There it is -- in Bush's emergency appropriation bill -- OIL IS THE REASON FOR THE WAR

Finally, Bush admits the Iraq war is about seizing Iraq's oil.

QUOTE

George Bush?s Land Mine:
If the Iraqi People Get Revenue Sharing, They Lose Their Oil to Exxon

by Richard Behan
George Bush has a land mine planted in the supplemental appropriation
legislation working its way through Congress.

The Iraq Accountability Act passed by the House and the companion bill
passed in the Senate contain deadlines for withdrawing our troops from Iraq,
in open defiance of the President?s repeated objections.

He threatens a veto, but he might well be bluffing. Buried deep in the
legislation and intentionally obscured is a near-guarantee of success for
the Bush Administration?s true objective of the war-capturing Iraq?s oil-and
George Bush will not casually forego that.

This bizarre circumstance is the end-game of the brilliant, ever-deceitful
maneuvering by the Bush Administration in conducting the entire scenario of
the ?global war on terror.?

The supplemental appropriation package requires the Iraqi government to meet
a series of ?benchmarks? President Bush established in his speech to the
nation on January 10 (in which he made his case for the ?surge?). Most of
Mr. Bush?s benchmarks are designed to blame the victim, forcing the Iraqis
to solve the problems George Bush himself created.

One of the President?s benchmarks, however, stands apart. This is how the
President described it: ?To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country?s
economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis.?
A seemingly decent, even noble concession. That?s all Mr. Bush said about
that benchmark, but his brevity was gravely misleading, and it had to be
intentional.

The Iraqi Parliament has before it today, in fact, a bill called the
hydrocarbon law, and it does call for revenue sharing among Sunnis, Shiites,
and Kurds. For President Bush, this is a must-have law, and it is the only
?benchmark? that truly matters to his Administration.

Yes, revenue sharing is there-essentially in fine print, essentially
trivial. The bill is long and complex, it has been years in the making, and
its primary purpose is transformational in scope: a radical and wholesale
reconstruction-virtual privatization-of the currently nationalized Iraqi oil
industry.

If passed, the law will make available to Exxon/Mobil, Chevron/Texaco,
BP/Amoco, and Royal Dutch/Shell about 4/5?s of the stupendous petroleum
reserves in Iraq. That is the wretched goal of the Bush Administration, and
in his speech setting the revenue-sharing ?benchmark? Mr. Bush consciously
avoided any hint of it.

The legislation pending now in Washington requires the President to certify
to Congress by next October that the benchmarks have been met-specifically
that the Iraqi hydrocarbon law has been passed. That?s the land mine: he
will certify the American and British oil companies have access to Iraqi
oil. This is not likely what Congress intended, but it is precisely what Mr.
Bush has sought for the better part of six years.

It is why we went to war.

For years President Bush has cloaked his intentions behind the fabricated
?Global War on Terrorism.? It has long been suspected that oil drove the
wars, but dozens of skilled and determined writers have documented it. It is
no longer a matter of suspicion, nor is it speculation now: it is sordid
fact. (See a brief summary of the story at
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/47489/ . )

Planning for the two wars was underway almost immediately upon the Bush
Administration taking office?at least six months before September 11, 2001.
The wars had nothing to do with terrorism. Terrorism was initially rejected
by the new Administration as unworthy of national concern and public policy,
but 9/11 gave them a conveniently timed and spectacular alibi to undertake
the wars. Quickly inventing a catchy ?global war on terror? theme, the
Administration disguised the true nature of the wars very cleverly, and with
enduring success.

The ?global war on terror? is bogus. The prime terrorist in Afghanistan and
the architect of 9/11, Osama bin Laden, was never apprehended, and the
President?s subsequent indifference is a matter of record. And Iraq harbored
no terrorists at all. But both countries were invaded, both countries suffer
military occupation today, both are dotted with permanent U.S. military
bases protecting the hydrocarbon assets, and both have been provided with
puppet governments.

And a billion dollar embassy in Baghdad is under construction now. It will
be the largest U.S. embassy in the world by a factor of ten. (To see it, go
to
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20070124&articleId=4579
..) It consists of 21 buildings on 104 acres, six times larger than the
United Nations compound in New York city, larger than Vatican City. It will
house a delegation of more than five thousand people. It will have its own
water, electric, and sewage systems, and it is surrounded by a fortress wall
of concrete fifteen feet thick. For an Administration committed to fighting
terrorism with armies and bombs, that?s far more anti-terror diplomacy than
a tiny country needs. There must be another purpose for it.

In the first two months of the Bush Administration two significant events
took place that preordained the Iraqi war. Vice President Cheney?s Energy
Task Force was created, composed of federal officials and oil industry
people. By March of 2001, half a year before 9/11, the Task Force was poring
secretly over maps of the Iraqi oil fields, pipe lines, and tanker
terminals. It studied a listing of foreign oil company ?suitors? for
exploration and development contracts, to be executed with Saddam Hussein?s
oil ministry. There was not a single American or British oil company
included, and to Mr. Cheney and his cohorts that was intolerable. The final
report of the Task Force was candid: ?? Middle East oil producers will
remain central to world security. The Gulf will be a primary focus of U.S.
international energy policy.? The detailed meaning of ?focus? was left
blank.

The other event was the first meeting of President Bush?s National Security
Council, and it filled in the blank. The Council abandoned abruptly the
decades-long attempt to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and set a
new priority for Middle East foreign policy instead: the invasion of Iraq.
This, too, was six months before 9/11. ?Focus? would mean war.

