Bush Really IS Getting "Victory" In Iraq

Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 15:28:51 -0600
From: "Raging Grannie (Wanda B)"
Subject: Bush Really IS Getting "Victory" In Iraq

US involved in writing law.....

Three articles

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010807A.shtml

New Oil Law Means Victory in Iraq for Bush
By Chris Floyd
t r u t h o u t | UK Correspondent

Monday 08 January 2007

I. Surging Toward the Ultimate Prize

The reason that George W. Bush insists that "victory" is
achievable in
Iraq is not that he is deluded or isolated or ignorant or detached
from
reality or ill-advised. No, it's that his definition of "victory" is
different from those bruited about in his own rhetoric and in the
ever-earnest disquisitions of the chattering classes in print and
online.
For Bush, victory is indeed at hand. It could come at any moment now,
could
already have been achieved by the time you read this. And the driving
force
behind his planned "surge" of American troops is the need to preserve
those
fruits of victory that are now ripening in his hand.

At any time within the next few days, the Iraqi Council of
Ministers is
expected to approve a new "hydrocarbon law" essentially drawn up by
the
Bush administration and its UK lackey, the Independent on Sunday
reported.
The new bill will "radically redraw the Iraqi oil industry and throw
open
the doors to the third-largest oil reserves in the world," says the
paper,
whose reporters have seen a draft of the new law. "It would allow the
first
large-scale operation of foreign oil companies in the country since
the
industry was nationalized in 1972." If the government's parliamentary
majority prevails, the law should take effect in March.

As the paper notes, the law will give Exxon Mobil, BP, Shell and
other
carbon cronies of the White House unprecedented sweetheart deals,
allowing
them to pump gargantuan profits from Iraq's nominally state-owned
oilfields
for decades to come. This law has been in the works since the very
beginning of the invasion - indeed, since months before the invasion,
when
the Bush administration brought in Phillip Carroll, former CEO of both
Shell and Fluor, the politically-wired oil servicing firm, to devise
"contingency plans" for divvying up Iraq's oil after the attack. Once
the
deed was done, Carroll was made head of the American "advisory
committee"
overseeing the oil industry of the conquered land, as Joshua Holland
of
Alternet.com has chronicled in two remarkable reports on the backroom
maneuvering over Iraq's oil: "Bush's Petro-Cartel Almost Has Iraq's
Oil and
"The US Takeover of Iraqi Oil."

From those earliest days until now, throughout all the twists and
turns, the blood and chaos of the occupation, the Bush administration
has
kept its eye on this prize. The new law offers the barrelling
buccaneers of
the West a juicy set of production-sharing agreements (PSAs) that will
maintain a fig leaf of Iraqi ownership of the nation's oil industry -
while
letting Bush's Big Oil buddies rake off up to 75 percent of all oil
profits
for an indefinite period up front, until they decide that their
"infrastructure investments" have been repaid. Even then, the
agreements
will give the Western oil majors an unheard-of 20 percent of Iraq's
oil
profits - more than twice the average of standard PSAs, the
Independent
notes.

Of course, at the moment, the "security situation" - i.e., the
living
hell of death and suffering that Bush's "war of choice" has wrought in
Iraq
- prevents the Oil Barons from setting up shop in the looted fields.
Hence
Bush's overwhelming urge to "surge" despite the fierce opposition to
his
plans from Congress, the Pentagon and some members of his own party.
Bush
and his inner circle, including his chief adviser, old oilman Dick
Cheney,
believe that a bigger dose of blood and iron in Iraq will produce a
sufficient level of stability to allow the oil majors to cash in the
PSA
chips that more than 3,000 American soldiers have purchased for them
with
their lives.

The American "surge" will be blended into the new draconian effort
announced over the weekend by Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki: an
all-out war by the government's Shiite militia-riddled "security
forces" on
Sunni enclaves in Baghdad, as the Washington Post reports. American
troops
will "support" the "pacification effort" with what Maliki says calls
"house-to-house" sweeps of Sunni areas. There is of course another
phrase
for this kind of operation: "ethnic cleansing."

The "surged" troops - mostly long-serving, overstrained units
dragooned
into extended duty - are to be thrown into this maelstrom of urban
warfare
and ethnic murder, temporarily taking sides with one faction in Iraq's
hydra-headed, multi-sided civil war. As the conflict goes on - and it
will
go on and on - the Bush administration will continue to side with
whatever
faction promises to uphold the "hydrocarbon law" and those profitable
PSAs.
If "Al Qaeda in Iraq" vowed to open the nation's oil spigots for
Exxon,
Fluor and Halliburton, they would suddenly find themselves transformed
from
"terrorists" into "moderates" - as indeed has Maliki and his violent,
sectarian Dawa Party, which once killed Americans in terrorist actions
but
are now hailed as freedom's champions.

So Bush will surge with Maliki and his ethnic cleansing for now.
If the
effort flames out in a disastrous crash that makes the situation worse
- as
it almost certainly will - Bush will simply back another horse. What
he
seeks in Iraq is not freedom or democracy but "stability" - a
government of
any shape or form that will deliver the goods. As the Independent
wryly
noted in its Sunday story, Dick Cheney himself revealed the true goal
of
the war back in 1999, in a speech he gave when he was still CEO of
Halliburton. "Where is the oil going to come from" to slake the
world's
ever-growing thirst, asked Cheney, who then answered his own question:
"The
Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost,
is
still where the prize ultimately lies."

And therein lies another hidden layer of the war. For Iraq not
only has
the world's second largest oil reserves; it also has the world's most
easily retrievable oil. As the Independent succinctly notes: "The
cost-per-barrel of extracting oil in Iraq is among the lowest in the
world
because the reserves are relatively close to the surface. This
contrasts
starkly with the expensive and risky lengths to which the oil industry
must
go to find new reserves elsewhere - witness the super-deep offshore
drilling and cost-intensive techniques needed to extract oil form
Canada's
tar sands."

