New Iraq Report: US/UK oil scheme exposed

It's the oil, stupid.

Blair and Bush had it figured out before they ever went into Iraq. Now it is about to happen, as documented in a new report released yesterday.(Steven D diaried on this just before me): the prototypical colonial exploitation, leveraged in this case by destroying so much of Iraq and not rebuilding it. Because of this, the Iraqis "don't have enough money" to develop their own oil production, so "we'll just have to do it for them," meanwhile ripping off a couple hundred billion in profits. That's it, folks. You knew there was a reason for invasion besides the pathetic Doug Feith's ignorance. Two hundred billion for the transnational oil companies. Oh, yes, sorry about your kids.

Read about it, if you are sitting down, below the fold.

Iraqis face the dire prospect of losing up to $200bn of the wealth of their country if an American-inspired plan to hand over development of its oil reserves to US and British multinationals comes into force next year. ....Iraq will be caught in an "old colonial trap" if it allows foreign companies to take a share of its vast energy reserves. ...
The Iraqi government has announced plans to seek foreign investment to exploit its oil reserves after the general election, which will be held next month. Iraq has 115 billion barrels of proved oil reserves, the third largest in the world.
According to the report, from groups including War on Want and the New Economics Foundation (NEF), the new Iraqi constitution opened the way for greater foreign investment. Negotiations with oil companies are already under way ...
...at least $4bn would be needed to restore production to the levels before the 1990-91 Gulf War. "Given Iraq's needs it is not realistic to cut government spending in other areas and Iraq would need to engage with the international oil companies to provide appropriate levels of foreign direct investment to do this," it said.
the use of production sharing agreements (PSAs) was proposed by the US State Department before the invasion and adopted by the Coalition Provisional Authority. "The current government is fast-tracking the process. It is already negotiating contracts with oil companies in parallel with the constitutional process, elections and passage of a Petroleum Law," the report, Crude Designs, said.
Earlier this year a BBC Newsnight report claimed to have uncovered documents showing the Bush administration made plans to secure Iraqi oil even before the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US. Based on its analysis of PSAs in seven countries, it said multinationals would seek rates of return on their investment from 42 to 162 per cent, far in excess of typical 12 per cent rates.
... NEF's policy director, said: "Over the last century, Britain and the US left a global trail of conflict, social upheaval and environmental damage as they sought to capture and control a disproportionate share of the world's oil reserves. Now it seems they are determined to increase their ecological debts at Iraq's expense. Instead of a new beginning, Iraq is caught in a very old colonial trap."

We somehow all knew this was gonna happen. Now the planning and the execution are becoming clear. Sherlock Google had an excellent related piece recently. Maybe now the motivation for the lying and deceptions and WHIG will make some sense to Joe Average "Don't cut and run" American. I'm disgusted, but also I feel like we now have some closure on the cause for this ridiculous adventure.