By the fall of 2002, the White House Iraq Group-a collection not of foreign
policy experts but of media and public relations people-was cranking up the
marketing campaign for the war. A contract was signed with the Halliburton
Corporation-even before military force in Iraq had been authorized by
Congress-to organize the suppression of oil well fires, should Saddam torch
the fields as he had done in the first Gulf War. Little was left to chance.

The oil industry is the primary client and top-ranked beneficiary of the
Bush Administration. There can be no question the Administration intended to
secure for American oil corporations the rich petroleum resources of Iraq:
115 billion barrels of proven reserves, twice that in probable and possible
resources, potentially far more than Saudi Arabia. The Energy Task Force
spoke to this and the National Security Council answered.

A secret NSC memorandum in 2001 spoke candidly of ?actions regarding the
capture of new and existing oil and gas fields? in Iraq. In 2002 Paul
Wolfowitz suggested simply seizing the oil fields. These words and
suggestions were draconian, overt, and reprehensible-morally, historically,
politically and diplomatically. The seizure of the oil would have to be
oblique and far more sophisticated.

A year before the war the State Department undertook the ?Future of Iraq?
project, expressly to design the institutional contours of the postwar
country.
The ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­?Oil
and Energy Working Group? looked with dismay at the National Iraqi Oil
Company, the government agency that owned and operated the Iraqi oil fields
and marketed the products. 100% of the revenues went directly to the central
government, and constituted about 90% of its income. Saddam Hussein
benefited, certainly-his lavish palaces-but the Iraqi people did so to a far
greater extent, in terms of the nation?s public services and physical
infrastructure. For this reason nationalized oil industries are the norm
throughout the world.

The Oil and Energy Working Group designed a scheme that was oblique and
sophisticated, indeed. The oil seizure would be less than total. It would be
obscured in complexity. The apparent responsibility for it would be shifted,
and it would be disguised as benefiting, even necessary to Iraq?s well
being. Their work was supremely ingenious, undeniably brilliant.

The plan would keep the National Iraqi Oil Company in place, to continue
overseeing the currently producing fields. But those fields represent only
19% of Iraq?s petroleum reserves. The other 81% would be flung open to
?investment? by foreign oil interests, and the companies in favored
positions today-because of the war and their political connections-are
Exxon/Mobil, Chevron/Texaco, BP/Amoco, and Royal Dutch/Shell.

The nationalized industry would be 80% privatized.

The investment vehicle would be the ?production sharing agreement,? a
long-term contract-up to 40 years-that grants to the company a share of the
oil produced; in exchange, the company underwrites the development costs and
oilfield infrastructure. Such ?investment? is touted by the Bush
Administration and its puppets in Iraq as necessary to the country?s
recovery, and a huge benefit, accordingly. But it is not unusual for these
contracts to grant the companies more than half the profits for the first
15-30 years, and to deny the host country any revenue at all until the
investment costs have been recovered.

The Iraqi oil industry does very much need a great deal of investment
capital, to repair, replace, and upgrade its infrastructure. But it does not
need Exxon/Mobil or any other foreign company to provide it. At a reduced
level, Iraq is still producing oil and hence revenue, and no country in the
world, perhaps, has better collateral against which to float bond issues for
public investment. Privatization of any sort and in any degree is utterly
unnecessary in Iraq today.

The features of the State Department plan were inserted by Paul Bremer?s
Provisional Coalition Authority into the developing structures of Iraqi
governance. American oil companies were omnipresent in Baghdad then and have
been since, shaping and shepherding the plan through the several iterations
of puppet governments-the ?democracy? said to be taking hold in Iraq.

The package today is in the form of draft legislation, the hydrocarbon law.
Only a handful of Iraqi officials know its details. Virtually none of them
had a hand in its construction. (It was first written in English.) And its
exclusive beneficiaries are the American and British oil companies, whose
profits will come directly from the pockets of the Iraqi people.

The Iraqi people do, however, benefit to some degree. The seizure is not
total. The hydrocarbon law specifies the oil revenues-the residue accruing
to Iraq-will be shared equally among the Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish regions,
on a basis of population. This is the feature President Bush relies upon
exclusively to justify, to insist on the passage of the hydrocarbon law. His
real reasons are Exxon/Mobil, Chevron/Texaco, BP/Amoco, and Royal
Dutch/Shell.

No one can say at the moment how much the hydrocarbon law will cost the
Iraqi people, but it will be in the hundreds of billions. The circumstances
of its passage are mired in the country?s chaos, and its final details are
not yet settled. If and when it passes, however, Iraq will orchestrate the
foreign capture of its own oil. The ingenious, brilliant seizure of Iraqi
oil will be assured.

That outcome has been on the Bush Administration?s agenda since early in
2001, long before terrorism struck in New York and Washington. The Iraqi war
has never been about terrorism.

It is blood for oil.

The blood has been spilled already, hugely, criminally. More than 3,200
American military men and women have died in Iraq. 26,500 more have been
wounded. But the oil remains in play.

The game will end if the revenue-sharing ?benchmark? is fully enforced. The
land mine will detonate.

Mission almost accomplished, Mr. President.


Author?s endnote:

This article was written assuming the members of Congress were ignorant,
when they passed the supplemental appropriation bills, of the clever origin,
the details, and the true beneficiaries of the Iraqi hydrocarbon law. It was
written assuming they did not know President Bush?s stated ?benchmark? of
revenue-sharing was fraudulently incomplete, intentionally obscuring the
fully intended seizure, by military force, of Iraqi oil assets.


The Bush Administration made every effort to mislead deliberately both the
Congress and the American people. Ignorance of the circumstances was
imposed.


If any members of Congress acted with full and complete knowledge, however,
then they have become complicit in a criminal war.

http://www.rawstory.com/showoutarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Farchive%2F2007%2F03%2F30%2F201%2F

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