This is precisely what Cheney was getting at in his 1999 talk to
the
Institute of Petroleum. In a world of dwindling petroleum resources,
those
who control large reserves of cheaply-produced oil will reap
unimaginable
profits - and command the heights of the global economy. It's not just
about profit, of course; control of such resources would offer
tremendous
strategic advantages to anyone who was interested in "full spectrum
domination" of world affairs, which the Bush-Cheney faction and their
outriders among the neo-cons and the "national greatness" fanatics
have
openly sought for years. With its twin engines of corporate greed and
military empire, the war in Iraq is a marriage made in Valhalla.

II. The Win-Win Scenario

And this unholy union is what Bush is really talking about when he
talks about "victory." This is the reason for so much of the drift and
dithering and chaos and incompetence of the occupation: Bush and his
cohorts don't really care what happens on the ground in Iraq - they
care
about what comes out of the ground. The end - profit and dominion -
justifies any means. What happens to the human beings caught up in the
war
is of no ultimate importance; the game is worth any number of broken
candles.

And in plain point of fact, the Bush-Cheney faction - and the
elite
interests they represent - has already won the war in Iraq. I've
touched on
this theme before elsewhere, but it is a reality of the war that is
very
often overlooked, and is worth examining again. This ultimate victory
was
clear as long ago as June 2004, when I first set down the original
version
of some of the updated observations below.

Put simply, the Bush Family and their allies and cronies represent
the
confluence of three long-established power factions in the American
elite:
oil, arms and investments. These groups equate their own interests,
their
own wealth and privilege, with the interests of the nation - indeed,
the
world - as a whole. And they pursue these interests with every weapon
at
their command, including war, torture, deceit and corruption.
Democracy
means nothing to them - not even in their own country, as we saw in
the
2000 election. Laws are just whips to keep the common herd in line;
they
don't apply to the elite, as Bush's own lawyers and minions have
openly
asserted in the memos, signing statements, court cases and
presidential
decrees asserting the "inherent power" of the "unitary executive" to
override any law he pleases.

The Iraq war has been immensely profitable for these Bush-linked
power
factions (and their tributary industries, such as construction);
billions
of dollars in public money have already poured into their coffers.
Halliburton has been catapulted from the edge of bankruptcy to the
heights
of no-bid, open-ended, guaranteed profit. The Carlyle Group is gorging
on
war contracts. Individual Bush family members are making out like
bandits
from war-related investments, while dozens of Bush minions - like
Richard
Perle, James Woolsey, and Joe Allbaugh - have cashed in their insider
chips
for blood money.

The aftermath of the war promises equal if not greater riches.
Even if
the new Iraqi government maintains nominal state control of its oil
industry, there are still untold billions to be made in PSAs for
drilling,
refining, distributing, servicing and securing oilfields and
pipelines.
Likewise, the new Iraqi military and police forces will require
billions
more in weapons, equipment and training, bought from the US arms
industry -
and from the fast-expanding "private security" industry, the
politically
hard-wired mercenary forces that are the power elite's latest
lucrative
spin-off. And as with Saudi Arabia, oil money from the new Iraq will
pump
untold billions into American banks and investment houses.

But that's not all. For even in the worst-case scenario, if the
Americans had to pull out tomorrow, abandoning everything - their
bases,
their contracts, their collaborators - the Bush power factions would
still
come out ahead. For not only has their already-incalculable wealth
been
vastly augmented (with any potential losses indemnified by US
taxpayers),
but their deeply-entrenched sway over American society has also
increased
by several magnitudes. No matter which party controls the government,
the
militarization of America is so far gone now it's impossible to
imagine any
major rollback in the gargantuan US war machine - 725 bases in 132
countries, annual military budgets topping $500 billion, a planned $1
trillion in new weapons systems already moving through the pipeline.
Indeed, the Democratic "opposition" has promised to expand the
military.

Nor will either party conceivably challenge the dominance of the
energy
behemoths - or stand against the American public's demand for cheap
gas,
big vehicles, and unlimited consumption of a vast disproportion of the
world's oil. As for Wall Street - both parties have long been the
eager
courtesans of the investment elite, dispatching armies all over the
world
to protect their financial interests. The power factions whose
influence
has been so magnified by Bush's war will maintain their supremacy
regardless of the electoral outcome.

[By the way, to think that all of this has happened because a
small
band of extremist ideologues - the neo-cons - somehow "hijacked" US
foreign
policy to push their radical dreams of "liberating" the Middle East by
force and destroying Israel's enemies is absurd. The Bush power
factions
were already determined to pursue an aggressive foreign policy; they
used
the neo-cons and their bag of tricks - their inflated rhetoric, their
conspiratorial zeal, their murky Middle East contacts, their ideology
of
brute force in the name of "higher" causes - as tools (and PR cover)
to
help bring about a long-planned war that had nothing to do with
democracy
or security or any coherent ideology whatsoever beyond the remorseless
pursuit of wealth and power, the blind urge to be top dog.]

So Bush and his cohorts have won even if the surge fails and Iraq
lapses into perpetual anarchy, or becomes an extremist religious
state;
they've won even if the whole region goes up in flames, and terrorism
flares to unprecedented heights - because this will just mean more
war-profiteering, more fear-profiteering. And yes, they've won even
though
they've lost their Congressional majority and could well lose the
presidency in 2008, because war and fear will continue to fill their
coffers, buying them continuing influence and power as they bide their
time
through another interregnum of a Democratic "centrist" - who will, at
best,
only nibble at the edges of the militarist state - until they are back
in
the saddle again. The only way they can lose the Iraq War is if they
are
actually arrested and imprisoned for their war crimes. And we all know
that's not going to happen.

