Now it really is all about oil

In the 21st century's version of the "Great Game" of 19th century imperialism, the Bush administration made a colossal gamble that Iraq could become a kind of West Germany or South Korea on the Persian Gulf - a federal republic with a robust, oil-exporting economy, a rising standard of living, and a set of US bases that would guarantee lasting American domination of the most resource-strategic region on the planet.

The political half of that gamble has already been lost, but the Bush administration has proven adamantly unwilling to accept the loss of the economic half, the oil half, without a desperate fight. Perhaps the five super-bases that the US has been constructing in Iraq for as many as 20,000 troops each, plus the ill-built super-embassy (the largest on the planet) it has been constructing inside Baghdad's Green Zone, will suffice to maintain American control over the oil reserves, even in defiance of international law and the officially stated wishes of the Iraqi people - but perhaps not.

It's sad but true - we here in the US must go to the overseas press to find out what's really going on in Iraq and what it means. Jack Miles writing in the Asia Times explains that Iraq's sudden independence and interest in sovereignty may not bode well for the Bush administration's lust for control of Iraq's oil.
Oil: The sovereignty showdown in Iraq

In any case, a kind of slow-motion showdown may lie not so far ahead; and, during the past weeks, we may have been given a clue as to how it could unfold. Recall that after the gunning down of at least 17 Iraqis in a Baghdad square, Prime Minister Maliki demanded that the State Department dismiss and punish the trigger-happy private security firm, Blackwater USA, which was responsible for the safety of American diplomatic personnel in Iraq. He further demanded that the immunity former occupation head L Paul Bremer III had granted, in 2004, to all such private security firms be revoked. Startled, the Bush administration briefly grounded its diplomatic operations, then defiantly resumed them - with security still provided by Blackwater. Within days, though, Bush found himself face-to-face in New York with Maliki for discussions whose topic National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley revealingly named as "Iraqi sovereignty". Who would blink first?

We're still waiting to see, but in the wake of an Iraqi investigation that ended with a demand for $8 million compensation for each of the 17 murdered Baghdadis, Blackwater is reportedly "on its way out" of security responsibility in Iraq, probably by the six-month deadline that Maliki has demanded. Despite its disgrace, the well-connected private security company continues to win lucrative State Department security contracts. Blackwater expert Jeremy Scahill told Bill Moyers that losing the Iraq gig would only slightly affect Blackwater's bottom line, but could grievously inconvenience US diplomatic operations in Iraq. In forcing such a crisis on the State Department, the Maliki government, whose powerlessness has been an assumption unchallenged from left or right (in or out of Iraq), suddenly looks a good deal stronger.

So what does this sudden independence mean for the oil? The Iraqis may want the same deal their neighbors have.

By December 31, 2008, according to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, the government of Iraq intends to have replaced the existing mandate for a multinational security force with a conventional bilateral security agreement with the United States - an agreement of the sort that Washington has with Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and several other countries in the Middle East.

The Security Council has always paired the annual renewal of its mandate for the multinational force with the renewal of a second mandate for the management of Iraqi oil revenues. This happens through the "Development Fund for Iraq", a kind of escrow account set up by the occupying powers after the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime and recognized in 2003 by UN Security Council Resolution 1483. The oil game will be up if and when Iraq announces that this mandate, too, will be terminated at a date certain in favor of resource-development agreements that - like the envisioned security agreement - match those of other states in the region.

The game will be up because, as Antonia Juhasz pointed out last March in a New York Times op-ed, "Whose Oil Is It, Anyway?":

Iraq's neighbors Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia ... have outlawed foreign control over oil development. They all hire international oil companies as contractors to provide specific services as needed, for a limited duration, and without giving the foreign company any direct interest in the oil produced.

By contrast, the oil legislation now pending in the Iraqi parliament awards foreign oil companies coveted, long-term, 20-35 year contracts of just the sort that neighboring oil producers have rejected for decades. It also places the Iraqi oil industry under the control of an appointed body that would include representatives of international oil companies as full voting members.

The news that the duly elected government of Iraq is exercising its limited sovereignty to set a date for termination of the American occupation radically undercuts all discussion in the US Congress or by American presidential candidates of how soon the US occupation of Iraq may "safely" end. Yet if, by the same route, Iraq were to resume full and independent control over the world's third-largest proven oil reserves - 200 to 300 million barrels of light crude worth as much as $30 trillion at today's prices - a politically incorrect question might break rudely out of the Internet universe and into the mainstream media world, into, that is, the open: Has the Iraq war been an oil war from the outset?

Of course in spite of all it's talk the Bush administration never wanted a sovereign Iraqi government - they wanted as puppet. It would appear that the Iraqis are not willing to go along.

