"By 2010 we will need [a further] 50 million barrels a day. The Middle East, with two-thirds of the oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize lies"
Dick Cheney; US Vice-President, 1999
From studying the history of the past fifty years, the Iraqi Baath party was frequently used as an instrument in accomplishing US and UK policies in the Middle East and the Gulf.
It was the major tool used in the bloody coup d'etat of 1963 against the Kassim regime and the progressive movements in Iraq. Ali Salih Al-Sadi, the Baathist leader who headed the coup and consequently became Prime Minster, later admitted that they came to power in a coup organised and financed by the CIA and British Intelligence Services, in order to freeze Law 80, which was declared by Kassim in 1961 to remove over 99.5% of Iraqi territory from the control of the international oil companies and return it to Iraqi sovereignty.
On July 17, 1968, the Baathists returned to power for the second time and then on July 30, 1968 there was a coup within the coup, the purpose of which admitted Saddam Hussein was to dispose two of the original putschists who were representing the CIA.
In 1980, the Baath regime started an eight year war against Iran to bring to a halt the spreading of ideas and influence of the 1979 Iranian revolution, in line with the objectives of US strategy in the Gulf. The Baathists were supported militarily, politically and financially by the US, UK and all the Arab reactionary regimes in the area during this war.
After the collapse of the USSR in 1990, the US were no longer interested in a partnership with the Baathists and instead shifted their policies to the direct and full control on the Gulf area. This meant that the US now had no more need for the Iraqi Baathists and that is how they succeeded in achieving their objectives -- by letting the Baathists attack and occupy Kuwait, which led to the fulfilment of all the US plans in the Gulf region.
Today Iraq's oil reserves are the third largest in the world, with an estimated 115 billion barrels waiting to be extracted, are a prize worth having. As Vice-President Dick Cheney noted in 1999, when he was still running Halliburton, an oil services company, the Middle East is the key to preventing the world running out of oil.
Now, unnoticed by most amid the furore over civil war in Iraq and the hanging of Saddam Hussein, the new oil law has quietly been going through several drafts, and is now on the point of being presented to the cabinet and then the parliament in Baghdad. Its provisions are a radical departure from the norm for developing countries: under a system known as "production-sharing agreements", or PSAs, oil majors such as BP and Shell in Britain, and Exxon and Chevron in the US, would be able to sign deals of up to 30 years to extract Iraq's oil.
PSAs allow a country to retain legal ownership of its oil, but gives a share of profits to the international companies that invest in infrastructure and operation of the wells, pipelines and refineries. Their introduction would be a first for a major Middle Eastern oil producer. Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world's number one and two oil exporters, both tightly control their industries through state-owned companies with no appreciable foreign collaboration, as do most members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Opec.
Critics fear that given Iraq's weak bargaining position, it could get locked in now to deals on bad terms for decades to come. "Iraq would end up with the worst possible outcome," said Greg Muttitt of Platform, a human rights and environmental group that monitors the oil industry. He said the new legislation was drafted with the assistance of BearingPoint, an American consultancy firm hired by the US government, which had a representative working in the American embassy in Baghdad for several months.
"Three outside groups have had far more opportunity to scrutinise this legislation than most Iraqis," said Mr Muttitt. "The draft went to the US government and major oil companies in July, and to the International Monetary Fund in September. Last month I met a group of 20 Iraqi MPs in Jordan, and I asked them how many had seen the legislation. Only one had."
Britain and the US have always hotly denied that the war was fought for oil. On 18 March 2003, with the invasion imminent, Tony Blair proposed the House of Commons motion to back the war. "The oil revenues, which people falsely claim that we want to seize, should be put in a trust fund for the Iraqi people administered through the UN," he said.
"The United Kingdom should seek a new Security Council Resolution that would affirm... the use of all oil revenues for the benefit of the Iraqi people."
That suggestion came to nothing. In May 2003, just after President Bush declared major combat operations at an end, under a banner boasting "Mission Accomplished", Britain co-sponsored a resolution in the Security Council which gave the US and UK control over Iraq's oil revenues. Far from "all oil revenues" being used for the Iraqi people, Resolution 1483 continued to make deductions from Iraq's oil earnings to pay compensation for the invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
Excerpts culled from:
Political Observations Concerning The Immediate Future Of Iraq
Blood and oil: How the West will profit from Iraq's most precious commodity
Dick Cheney; US Vice-President, 1999
From studying the history of the past fifty years, the Iraqi Baath party was frequently used as an instrument in accomplishing US and UK policies in the Middle East and the Gulf.