So Bush's confident strut, his incessant upbeat pronouncements
about
the war, his complacent smirks, his callous indifference to the
unspeakable
horror he has unleashed in Iraq - these are not the hallmarks of
self-delusion, or willful ignorance, or a disassociation from reality.
He
and his accomplices know full well what the reality is - and they like
it.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...cle2132569.ece



uture of Iraq: The spoils of war





How the West will make a killing on Iraqi oil riches





By Danny Fortson, Andrew Murray-Watson and Tim Webb





Published: 07 January 2007

Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about
to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil
companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before
the Iraqi parliament within days.

The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of
which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big
oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract
Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil
interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.

The huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to
critics who say the Iraq war was fought for oil. They point to
statements such as one from Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said in
1999, while he was still chief executive of the oil services company
Halliburton, that the world would need an additional 50 million
barrels of oil a day by 2010. "So where is the oil going to come
from?... The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the
lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies," he said.

Oil industry executives and analysts say the law, which would permit
Western companies to pocket up to three-quarters of profits in the
early years, is the only way to get Iraq's oil industry back on its
feet after years of sanctions, war and loss of expertise. But it will
operate through "production-sharing agreements" (or PSAs) which are
highly unusual in the Middle East, where the oil industry in Saudi
Arabia and Iran, the world's two largest producers, is state
controlled.

Opponents say Iraq, where oil accounts for 95 per cent of the economy,
is being forced to surrender an unacceptable degree of sovereignty.

Proposing the parliamentary motion for war in 2003, Tony Blair denied
the "false claim" that "we want to seize" Iraq's oil revenues. He said
the money should be put into a trust fund, run by the UN, for the
Iraqis, but the idea came to nothing. The same year Colin Powell, then
Secretary of State, said: "It cost a great deal of money to prosecute
this war. But the oil of the Iraqi people belongs to the Iraqi people;
it is their wealth, it will be used for their benefit. So we did not
do it for oil."

Supporters say the provision allowing oil companies to take up to 75
per cent of the profits will last until they have recouped initial
drilling costs. After that, they would collect about 20 per cent of
all profits, according to industry sources in Iraq. But that is twice
the industry average for such deals.

Greg Muttitt, a researcher for Platform, a human rights and
environmental group which monitors the oil industry, said Iraq was
being asked to pay an enormous price over the next 30 years for its
present instability. "They would lose out massively," he said,
"because they don't have the capacity at the moment to strike a good
deal."

Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister, Barham Salih, who chairs the country's
oil committee, is expected to unveil the legislation as early as
today. "It is a redrawing of the whole Iraqi oil industry [to] a
modern standard," said Khaled Salih, spokesman for the Kurdish
Regional Government, a party to the negotiations. The Iraqi government
hopes to have the law on the books by March.

Several major oil companies are said to have sent teams into the
country in recent months to lobby for deals ahead of the law, though
the big names are considered unlikely to invest until the violence in
Iraq abates.

James Paul, executive director at the Global Policy Forum, the
international government watchdog, said: "It is not an exaggeration to
say that the overwhelming majority of the population would be opposed
to this. To do it anyway, with minimal discussion within the [Iraqi]
parliament is really just pouring more oil on the fire."

Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman and a former
chief economist at Shell, said it was crucial that any deal would
guarantee funds for rebuilding Iraq. "It is absolutely vital that the
revenue from the oil industry goes into Iraqi development and is seen
to do so," he said. "Although it does make sense to collaborate with
foreign investors, it is very important the terms are seen to be
fair."

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/01/08/iraq-oil.html

Iraq to give Western companies control of oilreport
Last UpdatedMonday, January 8, 2007 | 1229 PM ET



http://www.cbc.ca/news/credit.htmlCBC News

The Iraqi government plans to introduce a law that will give control
of the country's huge oil reserves to Western oil companies, a British
newspaper says.

The government is drafting a law based on "production-sharing
agreements (PSAs)," which will give major companies rights on Iraq's
oil for up to 30 years, the Independent on Sunday reported.

It said it had been given a copy of the draft law from last July, and
the draft has not been changed significantly since then.

Critics say the agreements will be bad news for Iraq because they
guarantee profits to the companies while giving little to the country.
With 112 billion barrels, Iraq has the second largest reserves in the
world, the U.S. government says.

Platform, a London-based pressure group that seeks to minimize the
impact of oil companies, says on its website that Iraq endorsed
production-sharing agreements last fall, just as Russia sought to undo
a similar deal it signed in the period of turmoil after the Communist
regime collapsed.

Russia has realized it signed a bad deal to develop a gas project,
which allocated the risk to the government and the profit to the
private sector, Platform said, citing published Russian reports.

"Russia realized the mistakes it made by signing PSA contracts only
when it was too late. It remains to be seen whether Iraq follows the
same course," the group said in October.

Attack on Iraq motivated by oil?

Platform's Greg Muttitt said the U.S. government, international oil
companies and the International Monetary Fund had been asked to
comment on the draft Iraqi legislation, but many members of the Iraqi
parliament have not seen it.

The Independent said Iraq may adopt PSA contracts because it is in a
weak bargaining position.

The legislation, if passed as in the draft the Independent was given,
would stoke claims that the U.S.-led attack on Iraq was motivated by
oil.

The U.S. has denied that. For example, in 2003, then Secretary of
Defence Donald Rumsfeld called the idea "utter nonsense."

Speaking to the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera, he said: "We don't take
our forces, and go around the world and try to take other people's
real estate or other people's resources, their oil. That's just not
what the United States does."

