Did you hear the news this weekend? Our rebuilding effort has brought Iraq's oil refineries back online. We've stepped aside and are letting the nation of Iraq profit from its own oil so as to create a healthy capitalist system, the bedrock for a healthy democracy in the middle east. Most of the oil will be sold to Iraq's domestic market to work toward these ends, furthering security in the region.

That's not what happened - four western oil companies who've wanted back into Iraq for the past 36 years are getting no bid contracts. 40 others wanted a chance to bid, but took a back seat to the once and future Iraq Petrolium Company.

Bush and Cheney said "He's got a gun!" then they killed him. Now they're emptying his wallet. Apparently the four western oil companies that got the no bid contracts got the job because they've been stealing the oil on a volunteer basis since the invasion began. Bush Co says this is to fill Iraq's coffers for reconstruction, but Iraq is unable to spend the oil revenue it already has. 46 other oil companies have similar "memorandums of understanding" and were frozen out of the no bid contracts.

No wonder we "can't leave!" First Bush Co said we need to be in Iraq because they have the weapons Rumsfeld sold them. Then, with no explanation like in 1984, the justification changed to Saddam was a bad man. All of these different justifications, all to get people to go die in the sand for Exxon.

Quotes

The no-bid contracts are unusual for the industry, and the offers prevailed over others by more than 40 companies, including companies in Russia, China and India.

The first oil contracts for the majors in Iraq are exceptional for the oil industry.


“The bigger prize everybody is waiting for is development of the giant new fields,” Leila Benali, an authority on Middle East oil at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, said in a telephone interview from the firm’s Paris office. The current contracts, she said, are a “foothold” in Iraq for companies striving for these longer-term deals.


They include a provision that could allow the companies to reap large profits at today’s prices: the ministry and companies are negotiating payment in oil rather than cash.

Even the caught with their hands in the pot excuse proves to be a lie

In all cases but one, the same company that had provided free advice to the ministry for work on a specific field was offered the technical support contract for that field, one of the companies’ officials said.


The exception is the West Qurna field in southern Iraq, outside Basra.



There, the Russian company Lukoil, which claims a Hussein-era contract for the field, had been providing free training to Iraqi engineers, but a consortium of Chevron and Total, a French company, was offered the contract. A spokesman for Lukoil declined to comment.

Wow! The very reason "our boys" got no bid contracts only applies to our boys. This entire war effort has been about stealing the oil, contrary to the Bush Co sales pitch.










http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/wo...gg&exprod=digg

Excellent article! I'd TP you again, but it says I have to spread it around some . The only thing that can be said to an article like this is.... "ITS ABOUT FRIGGIN TIME".

Some great quotes from the article:

The Iraqi government’s stated goal in inviting back the major companies is to increase oil production by half a million barrels per day by attracting modern technology and expertise to oil fields now desperately short of both.

HALF A MILLION BARRELS A DAY! Take that Saudi Arabia and your paltry promised 200k barrel per day increase!

Mr. Fyfe’s organization estimated that repair work on existing fields could bring Iraq’s output up to roughly four million barrels per day within several years.

Now THAT would put a dent in the fuel crisis. I suppose all this means we will be bypassing the Oil Cartel OPEC who have been strangling us by not increasing the supply, despite the HUGE growth in demand by China and India.

A clause in the draft contracts would allow the companies to match bids from competing companies to retain the work once it is opened to bidding

Oh yeah, U.S. companies "locked in for life". Can you imagine the outcry if those contracts had gone to a Russian company, a country aiding Iran, after the loss of so much American blood and treasure?

It's worth thousands of American lives and 100 years in Iraq to make Exxon richer.

Not to mention the extreme humanitarian catastrophy Bush Co's oil grab caused. All the time, more than 5 years so far, all boils down to no bid oil contracts?

Please... stop posting that guy's picture... its damaging my monitor! He looks like Jabba the Hut! Bad photo shop doctor on that last one, BTW.

Making Exxon richer, and the loss of lives were not the goal but the byproduct of controlling oil in the middle east so we whinny Americans can quit crying about high gas prices. If this war really was about oil, it would certainly not be any original thinking on Dubya's part. Your beloved Democrats FDR, Truman and Carter all stated the need for the U.S. to protect oil assets in the middle east with military might. Jimmy Carter went so far as to put it into a doctrine in which he clearly stated that any attempt to control the oil assets of the middle east by a foreign nation would be responded to as an act of war against the U.S.. Apparently, blood for oil was OK with Mr. Peanut... errr Carter.

At the end of the day, there are two presidents to blame for this whole mess.
1) George Bush Sr., for not finishing the job and establishing bases in Iraq in 1991.
2) Bill Clinton, for not enforcing the terms of the ceasefire(Invading Iraq) when Sadaam broke them over and over and over again.

Sadaam gave us every excuse to do what is being done today in 1991. We were just idiots for not doing it.