Cheney secret meeting on energy was about showing the map of Iraq (above).
Therefore oil was the real reason for invading Iraq.
Bush and Cheney should be impeached !!!
(Only Ms. Nanci Pelosi do not think so !)
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Monday, June 30, 2008
Cheney Secret Energy Meeting in 2001
Cheney secret meeting on energy was about showing the map of Iraq (above).
Therefore oil was the real reason for invading Iraq.
Bush and Cheney should be impeached !!!
(Only Ms. Nanci Pelosi do not think so !)
McCains Defaulted On Home Taxes For Last Four Years
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McCains Defaulted On Home Taxes For Last Four Years, Newsweek Reports
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The Huffington Post | June 28, 2008 07:16 PM
Read More: Cindy McCain, Cindy Mccain Taxes, John McCain, Mccain Failed To Pay Taxes, Mccain Failed To Pay Taxes For Four Years, Mccain Home La Jolla, Mccain La Jolla, Mccain La Jolla Home, Mccain Tax Default, McCain Taxes, Mccains California Home, Mccains Taxes, Politics News
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** UPDATE BELOW **
Newsweek is set to publish a highly embarrassing report on Sen. John McCain, revealing that the McCains have failed to pay taxes on their beach-front condo in La Jolla, California, for the last four years and are currently in default, The Huffington Post has learned.
Under California law, once a residential property is in default for five years, it can be sold at a tax sale to recover the unpaid taxes for the taxpayers.
The McCains own at least seven homes through a variety of trusts and corporations controlled by Cindy McCain.
UPDATE: Newsweek's story is now online. The report notes that the McCains paid the bulk of their back taxes yesterday, but continue to owe additional taxes:
When you're poor, it can be hard to pay the bills. When you're rich, it's hard to keep track of all the bills that need paying. It's a lesson Cindy McCain learned the hard way when NEWSWEEK raised questions about an overdue property-tax bill on a La Jolla, Calif., property owned by a trust that she oversees. Mrs. McCain is a beer heiress with an estimated $100 million fortune and, along with her husband, she owns at least seven properties, including condos in California and Arizona. [...]
Shortly after NEWSWEEK inquired about the matter, the McCain aide e-mailed a receipt dated Friday, June 27, confirming payment by the trust to San Diego County in the amount of $6,744.42. County officials say the trust still owes an additional $1,742 for this year, an amount that is overdue and will go into default July 1. Told of the outstanding $1,742, the aide said: "The trust has paid all bills shown owing as of today and will pay all other bills due."
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New US Covert Uperations In Iran
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Seymour Hersh Exposes New US Covert Operations In Iran (VIDEO)
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New Yorker | Seymour M. Hersh | June 29, 2008 10:15 AM
Read More: Covert Iran Activities, Covert Iran Attacks, Covert Iran Operations, George Bush, Iran, Iran Attack, Warwire, Politics News
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The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh reports on how the Bush Administration has stepped up covert operations against Iran:
Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country's religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran's suspected nuclear-weapons program.
Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of "high-value targets" in the President's war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature.
Under federal law, a Presidential Finding, which is highly classified, must be issued when a covert intelligence operation gets under way and, at a minimum, must be made known to Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and the Senate and to the ranking members of their respective intelligence committees--the so-called Gang of Eight. Money for the operation can then be reprogrammed from previous appropriations, as needed, by the relevant congressional committees, which also can be briefed.
Read Hersh's full report here.
Watch Hersh discuss his article on CNN below:
Sunday, June 29, 2008
US 'preparing the battlefield' in Iran
Google
Report: U.S. 'preparing the battlefield' in Iran
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
New Yorker article says Congress authorized up to $400 million for covert ops in Iran
Journalist Seymour Hersh says program is being staged from Afghanistan
U.S. officials decline comment, deny the U.S. is launching raids from Iraq
Iranian general says troops are building graves for invaders in the event of war
Next Article in World »
READ
VIDEO
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush administration has launched a "significant escalation" of covert operations in Iran, sending U.S. commandos to spy on the country's nuclear facilities and undermine the Islamic republic's government, journalist Seymour Hersh said Sunday.