All that oil

Perhaps Dick Cheney's oil friends will start to lose interest in Dick's war.
UPDATE: Gunmen Blow Up Iraq's North Export Pipeline -Official

AMMAN -(Dow Jones)- Unknown attackers have blown up part of an Iraqi pipeline that pumps crude oil from Kirkuk oil fields to the Turkish export terminal, Ceyhan, a senior Iraqi oil official and a shipping agent said Wednesday.

"The pipeline was attacked and damaged Tuesday," the official told Dow Jones Newswires by telephone from Baghdad.

The attack took place in the section of the pipeline connecting the oil-rich city of Kirkuk to the Baiji, home to Iraq's largest oil refinery. Iraq usually pumps Kirkuk crude oil to the refinery, 250 kilometers north of Baghdad, which takes what it needs before it pumps the rest to Ceyhan.

The official said the pipeline blast was "catastrophic" as it caused huge quantities of crude oil to spill into the Tigris River.

It isn't known yet how long it will take the Iraqi authorities to repair the damaged pipeline.

A Middle East shipping agent based in Ceyhan, through which Iraq exports its Kirkuk crude to Europe, confirmed the flow of oil via the export pipeline was on hold Wednesday.

The agent expected damage to the pipeline to delay or cancel a tender announced last week by the country's crude oil marketing arm, SOMO, to sell 5 million barrels.

Cheney's invasion and occupation of Iraq for oil isn't working out any better than the rest of the war. There are plenty of insurgents to insure that the US doesn't get their hands on Iraqi oil.

Boy that surge sure is working isn't it?

It's the oil stupid

U.S. Warns Iraq That Progress Is Needed Soon

BAGHDAD, June 11 — The top American military commander for the Middle East has warned Iraq’s prime minister in a closed-door conversation that the Iraqi government needs to make tangible political progress by next month to counter the growing tide of opposition to the war in Congress.

And so exactly what is "tangible political progress"? You guessed it - the bill that gives away much of the Iraqi's oil to Exxon, Chevron, BP and Shell.

In a Sunday afternoon discussion that mixed gentle coaxing with a sober appraisal of politics in Baghdad and Washington, the commander, Adm. William J. Fallon, told Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki that the Iraqi government should aim to complete a law on the division of oil proceeds by next month.

As Julian E. Barnes reported a couple of weeks ago the passage of the oil "sharing" law is considered a long shot.

Enactment of a new law to share Iraq's oil revenue among Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish regions is the only goal they think might be achieved in time, and even that is considered a long shot.

The Iraqi parliament may not agree on much but they seem to share a lack of enthusiasm for giving away Iraq's oil wealth to the Cheney administration and big oil.

The occupation of Iraq will end when the Cheney oil cabal finally recognizes they won't be able to get their hands on the oil. When they realize the cookie jar is closed.

Carbon offsets - a gimmick?

“The worst of the carbon-offset programs resemble the Catholic Church’s sale of indulgences back before the Reformation,” said Denis Hayes, the president of the Bullitt Foundation, an environmental grant-making group.

The New York Times asks a very good question that needs to be asked.
Carbon-Neutral Is Hip, but Is It Green?

In addition to the celebrities — Leo, Brad, George — politicians like John Edwards and Hillary Clinton are now running, at least part of the time, carbon-neutral campaigns. A lengthening list of big businesses — international banks, London’s taxi fleet, luxury airlines — also claim “carbon neutrality.” Silverjet, a plush new trans-Atlantic carrier, bills itself as the first fully carbon-neutral airline. It puts about $28 of each round-trip ticket into a fund for global projects that, in theory, squelch as much carbon dioxide as the airline generates — about 1.2 tons per passenger, the airline says.

Also, a largely unregulated carbon-cutting business has sprung up. In this market, consultants or companies estimate a person’s or company’s output of greenhouse gases. Then, these businesses sell “offsets,” which pay for projects elsewhere that void or sop up an equal amount of emissions — say, by planting trees or, as one new company proposes, fertilizing the ocean so algae can pull the gas out of the air. Recent counts by Business Week magazine and several environmental watchdog groups tally the trade in offsets at more than $100 million a year and growing blazingly fast.

But is the carbon-neutral movement just a gimmick?

On this, environmentalists aren’t neutral, and they don’t agree. Some believe it helps build support, but others argue that these purchases don’t accomplish anything meaningful — other than giving someone a slightly better feeling (or greener reputation) after buying a 6,000-square-foot house or passing the million-mile mark in a frequent-flier program. In fact, to many environmentalists, the carbon-neutral campaign is a sign of the times — easy on the sacrifice and big on the consumerism.

I come down on the gimmick side. Little more than a way for people to feel good about NOT doing what really needs to be done if we are serious about reducing dependency of fossil fuel and reducing CO₂. For all the hype about alternative energy sources there are none that will come close to replacing our current consumption of fossil fuels. The only way to reduce CO₂ emissions is to use less energy - a lot less energy. Now few people want to make that change and in fact without major infrastructure changes we can't. The entire carbon offset gimmick is one of the things that leads me to believe that nothing is going to happen to slow global warming or reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. It will happen in 50 to 100 years - when it's all gone - but not before in spite of all the warnings. I'm sure there were one or two individuals on Easter Island who warned people about cutting down all the trees. Few listened then and few are willing to make the short term sacrifices now.

