[WCUSP] Fw: [NCC] More on Iraqi oil

[Carol Urner]

Hello Libby,

Thanks for sending this earlier article by Antonia Juhasz.  Hers is the best
voice we have on the U.S. and Iraqi oil.

I take it you have also read her New York Times article from March 13.  Ther
she goes into more detail on the benefits foreign oil companies will enjoy.
Here is the Common Dreams reprint -- a shorter URL than the one from the
NYTimes, but the same article:
http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0313-26.htm

We've got to get this message out in the media!  What we are getting now is
propagandistic whitewash.

The Iraq National Oil Company would have exclusive control of just 17 of
Iraq's 80 known oil fields, leaving two-thirds of known — and all of its as
yet undiscovered — fields open to foreign control.

The foreign companies would not have to invest their earnings in the Iraqi
economy, partner with Iraqi companies, hire Iraqi workers or share new
technologies. 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. The
vast majority of Iraq's oil would then be left underground for at least two
years rather than being used for the country's economic development.

The international oil companies could also be offered some of the most
corporate-friendly contracts in the world, including what are called
production sharing agreements. These agreements are the oil industry's
preferred model, but are roundly rejected by all the top oil producing
countries in the Middle East because they grant long-term contracts (20 to
35 years in the case of Iraq's draft law) and greater control, ownership and
profits to the companies than other models. In fact, they are used for only
approximately 12 percent of the world's oil.
in peace, Carol Urner

On 7/14/07, Libby or Mort Frank <lmfrank1 at verizon.net> wrote:
>
>  Incredible lot of information.  The writer is excellent.  I have her
> book.
>
> Libby
>
> ----- Original Message ----- *From:* Harry Targ <targ at purdue.edu>
> *To:* ncc at lists.cc-ds.org
> *Cc:* Dena Targ <DTarg at purdue.edu>
> *Sent:* Saturday, July 14, 2007 9:27 AM
> *Subject:* [NCC] More on Iraqi oil
>
>     IN THESE TIMES
>
> Please consider subscribing to the print edition and supporting
> independent media: http://www.inthesetimes.com/subscribe/
> This article is permanently archived at:
> http://www.inthesetimes.com/main/article/2979/
> Spoils of War Oil, the U.S.-Middle East Free Trade Area and the Bush
> Agenda   By Antonia Juhasz January 15, 2007
>
> Remember oil? That thing we *didn't* go to war in Iraq for? Now with his
> war under attack, even President George W. Bush has gone public, telling
> reporters last August, "[a] failed Iraq ... would give the terrorists and
> extremists an additional tool besides safe haven, and that is revenues from
> oil sales." Of course, Bush not only wants to keep oil out of his enemies'
> hands, he also wants to put it into the hands of his friends.
>
> The President's concern over Iraq's oil is shared by the Iraq Study Group,
> which on December 6 released its much-anticipated report. While the
> mainstream press focused on the report's criticism of Bush's handling of the
> war and the report's call for (potential) removal of (most) U.S. troops
> (maybe) by 2008, ignored was the report's focus on Iraq's oil. Page 1,
> chapter 1 laid out in no uncertain terms Iraq's importance to the Middle
> East, the United States and the world with this reminder: "It has the
> world's second-largest known oil reserves." The group then proceeds to give
> very specific and radical recommendations as to what should be done to
> secure those reserves.
>
> Guaranteeing access to Iraq's oil, however isn't the whole story. Despite
> the lives lost and the utter ruin that the war has brought, the overarching
> economic agenda that the administration is successfully pursuing in the
> Middle East might be the most enduring legacy of the war--and the most
> ignored.
>
> Just two months after declaring "mission accomplished" in Iraq, Bush
> announced his plans for a U.S.-Middle East Free Trade Area to spread the
> economic invasion well-underway in Iraq to the rest of the region by 2013.
> Negotiations have progressed rapidly as countries seek to prove that they
> are with the United States, not against it.
