By Stephen Krashen
The Bush administration might go down in history as the most successful ever in American history, successful in achieving its own goal, that is. The goal is the maximum amount of money for FOB (Friends of Bush) and the profits may continue long after 2008.
On Jan. 7, a British publication, The Independent, carried a long and detailed article entitled “Blood and oil: How the West will profit from Iraq’s most precious commodity.” It described a new law, now under consideration by the Iraqi government, that would allow large foreign investments in Iraqi oil under terms very favorable to the companies for the next 30 years. Of great significance is the fact that: “The law was drafted with the help of a U.S. consultancy firm hired by the U.S. government” (Shortnews.com, Jan. 8).
The American public is nearly completely unaware of this scheme. With the exception of a recent (and highly informative) article in the San Francisco Chronicle (“Why there was no exit plan,” April 30) articles in the U.S. press about the new law have not discussed the enormous profits foreign oil companies will make, focusing on how profits will be shared within Iraq, which Kamil Mahdi, writing in Britain’s Guardian on Jan. 16, interprets as a device to “ease the passage of the law and the sellout to oil corporations.”
According to Ghazi Sabir-Ali, former director of Iraq’s Northern Oil Company, writing in the Middle East Economic Survey, it is a law which “many Iraqis, experts in economics and the petroleum industry, look on with horror, considering it to be passing over the wealth of Iraq to foreign companies” (March 26). The Iraqi Labor Union Leadership released a statement in December criticizing the proposal, stating strong opposition to “the handing of authority and control over the oil to foreign companies, that aim to make big profits at the expense of the people.”
While Congress and media debate the troop surge, a timetable for withdrawal and the firing of lawyers in the Justice Department, the Bush administration is coming closer and closer to achieving what may have been its true goal all along: Massive profits, lasting for decades, for the oil industry and related industries.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 9, 2007. Read the original PDF.