Iraq Study Group recommends privatizing (stealing) Iraq's OIL

Privatization sounds like a boring, abstract idea, but it wasn't to Gen. Jay Garner, the first guy Bush appointed to run Iraq. He thought it would incite a rebellion against the occupation, and the Bushies seemed to agree by postponing elections because no legitimate elected government would approve of giving away their natural resources. As Grover Norquist, GOP strategist and proud author of part of the privatization plan said:

"The right to trade, property rights, these things are not to be determined by some democratic election."

(quoted by Greg Palast and available on video too)

The Iraq Survey Group shows which side of the property rights vs. democracy, safety of our troops, and our reputation in the world debate they fall on when they support the privatization plan.

KEY EXCERPTS:

Oil for Sale: Iraq Study Group Recommends Privatization

By Antonia Juhasz, AlterNet. Posted December 7, 2006.
The Iraq Study Group may not have a solution for how to end the war, but it does have a way for its corporate friends to make money.

In its heavily anticipated report released on Wednesday, the Iraq Study Group made at least four truly radical proposals.

The report calls for the United States to assist in privatizing Iraq's national oil industry, opening Iraq to private foreign oil and energy companies, providing direct technical assistance for the "drafting" of a new national oil law for Iraq, and assuring that all of Iraq's oil revenues accrue to the central government.

President Bush hired an employee from the U.S. consultancy firm Bearing Point Inc. over a year ago to advise the Iraq Oil Ministry on the drafting and passage of a new national oil law. As previously drafted, the law opens Iraq's nationalized oil sector to private foreign corporate investment, but stops short of full privatization. The ISG report, however, goes further, stating that "the United States should assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise." In addition, the current Constitution of Iraq is ambiguous as to whether control over Iraq's oil should be shared among its regional provinces or held under the central government. The report specifically recommends the latter: "Oil revenues should accrue to the central government and be shared on the basis of population." If these proposals are followed, Iraq's national oil industry will be privatized and opened to foreign firms, and in control of all of Iraq's oil wealth.

The proposals should come as little surprise given that two authors of the report, James A. Baker III and Lawrence Eagleburger, have each spent much of their political and corporate careers in pursuit of greater access to Iraq's oil and wealth...

FULL TEXT

More resources on oil motive for Iraq War



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