> The Bush Agenda
>
> Within days of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, then-U.S. Trade Representative
> Robert Zoellick announced that the Bush administration would be "countering
> terror with trade." Bush reiterated that pledge four years later when he
> told the United Nations, "By expanding trade, we spread hope and opportunity
> to the corners of the world, and we strike a blow against the terrorists.
> Our agenda for freer trade is part of our agenda for a freer world." In the
> case of the March 2003 invasion and ongoing occupation of Iraq, these "free
> trade"--or corporate globalization--policies have been applied in tandem
> with America's military forces.
>
> The Bush administration used the military invasion of Iraq to oust its
> leader, replace its government, implement new economic and political laws,
> and write a new constitution. The new economic laws have transformed Iraq's
> economy, applying some of the most radical--and sought-after--corporate
> globalization policies in the world and locking in sweeping advantages to
> U.S. corporations. Through the ongoing occupation, the Bush administration
> seeks to ensure that both Iraq's new government and this new economic
> structure stay firmly in place. The ultimate goal--opening Iraq to U.S.
> oil companies--is reaching fruition.
>
> In 2004, Michael Scheuer--the CIA's senior expert on al-Qaeda until he
> quit in disgust with the Bush administration--wrote, "The U.S. invasion of
> Iraq was not preemption; it was ... an avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked
> war against a foe who posed no immediate threat but whose defeat did offer
> economic advantages."
>
> How right he was. For it is an absolute fallacy that the Bush
> administration had no post-invasion plan for Iraq. The administration had a
> very clear economic plan that has contributed significantly to the
> disastrous results of the war. The plan was prepared at least two months
> prior to the war by the U.S. consultancy firm, Bearing Point, Inc., which
> then received a $250 million contract to remake Iraq's economic
> infrastructure.
>
> L. Paul Bremer III--the head of the U.S. occupation government of Iraq,
> the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)--followed Bearing Point's plan to
> the letter. From May 6, 2003 until June 28, 2004, Bremer implemented his
> "100 Orders" with the force of law, all but a handful of which remain in
> place today. As the preamble to many of the orders state, they are intended
> to "transition [Iraq] from a ... centrally planned economy to a market
> economy" virtually overnight and by U.S. fiat.
>
> Bremer's orders included firing the entire Iraqi military--some half a
> million men--in the first weeks of the occupation. Suddenly jobless, many of
> these men took their guns with them and joined the violent insurgency.
> Bremer also fired 120,000 of Iraq's senior bureaucrats from every government
> ministry, hospital and school. His laws allowed for the privatization of
> Iraq's state-owned enterprises (excluding oil) and for American companies to
> receive preferential treatment over Iraqis in the awarding of reconstruction
> contracts. The laws reduced taxes on all corporations by 25 percent and
> opened every sector of the Iraqi economy to private foreign investment. The
> laws allowed foreign firms to own 100 percent of Iraqi businesses (as
> opposed to partnering with Iraqi firms) and to send their profits home
> without having to invest a cent in the struggling Iraqi economy. Iraqi laws
> governing banking, foreign investment, patents, copyrights, business
> ownership, taxes, the media, agriculture and trade were all changed to
> conform to U.S. goals.
> After the U.S. corporate invasion of Iraq
>
> More than 150 U.S. companies were awarded contracts for post-war work
> totaling more than $50 billion.
>
> The American companies were hired, even though Iraqi companies had
> successfully rebuilt the country after the previous U.S. invasion. And,
> because the American companies did not have to hire Iraqis, many imported
> foreign workers instead. The Iraqis were, of course, well aware that
> American firms had received billions of dollars for reconstruction, that
> Iraqi companies and workers had been rejected and that the country was still
> without basic services. The result: increasing hostility, acts of sabotage
> targeted directly at foreign contractors and their work, and a rising
> insurgency.
