Train Wreck of the Week

Bob Chapman, The International Forecaster

...The Iraqi government draft of a new Iraqi oil law puts decisions on oil under the "Federal Oil and Gas Council" whose panel of experts will come from inside and outside Iraq. They will be predominately from UK and US big oil executives. The law is nothing less than institutionalized rape and pillaging of Iraq’s oil wealth, which was one of the main reasons for invasion and occupation. Nationalization will end and production-sharing agreements will be forged. PSAs, which is the latest form of privatization, will produce 75% profits for the US and UK oil industries. Incidentally, this is what is now being cooked up in Mexico to steal their oil as well. In Iraq, 65 of 80 oil fields go up for bid and we can assure you most of them will end up in elitist hands. The law was really drafted by a US consulting firm hired by the neocons. Involved was the IMF, Paul Wolfowitz and US AID. It’s an American law written in English, not Arabic. This oil costs $1.00 a barrel to extract. What the elitists have done is sanctify the theft of the oil...

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If We Just Don't Call It Colonial Exploitation...

Arthur Silber, Once Upon a Time...

I could alternatively title this, "The Lies That Never End." Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, writes in the Washington Post: Under the national hydrocarbon law approved this week by Iraq's Council of Ministers, oil will serve as a vehicle to unify Iraq and will give all Iraqis a shared stake in their country's future. This is a significant achievement for Iraqis' national reconciliation. It demonstrates that the leaders of Iraq's principal communities can pull together to peacefully resolve difficult issues of national importance (...) The lies in this piece are beyond counting...

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