An Iranian flag flies outside the building containing the reactor of Bushehr nuclear power plant, south of Tehran.
White House, CIA and State Department officials declined comment on Hersh's report, which appears in this week's issue of The New Yorker.
Hersh told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" that Congress has authorized up to $400 million to fund the secret campaign, which involves U.S. special operations troops and Iranian dissidents.
President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have rejected findings from U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran has halted a clandestine effort to build a nuclear bomb and "do not want to leave Iran in place with a nuclear program," Hersh said.
"They believe that their mission is to make sure that before they get out of office next year, either Iran is attacked or it stops its weapons program," Hersh said.
The new article, "Preparing the Battlefield," is the latest in a series of articles accusing the Bush administration of preparing for war with Iran.
He based the report on accounts from current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. Watch Hersh discuss what he says are the administration's plans for Iran
"As usual with his quarterly pieces, we'll decline to comment," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe told CNN.
Don't Miss
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Official: Israeli air exercise a message to Iran
Messages conflict over tighter Iran sanctions
"The CIA, as a rule, does not comment on allegations regarding covert operations," CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said.
Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, denied U.S. raids were being launched from Iraq, where American commanders believe Iran is stoking sectarian warfare and fomenting attacks on U.S. troops.
"I can tell you flatly that U.S. forces are not operating across the Iraqi border into Iran, in the south or anywhere else," Crocker said.
Hersh said U.S. efforts were staged from Afghanistan, which also shares a border with Iran.
He said the program resulted in "a dramatic increase in kinetic events and chaos" inside Iran, including attacks by Kurdish separatists in the country's north and a May attack on a mosque in Shiraz that killed 13 people.
The United States has said it is trying to isolate Iran diplomatically in order to get it to come clean about its nuclear ambitions. But Bush has said "all options" are open in dealing with the issue.
Iran insists its nuclear program is aimed at providing civilian electric power, and refuses to comply with U.N. Security Council demands that it halt uranium enrichment work.
U.N. nuclear inspectors say Tehran held back critical information that could determine whether it is trying to make nuclear weapons.
Israel, which is believed to have its own nuclear arsenal, conducted a military exercise in the eastern Mediterranean in early June involving dozens of warplanes and aerial tankers.
The distance involved in the exercise was roughly the same as would be involved in a possible strike on the Iranian nuclear fuel plant at Natanz, Iran, a U.S. military official said.
In 1981, Israeli warplanes destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor.
Iran's parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, warned other countries against moves that would "cost them heavily." In comments that appeared in the semi-official Mehr news agency Sunday, an Iranian general said his troops were digging more than 320,000 graves to bury troops from any invading force with "the respect they deserve."
"Under the law of war and armed conflict, necessary preparations must be made for the burial of soldiers of aggressor nations," said Maj. Gen. Mirfaisal Baqerzadeh, an Iranian officer in charge of identifying soldiers missing in action. E-mail to a friend | Mixx it | Share
Journalist Shirzad Bozorghmehr in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.
All About Iran • George W. Bush • Israel • United Nations Security Council
From the Blo
Report: U.S. 'preparing the battlefield' in Iran
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
New Yorker article says Congress authorized up to $400 million for covert ops in Iran
Journalist Seymour Hersh says program is being staged from Afghanistan
U.S. officials decline comment, deny the U.S. is launching raids from Iraq
Iranian general says troops are building graves for invaders in the event of war
Next Article in World »
READ
VIDEO
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush administration has launched a "significant escalation" of covert operations in Iran, sending U.S. commandos to spy on the country's nuclear facilities and undermine the Islamic republic's government, journalist Seymour Hersh said Sunday.
An Iranian flag flies outside the building containing the reactor of Bushehr nuclear power plant, south of Tehran.
White House, CIA and State Department officials declined comment on Hersh's report, which appears in this week's issue of The New Yorker.