>
> Halliburton received the largest contract, worth more than $12 billion,
> while 13 other U.S. companies received contracts worth more than $1.5
> billion each. The seven largest reconstruction contracts went to the Parsons
> Corporation of Pasadena, Calif. ($5.3 billion); Fluor Corporation of Aliso
> Viejo, Calif. ($3.75 billion); Washington Group International of Boise,
> Idaho ($3.1 billion); Shaw Group of Baton Rouge, La. ($3 billion); Bechtel
> Corporation of San Francisco ($2.8 billion); Perini Corporation of
> Framingham, Mass. ($2.5 billion); and Contrack International, Inc. of
> Arlington, Va. ($2.3 billion). These companies are responsible for virtually
> all reconstruction in Iraq, including water, bridges, roads, hospitals, and
> sewers and, most significantly, electricity.
>
> U.S. Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner, author of a 2002 U.S. government
> study on the likely effect that U.S. bombardment would have on Iraq's
> power system, said, "frankly, if we had just given the Iraqis some baling
> wire and a little bit of space to keep things running, it would have been
> better. But instead we've let big U.S. companies go in with plans for
> major overhauls."
>
> Many companies had their sights set on years-long privatization in Iraq,
> which helps explain their interest in "major overhauls" rather than getting
> the systems up and running. Cliff Mumm, head of Bechtel's Iraq operation,
> put it this way: "[Iraq] has two rivers, it's fertile, it's sitting on an
> ocean of oil. Iraq ought to be a major player in the world. And we want to
> be working for them long term."
>
> And, since many U.S. contracts guaranteed that all of the companies' costs
> would be covered, plus a set rate of profit (known as cost-plus contracts),
> they took their time, building expensive new facilities that showcased their
> skills and would serve their own needs should they be runing the systems one
> day.
>
> Mismanagement, waste, abuse and criminality have also characterized U.S.
> corporations in Iraq--leading to a series of U.S. contract cancellations.
> For example, a $243 million contract held by the Parsons Corporation for the
> construction of 150 health care centers was cancelled after more than two
> years of work and $186 million yielded just six centers, only two of which
> are serving patients. Parsons was also dropped from two different contracts
> to build prisons, one in Mosul and the other in Nasiriyah. The Bechtel
> Corporation was dropped from a $50 million contract for the construction of
> a children's hospital in Basra after it went $90 million over budget and a
> year-and-a-half behind schedule. These contracts have since been turned over
> to Iraqi companies.
>
> Halliburton's subsidiary KBR is currently being investigated by government
> agencies and facing dozens of charges for waste, fraud and abuse. Most
> significantly, in 2006, the U.S. Army cancelled Halliburton's largest
> government contract, the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP),
> which was for worldwide logistical support to U.S. troops. Halliburton
> will continue its current Iraq contract, but this year the LOGCAP will be
> broken into smaller parts and competitively bid out to other companies.
>
> The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), a
> congressionally-mandated independent auditing and oversight body, has opened
> 256 investigations into criminal fraud, four of which have resulted in
> convictions. SIGIR has provided critical oversight of the U.S.
> reconstruction, but this fall it nearly fell prey to a GOP attempt to shut
> down its activities well ahead of schedule. Fortunately, it survived.
>
> SIGIR's October 2006 report to Congress reveals the failure of U.S.
> corporations in Iraq. In the electricity sector, less than half of all
> planned projects in Iraq have been completed, while 21 percent have yet to
> even begin. Even the term "complete" can be misleading as, for example,
> SIGIR has found that contractors have failed to build transmission and
> distribution lines to connect new generators to homes and businesses. Thus,
> nationally, Iraqis have on average just 11 hours of electricity a day, and
> in Baghdad, the heart of instability in Iraq, there are between four and
> eight hours on average per day. Before the war, Baghdad averaged 24 hours
> per day of electricity.