Crazy Cheney's bad trip!

Dick Cheney went to Pakistan and chewed out Musharraf who told him to mind his own business after he left for Afghanistan where he was attacked by insurgents, probably from Pakistan. To make matters worse Condi Rice apparently got to George W. Bush while he was gone.
U.S. Set to Join Iran and Syria in Talks on Iraq

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 — American officials said Tuesday that they had agreed to hold the highest-level contact with the Iranian authorities in more than two years as part of an international meeting on Iraq.

The discussions, scheduled for the next two months, are expected to include Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Iranian and Syrian counterparts.

The announcement, first made in Baghdad and confirmed by Ms. Rice, that the United States would take part in two sets of meetings among Iraq and its neighbors, including Syria and Iran, is a shift in President Bush’s avoidance of high-level contacts with the governments in Damascus and, especially, Tehran.

So what changed? Could it have something to do with this?
Iraqis Agree Oil Deal to Spread the Wealth
The Gun Toting Liberal thinks so.

Well now it’s clear to me why this is happening. There is money to be made in Iraq! Gunny, you can stop slapping me upside the head now. Thanks. Mike and Alex you can stop too! “Surge” didn’t read the Governor’s piece or mine. He was simply being “Surge” again.

Now that the Iraqi government has reached an agreement to share the wealth of it’s very profitable oil fields it is more than okay for the evil doers in the region to sit at a table and talk with our nation. Is it just me or is this the administration you have to always follow the flow of oil and money in order to find out what they will do next? If that is true then hypothetically, if the oil fields in Iraq started to run dry, President Bush would have our troops home in a matter of days! Why would we need our troops there if it was just a damn desert with no economical value to the Republicans United States of America?

This meeting will be about the money and not the peace. Before the war, Iraq was supposedly up there in the ranking as one of the larger producers of oil at two to four million barrels a day. I may be wrong on that fact but the truth of the matter is that Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Oklahoma are probably pumping out more oil today than Iraq. That can only mean somewhere there is an oil bazzillionaire whose checkbook is not balancing out. Twenty something zeros are missing on the end amount on the old ledger balance sheet.

That's right, the invasion of Iraq always was all about oil and money. Now that Exxon/Mobile, Shell and Chevron can make big bucks peace is now important. There is more money to be made with oil than war. James Baker III new this and that's why he wanted to talk to Iran.

Update
Steve Soto agrees that the administraion is now ready to talk because with the new Iraqi Oil Law they have won the "real" war.

It is and always was all about oil

This received absolutely no attention in the US media.
New Oil Law Means Victory in Iraq for Bush

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."

I remained convinced that it was necessary for Cheney to keep his energy task force secret because months before 911 it had divided up Iraq's oil among the major oil companies. The administration planned to over throw Saddam and privatize Iraq's vast oil resources long before the war on terror. They spent so much time looking at the oil reserves that they didn't spend any time looking at the culture and political situation in Iraq and had no plans on how to deal with the religious and ethnic civil war that began shortly after Saddam's removal. The initial plan called for putting another brutal tyrant in charge, one that was US friendly. That didn't work out and it has been down hill since the initial invasion. The "surge" for oil is one last attempt to secure the country for easy pillaging by Exon-Mobil, BP and Chevron. Is it going to work? We have seen that the generals in charge didn't think so. Bush listened to them and then fired them. So how do the troops on the line feel? Nancy A. Youssef of McClatchy tells us Soldiers doubt an influx of American troops will benefit Iraqi army

On Wednesday night, President Bush is expected to announce that he's sending thousands more American soldiers to Iraq as part of a new plan to overcome the country's widening sectarian violence. But to many of the U.S. soldiers who already are struggling to prepare Iraqi troops in Diyala province say that more Americans won't solve Iraq's problems.


"The Iraqis will accept mediocrity," said Staff Sgt. Luke Alphonso, a U.S. Army medic from Morgan City, La., who's been assigned to train members of Iraq's 5th Army Division for the past six months. "They will let us do everything" for them.


In the end, no matter what the Americans do, the Iraqis will find their own way, the U.S. commander of the trainers here said.


"There is no doubt in my mind that when the coalition does leave that this situation will get resolved within a fairly short period of time. These people will figure it out. It may be ugly. It may be very ugly. But they will figure it out," said Lt. Col. Jody Creekmore, who arrived in Iraq last summer from Huntsville, Ala., leaving behind his three teenage children.

Now nearly everyone agrees that this is Bush's Cheney's last chance to achieve US hegemony over Iraqi oil. Most also agree that it won't work.