The Independent said signing PSA deals would be a first for a major
oil-exporting country. Saudi Arabia and Iran, the two leading
exporters, both control their oil industries tightly through
state-owned companies.
===
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Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of!

http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande

Mike Vandeman wrote:
Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 15:28:51 -0600
From: "Raging Grannie (Wanda B)"
Subject: Bush Really IS Getting "Victory" In Iraq


Mike, **** off. As if your
ordinary drivel wasn't bad
enough, this is just obvious
flame-bait and completely OT.

It is true it is about oil. But, it was all published in the DOE
website years ago, in the form of charts and figures. Iraq has about
100 years of oil, so they claim. We could be looking at another lie,
because lately, who can we believe? Anyway, the oil is cheaper to
extract (technically that is) than oil in Siberia, or Alaska, or
midwestern shale. So, it saves money for corporations. Global oil
companies will enjoy the benefits of the Iraqi war, while we the
American people, foot the bill for the troops we supplied to protect
their interests. Unfortunately, according to the DOE, most of that oil
is not even coming to America. Yikes!
So, we paid 400 billion dollars, or about $6400 per family to protect
foreign oil interests, while we pay more money at the pump. Meanwhile,
we could easily be powering our cars using methane generated locally
from manure, sewage, and waste. But, the government doesn't like to
fund pig farmer's digesters. What, give them a $100,000 grant?
Never, better buy a missile and blow it up. So, yes, they have
giving us the royal screw.

When are American's going to wake up and do something!

Just read DOE website, it's all there.




Mike Vandeman wrote:
Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 15:28:51 -0600
From: "Raging Grannie (Wanda B)"
Subject: Bush Really IS Getting "Victory" In Iraq

US involved in writing law.....

Three articles

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010807A.shtml

New Oil Law Means Victory in Iraq for Bush
By Chris Floyd
t r u t h o u t | UK Correspondent

Monday 08 January 2007

I. Surging Toward the Ultimate Prize

The reason that George W. Bush insists that "victory" is
achievable in
Iraq is not that he is deluded or isolated or ignorant or detached
from
reality or ill-advised. No, it's that his definition of "victory" is
different from those bruited about in his own rhetoric and in the
ever-earnest disquisitions of the chattering classes in print and
online.
For Bush, victory is indeed at hand. It could come at any moment now,
could
already have been achieved by the time you read this. And the driving
force
behind his planned "surge" of American troops is the need to preserve
those
fruits of victory that are now ripening in his hand.

At any time within the next few days, the Iraqi Council of
Ministers is
expected to approve a new "hydrocarbon law" essentially drawn up by
the
Bush administration and its UK lackey, the Independent on Sunday
reported.
The new bill will "radically redraw the Iraqi oil industry and throw
open
the doors to the third-largest oil reserves in the world," says the
paper,
whose reporters have seen a draft of the new law. "It would allow the
first
large-scale operation of foreign oil companies in the country since
the
industry was nationalized in 1972." If the government's parliamentary
majority prevails, the law should take effect in March.

As the paper notes, the law will give Exxon Mobil, BP, Shell and
other
carbon cronies of the White House unprecedented sweetheart deals,
allowing
them to pump gargantuan profits from Iraq's nominally state-owned
oilfields
for decades to come. This law has been in the works since the very
beginning of the invasion - indeed, since months before the invasion,
when
the Bush administration brought in Phillip Carroll, former CEO of both
Shell and Fluor, the politically-wired oil servicing firm, to devise
"contingency plans" for divvying up Iraq's oil after the attack. Once
the
deed was done, Carroll was made head of the American "advisory
committee"
overseeing the oil industry of the conquered land, as Joshua Holland
of
Alternet.com has chronicled in two remarkable reports on the backroom
maneuvering over Iraq's oil: "Bush's Petro-Cartel Almost Has Iraq's
Oil and
"The US Takeover of Iraqi Oil."

From those earliest days until now, throughout all the twists and
turns, the blood and chaos of the occupation, the Bush administration
has
kept its eye on this prize. The new law offers the barrelling
buccaneers of
the West a juicy set of production-sharing agreements (PSAs) that will
maintain a fig leaf of Iraqi ownership of the nation's oil industry -
while
letting Bush's Big Oil buddies rake off up to 75 percent of all oil
profits
for an indefinite period up front, until they decide that their
"infrastructure investments" have been repaid. Even then, the
agreements
will give the Western oil majors an unheard-of 20 percent of Iraq's
oil
profits - more than twice the average of standard PSAs, the
Independent
notes.

Of course, at the moment, the "security situation" - i.e., the
living
hell of death and suffering that Bush's "war of choice" has wrought in
Iraq
- prevents the Oil Barons from setting up shop in the looted fields.
Hence
Bush's overwhelming urge to "surge" despite the fierce opposition to
his
plans from Congress, the Pentagon and some members of his own party.
Bush
and his inner circle, including his chief adviser, old oilman Dick
Cheney,
believe that a bigger dose of blood and iron in Iraq will produce a
sufficient level of stability to allow the oil majors to cash in the
PSA
chips that more than 3,000 American soldiers have purchased for them
with
their lives.

The American "surge" will be blended into the new draconian effort
announced over the weekend by Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki: an
all-out war by the government's Shiite militia-riddled "security
forces" on
Sunni enclaves in Baghdad, as the Washington Post reports. American
troops
will "support" the "pacification effort" with what Maliki says calls
"house-to-house" sweeps of Sunni areas. There is of course another
phrase
for this kind of operation: "ethnic cleansing."

The "surged" troops - mostly long-serving, overstrained units
dragooned
into extended duty - are to be thrown into this maelstrom of urban
warfare
and ethnic murder, temporarily taking sides with one faction in Iraq's
hydra-headed, multi-sided civil war. As the conflict goes on - and it
will
go on and on - the Bush administration will continue to side with
whatever
faction promises to uphold the "hydrocarbon law" and those profitable
PSAs.
If "Al Qaeda in Iraq" vowed to open the nation's oil spigots for
Exxon,
Fluor and Halliburton, they would suddenly find themselves transformed
from
"terrorists" into "moderates" - as indeed has Maliki and his violent,
sectarian Dawa Party, which once killed Americans in terrorist actions
but
are now hailed as freedom's champions.

