Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Congress's Secret Iraqi Oil Privitization Benchmark
Among the many benchmarks that Congress stuck on the Iraq war spending measure last week was a little known provision that many liberals missed. As Ryan Grimm reports in today’s Politico.
“The current bill going through Congress would ratchet up pressure on the Iraqi Parliament to enact “a broadly accepted hydrocarbon law that equitably shares oil revenues among all Iraqis.”Sounds good but to many Iraqis and analysts of the Iraqi oil industry the wording is exactly similar to an Iraqi bill that would open up Iraq's enormous oil wealth to foreign investors. Language about sharing oil wealth is all well and good but as Antonaa Juhasz from Oil Change International recently put it:
"the benefits of this excellent proposal are radically undercut by the law’s many other provisions — these allow much (if not most) of Iraq’s oil revenues to flow out of the country and into the pockets of international oil companies.The law would transform Iraq’s oil industry from a nationalized model closed to American oil companies except for limited (although highly lucrative) marketing contracts, into a commercial industry, all-but-privatized, that is fully open to all international oil companies."
That’s right. The House of Representatives is now on record as pressuring the Iraqi government to essentially privatize its petro-resources. Stuck in there among less objectionable goals for the Iraqi government, the oil benchmark may use somewhat vague language and many Democrats chose to ignore it, but for the Bush administration it's one benchmark that has been at their top of the list since the war started.
The administration has been putting pressure on the Iraqi government since the invasion to privatize pretty much everything in the state heavy Iraqi economy. As Naomi Klein reported back in 2004, many in the administration had fantasies of turning Iraq into a kind of “Year Zero” for neo-liberal economics, eliminating nearly every possible state barrier to foreign investment. Of course that was when they still had hopes that newly stable and pro-US Iraq would become a free-market model before the growing insurgency and sectarian strife essentially halted the process of creating a Milton Friedman styled utopia
While it’s unlikely that any foreign energy company would drop any money in Iraq at this point, the pressure for privatization from the administration continues. According to Grimm:
In February the Maliki government introduced new legislation in the Iraqi parliament that would in practice privatize the country’s oil resources and he is hoping to get it turned into law soon.
Oil in Iraq-like elsewhere in the Middle East-is an explosive political issue. Some Iraqi’s can still remember the days during British colonial occupation when the oil field when were owned by British and American corporations. The nationalization of Iraq’s oil fields was one of the first acts of a newly independent Iraq and the oil profits that formerly went to London or Houston helped fuel (pun intended) one of the highest living standards in the Arab world.
Most vocal in their opposition to the privatization of Iraq’s oil are the forces on the ground most committed to a democratic, secular and pluralistic Iraq; the Iraqi trade-unions. Sparing no words they condemned the bill for:
The administration has been putting pressure on the Iraqi government since the invasion to privatize pretty much everything in the state heavy Iraqi economy. As Naomi Klein reported back in 2004, many in the administration had fantasies of turning Iraq into a kind of “Year Zero” for neo-liberal economics, eliminating nearly every possible state barrier to foreign investment. Of course that was when they still had hopes that newly stable and pro-US Iraq would become a free-market model before the growing insurgency and sectarian strife essentially halted the process of creating a Milton Friedman styled utopia
While it’s unlikely that any foreign energy company would drop any money in Iraq at this point, the pressure for privatization from the administration continues. According to Grimm:
”The Associated Press reported earlier this month that (Prime Minister Nouri-Al Maliki fears the U.S. would withdraw support for him if he doesn’t succeed in passing the current version of the bill.”
In February the Maliki government introduced new legislation in the Iraqi parliament that would in practice privatize the country’s oil resources and he is hoping to get it turned into law soon.
Oil in Iraq-like elsewhere in the Middle East-is an explosive political issue. Some Iraqi’s can still remember the days during British colonial occupation when the oil field when were owned by British and American corporations. The nationalization of Iraq’s oil fields was one of the first acts of a newly independent Iraq and the oil profits that formerly went to London or Houston helped fuel (pun intended) one of the highest living standards in the Arab world.
Most vocal in their opposition to the privatization of Iraq’s oil are the forces on the ground most committed to a democratic, secular and pluralistic Iraq; the Iraqi trade-unions. Sparing no words they condemned the bill for:
“handing of authority and control over the oil to foreign companies that aim to make big profits at the expense of the people and to rob Iraq’s national wealth.”Luckily, Sen. Joe Biden (D-De) was able to get language in the Senate’s version of the bill that goes on record as opposing any US control over Iraq’s oil resources but it unlikely that the Administration-which has so far refused to listen to Congress on anything else-will let up the pressure on the Iraqi government. Maliki needs to know though that there are voices in US Congress who are opposed to privatization and that he spend more time heeding the voices of the Iraqi people; in particular the labor movement who want to use Iraq’s natural resources in order to rebuild their nation, not line the pockets of multi-national corporations.
Labels: Iraq
# posted by Gang of One @ 12:35 PM 