>
> While there has been greater success in finishing water and sewage
> projects, the fact that 80 percent of potable water projects are reported
> complete does little good if there is no electricity to pump the water into
> homes, hospitals or businesses. Meanwhile, the health care sector is truly a
> tragedy. Just 36 percent of planned projects are reported as complete. Of 20
> planned hospitals, 12 are finished and only six of 150 planned public health
> centers are serving patients today.
>
> Overall, the economy is languishing, with high inflation, low growth, and
> unemployment rates estimated at 30 to 50 percent for the nation and as high
> as 70 percent in some areas. The International Monetary Fund has enforced a
> structural adjustment program on Iraq that mirrors much of Bush's corporate
> globalization agenda, and the administration continues to push for Iraq's
> admission into the World Trade Organization.
>
> Iraq has not, therefore, emerged as the wealthy free market haven that
> Bush & Co. had hoped for. Several U.S. companies are now preparing to pack
> up, head home and take their billions of dollars with them, their work in
> Iraq left undone.
>
> The Bush administration is likely to follow a dual strategy: continuing to
> pursue a corporate free-trade haven in Iraq, while helping U.S.
> corporations extricate themselves without consequence. The administration
> will also focus on the big prize: Iraq's oil.
> Winning Iraq's oil prize
>
> The Bush Agenda does have supporters, especially those corporate allies
> that have both shaped and benefited from the administration's economic and
> military policies.
>
> In the 2000 election cycle, the oil and gas industry donated 13 times more
> money to Bush's campaign than to Al Gore's. The Bush administration is the
> first in history in which the president, vice president and secretary of
> state are all former energy company officials. In fact, the only other U.S.
> president to come from the oil and gas industry was Bush's father. Moreover,
> both George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice have more experience running oil
> companies than they do working for the government.
>
> Planning to secure Iraq's oil for U.S. companies began on the tenth day of
> the Bush presidency, when Vice President Dick Cheney established the
> National Energy Policy Development Group--widely referred to as "Cheney's
> Energy Task Force." It produced two lists, titled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi
> Oilfield Contracts as of 5 March 2001," which named more than 60 companies
> from some 30 countries with contracts for oil and gas projects across
> Iraq--none of which were with American firms. However, because sanctions
> were imposed on Iraq at this time, none of the contracts could come into
> force. If the sanctions were removed--which was becoming increasingly likely
> as public opinion turned against the sanctions and Hussein remained in
> power--the contracts would go to all of those foreign oil companies and the
> U.S. oil industry would be shut out.
>
> As the Bush administration stepped up its war planning, the State
> Department began preparations for post-invasion Iraq. Meeting four times
> between December 2002 and April 2003, members of the State Department's Oil
> and Energy Working Group mapped out Iraq's oil future. They agreed that Iraq
> "should be opened to international oil companies as quickly as possible
> after the war" and that the best method for doing so was through Production
> Sharing Agreements (PSAs).
>
> PSAs are considered "privatization lite" in the oil business and, as such,
> are the favorite of international oil companies and the worst-case scenario
> for oil-rich states. With PSAs, oil ownership ultimately rests with the
> government, but the most profitable aspects of the industry--exploration and
> production--are contracted to the private companies under highly favorable
> terms. None of the top oil producers in the Middle East use PSAs, because
> they favor private companies at the expense of the exporting governments. In
> fact, PSAs are only used in respect to about 12 percent of world oil
> reserves.
> After the invasion
>
> Two months after the invasion of Iraq, in May 2003, the U.S.-appointedsenior adviser to the Iraqi Oil Ministry, Thamer al-Ghadban, announced that
> the new Iraqi government would honor few, if any, of the dozens of contracts
> signed with foreign oil companies under the Hussein regime.
>
> At the same time, Bremer was laying the economic groundwork for a "U.S.
> corporate friendly" Iraq. When Bremer left Iraq in June 2004, he bequeathed
> the Bush economic agenda to two men, Ayad Allawi and Adel Abdul Mahdi, who
> Bremer appointed interim Prime Minister and Finance Minister, respectively.