Hersh told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" that Congress has authorized up to $400 million to fund the secret campaign, which involves U.S. special operations troops and Iranian dissidents.
President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have rejected findings from U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran has halted a clandestine effort to build a nuclear bomb and "do not want to leave Iran in place with a nuclear program," Hersh said.
"They believe that their mission is to make sure that before they get out of office next year, either Iran is attacked or it stops its weapons program," Hersh said.
The new article, "Preparing the Battlefield," is the latest in a series of articles accusing the Bush administration of preparing for war with Iran.
He based the report on accounts from current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. Watch Hersh discuss what he says are the administration's plans for Iran
"As usual with his quarterly pieces, we'll decline to comment," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe told CNN.
Don't Miss
ElBaradei warns against strike on Iran
Official: Israeli air exercise a message to Iran
Messages conflict over tighter Iran sanctions
"The CIA, as a rule, does not comment on allegations regarding covert operations," CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said.
Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, denied U.S. raids were being launched from Iraq, where American commanders believe Iran is stoking sectarian warfare and fomenting attacks on U.S. troops.
"I can tell you flatly that U.S. forces are not operating across the Iraqi border into Iran, in the south or anywhere else," Crocker said.
Hersh said U.S. efforts were staged from Afghanistan, which also shares a border with Iran.
He said the program resulted in "a dramatic increase in kinetic events and chaos" inside Iran, including attacks by Kurdish separatists in the country's north and a May attack on a mosque in Shiraz that killed 13 people.
The United States has said it is trying to isolate Iran diplomatically in order to get it to come clean about its nuclear ambitions. But Bush has said "all options" are open in dealing with the issue.
Iran insists its nuclear program is aimed at providing civilian electric power, and refuses to comply with U.N. Security Council demands that it halt uranium enrichment work.
U.N. nuclear inspectors say Tehran held back critical information that could determine whether it is trying to make nuclear weapons.
Israel, which is believed to have its own nuclear arsenal, conducted a military exercise in the eastern Mediterranean in early June involving dozens of warplanes and aerial tankers.
The distance involved in the exercise was roughly the same as would be involved in a possible strike on the Iranian nuclear fuel plant at Natanz, Iran, a U.S. military official said.
In 1981, Israeli warplanes destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor.
Iran's parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, warned other countries against moves that would "cost them heavily." In comments that appeared in the semi-official Mehr news agency Sunday, an Iranian general said his troops were digging more than 320,000 graves to bury troops from any invading force with "the respect they deserve."
"Under the law of war and armed conflict, necessary preparations must be made for the burial of soldiers of aggressor nations," said Maj. Gen. Mirfaisal Baqerzadeh, an Iranian officer in charge of identifying soldiers missing in action. E-mail to a friend | Mixx it | Share
Journalist Shirzad Bozorghmehr in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.
All About Iran • George W. Bush • Israel • United Nations Security Council
From the Blo
MichaelMoore.com : Dick Cheney's chief of staff testifies on detainees, torture
MichaelMoore.com : Dick Cheney's chief of staff testifies on detainees, torture
June 27th, 2008 12:55 am
Dick Cheney's chief of staff testifies on detainees, torture
By Dana Milbank / Washington Post
WASHINGTON -- For all the years of the Bush presidency, he has toiled in anonymity and darkness in the White House, never stepping into the sunlight of public disclosure.
Until today.
There he sat, hunched and scowling, at the witness table in front of the House Judiciary Committee: the bearded, burly form of the chief of staff and alter ego to the vice president -- Dick Cheney's Cheney, if you will -- and the man most responsible for building President Bush's notion of an imperial presidency.
David Addington was there under subpoena. And he wasn't happy about it.
Could the president ever be justified in breaking the law? "I'm not going to answer a legal opinion on every imaginable set of facts any human being could think of," Addington growled. Did he consult Congress when interpreting torture laws? "That's irrelevant," he barked. Would it be legal to torture a detainee's child? "I'm not here to render legal advice to your committee," he snarled. "You do have attorneys of your own."
