yobserver.com: U.S.-tailored Iraqi oil alarm for producers, consumers - by Nicola Nasser

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U.S.-tailored Iraqi oil alarm for producers, consumers - by Nicola Nasser

While the Iraqis were busy counting their death toll of more than 650,000 since March 2003. The United Nations is next with 34,000 dead in 2006 alone with 3,070 for the Pentagon. The U.S. treasury was counting the more than $600 billion of taxpayer money spent in Iraq so far, stealthily and suddenly. The U.S. occupation’s oil prize sounded louder than war drums to alert the regional oil producers as well as the major world consumers to guard against the looming threat coming out of Iraq. After listening to the monotonous and incredible U.S. lies for four years about how “we are not there for Iraq’s oil,” the oily truth is now unfolding. Without a decisive military victory, the U.S. occupation of Iraq seems to be about to grab its oil prize by establishing a new sharing arrangement between a major national producer and the multi-national giants—an arrangement that Washington plans to set as the model to be followed both by the oil-rich region and the world at large. This prize has been the dream of successive U.S. administrations: on January 18th, they came one step closer to reality when Iraq’s Oil Committee approved the new draft hydrocarbon law, sent it to the cabinet within a week and, when approved, will go to the parliament immediately thereafter.

The early draft of the law was prepared by BearingPoint American consultants, hired by the Bush administration, and sent to the White House and major Western petroleum corporations in July, and then to the International Monetary Fund two months later, while most Iraqi legislators and the public remained in the dark.

The approved production-sharing agreements (PSAs) favor investing foreign oil companies with 70 percent of oil revenue to recoup their initial outlay, then companies can reap 20 percent of the profit without any tax or other restrictions on their transfers abroad.

The Republican-Democratic electoral wrangling, no matter how ferocious it was or would become over internal issues, could not cross a “red line” consensus on never compromising the U.S. national oil strategic interests, which both parties are determined to defend regardless of how much American or non-American blood would spill in their defense.