Crude Truths About Iraq

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.rollingstone.com/nationalaffairs/index.php/2007/10/11/crude-truths-about-iraq/

Iraq has 115 billion barrels of known oil reserves. That is more than five times the total in the United States. And, because of its long isolation, it is the least explored of the world’s oil-rich nations. A mere two thousand wells have been drilled across the entire country; in Texas alone there are a million. It has been estimated, by the Council on Foreign Relations, that Iraq may have a further 220 billion barrels of undiscovered oil; another study puts the figure at 300 billion. If these estimates are anywhere close to the mark, US forces are now sitting on one quarter of the world’s oil resources. The value of Iraqi oil, largely light crude with low production costs, would be of the order of $30 trillion at today’s prices. For purposes of comparison, the projected total cost of the US invasion/occupation is around $1 trillion.

Who will get Iraq’s oil? One of the Bush administration’s ‘benchmarks’ for the Iraqi government is the passage of a law to distribute oil revenues. The draft law that the US has written for the Iraqi congress would cede nearly all the oil to Western companies. The Iraq National Oil Company would retain control of 17 of Iraq’s 80 existing oilfields, leaving the rest – including all yet to be discovered oil – under foreign corporate control for 30 years.

‘The foreign companies would not have to invest their earnings in the Iraqi economy,’ the analyst Antonia Juhasz wrote in the New York Times in March, after the draft law was leaked. ‘They could even ride out Iraq’s current “instability” by signing contracts now, while the Iraqi government is at its weakest, and then wait at least two years before even setting foot in the country.’ As negotiations over the oil law stalled in September, the provincial government in Kurdistan simply signed a separate deal with the Dallas-based Hunt Oil Company, headed by a close political ally of President Bush.

How will the US maintain hegemony over Iraqi oil? By establishing permanent military bases in Iraq. Five self-sufficient ‘super-bases’ are in various stages of completion….

-- Tim Dickinson

[nightrider767]

1. There ya go with the truthyness again

You nailed it. As soon as I heard Dubya running his mouth, really pushing the passage of the Iraqi oil bill, I knew I had to look into it right away. I've got a system, anytime Bush pushes for something, rest assured, some form of corruption or cronyism is at hand.

But nothings been signed yet, I'm starting to almost get the feeling that the Iraqi's are starting to understand they're being ripped off. But it takes more than the Iraqi's as a whole. I think their whole government stinks worse than the docks at low tide. One of my favorite people, Chalabi, the guy who was payed $30 million to feed us fake information so we'd go to war. Guess what he's doing now? You got it, oil minister. It's a disgrace. These people have no shame.

And rest assured, all that oil, it sure as hell ain't going to pay to rebuild our military or help the dead soldier's orphans. The oil companies who get the contracts will keep the oil and sell it to the highest bidder.

I tell you, I hope the next wave of internet forums and connectivity will reach across borders, so that we may discuss these issues with the people most affected. In this case the Iraqi's.

It's no wonder Americans have to hide their identities when we travel over seas.

Disgraceful.

[SergeyDovlatov]

2. Fighting for oil is such a stupid idea

It does not matter which country controls the oil. US will always have access to oil at the market price.

Even if US government takes ownership of Iraqi oil and try to sell it below the market price, some lucky person will buy it cheap and immediately resell it at the market price and pockets the profit.

Does japan have problem with oil? It does not have a single oil well, but doing just fine.

[TahitiNut]

3. Some believe it was a US oil embargo of Japan that led to Pearl Harbor.

The fact of the matter is that a global military power is MOST vulnerable to an oil embargo ... because the military machines cannot operate without that black gold. That's the stated reason for the Strategic Oil Reserve ... a supply for the US's global military.

So, the question is, how would other nations, without a comparable military might, establish an oil embargo? Well, by merely shutting down shipments to the US ... or turning off the spigots ... or by blowing up the wells. That means a paranoid global military power (and what global military power isn't paranoid?) would be compelled (OCD don'tcha know) to place their military right on top of the source.

[SergeyDovlatov]

4. true... if you want to wage a war, you need physical access to resources.

True.

When I wrote my previous post I had a peaceful world in mind.
Japan did want to be a player in the redraw ring the borders of the world and thus wanted to make sure that it can get oil without other countries denying it that ability.

Hmm. I wonder. Could it be the motivation for US as well?