He had the grace of Gollum as he quarreled with his questioners. In response to one of the chairman's questions, he neither looked up nor spoke before finishing a note he was writing to himself. When Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz questioned his failure to remember conversations about interrogation techniques, he only looked at her and asked: "Is there a question pending, ma'am?" Finally, at the end of the hearing, Addington was asked whether he would meet privately to discuss classified matters. "You have my number," he said. "If you issue a subpoena, we'll go through this again."
Think of Addington as the id of the Bush White House. Though his hidden hand is often merely suspected -- in signing statements, torture policy and other brazen assertions of executive power -- Addington's unbridled hostility was live and unfiltered today.
He sat slouched in his chair, scratching his mustache, as Jerry Nadler of New York, chairman of the Constitution subcommittee, warned about "the unaccountable monarchy" before offering Addington five minutes to make an opening statement. Addington spoke for a minute and 12 seconds -- most of which was devoted to correcting two errors in Nadler's introduction.
"Is that the entirety of your statement?" the chairman asked.
"Yes, thank you," Addington replied. "I'm ready to answer your questions."
He sure was. When John Conyers, D-Mich., inquired about Addington's pet legal concept, a "unitary executive theory" that confers extreme powers on the president, Addington dished out disdain.
"I frankly don't know what you mean by unitary theory," Addington replied.
"Have you ever heard of that theory before?"
"I see it in the newspapers all the time," Addington replied.
"Do you support it?"
"I don't know what it is."
The usually mild Conyers was angry. "You're telling me you don't know what the unitary theory means?"
"I don't know what you mean by it," Addington answered.
"Do you know what you mean by it?"
"I know exactly what I mean by it."
Addington went on to explain how the enemy's actions -- "smoke was still rising. ... 3,000 Americans were just killed" -- justified his legal reasoning. And he showed abundant disdain for dissenters, such as Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala., who asked whether Addington consulted lawmakers about anti-torture statutes. "There is no reason their opinion on that would be relevant," he answered.
Addington's insolence appeared to embolden another witness on the panel, his former administration colleague, John Yoo. Yoo took Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., on a semantic spin when asked about whether a torture memo was implemented.
"What do you mean by 'implemented'?" Yoo asked.
"Mr. Yoo," Ellison pressed, "are you denying knowledge of what the word 'implement' means?"
"You're asking me to define what you mean by the word?"
"No, I'm asking you to define what (begin ital) you (end ital) mean by the word 'implement,' " the exasperated lawmaker clarified.
"It can mean a wide number of things," Yoo demurred.
After several such dances around the questions (whether, for example, the president could order somebody buried alive), Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., offered his grudging respect: "You guys are great on 'Beat the Clock,' " he said.
"I don't play basketball," replied the 41-year-old Yoo.
"That was a game show," Cohen explained.
But Yoo was not about to win a nastiness contest with Addington. As Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., questioned him, he put his chin in his hand, stroked his beard and cut off the congresswoman with an offer of advice "that may be helpful to you in asking your questions."
Schultz, declining the offer, asked him to describe an interrogation he witnessed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. "You could look and see mouths moving," Addington answered. "I infer that there was communication going on."
Cohen asked Addington to explain his curious theory that the vice president is not part of the executive branch. Addington explained that the vice president "belongs to neither" branch but is "attached by the Constitution" to the Congress.
"So he's kind of a barnacle?" Cohen inquired.
"I don't consider the Constitution a barnacle," Addington said reproachfully.
Cheney's Cheney continued to dole out the scorn ("You asked that question earlier, today, and I'll give you the same answer.") until Bill Delahunt, D-Mass., the last questioner, inquired about waterboarding. "I can't talk to you -- al-Qaida may watch these meetings," Addington said.
"I'm glad they finally have a chance to see you, Mr. Addington," Delahunt joked.
