Thursday, June 19, 2008

It's All True

So it turns out the invasion of Iraq was about oil, after all.
Four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power.

Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company — along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials and an American diplomat.

The deals, expected to be announced on June 30, will lay the foundation for the first commercial work for the major companies in Iraq since the American invasion, and open a new and potentially lucrative country for their operations.

...

There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract. The Bush administration has said that the war was necessary to combat terrorism. It is not clear what role the United States played in awarding the contracts; there are still American advisers to Iraq’s Oil Ministry.

Sensitive to the appearance that they were profiting from the war and already under pressure because of record high oil prices, senior officials of two of the companies, speaking only on the condition that they not be identified, said they were helping Iraq rebuild its decrepit oil industry.

And our lapdog journalists report it with little, if any, criticism. It's both old news and new news. Which has been pretty much how all the news about our corrupt government gets reported in the MSM. Forget about impeaching the bastards. It's off the table. Probably knocked to the floor by our "we might nuke Iran" policy.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

If it wasn't the cause of the war, I'm pretty sure a lot of people were thinking, "O hey! Iz nice side efekt we gets oil fields!" I don't think they anticipated getting smacked around with oil prices, too, but that only makes them more greedy toward the reserves in Iraq, ne?

red rabbit said...

When a country is run by oil men and their lackeys, following the money is fairly simple.

Princessa Con Problemas said...

Unfortunately we allowed the country to be run by these people. When the numbness and novacaine news wears off, maybe we will all step in to change this constant string of disappointment.