It was the major tool used in the bloody coup d'etat of 1963 against the Kassim regime and the progressive movements in Iraq. Ali Salih Al-Sadi, the Baathist leader who headed the coup and consequently became Prime Minster, later admitted that they came to power in a coup organised and financed by the CIA and British Intelligence Services, in order to freeze Law 80, which was declared by Kassim in 1961 to remove over 99.5% of Iraqi territory from the control of the international oil companies and return it to Iraqi sovereignty.
On July 17, 1968, the Baathists returned to power for the second time and then on July 30, 1968 there was a coup within the coup, the purpose of which admitted Saddam Hussein was to dispose two of the original putschists who were representing the CIA.
In 1980, the Baath regime started an eight year war against Iran to bring to a halt the spreading of ideas and influence of the 1979 Iranian revolution, in line with the objectives of US strategy in the Gulf. The Baathists were supported militarily, politically and financially by the US, UK and all the Arab reactionary regimes in the area during this war.
After the collapse of the USSR in 1990, the US were no longer interested in a partnership with the Baathists and instead shifted their policies to the direct and full control on the Gulf area. This meant that the US now had no more need for the Iraqi Baathists and that is how they succeeded in achieving their objectives -- by letting the Baathists attack and occupy Kuwait, which led to the fulfilment of all the US plans in the Gulf region.
Today Iraq's oil reserves are the third largest in the world, with an estimated 115 billion barrels waiting to be extracted, are a prize worth having. As Vice-President Dick Cheney noted in 1999, when he was still running Halliburton, an oil services company, the Middle East is the key to preventing the world running out of oil.
Now, unnoticed by most amid the furore over civil war in Iraq and the hanging of Saddam Hussein, the new oil law has quietly been going through several drafts, and is now on the point of being presented to the cabinet and then the parliament in Baghdad. Its provisions are a radical departure from the norm for developing countries: under a system known as "production-sharing agreements", or PSAs, oil majors such as BP and Shell in Britain, and Exxon and Chevron in the US, would be able to sign deals of up to 30 years to extract Iraq's oil.
PSAs allow a country to retain legal ownership of its oil, but gives a share of profits to the international companies that invest in infrastructure and operation of the wells, pipelines and refineries. Their introduction would be a first for a major Middle Eastern oil producer. Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world's number one and two oil exporters, both tightly control their industries through state-owned companies with no appreciable foreign collaboration, as do most members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Opec.
Critics fear that given Iraq's weak bargaining position, it could get locked in now to deals on bad terms for decades to come. "Iraq would end up with the worst possible outcome," said Greg Muttitt of Platform, a human rights and environmental group that monitors the oil industry. He said the new legislation was drafted with the assistance of BearingPoint, an American consultancy firm hired by the US government, which had a representative working in the American embassy in Baghdad for several months.
"Three outside groups have had far more opportunity to scrutinise this legislation than most Iraqis," said Mr Muttitt. "The draft went to the US government and major oil companies in July, and to the International Monetary Fund in September. Last month I met a group of 20 Iraqi MPs in Jordan, and I asked them how many had seen the legislation. Only one had."
Britain and the US have always hotly denied that the war was fought for oil. On 18 March 2003, with the invasion imminent, Tony Blair proposed the House of Commons motion to back the war. "The oil revenues, which people falsely claim that we want to seize, should be put in a trust fund for the Iraqi people administered through the UN," he said.
"The United Kingdom should seek a new Security Council Resolution that would affirm... the use of all oil revenues for the benefit of the Iraqi people."
That suggestion came to nothing. In May 2003, just after President Bush declared major combat operations at an end, under a banner boasting "Mission Accomplished", Britain co-sponsored a resolution in the Security Council which gave the US and UK control over Iraq's oil revenues. Far from "all oil revenues" being used for the Iraqi people, Resolution 1483 continued to make deductions from Iraq's oil earnings to pay compensation for the invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
Excerpts culled from:
Political Observations Concerning The Immediate Future Of Iraq
Blood and oil: How the West will profit from Iraq's most precious commodity
How many lives, how much waste and carnage are we going to witness due to this most vital commodity?
Is it crazy to think perhaps diplomacy and fair trade might not be a better route to follow than the cynical and destructive desire by a very few to control the resources needed by so many by brute force and coercion?
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