"I'm sure you're pleased," Addington growled.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Daily Kos: Cheney's Energy Meetings Drooled Over This Iraqi Oil Map! (Poll)
Daily Kos: Cheney's Energy Meetings Drooled Over This Iraqi Oil Map! (Poll)
Update [2005-11-16 12:6:18 by Sherlock Google]: Hmm. 60% have not seen this map before. Glad I posted it.
Cheney's Energy Meetings Drooled Over This Iraqi Oil Map! (Poll)
by Sherlock Google
Wed Nov 16, 2005 at 08:38:08 AM PDT
This map explains why those secret meetings were about.
Just like nearly every other meeting Cheney had several months before 9-11!
The secret energy meetings seem to have been about the coming Conquest Of Iraq--and which company would get which oilfields and exploration blocks.
This map has never been shown on TV or displayed in a newspaper as far as I know.
Here's the link: http://www.judicialwatch.org/...
Take the Poll below. Have you seen this map before?
Also please RECOMMEND so more people and maybe the MSM gets to see this!!
- Sherlock Google's diary :: ::
Mitch2k2 has a great catch related to the meetings and the map:
More illuminating was when Wilkerson spoke to one of the dark, and largely hidden secrets of the Bush administration. He discussed earlier "policy planning about actually mounting an operation to take the oilfields in the Middle East." While Wilkerson didn't mention the specific timing of these policy planning discussions, he didn't really have to.
Many of you will remember the first Bush administration fighting like the devil to withhold information around Cheney's secret closed-door energy policy meetings. Dubbed the "Energy Task Force," Bush tasked Cheney with the duty of establishing a comprehensive U.S. energy policy merely nine days after taking office in 2001.
Obtained through an FOIA request by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, the few documents made available paint a very suggestive picture of the form any Cheney-driven energy policy would take. For example, consider the map of the Iraqi oil fields, detailing individual field capacity, pipelines, refineries, and tanker terminals. Or a perhaps another, even more telling, "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts."
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
The Bush Crime Family
bush_crime_family.jpg (JPEG Image, 600x561 pixels)
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4297/2429/1600/bush_crime_family.jpg
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Bush Pay-off to the oil companies
Iraq, and Big Oil, and no-bid contracts … oh my
By: Steve Benen on Saturday, June 21st, 2008 at 1:30 PM - PDT
Dear Iraq, sorry the war hasn’t gone well. But now that the surge is wrapping up, we hope you won’t mind that we need several dozen permanent bases in your country. Oh, and did we mention that we’ll need you to approve some no-bid contracts for our oil companies, too? After all, what’s a few bases and oilfields among friends?
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.
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 contracts, which would run for one to two years and are relatively small by industry standards, would nonetheless give the companies an advantage in bidding on future contracts in a country that many experts consider to be the best hope for a large-scale increase in oil production.
Daniel Altman provides some helpful context: “Imagine. At the precise moment when demand for oil was the highest in history, a recently democratized country with enormous reserves had the chance to sell extraction contracts to the highest bidder. This was a country that desperately needed the revenue to help rebuild its schools, power grid and water supply after a long internal conflict. So why did it hand out the contracts with no auction at all?”
And Andrew Sullivan answers the rhetorical question: “Because the US told them so. You don’t get to conquer a new province and not get any spoils, do you? Who needs ANWR or a carbon tax when you can drain Iraq at record high oil prices?”
The reason for the Iraq war: no bid contracts for American oil companies
Deals With Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back
Moises Saman for The New York Times
Oil fields in the Iraqi province of Basra. Iraq produces about 2.5 million barrels of oil per day.
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By ANDREW E. KRAMER
Published: June 19, 2008
BAGHDAD — 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.
Skip to next paragraph
The Reach of War
Go to Complete Coverage »
Managing Globalization Blog (IHT)
High Energy Thursday: A Peculiar Deal for Some of Iraq’s Oil
Go to Blog »
Related
U.S. Blames Shiite Leader for Deadly Baghdad Blast (June 19, 2008)
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.
