of the new oil law more important than increased security when deciding whether to go into business in Iraq. This info was obtained
here because I could not access the magazine.
The bitter me secretly hopes Iraq will say no to foreign access to the oil but that is most unlikely since Bush specifically hired an employee of Bearing Point Inc over a year ago to advise the Iraq Oil Ministry on the drafting and passage of a new national oil law. Of course there is also the ISG report that reeks of oil and specifically mentions the US providing security in the oil fields. Nice. How would you like your son standing in an oil field in Iraq. They volunteer to join the military but they can be chained to an oil well later.
Interestingly, the current Iraq Oil Minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, has been surprisingly silent on the matter. By all accounts this is a very smart man who was imprisoned by Saddam for not helping to work on an atomic bomb. He escaped to Iran and came back after Saddam's overthrow. Smells like puppet to me.
So why am I fussing about this, other than us invading a sovereign nation and plundering its resources? It's because the last group I want controlling the second largest oil reserves are American oil companies.
Arguments have been put forth about casting off the quotas imposed by OPEC, and how great that will be for the consumer. Bullshit! You have not seen tight control until you see these companies operate. OPEC is criticized for being a cartel but no rational person can claim the US oil companies act independently.
These companies engage in the systematic rape of US tax payers and the environment and plunder our national resources. They have had no better friend than Bush. They also have not made use of the rights already granted to them. Only 7 million of 40 million acres of domestic leases are in production. Do you really think they will operate differently in Iraq?
The thing is, our government completely encourages their behavior. The Iraq war for instance, and the outrageous "royalty relief" granted to the oil companies amounting to billions in giveaways of yours and mine resources. Here is a list of the 100 top oil lease holders of government land. The first 21 names on the list all exceed the BLM lease limit of 246,080 acres. How does that happen? The top lease holder, Yates Families, has better than 2.7 million acres. Hmmm, I wonder if it has anything to do with the $276,000 they donated to the GOP and the fact that Don Evans used to be involved with them?
Do you think these folks care about you, me, or the country? They will when Bush watches An Inconvenient Truth or hell freezes over. Which ever comes first.
I'm afraid that with US corporate control of the oil, we will really take a pounding at the pumps.