To be honest, it's not clear whether the Bush regime simply continued their long line of 935 lies started pre-war; or, if they just began a whole new pack of lies post-invasion. Either way, for simplicity's sake, I decided it was easier to just go ahead with the one long [amalgamated] pack of lies.
Lie #936: The Iraqi parliament must and has made great progress towards drafting an oil & natural resources deal agreed to by all parties concerned -- Shi'ites, Sunnis and the Kurds.
The truth is: the so-called Iraqi Hydrocarbon Law is going nowhere fast and the Bush regime knows it. Passing it has been proclaimed to be one of the chief benchmarks assigned to the Iraqi central government by the Bush regime as a mark of progress in the Iraqi occupation. But, legislation has been stuck in negotiations for a year, and no movement on the bill is expected anytime in the near future.
It ain’t happening... period.
Negotiations are not taking place in Baghdad or anywhere else in Iraq and other oil disputes have been relegated to the proverbial backburner as well. Yet, the American people and indeed the world are all expected to accept the Bush regime's definition of "political progress" in Iraq; despite the fact that the reality on the ground directly contradicts White House claims. In fact, the Iraqi press recently confirmed that a top U.S. State Department official tasked with moving the oil law forward is nowhere near Iraq and hasn't been there for some time.
A number of Iraq-based media outlets had reported though that a Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) delegation had gone to Baghdad for a meeting with top oil ministry officials to discuss how to go forward with the legislation. The Al Mowaten News Agency (Arabic) appears to back up that assertion, quoting a KRG spokesman that told them that the region’s oil minister is in Baghdad.
But the same news agency also reports that no such meeting has or is taking place. To back up the latter assertion, it's been reported that the Iraq Oil Minister, Hussain al-Shahristani isn’t even in Baghdad but rather is attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which began last Wednesday.
The Assyrian International News Agency is running the revealing story:
U.S. Undersecretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs Reuben Jeffery was dispatched "to work with the Iraqis on issues related to the hydrocarbon law," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a Nov. 30 news briefing. Media reports had mentioned Jeffery as a key facilitator of meetings on the oil issues, but UPI has confirmed he is not there.
(snip)
The Kurds and Baghdad are also at odds over the KRG passing a regional oil law and signing dozens of contracts with international oil firms, a move Baghdad calls unconstitutional.
The KRG has been developing its oil sector for three years. It has little of Iraq's proven oil reserves -- the third largest in the world -- but experts say there could be a bonanza when it's fully explored. The KRG had signed a small handful of deals with international oil firms prior to February 2007 when a deal was supposedly reached over the oil law.
While the bill is universally portrayed in the American media as a means of reconciling the different Iraqi factions, the main purpose of the legislation is to end the state monopoly on the development of oilfields, and abrogate preexisting contracts with Chinese, Russian and French oil companies in favor of multinational oil companies approved by BushCo. It's no surprise then that the currently touted draft was drawn up under the close supervision of economic advisors Big Oil.
On behalf of Washington, Shahristani initially called the international oil deals illegal, then null and void, and has since made good on the threat to blacklist any oil firm with a KRG deal from receiving any contracts in upcoming national tenders.
But, that hasn't stopped the Kurds. (and who could blame them?)
"The oil companies operating in the Kurdistan Region insist on working in the region and don't pay any attention to Shahristani's threats," said Falah Mustafa Bakir, The Kurdish Globe (archives) reports. The Globe reported Wednesday the talks were taking place and said Bakir won't meet with Shahristani.
Weekly Petroleum Argus reports the Kurds are asking Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to delegate his energy adviser, Thamir Ghadhban, instead of Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani in new oil law talks in Parliament's Energy Committee.
It's clear to most everybody but the Bush regime that the Kurds are not going to cooperate with Baghdad until the hydrocarbon law is reworked to include other [international] oil companies. They've been operating autonomously for over three years now and they're not about to give up deals signed with companies already doing the groundwork for exploration and oil production ventures.
For the Democratically-controlled Congress to consistently ignore the realities on the ground In Iraq and continue to tow the BushCo line and call for reconciliation of the oil dilemma [without investigations] is at its least disingenuous and at its worst delusional or even devious. Democratic candidates; in fact, all the candidates for POTUS must be questioned informed on this matter. The occupation of Iraq could [and probably will] last for years absent (1) rapprochement between the Kurds, Sunnis and Shi'ites and then (2) impartial arbitration of a fair deal between all parties that includes state-owned rights to control sales and production of their own oil reserves.
How the Bush regime ever thought they could make this happen -- by essentially holding both the Iraqi and American people hostage -- until the Iraqis finally buckle under and sign their sovereign wealth away -- as much as 75% of their oil reserves over to Exxon-Mobil, Shell and BP -- for the next three decades, is beyond me. The sheer audacity of such a plan for oil expropriation is as inconceivable... as it is evil.
Of course, it's just business as usual for the most ruthless international crime syndicate in the history of man.
WAKE UP CONGRESS!! YOU'VE BEEN TOLD LIE NUMBER 936 OF 10,000. (to come)
Peace