Re: SC35

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=NAS20070122&articleId=4551

U.S.-tailored Iraqi Oil Alarm for Producers, Consumers

............After listening to the monotonous and incredible U.S. lies for four years about “we are not there for Iraq 's oil,” the oil truth is now unfolding. Without a decisive military victory, the U.S. occupation of Iraq seems to be about to grab its oil prize by establishing a new sharing arrangement between a major national producer and the multi-national giants, an arrangement that Washington plans to set as the model to be followed both by the oil-rich region and the world at large.

This prize has been the dream of the successive U.S. administrations; on January 18, it came one step closer to reality when Iraq 's Oil Committee approved the new draft hydrocarbon law, sent it to the cabinet within a week and, when approved, will go to the parliament immediately thereafter.

The early draft of the law was prepared by BearingPoint American consultants, hired by the Bush administration, and sent to the White House and major western petroleum corporations in July, and then to the International Monetary Fund two months later, while most Iraqi legislators and public remained in the dark...........

.................The U.S. , the IMF and the major oil giants are using fear to pursue their agenda of privatizing and selling off Iraq 's oil resources. They are taking advantage of an occupied, war-ravaged and internally divided nation to get control over as much oil as possible, on the best possible terms, and to get what they were denied before the war or at anytime in modern Iraqi history: ACCESS TO IRAQ'S OIL UNDER THE GROUND, Iraqi academic and senior lecturer in Middle East economics at the University of Exeter, Kamil Mahdi, wrote recently.

Most Iraqis remain in the dark about the new oil law. Iraq 's oil workers had to travel to Jordan to learn details of the law from the London-based research organization Platform. As a result, five Iraqi trade union federations released a public statement rejecting “the handing of control over oil to foreign companies, WHOSE AIM IS TO MAKE BIG PROFITS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE IRAQI PEOPLE, AND TO ROB THE NATIONAL WEALTH, ACCORDING TO LONG TERM, UNFAIR CONTRACTS, THAT UNDERMINE THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE STATE AND THE DIGNITY OF THE IRAQI PEOPLE.” The statement added that this was a “red line” they would not allow to be crossed.

Washington has been unsuccessfully trying to camouflage her oil prize in Iraq since its invasion in 2003 and similarly she can hardly now smokescreen the oil factor in her escalating crisis with Iran . “Weapons of mass destruction” or “links to Al Qaeda” were not the true reasons for the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq, as much as the real reason for the present U.S.-Iran crisis is not about Iran ’s “nukes.” In both cases regime change was the goal, which if achieved could give Washington an access to almost 20 percent of the world's proven Iraqi and Iranian oil reserves, respectively the third and fourth largest in the world.

............................Iran the Next Target

Iraqi and Iranian oil reserves are targeted per se, but clinching these assets out of national decision-making would also give Washington control over about 60 percent of the world's conventional oil reserves located in essentially five countries in the Arabian Gulf region (described officially by Iran as “Persian”). Iran's close proximity to these major oil resources and her balancing power in controlling access to them have made her the second major obstacle after Iraq that could block any U.S. strategic drive to gain control over them. In 2003, about 90% of oil exported from the Gulf transited by tanker through the Strait of Hormuz, located between Oman and Iran.......................

With a bag full of lies constantly used as propaganda tools to fool the US public, Bush and his oil pals are bent on controlling, and looting the vast reserves of middle east oil. I think we will see an increasing backlash coming from the negatively affected middle eastern peoples. against the aggressive, premptive, and un-ethical aspirations pursued by this current administration. Bushes beating of the hornets nest in the middle east, will be producing increasingly dramatic results, but not the ones he planned for.