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'Iraqi Oil Agreement Reveals the True Winners in Iraq

Washington Dispatch: The new oil revenue-sharing agreement is a giveaway to Big Oil and could end up tearing apart the country.
By James Ridgeway

The Iraqi oil deal set to go before the country's parliament next month could spell the end of the country as a nation state, and signals a major Bush victory in the war. The proposed law not only opens the door to the big international oil companies, but offers them lucrative contract deals, and even a place on the national oil board that will run the industry.
The Byzantine scheme for dividing up oil revenues on the basis of population is little more than a facade for the biggest rip off of resources since the British barged into Mesopotamia more than a century ago.
This law sanctions contracts between Iraq's individual regions and foreign oil companies. It effectively puts an end to a nationalized petroleum industry that has provided most of the country's revenue. Over time, the oil revenues might sustain an independent Kurdistan, along with a Shia state, and a Sunni state (though the Sunnis don't have much oil, at least among the known Iraqi reserves). The law sets up a system that opens the door for foreign companies to make the country's oil policy. A new federal Oil and Gas Council is to assist the Council of Ministers, "in coordination with the producing provinces and regions." This council is to include the prime minister and other cabinet members, directors of the central bank, representatives from the various regions, and "executive managers from important related petroleum companies, including the national Iraqi oil company and the oil marketing company."
Thanks to Raed Jarrar, you can read an English translation of the new law at Al-Ghad, the "voice of the democratic left in Iraq."'

Lees verder: http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2007/03/iraqi_oil_agreement.html