So Bush will surge with Maliki and his ethnic cleansing for now.
If the
effort flames out in a disastrous crash that makes the situation worse
- as
it almost certainly will - Bush will simply back another horse. What
he
seeks in Iraq is not freedom or democracy but "stability" - a
government of
any shape or form that will deliver the goods. As the Independent
wryly
noted in its Sunday story, Dick Cheney himself revealed the true goal
of
the war back in 1999, in a speech he gave when he was still CEO of
Halliburton. "Where is the oil going to come from" to slake the
world's
ever-growing thirst, asked Cheney, who then answered his own question:
"The
Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost,
is
still where the prize ultimately lies."

And therein lies another hidden layer of the war. For Iraq not
only has
the world's second largest oil reserves; it also has the world's most
easily retrievable oil. As the Independent succinctly notes: "The
cost-per-barrel of extracting oil in Iraq is among the lowest in the
world
because the reserves are relatively close to the surface. This
contrasts
starkly with the expensive and risky lengths to which the oil industry
must
go to find new reserves elsewhere - witness the super-deep offshore
drilling and cost-intensive techniques needed to extract oil form
Canada's
tar sands."

This is precisely what Cheney was getting at in his 1999 talk to
the
Institute of Petroleum. In a world of dwindling petroleum resources,
those
who control large reserves of cheaply-produced oil will reap
unimaginable
profits - and command the heights of the global economy. It's not just
about profit, of course; control of such resources would offer
tremendous
strategic advantages to anyone who was interested in "full spectrum
domination" of world affairs, which the Bush-Cheney faction and their
outriders among the neo-cons and the "national greatness" fanatics
have
openly sought for years. With its twin engines of corporate greed and
military empire, the war in Iraq is a marriage made in Valhalla.

II. The Win-Win Scenario

And this unholy union is what Bush is really talking about when he
talks about "victory." This is the reason for so much of the drift and
dithering and chaos and incompetence of the occupation: Bush and his
cohorts don't really care what happens on the ground in Iraq - they
care
about what comes out of the ground. The end - profit and dominion -
justifies any means. What happens to the human beings caught up in the
war
is of no ultimate importance; the game is worth any number of broken
candles.

And in plain point of fact, the Bush-Cheney faction - and the
elite
interests they represent - has already won the war in Iraq. I've
touched on
this theme before elsewhere, but it is a reality of the war that is
very
often overlooked, and is worth examining again. This ultimate victory
was
clear as long ago as June 2004, when I first set down the original
version
of some of the updated observations below.

Put simply, the Bush Family and their allies and cronies represent
the
confluence of three long-established power factions in the American
elite:
oil, arms and investments. These groups equate their own interests,
their
own wealth and privilege, with the interests of the nation - indeed,
the
world - as a whole. And they pursue these interests with every weapon
at
their command, including war, torture, deceit and corruption.
Democracy
means nothing to them - not even in their own country, as we saw in
the
2000 election. Laws are just whips to keep the common herd in line;
they
don't apply to the elite, as Bush's own lawyers and minions have
openly
asserted in the memos, signing statements, court cases and
presidential
decrees asserting the "inherent power" of the "unitary executive" to
override any law he pleases.

The Iraq war has been immensely profitable for these Bush-linked
power
factions (and their tributary industries, such as construction);
billions
of dollars in public money have already poured into their coffers.
Halliburton has been catapulted from the edge of bankruptcy to the
heights
of no-bid, open-ended, guaranteed profit. The Carlyle Group is gorging
on
war contracts. Individual Bush family members are making out like
bandits
from war-related investments, while dozens of Bush minions - like
Richard
Perle, James Woolsey, and Joe Allbaugh - have cashed in their insider
chips
for blood money.

The aftermath of the war promises equal if not greater riches.
Even if
the new Iraqi government maintains nominal state control of its oil
industry, there are still untold billions to be made in PSAs for
drilling,
refining, distributing, servicing and securing oilfields and
pipelines.
Likewise, the new Iraqi military and police forces will require
billions
more in weapons, equipment and training, bought from the US arms
industry -
and from the fast-expanding "private security" industry, the
politically
hard-wired mercenary forces that are the power elite's latest
lucrative
spin-off. And as with Saudi Arabia, oil money from the new Iraq will
pump
untold billions into American banks and investment houses.

But that's not all. For even in the worst-case scenario, if the
Americans had to pull out tomorrow, abandoning everything - their
bases,
their contracts, their collaborators - the Bush power factions would
still
come out ahead. For not only has their already-incalculable wealth
been
vastly augmented (with any potential losses indemnified by US
taxpayers),
but their deeply-entrenched sway over American society has also
increased
by several magnitudes. No matter which party controls the government,
the
militarization of America is so far gone now it's impossible to
imagine any
major rollback in the gargantuan US war machine - 725 bases in 132
countries, annual military budgets topping $500 billion, a planned $1
trillion in new weapons systems already moving through the pipeline.
Indeed, the Democratic "opposition" has promised to expand the
military.

Nor will either party conceivably challenge the dominance of the
energy
behemoths - or stand against the American public's demand for cheap
gas,
big vehicles, and unlimited consumption of a vast disproportion of the
world's oil. As for Wall Street - both parties have long been the
eager
courtesans of the investment elite, dispatching armies all over the
world
to protect their financial interests. The power factions whose
influence
has been so magnified by Bush's war will maintain their supremacy
regardless of the electoral outcome.