> Two months later, Allawi (a former CIA asset) submitted guidelines for a new
> petroleum law to Iraq's Supreme Council for Oil Policy. The guidelines
> declared "an end to the centrally planned and state dominated Iraqi economy"
> and advised the "Iraqi government to disengage from running the oil sector,
> including management of the planned Iraq National Oil Company (INOC), and
> that the INOC be partly privatized in the future."
>
> Allawi's guidelines also turned all undeveloped oil and gas fields over to
> private international oil companies. Because only 17 of Iraq's 80 known oil
> fields have been developed, Allawi's proposal would put 64 percent of Iraq's
> oil into the hands of foreign firms. However, if a further 100 billion
> barrels are discovered, as is widely predicted, foreign companies could
> control 81 percent of Iraq's oil--or 87 percent if, as the Oil Ministry
> predicts, 200 billion barrels are found.
>
> On December 21, 2004, Mahdi joined U.S. Undersecretary of State Alan
> Larson at the National Press Club and announced Iraq's plans for a new
> petroleum law that would open the oil sector to private foreign investment.
>
> "I think this is very promising to the American investors and to American
> enterprise, certainly to oil companies," said Mahdi. He described how, under
> the proposed law, foreign companies would gain access both to "downstream"
> and "maybe even upstream" oil investment in Iraq. ("Downstream" refers to
> refining, distribution, and marketing of oil. "Upstream" refers to
> exploration and production.)
>
> The draft petroleum law adopted Allawi's recommendation that currently
> producing oil fields are to be developed by Iraq's National Oil Company,
> while all new fields are opened to private companies using PSAs.
>
> The Bush administration and U.S. oil companies have maintained constant
> pressure on Iraq to pass the petroleum law. The administration appointed an
> advisor to the Iraqi government from Bearing Point to support completion of
> the law. And in July 2006, U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman announced
> in Baghdad that oil executives told him that their companies would not enter
> Iraq without passage of the new oil law. *Petroleum Economist* magazine
> later reported that U.S. oil companies considered passage of the new oil
> law more important than increased security when deciding whether to go into
> business in Iraq.
>
> The Iraq Study Group, recognizing as it did the primacy of oil in its Iraq
> calculations, recommended that the U.S. "assist Iraqi leaders to
> reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise" and
> "encourage investment in Iraq's oil sector by the international community
> and by international energy companies."
>
> Put simply, U.S. oil companies want access to as much of Iraq's oil as
> they can get and on the best possible terms. The fact that Iraq is a
> war-ravaged and occupied nation works to the companies' benefit. As a
> result, the companies and the Bush administration are holding U.S. troops
> hostage in Iraq until they get what they want. Once the companies get their
> lucrative contracts, they will still need protection to get to work. What
> better security force is there than 144,000 American troops?
>
> Three days after the release of the Iraq Study Group Report, the al-Maliki
> government announced that Iraq's oil law was near completion. The law adopts
> PSAs and not only opens Iraq to private foreign companies, but permits "for
> the first time--local and international companies to carry out oil
> exploration in Iraq."
>
> To ensure that this model prevails, the Iraq Study Group recommends that
> Iraq's constitution be rewritten to give the central government of Iraq--as
> opposed to individual regions--the ultimate decision-making authority over
> all of Iraq's developed and undeveloped oil fields.
>
> Standard Oil Company's John D. Rockefeller famously said, "Own nothing,
> control everything." He would be proud of the U.S. oil companies and the
> Bush administration, as they seem poised to get exactly the control they
> want over Iraq's oil.
> Beyond Iraq: the U.S.-Middle East Free Trade Area
>
> But the Bush agenda has never been limited to Iraq. As the *Wall Street
> Journal* reported in May 2003, "For many conservatives, Iraq is now the
> test case for whether the U.S. can engender American-style free-market
> capitalism within the Arab world." To this end, the administration has used
> the "stick" of the Iraq war to convince nations across the Middle East to
> adopt its free trade agenda. The mechanism for doing so is the president's
> U.S.-Middle East Free Trade Area (MEFTA).
