Congress Never Passed a Benchmark to Privatize Iraq's Oil
Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 10:21:14 AM PDT
If you formed your impressions solely from mainstream media coverage in the United States, it is quite likely you would have the following understanding of the draft "oil law" being considered by the Iraqi parliament: the US Congress has set a benchmark for the Iraqi parliament to pass an "oil law," and in order to satisfy the benchmark the Iraqi parliament must pass the law it is currently considering.
This is quite a false impression, as can be seen by examining the press coverage and comparing it do what the law passed by Congress actually says.
On July 23, the New York Times reported:
Efforts to achieve national reconciliation in Iraq received a double blow on Sunday. Lawmakers acknowledged that there were still many differences on a proposed law to manage oil revenue, the country's most lucrative resource, making it unlikely they would approve a law before September, when the Bush administration must report to Congress on Iraq's progress toward meeting certain legislative benchmarks.
This strongly implies that if the Iraqi parliament passed the "proposed law to manage oil revenue" it would satisfy the "legislative benchmark."
The Times continues:
The oil law, which would set up a system for managing and developing Iraq's oil resources and would have a companion revenue-sharing law that would apportion oil income among the various groups, had been considered the most likely to be passed before the September report to Congress. But by the time the Iraqis return to Parliament in September, it is highly unlikely that they could meet the midmonth deadline in the United States.
According to the Times, the law "would set up a system for managing and developing Iraq's oil resources." A "companion" revenue-sharing law - that is, a different law - "would apportion oil income among the various groups."
Therefore, if the impression that this article gives is correct, then Congress passed a benchmark that requires the Iraqi parliament to pass a law to "set up a system for managing and developing Iraq's oil resources."
But that's not what Congress did - a fact that can be easily verified, since laws passed by Congress are published on the internet.
Here's what Section 1314 of the FY2007 Supplemental Appropriations Act [P.L.110-28] actually says:
Sec. 1314. (a) Findings Regarding Progress in Iraq, the
Establishment of Benchmarks to Measure That Progress, and Reports to
Congress.--Congress makes the following findings:
...
(b) Conditioning of Future United States Strategy in Iraq on the
Iraqi Government's Record of Performance on Its Benchmarks.--
...
(A) The United States strategy in Iraq, hereafter,
shall be conditioned on the Iraqi government meeting
benchmarks, as told to members of Congress by the
President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of
Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
and reflected in the Iraqi Government's commitments to
the United States, and to the international community,
including:
...
(iii) Enacting and implementing legislation to
ensure the equitable distribution of hydrocarbon
resources of the people of Iraq without regard to
the sect or ethnicity of recipients, and enacting
and implementing legislation to ensure that the
energy resources of Iraq benefit Sunni Arabs, Shia
Arabs, Kurds, and other Iraqi citizens in an
equitable manner.
That's it. It doesn't say anything about restructuring Iraq's oil industry or increasing the role of foreign oil companies. It just says the parliament should enact legislation to ensure that the resources benefit Iraq's citizens in an equitable manner.
As Representative Delahunt stated before a Congressional committee in July:
[The draft hydrocarbon law] creates an obtuse and arcane legal structure for reorganizing Iraq's oil industry. It's important to emphasize that it does not address the fair and equitable distribution of oil revenue among the various Iraqi communities so it should not be confused with the benchmark in the recent supplemental appropriation identified by Congress to be a sign of progress.
Get involved.
Permalink | 8 comments