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 contracts, which would run for one to two years and are relatively small by industry standards, would nonetheless give the companies an advantage in bidding on future contracts in a country that many experts consider to be the best hope for a large-scale increase in oil production.
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.
For an industry being frozen out of new ventures in the world’s dominant oil-producing countries, from Russia to Venezuela, Iraq offers a rare and prized opportunity.
While enriched by $140 per barrel oil, the oil majors are also struggling to replace their reserves as ever more of the world’s oil patch becomes off limits. Governments in countries like Bolivia and Venezuela are nationalizing their oil industries or seeking a larger share of the record profits for their national budgets. Russia and Kazakhstan have forced the major companies to renegotiate contracts.
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. The revenue would be used for reconstruction, although the Iraqi government has had trouble spending the oil revenues it now has, in part because of bureaucratic inefficiency.
For the American government, increasing output in Iraq, as elsewhere, serves the foreign policy goal of increasing oil production globally to alleviate the exceptionally tight supply that is a cause of soaring prices.
The Iraqi Oil Ministry, through a spokesman, said the no-bid contracts were a stop-gap measure to bring modern skills into the fields while the oil law was pending in Parliament.
It said the companies had been chosen because they had been advising the ministry without charge for two years before being awarded the contracts, and because these companies had the needed technology.
A Shell spokeswoman hinted at the kind of work the companies might be engaged in. “We can confirm that we have submitted a conceptual proposal to the Iraqi authorities to minimize current and future gas flaring in the south through gas gathering and utilization,” said the spokeswoman, Marnie Funk. “The contents of the proposal are confidential.”
While small, the deals hold great promise for the companies.
“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.
Moises Saman for The New York Times
Oil fields in the Iraqi province of Basra. Iraq produces about 2.5 million barrels of oil per day.
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By ANDREW E. KRAMER
Published: June 19, 2008
BAGHDAD — 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.
Skip to next paragraph
The Reach of War
Go to Complete Coverage »
Managing Globalization Blog (IHT)
High Energy Thursday: A Peculiar Deal for Some of Iraq’s Oil
Go to Blog »
Related
U.S. Blames Shiite Leader for Deadly Baghdad Blast (June 19, 2008)
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.
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 contracts, which would run for one to two years and are relatively small by industry standards, would nonetheless give the companies an advantage in bidding on future contracts in a country that many experts consider to be the best hope for a large-scale increase in oil production.
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.
For an industry being frozen out of new ventures in the world’s dominant oil-producing countries, from Russia to Venezuela, Iraq offers a rare and prized opportunity.
While enriched by $140 per barrel oil, the oil majors are also struggling to replace their reserves as ever more of the world’s oil patch becomes off limits. Governments in countries like Bolivia and Venezuela are nationalizing their oil industries or seeking a larger share of the record profits for their national budgets. Russia and Kazakhstan have forced the major companies to renegotiate contracts.
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. The revenue would be used for reconstruction, although the Iraqi government has had trouble spending the oil revenues it now has, in part because of bureaucratic inefficiency.
For the American government, increasing output in Iraq, as elsewhere, serves the foreign policy goal of increasing oil production globally to alleviate the exceptionally tight supply that is a cause of soaring prices.
The Iraqi Oil Ministry, through a spokesman, said the no-bid contracts were a stop-gap measure to bring modern skills into the fields while the oil law was pending in Parliament.
It said the companies had been chosen because they had been advising the ministry without charge for two years before being awarded the contracts, and because these companies had the needed technology.
A Shell spokeswoman hinted at the kind of work the companies might be engaged in. “We can confirm that we have submitted a conceptual proposal to the Iraqi authorities to minimize current and future gas flaring in the south through gas gathering and utilization,” said the spokeswoman, Marnie Funk. “The contents of the proposal are confidential.”
While small, the deals hold great promise for the companies.
“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.
Monday, June 23, 2008
GeorgeWalkerBush.net - Unelected, Commander-in-Thief
GeorgeWalkerBush.net - Unelected, Commander-in-Thief
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