>
> The corporate lobbying group behind the MEFTA, the aptly named U.S.-MiddleEast Free Trade Coalition, includes among its 120 members Chevron,
> ExxonMobil, Bechtel and Halliburton--companies intimately connected to the
> Bush administration that have already been big winners in Iraq.
>
> Insulated by oil revenue, the Middle East has largely avoided succumbing
> to the sacrifices required under free trade agreements. But since the war
> began, negotiations for the MEFTA have progressed rapidly.
>
> The Bush administration devised a unique negotiating strategy for the
> MEFTA. Rather than negotiate with all of the nations as a bloc, the United
> States negotiates one-on-one with each country. This means that every
> nation--some half the size of one state in the United States--must try to
> make a deal that serves its own interests with the most economically and
> militarily dominant nation in the world. The reality is that there can be no
> "negotiation" between such thoroughly unequal pairings.
>
> These individual free trade agreements are then united under the MEFTA. If
> successful, the MEFTA would be concluded by 2013 and include 20 countries:
> Algeria, Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan,
> Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the
> United Arab Emirates, Tunisia and Yemen.
>
> To date, the Bush administration has signed 13 Trade and Investment
> Framework Agreements (TIFAs), which demonstrate a country's commitment to
> the MEFTA, and are considered the key step towards passage of a full Free
> Trade Agreement (FTA). Things have moved briskly since the invasion of Iraq.
> Algeria and Bahrain signed before the war, while agreements with Lebanon
> (the most recent, signed in December), Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen,
> the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt, Morocco, Oman and Iraq all followed
> the war.
>
> The United States has signed FTAs with five Middle Eastern countries:
> Israel, Jordan, Morocco, Bahrain, and Oman. The last three were signed after
> the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Negotiations with the United Arab Emirates are
> underway and near completion.
>
> The winners, of course, are U.S. corporations. On January 19, 2006, for
> example, then-U.S. Trade Representative Robert Portman sent a letter to
> Oman's minister of commerce and industry affirming that, when it signs
> contracts, the Omani government may not give preference to the government's
> state-controlled oil companies.
>
> As for Oman's apparel industry, the U.S. International Trade Commission
> estimates that the U.S.-Oman agreement will lead to a 66 percent increase
> in U.S. imports of apparel manufactured in Oman. What are the likely
> effects? In May, a report by the National Labor Committee detailed the cost
> of the first Middle East trade agreement signed by Bush in December
> 2001--the U.S.-Jordan FTA. After that agreement was implemented, new
> factories arrived in Jordan to service American companies, primarily apparel
> firms such as Wal-Mart, JC Penney, Target and Jones New York. These
> factories have engaged in the worst kinds of rights violations, including
> 48-hour shifts without sleep, physical and psychological abuse, and, in the
> case of imported foreign workers, employers who hold passports and refuse to
> pay. (Wal-Mart also is a member of the U.S.-Middle East Free Trade
> Coalition.)
>
> The Bush administration will spend the next two years aggressively pushing
> the MEFTA as it seeks to expand the economic invasion of Iraq to the entire
> region.
> What's next?
>
> Throughout his presidency, George W. Bush has claimed that we will live in
> a safer, more prosperous, and more peaceful world if the United States
> remains at war and if countries throughout the world change their laws and
> adopt economic policies that benefit America's largest multinational
> corporations. The Bush Agenda has proven to have the opposite effect:
> increasing deadly acts of terrorism and economic insecurity, reducing
> freedom, and engendering more war. To replace the Bush Agenda, we must
> address each of its key pillars individually--war, imperialism and corporate
> globalization.
