http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IB28Ak01.html

US's Iraq oil grab is a done deal

"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." - US Vice President Dick Cheney, then Halliburton chief executive officer, London, autumn 1999

US President George W Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney might as well declare the Iraq war over and out. As far as they - and the humongous energy interests they defend - are concerned,
only now is the MISSION REALLY ACCOMPLISHED. More than half a trillion dollars spent and perhaps half a million Iraqis killed have come down to this.

On Monday, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's cabinet in Baghdad approved the draft of the new Iraqi oil law. The government regards it as "a major national project". The key point of the law is that Iraq's immense oil wealth (115 billion barrels of proven reserves, third in the world after Saudi Arabia and Iran) will be under the iron rule of a fuzzy "Federal Oil and Gas Council" boasting "a panel of oil experts from inside and outside Iraq". That is, nothing less than predominantly US Big Oil executives.

The law represents no less than institutionalized raping and pillaging of Iraq's oil wealth................

..........Scandalously, Iraqi public opinion had absolute no knowledge of it - not to mention the overwhelming majority of Parliament members. Were this to be a truly representative Iraqi government, any change to the legislation concerning the highly sensitive question of oil wealth would have to be approved by a popular referendum.

In real life, Iraq's vital national interests are in the hands of a small bunch of highly impressionable (or downright corrupt) technocrats. Ministries are no more than political party feuds; the national interest is never considered, only private, ethnic and sectarian interests. Corruption and theft are endemic. Big Oil will profit handsomely - and long-term, 30 years minimum, with fabulous rates of return - from a former developing-world stalwart methodically devastated into failed-state status...............

...............Bush and Cheney got their oily cake - and they will eat it, too (or be drenched in its glory). Mission accomplished: permanent, sprawling military bases on the eastern flank of the Arab nation and control of some of largest, untapped oil wealth on the planet - a key geostrategic goal of the New American Century. Now it's time to move east, bomb Iran, force regime change and - what else? - force PSAs down their Persian throats...............

9-11, Afganistan, Iraq, maybe soon Iran, all clearly show the bottom line is, its always been about oil, and the geopolitical power and riches it brings those who can control it, especially given the pressures building on available supply to the huge economy, and population of the US. Recent reports speak of plans to build huge military bases in Africa, again, to try and control the flow of oil from this region. I think commonsense would suggest, that if ethanol, Canadian Tar Sands, Hydrogen cars, Nuclear Power, or any of the other big alternative energy sources which could potentially be developed here on the North American Continent, between the US, Canada, and Mexico were in a realistic position of offsetting the losses to come in oil supply for the US, even the crimminals and fools running our government would see the merit of not wasting untold billions of dollars, and countless thousands of lives in far away lands just for the purpose of ( in essence ) stealing other countries energy riches, weather oil or natural gas.