Condi finally accomplishes what we went to Iraq for in the first place

as i pointed out last week, she clearly had her priorities straight when she hit ground in baghdad...

Rice, in Surprise Baghdad Visit, Presses Leaders for
Progress

The secretary of state said she told Iraq's leaders to
quickly finalize an oil law... .

according to a long article in today's nyt, she got what she went there for...

The Iraqi cabinet approved a draft of a law on Monday that would set guidelines for nationwide distribution of oil revenues and foreign investment in the immense oil industry.

but, as per usual, they neglected to connect the passage of the law with the pressure condi put on them last week, nor, in the u.s. media's preferred context-free reporting style, did they bother to mention the unbelievably favorable terms under which foreign investment would be made... for that, we have to turn to the foreign press, in this case, the uk independent...

It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.

The huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to critics who say the Iraq war was fought for oil. They point to statements such as one from Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said in 1999, while he was still chief executive of the oil services company Halliburton, that the world would need an additional 50 million barrels of oil a day by 2010. "So where is the oil going to come from?... The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies," he said.

Oil industry executives and analysts say the law, which would permit Western companies to pocket up to three-quarters of profits in the early years, is the only way to get Iraq's oil industry back on its feet after years of sanctions, war and loss of expertise. But it will operate through "production-sharing agreements" (or PSAs) which are highly unusual in the Middle East, where the oil industry in Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world's two largest producers, is state controlled.

Opponents say Iraq, where oil accounts for 95 per cent of the economy, is being forced to surrender an unacceptable degree of sovereignty.

about as close as the nyt came to any of the above context was this...

“I think the devil is going to be in the details,” said Fadel Gheit, an analyst with Oppenheimer & Company in New York. “Oil companies need governments that will honor the contracts they sign and they need a safe environment to operate,” he added.

While Mr. Gheit said he expected American and British oil companies to receive preferential treatment in the awarding of contracts, other analysts said Iraqis would be suspicious of awarding preferential deals to American companies.

“Iraqis are extremely protective of their resources,” said Rochdi A. Younsi, an analyst at Eurasia Group, a political risk consulting firm. “Given the level of anti-American sentiment, any major American oil company perceived to take advantage of their relations in government would be seen as being part of the so-called conspiracy to take over Iraq’s natural resources.”

however, if you go back and re-read the snippet from the independent, it looks very much like the "conspiracy to take over iraq's natural resources" is now an accomplished fact...

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