>
> The most urgent first step is ending the war in Iraq by ending both the
> military and corporate occupations. We in the peace movement have already
> made tremendous progress in reaching these ends. Most Americans now oppose
> the war. The peace movement has welcomed with open arms U.S. soldiers and
> their families who share this opposition and unity has made us all stronger.
> Counter-recruitment efforts are blossoming across the country. The U.S.
> labor movement has joined forces with its counterpart in Iraq. Protests at
> corporate headquarters and shareholder meetings have led to U.S. war
> profiteers being called to account for their abuses in Iraq. Our success was
> made concrete with the dismissal of the president's party from power in both
> the House and the Senate.
>
> According to "Election 2006: No to Staying the course on Trade," by Public
> Citizen, 18 House races saw "fair traders" replace "free traders" in the
> midterm election, and not a single "free trader" beat a fair trade
> candidate. In every Senate seat that changed hands, a fair trader beat a
> free trader. One of their most important tasks this year will be to deny
> Bush the renewal of Fast Track negotiating authority when it expires in
> July. Fast Track allows the president to move trade bills through Congress
> quickly by overriding core aspects of the democratic process, such as
> committee deliberations, full congressional debate and the ability to offer
> amendments.
>
> In addition to the newcomers, several existing allies have been elevated
> to new positions of power. Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) is now chairman of the
> House Armed Services Committee. He has pledged to resurrect the subcommittee
> on oversight and investigations. Rep. David Obey (D-Wisc.) will use his
> chairmanship of the House Appropriations Committee to exercise greater
> oversight of Bush's war spending. The most important ally, however, will
> likely be Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the new chairman of the House
> Government Reform Committee. Waxman has been one of the most effective and
> aggressive critics of Halliburton's work in Iraq, greatly contributing to
> Halliburton's loss of its LOGCAP contract.
>
> Our allies in the new Congress should put forward two key demands:
>
> First, all remaining and future U.S. reconstruction funds must be turned
> over to Iraqi companies and Iraqi workers. SIGIR found that when Iraqi
> companies receive contracts (rather than subcontracts from U.S.
> companies), their work is faster, less expensive and less prone to insurgent
> attack. There are literally hundreds of both private and public Iraqi
> companies--and millions of Iraqi workers--ready, able and willing to do this
> work. U.S. military commanders and soldiers in Iraq have repeatedly made
> this demand as they have learned firsthand that a person with a clipboard or
> a shovel in his or her hands is far less likely to carry a gun.
>
> Second, U.S. corporations must not be allowed to "cut and run." Every U.S.
> corporation with reconstruction contracts in Iraq must be individually
> audited and each project investigated by SIGIR. Misspent funds must be
> returned and made available to Iraqis for reconstruction. SIGIR has begun
> this process with plans for a full audit of Bechtel's work due out early
> this year. SIGIR needs more staff, greater oversight authority and more
> money to complete this work in a timely manner.
>
> The Democrats must abandon the Bush administration's plan to remake Iraq
> into an economic wonderland for U.S. corporations. Iraq must belong to the
> Iraqis to remake as they see fit. Nowhere is this demand more critical than
> in the case of Iraq's oil.
>
> It is clear that Iraq needs to develop its oil sector to survive and that
> it needs to retain as much of the proceeds from its oil as possible. It is
> also clear that it should be the Iraqi public--freed of the external
> pressure of a foreign occupation, the Bush administration and U.S.
> corporations--that decides how its oil is developed. U.S. oil corporations
> cannot be permitted to "win" the war in Iraq while we--Iraqis and
> Americans--pay the price for their victory.
> ------------------------------
>
> *Antonia Juhasz*, a visiting scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies,
> is the author of The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time,
> on which part of this article is based. She is working on a new book that
> will make the case for the break-up of the largest American oil companies.
> Learn more at http://www.TheBushAgenda.net <http://www.thebushagenda.net/>.
>
>
>  ------------------------------
>
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-- 
in peace, Carol Urner
cell: 503 320 9108
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