WAR: Shhhhh... Iraqi Oil Carve-Up Begins, In Secret

The economic question of how Iraq's oil reserves will be divided amongst potential owners is to be aired this week (in secret) in London, with the attendance of many oil industry delegates. Iraq's oil ministry is also to be involved. There are strong objections from Iraqi oil workers to foreign ownership. But there have also been Executive Orders signed by the President of the USA to 'protect' the proceeds of oil sales for an Iraq Development Fund. To what extent the profits will be retained in the country that owns the reserves is an unknown... this may depend on the loyalties of the Iraqi "oil ministry".



The whole arrangements for the secretive two days of meetings and conferences would be interesting, as well as the proceedings, which may never be in the public domain. This is not an OPEC meeting, but something else quite clandestine.

What are the chances of the rights of workers being preserved, and what are the chances of profit levels reflecting the ownership of natural resources remaining in Iraq?

Related News Links:
www.axisoflogic.com

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
War Profiteering: Deeper In Crap

oops


I forgot this was a conspiracy board.....

From your article:

But Iraqi oil workers are furious about the conference. "The second phase of the war will be started by this conference carving up the industry," said an outraged Hasan Juma'a, head of the Iraqi General Union of Oil Employees. "It is about giving shares of Iraq to the countries who invaded it - they get a piece of the action as a reward. The British government will back this action in order to pay its debt in Iraq."



I'm not sure how the notion of carve-up will start the 'second phase' of the war which has seen a lot of 'phases' already, but I'm sure I would not want the General Union of Oil Employees on the side of the so-calld 'insurgents'.

I hope they calm down the employees or they'll find them sabotaging the equipment and shutting down the oil anyway.

(sigh) Why, oh why, do I think this is yet another sign of BushCo corporate complicity?

Now China's Industrial Complex has begun and the want Iran and Iraq's Oil to keep it going strong.

Kuddles to North America, all we do is buy China's products and now surrender the oil!

Dallas

Respect backs protest against sell-off of Iraq's oil
24/06/2005

Respect is calling on people to join a demonstration against the New Labour sponsored carve-up of Iraq's oil industry. Protestors will gather in London on Wednesday morning to march on the Paddington Hilton Hotel where executives from BP, Shell, Exxon Mobil and Halliburton will be meeting for the Iraq Petroleum Conference.

The conference sponsored by BP and government body, UK Trade and Investment will be a networking event where the worlds leading oil robber barons will get to mingle with the most senior officials from Iraq's oil ministry - including director general of exploration, Salem Razoky.

"This is the industrial wing of the military-industrial complex cleaning up the profits after the military wing killed 100,000 Iraqis to make it possible," said John Rees, Respect National Secretary and co-founder of Stop The War Coalition. "This is a classic smash and grab raid - the military smashing its way into Iraq to open it up for raiding by the oil corporations."

The demonstration organised by Corporate Pirates and also backed by StW Coalition assembles at 10.30am at Edgeware Road Tube Station.

Is this news? A surprise?

No is not, see Chalabi is in charge of ministry of Oil, guess what before the beginning of the invasion he proposed the division of the major oil fields in Iraq to the biggest oil companies in the US.

Now that he came back from shame and scorn to be the minister of oil, what he promised is becoming true.

And to think that many around these boards swore on their knees that the invasion of Iraq didn't have anything to do with oil.

Thanks for this great news, so the plans for the privatization and distribution of the Iraqi oil is on schedule.

The hypocrisy

Well, well, oil well. . .
Time to divide the loot from the spoils of war!

3 trillion? pffft, 105 billion is a drop in the ocean, quite a nice profit margin.

I wonder if the Iraqis will see any of that money? Or will they continue to live in rank poverty with no electricity or running water?
After all, it was all for the Iraqi people in the first place, freeing them from their dictator and all.
I'm certain that America and Britain will do everything in their power to make sure that the Iraqis get their fair share of all that loot that they have lost so much for. . .

What a great place the future has become

[edit on 28-6-2005 by shanti23]

SpOILs of War: The neo-liberal carve up of Iraq and why its THE issue at the G8
10.06.2005 11:08 | G8 2005 | Anti-militarism | Globalisation | Social Struggles

www.indymedia.org.uk...