[By the way, to think that all of this has happened because a
small
band of extremist ideologues - the neo-cons - somehow "hijacked" US
foreign
policy to push their radical dreams of "liberating" the Middle East by
force and destroying Israel's enemies is absurd. The Bush power
factions
were already determined to pursue an aggressive foreign policy; they
used
the neo-cons and their bag of tricks - their inflated rhetoric, their
conspiratorial zeal, their murky Middle East contacts, their ideology
of
brute force in the name of "higher" causes - as tools (and PR cover)
to
help bring about a long-planned war that had nothing to do with
democracy
or security or any coherent ideology whatsoever beyond the remorseless
pursuit of wealth and power, the blind urge to be top dog.]

So Bush and his cohorts have won even if the surge fails and Iraq
lapses into perpetual anarchy, or becomes an extremist religious
state;
they've won even if the whole region goes up in flames, and terrorism
flares to unprecedented heights - because this will just mean more
war-profiteering, more fear-profiteering. And yes, they've won even
though
they've lost their Congressional majority and could well lose the
presidency in 2008, because war and fear will continue to fill their
coffers, buying them continuing influence and power as they bide their
time
through another interregnum of a Democratic "centrist" - who will, at
best,
only nibble at the edges of the militarist state - until they are back
in
the saddle again. The only way they can lose the Iraq War is if they
are
actually arrested and imprisoned for their war crimes. And we all know
that's not going to happen.

So Bush's confident strut, his incessant upbeat pronouncements
about
the war, his complacent smirks, his callous indifference to the
unspeakable
horror he has unleashed in Iraq - these are not the hallmarks of
self-delusion, or willful ignorance, or a disassociation from reality.
He
and his accomplices know full well what the reality is - and they like
it.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...cle2132569.ece



uture of Iraq: The spoils of war





How the West will make a killing on Iraqi oil riches





By Danny Fortson, Andrew Murray-Watson and Tim Webb





Published: 07 January 2007

Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about
to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil
companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before
the Iraqi parliament within days.

The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of
which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big
oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract
Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil
interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.

The huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to
critics who say the Iraq war was fought for oil. They point to
statements such as one from Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said in
1999, while he was still chief executive of the oil services company
Halliburton, that the world would need an additional 50 million
barrels of oil a day by 2010. "So where is the oil going to come
from?... The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the
lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies," he said.

Oil industry executives and analysts say the law, which would permit
Western companies to pocket up to three-quarters of profits in the
early years, is the only way to get Iraq's oil industry back on its
feet after years of sanctions, war and loss of expertise. But it will
operate through "production-sharing agreements" (or PSAs) which are
highly unusual in the Middle East, where the oil industry in Saudi
Arabia and Iran, the world's two largest producers, is state
controlled.

Opponents say Iraq, where oil accounts for 95 per cent of the economy,
is being forced to surrender an unacceptable degree of sovereignty.

Proposing the parliamentary motion for war in 2003, Tony Blair denied
the "false claim" that "we want to seize" Iraq's oil revenues. He said
the money should be put into a trust fund, run by the UN, for the
Iraqis, but the idea came to nothing. The same year Colin Powell, then
Secretary of State, said: "It cost a great deal of money to prosecute
this war. But the oil of the Iraqi people belongs to the Iraqi people;
it is their wealth, it will be used for their benefit. So we did not
do it for oil."

Supporters say the provision allowing oil companies to take up to 75
per cent of the profits will last until they have recouped initial
drilling costs. After that, they would collect about 20 per cent of
all profits, according to industry sources in Iraq. But that is twice
the industry average for such deals.

Greg Muttitt, a researcher for Platform, a human rights and
environmental group which monitors the oil industry, said Iraq was
being asked to pay an enormous price over the next 30 years for its
present instability. "They would lose out massively," he said,
"because they don't have the capacity at the moment to strike a good
deal."

Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister, Barham Salih, who chairs the country's
oil committee, is expected to unveil the legislation as early as
today. "It is a redrawing of the whole Iraqi oil industry [to] a
modern standard," said Khaled Salih, spokesman for the Kurdish
Regional Government, a party to the negotiations. The Iraqi government
hopes to have the law on the books by March.

Several major oil companies are said to have sent teams into the
country in recent months to lobby for deals ahead of the law, though
the big names are considered unlikely to invest until the violence in
Iraq abates.

James Paul, executive director at the Global Policy Forum, the
international government watchdog, said: "It is not an exaggeration to
say that the overwhelming majority of the population would be opposed
to this. To do it anyway, with minimal discussion within the [Iraqi]
parliament is really just pouring more oil on the fire."

Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman and a former
chief economist at Shell, said it was crucial that any deal would
guarantee funds for rebuilding Iraq. "It is absolutely vital that the
revenue from the oil industry goes into Iraqi development and is seen
to do so," he said. "Although it does make sense to collaborate with
foreign investors, it is very important the terms are seen to be
fair."

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/01/08/iraq-oil.html

Iraq to give Western companies control of oilreport
Last UpdatedMonday, January 8, 2007 | 1229 PM ET



http://www.cbc.ca/news/credit.htmlCBC News

The Iraqi government plans to introduce a law that will give control
of the country's huge oil reserves to Western oil companies, a British
newspaper says.

The government is drafting a law based on "production-sharing
agreements (PSAs)," which will give major companies rights on Iraq's
oil for up to 30 years, the Independent on Sunday reported.

It said it had been given a copy of the draft law from last July, and
the draft has not been changed significantly since then.

Critics say the agreements will be bad news for Iraq because they
guarantee profits to the companies while giving little to the country.
With 112 billion barrels, Iraq has the second largest reserves in the
world, the U.S. government says.

Platform, a London-based pressure group that seeks to minimize the
impact of oil companies, says on its website that Iraq endorsed
production-sharing agreements last fall, just as Russia sought to undo
a similar deal it signed in the period of turmoil after the Communist
regime collapsed.

