IRAQ OIL SCAM UPDATE

INDEPENDENT, UK - 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. . .

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.". . .

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."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2132569.ece

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