Away from the bloody battlefields, Iraq is being plundered through the brutal economic reconstruction of a country already bombed to submission and starved by years of sanctions. This article examines the corporate takeover of post-Saddam Iraq, set in the context of a violent expansion of neo-liberalism and argues why its crucial activists in the UK take up the issue in the run up to the G8.

spOILS of War

For Iraqis, decisions of life and death are not just made in the battlefields. They are also made here in UK, in secret, behind closed doors where government ministers and corporate executives execute murky deals to privatise Iraq’s economy, and with a pen stroke set the living standard for generations of Iraqis to come. The atrocious images of massacred populations, destroyed cities, maimed children and soldiers coming back in coffins only tell part of the horror story that has been unleashed in Iraq. Whilst the world’s attention has been ensnared by the immediacy of daily murder and destruction being waged on Iraqis by occupation forces, there has been another deeply insidious war taking place. A secret war of neo-liberal conquest where Iraq’s economy has been wrenched open with brutal and violent economic reforms, the effects of which will be felt long after the last bomb has dropped.

The occupation of Iraq has been characterised by the most rapid, radical neo-liberal reconstruction of a country seen in modern times but these changes have been met with deafening silence by UK activists. The cost of such an omission is clear. By failing to address the root cause of the war on Iraq (the expansion of neo-liberalism), our anti-war “movement” is ill equipped to bring true justice for the people of Iraq and prevent future wars in oil rich countries such as Iran or Venezuela. Unless neo-liberalism is challenged as the key cause of instability in the world - and specifically in Iraq - it will continue to spread social conflict, violence, poverty and more wars in its unsustainable grapple for resources.

Corporate Piracy

During the first few months of the occupation of Iraq in 2003, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) under the leadership of US appointed Paul Bremer imposed a series of Orders on Iraq which dramatically restructured Iraq’s economy. Amongst other things these Orders included reducing corporation tax from 40% to15%; laying off 500,000 public sector workers; practically abolishing trade tariffs; altering agricultural patenting; de-regulating the remaining workforce; and opening up 100% of Iraq’s resources (excluding oil) to foreign ownership with companies being allowed to take 100% of all profits earned out of the country.


Little of this seems to be understood by "Above Top Secret" membership at large. We readily engage in the rhetoric of "justifying" or condemning the war, but pay no attention to the clandestine restructuring of the workforce and the economy and its effects on Iraqi people. Watch this space.

This confirmation of the true motives behind the Iraq War further reinforces what most sane and rational people had already surmised from the whole affair.

Well I know some also believe in all sorts of secret societies and alternative worship by some of the leaders of this world.

Well IMHO they have shown again that they only worship $ and OIL.

Elf

I find very surprising that this piece of news has been ignored by most members of ATS.

Why?

Because this fact about the distribution of the Iraqi oil and the private interest involved, was a very heated debate last year when many here that supported the war would argued in a multitude of post about how the invasion of Iraq was "Not for oil"

I wonder what they have to said now.

Originally posted by shanti23
3 trillion? pffft, 105 billion is a drop in the ocean, quite a nice profit margin.

It's even better than that. The money for the war came from the American and UK tax payers. Do you think they are going to pay it back?

That's 3 Trillion pure profit. Can't get any better than that.

By failing to address the root cause of the war on Iraq (the expansion of neo-liberalism)

Now I'm really confused. I thought it was neo-conservatives. Now it's neo-liberalism? What gives?

"Neo-cons" are former "liberals" who believe they have seen the light, in the US partisan model. But remember that the news analysis is from the UK where the conference is being convened (today-tomorrow) and where "Neo-cons" don't exist except across the Atlantic.

A weed by any other name...

Good story MA - thanks.

...I was a bit confused tho - I thought corporate America already had divvied up the spoils. Checked my sources - and discovered they've grabbed everything BUT the oil. No worries tho, all the pieces and parts are in place, and there won't be any holdups.

...before the fires from the “shock and awe” military onslaught were even extinguished, Bremer unleashed his shock therapy, pushing through more wrenching changes in one sweltering summer than the International Monetary Fund has managed to enact over three decades in Latin America.”

...In his first major act on the job, Bremer "fired 500,000 state workers, most of them soldiers, but also doctors, nurses, teachers, publishers, and printers. Next, he flung open the country’s borders to absolutely unrestricted imports: no tariffs, no duties, no inspections, no taxes. Iraq, Bremer declared was "open for business," "

Before the war, Iraq’s non-oil-related economy consisted of 200 state-owned companies, that produced everything from cement to paper to washing machines. In June, Bremer attended an economic summit in Jordan and announced that the firms would be privatized immediately. “Getting inefficient state enterprises into private hands,” he said, “is essential for Iraq’s economic recovery,"

In September, to entice investors to buy the state-owned companies, Bremer enacted a new set of laws. For example, Order 37 lowered Iraq’s corporate tax rate from roughly 40% to a flat 15%. Order 39 allowed foreign companies to own 100% of Iraqi assets outside of the natural-resource sector.