Russia has realized it signed a bad deal to develop a gas project,
which allocated the risk to the government and the profit to the
private sector, Platform said, citing published Russian reports.

"Russia realized the mistakes it made by signing PSA contracts only
when it was too late. It remains to be seen whether Iraq follows the
same course," the group said in October.

Attack on Iraq motivated by oil?

Platform's Greg Muttitt said the U.S. government, international oil
companies and the International Monetary Fund had been asked to
comment on the draft Iraqi legislation, but many members of the Iraqi
parliament have not seen it.

The Independent said Iraq may adopt PSA contracts because it is in a
weak bargaining position.

The legislation, if passed as in the draft the Independent was given,
would stoke claims that the U.S.-led attack on Iraq was motivated by
oil.

The U.S. has denied that. For example, in 2003, then Secretary of
Defence Donald Rumsfeld called the idea "utter nonsense."

Speaking to the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera, he said: "We don't take
our forces, and go around the world and try to take other people's
real estate or other people's resources, their oil. That's just not
what the United States does."

The Independent said signing PSA deals would be a first for a major
oil-exporting country. Saudi Arabia and Iran, the two leading
exporters, both control their oil industries tightly through
state-owned companies.
===
I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to
humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8
years fighting auto dependence and road construction.)

Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of!

http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande

Hey troll boy, this is completely off topic. Please keep your rants at
least contained to mountain biking

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

wrote in
:

On 11 Jan 2007 01:40:22 -0800, in rec.backcountry "ECOCIDE FILES"
wrote:

It is true it is about oil. But, it was all published in the DOE
website years ago, in the form of charts and figures. Iraq has about
100 years of oil, so they claim. We could be looking at another lie,
because lately, who can we believe? Anyway, the oil is cheaper to
extract (technically that is) than oil in Siberia, or Alaska, or
midwestern shale. So, it saves money for corporations. Global oil
companies will enjoy the benefits of the Iraqi war, while we the
American people, foot the bill for the troops we supplied to protect
their interests. Unfortunately, according to the DOE, most of that
oil is not even coming to America. Yikes!
So, we paid 400 billion dollars, or about $6400 per family to protect
foreign oil interests, while we pay more money at the pump. Meanwhile,
we could easily be powering our cars using methane generated locally
from manure, sewage, and waste. But, the government doesn't like to
fund pig farmer's digesters. What, give them a $100,000 grant?
Never, better buy a missile and blow it up. So, yes, they have
giving us the royal screw.

When are American's going to wake up and do something!

Just read DOE website, it's all there.


I was out protesting this "war" before it even started. It's good to
see the rest of the country is finally waking up to the reality of the
situation but a shame that it took so long. Alarmingly 50% of
Americans still believe that Iraq had something to do with 9-11.


What I find even more amazing, is that most Americans still believe that
Al-Qaeda had something to with 911. (Hint: it was the Bush
administration)


--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Ale Brewer wrote:
wrote in
:


On 11 Jan 2007 01:40:22 -0800, in rec.backcountry "ECOCIDE FILES"
wrote:


It is true it is about oil. But, it was all published in the DOE
website years ago, in the form of charts and figures. Iraq has about
100 years of oil, so they claim. We could be looking at another lie,
because lately, who can we believe? Anyway, the oil is cheaper to
extract (technically that is) than oil in Siberia, or Alaska, or
midwestern shale. So, it saves money for corporations. Global oil
companies will enjoy the benefits of the Iraqi war, while we the
American people, foot the bill for the troops we supplied to protect
their interests. Unfortunately, according to the DOE, most of that
oil is not even coming to America. Yikes!
So, we paid 400 billion dollars, or about $6400 per family to protect
foreign oil interests, while we pay more money at the pump. Meanwhile,
we could easily be powering our cars using methane generated locally

from manure, sewage, and waste. But, the government doesn't like to

fund pig farmer's digesters. What, give them a $100,000 grant?
Never, better buy a missile and blow it up. So, yes, they have
giving us the royal screw.

When are American's going to wake up and do something!

Just read DOE website, it's all there.


I was out protesting this "war" before it even started. It's good to
see the rest of the country is finally waking up to the reality of the
situation but a shame that it took so long. Alarmingly 50% of
Americans still believe that Iraq had something to do with 9-11.



What I find even more amazing, is that most Americans still believe that
Al-Qaeda had something to with 911. (Hint: it was the Bush
administration)


You aren't seriously suggesting they crashed planes into their own
buildings now are you? Perhaps you need to lay off the ale for a while?
BTW, all grain or specialty grain or kits?

wrote:
On 11 Jan 2007 01:40:22 -0800, in rec.backcountry "ECOCIDE FILES"
wrote:

It is true it is about oil. But, it was all published in the DOE
website years ago, in the form of charts and figures. Iraq has about
100 years of oil, so they claim. We could be looking at another lie,
because lately, who can we believe? Anyway, the oil is cheaper to
extract (technically that is) than oil in Siberia, or Alaska, or
midwestern shale. So, it saves money for corporations. Global oil
companies will enjoy the benefits of the Iraqi war, while we the
American people, foot the bill for the troops we supplied to protect
their interests. Unfortunately, according to the DOE, most of that oil
is not even coming to America. Yikes!
So, we paid 400 billion dollars, or about $6400 per family to protect
foreign oil interests, while we pay more money at the pump. Meanwhile,
we could easily be powering our cars using methane generated locally
from manure, sewage, and waste. But, the government doesn't like to
fund pig farmer's digesters. What, give them a $100,000 grant?
Never, better buy a missile and blow it up. So, yes, they have
giving us the royal screw.

When are American's going to wake up and do something!

Just read DOE website, it's all there.