Investors could take 100% of the profits they made in Iraq out of the country. They would not be required to reinvest and would not be taxed. Under Order 39, they could sign leases and contracts that would last for forty years. Order 40 welcomed foreign banks to Iraq under the same favorable terms


Source

.

Then you most have to wonder why the unemployment in Iraq is so high, actually the only people that get good pay are all from private American companies and the are mostly foreigners.

This site argues anti-privatization policies in Iraq:

www.iraqoccupationfocus.org.uk...

but protests may be too little too late if the Coalition Provisional Authority did its job and divided up the spoils quickly for the pigs at the trough.


Organizers encouraged this response to the Oil Summit meeting:

Protest outside Iraqi Petroleum Conference 2005


Wednesday 29th June
The Hilton, Paddington.
Meet 10.30am, Edgeware Road tube

A week before Blair hosts the G8, corporate executives from multinational oil companies will be meeting in London with representatives from the Iraqi government to discuss the future of Iraqi oil and gas reserves.

Join us for a pirate-themed protest on the 29th June against the corporate plunder of Iraq’s oil! Oppose the neo-liberal cronies pillaging Iraq and support the Iraqi people’s call for NO PRIVATISATION, NO ASSET STRIPPING, NO EXPATRIATION OF PROFITS.

This event is being in solidarity with the General Union of Oil Employees (GUOE) in Iraq who are resisting attempted privatisation by the occupying forces. A statement from the GUOE will be read outside the conference.

Called by Corporate Pirates; supported by Iraq Occupation Focus, Voices in the Wilderness UK and the Stop the War Coalition.


I wonder whether the Summit or the protest outside the Paddington Hilton got any media coverage at all in London?

about furtive global restructuring and piracy anyhow?


Wednesday 29 June saw the meeting of two groups of corporate pirates at the Paddington Hilton Hotel....

Inside of the hotel the Iraq Petroleum Conference 2005 was getting underway... attended by oil executives and technical staff from the Iraqi Oil Ministry as well as from Western major oil corporations. The conference is sponsored by, inter alia, BP and takes place in the context of continuing moves from occupying powers in Iraq to privatise the Iraqi oil industry.

On the outside of the conference were an entirely different group of Corporate Pirates. Dressed in full pirate paraphenalia they sailed into Paddington in a giant pirate galleon. Armed with cutlasses, treaure chests and free-market-maps of Iraq they were here to show the conference in its true colours - an act of corporate piracy. Singing pirate shanties and banging drums they called on the surrounding general public to join them in their opposition to the conference inside.

The urgency of the call to action was made clear as one speaker from the pirate group outlined how, last month in Iraq, the General Union of Oil Employees held a historic conference in Basra against the privatisation of Iraq's public sector. The Union states in its final conference communiqué: ‘[Iraq] lacks a stable political infrastructure and a clearly defined economic system on which the people can rely. This being so, the conference participants believe that the privatisation of the oil and industrial sectors, or of any part of them, will do great harm to the Iraqi people and their economy’.

In solidarity with Iraqis and their right to determine for themselves the future composition of their economy, the Corporate Pirates group is calling for No privatisation; No asset stripping; No expatriation of profits!. Earlier in the day two of the pirates group managed to take this message inside the Hilton Hotel, unfurling a banner which read "Iraq's oil belongs to Iraq's people." They managed to read out the following statement inside the hotel before they were dragged out by security:

We are here to show solidarity with the large sections of Iraqi Civil Society who are opposed to any attempted privatisation of their natural resources, which would take much needed profits for reconstruction and development away from Iraqis and into the hands of fat cat corporate executives. We support the General Union of Oil Employees who last month held a historic anti-privatisation conference in Basra. As the illegal occupation of Iraq continues and Iraqis continue to suffer withoug clean water, electricity or food it is curcial that Iraq's national resources are not used to line the pockets of multinational oil companies.

As the attention of activists turns North to the G8 in Scotland it is essential that the people of Iraq are remembered. As the corporate plunder of Iraq continues to ravage that country we must call to account the leaders of the G8 nations. At every turn they marshal their military and economic might to defend the economic injustices which they have set up and which conferences like the one in Paddington seek to exploit.

www.indymedia.org.uk...


[edit on 4-7-2005 by MaskedAvatar]