I was out protesting this "war" before it even started. It's good to see the
rest of the country is finally waking up to the reality of the situation but a
shame that it took so long. Alarmingly 50% of Americans still believe that Iraq
had something to do with 9-11.

Thank god there are always losers like you to say "I told you so" and "I
thought of it first". Get a life. The most important thing isn't how
smart you think you are, and comments like yours above illustrate your
focus is on self-satisfied smugness rather than the well-being of, say,
the rest of the world's peoples.

cc wrote:
wrote:
On 11 Jan 2007 01:40:22 -0800, in rec.backcountry "ECOCIDE FILES"
wrote:

It is true it is about oil. But, it was all published in the DOE
website years ago, in the form of charts and figures. Iraq has about
100 years of oil, so they claim. We could be looking at another lie,
because lately, who can we believe? Anyway, the oil is cheaper to
extract (technically that is) than oil in Siberia, or Alaska, or
midwestern shale. So, it saves money for corporations. Global oil
companies will enjoy the benefits of the Iraqi war, while we the
American people, foot the bill for the troops we supplied to protect
their interests. Unfortunately, according to the DOE, most of that oil
is not even coming to America. Yikes!
So, we paid 400 billion dollars, or about $6400 per family to protect
foreign oil interests, while we pay more money at the pump. Meanwhile,
we could easily be powering our cars using methane generated locally
from manure, sewage, and waste. But, the government doesn't like to
fund pig farmer's digesters. What, give them a $100,000 grant?
Never, better buy a missile and blow it up. So, yes, they have
giving us the royal screw.

When are American's going to wake up and do something!

Just read DOE website, it's all there.


I was out protesting this "war" before it even started. It's good to
see the
rest of the country is finally waking up to the reality of the
situation but a
shame that it took so long. Alarmingly 50% of Americans still believe
that Iraq
had something to do with 9-11.

Thank god there are always losers like you to say "I told you so" and "I
thought of it first". Get a life. The most important thing isn't how
smart you think you are, and comments like yours above illustrate your
focus is on self-satisfied smugness rather than the well-being of, say,
the rest of the world's peoples.
Isn't this subject more appropriate for the alt idiots newsgroup

wizardB wrote:
cc wrote:
wrote:
On 11 Jan 2007 01:40:22 -0800, in rec.backcountry "ECOCIDE FILES"
wrote:

It is true it is about oil. But, it was all published in the DOE
website years ago, in the form of charts and figures. Iraq has about
100 years of oil, so they claim. We could be looking at another lie,
because lately, who can we believe? Anyway, the oil is cheaper to
extract (technically that is) than oil in Siberia, or Alaska, or
midwestern shale. So, it saves money for corporations. Global oil
companies will enjoy the benefits of the Iraqi war, while we the
American people, foot the bill for the troops we supplied to protect
their interests. Unfortunately, according to the DOE, most of that oil
is not even coming to America. Yikes!
So, we paid 400 billion dollars, or about $6400 per family to protect
foreign oil interests, while we pay more money at the pump. Meanwhile,
we could easily be powering our cars using methane generated locally
from manure, sewage, and waste. But, the government doesn't like to
fund pig farmer's digesters. What, give them a $100,000 grant?
Never, better buy a missile and blow it up. So, yes, they have
giving us the royal screw.

When are American's going to wake up and do something!

Just read DOE website, it's all there.


I was out protesting this "war" before it even started. It's good to
see the
rest of the country is finally waking up to the reality of the
situation but a
shame that it took so long. Alarmingly 50% of Americans still
believe that Iraq
had something to do with 9-11.

Thank god there are always losers like you to say "I told you so" and
"I thought of it first". Get a life. The most important thing isn't
how smart you think you are, and comments like yours above illustrate
your focus is on self-satisfied smugness rather than the well-being
of, say, the rest of the world's peoples.
Isn't this subject more appropriate for the alt idiots newsgroup

yes. or alt.douchebag or rec.arguing or rec.pontificating

cc wrote:
wizardB wrote:
cc wrote:
wrote:
On 11 Jan 2007 01:40:22 -0800, in rec.backcountry "ECOCIDE FILES"
wrote:

It is true it is about oil. But, it was all published in the DOE
website years ago, in the form of charts and figures. Iraq has about
100 years of oil, so they claim. We could be looking at another lie,
because lately, who can we believe? Anyway, the oil is cheaper to
extract (technically that is) than oil in Siberia, or Alaska, or
midwestern shale. So, it saves money for corporations. Global oil
companies will enjoy the benefits of the Iraqi war, while we the
American people, foot the bill for the troops we supplied to protect
their interests. Unfortunately, according to the DOE, most of that oil
is not even coming to America. Yikes!
So, we paid 400 billion dollars, or about $6400 per family to protect
foreign oil interests, while we pay more money at the pump. Meanwhile,
we could easily be powering our cars using methane generated locally
from manure, sewage, and waste. But, the government doesn't like to
fund pig farmer's digesters. What, give them a $100,000 grant?
Never, better buy a missile and blow it up. So, yes, they have
giving us the royal screw.

When are American's going to wake up and do something!

Just read DOE website, it's all there.


I was out protesting this "war" before it even started. It's good to
see the
rest of the country is finally waking up to the reality of the
situation but a
shame that it took so long. Alarmingly 50% of Americans still
believe that Iraq
had something to do with 9-11.

Thank god there are always losers like you to say "I told you so" and
"I thought of it first". Get a life. The most important thing isn't
how smart you think you are, and comments like yours above illustrate
your focus is on self-satisfied smugness rather than the well-being
of, say, the rest of the world's peoples.
Isn't this subject more appropriate for the alt idiots newsgroup

yes. or alt.douchebag or rec.arguing or rec.pontificating

alt.delusional.hickey.sornson.