And, yes, I DO take it personally: The 'fair" Iraq oil law - why the hell can't we get the TRUTH out of our media?

check this from today's nyt...

Iraqi Blocs Opposed to Draft Oil Bill

Kurdish and Sunni Arab officials are concerned over a draft
of a bill establishing a framework for the fair
distribution of oil revenues.

[...]

The draft law, which establishes a framework for the distribution of oil revenues, was approved by the Iraqi cabinet in late February after months of negotiations. The White House was hoping for quick passage to lay the groundwork for a political settlement among the country’s ethnic and sectarian factions.

[...]

The draft oil law would allow regions to enter into production-sharing agreements with foreign companies, which some Iraqis and critics of the Bush administration say could lead to foreigners reaping too much of the country’s oil wealth.

Iraqi officials say all contracts will be subjected to a fair bidding process, but there are fears that American companies could be favored.

here's the REAL STORY about iraq's oil law, contained in a post i made back in january... read it carefully and then decide if "fair distribution of oil revenues" comes within a country mile of being the truth...

it's a heckuva deal when you have the entire might of the taxpayer-supported united states goverment ready and willing to sacrifice people's lives in order to increase your opportunities for expanding business and increasing profits... you don't have to beat down or buy out the competition, you don't have to go through the tediousness of exploration and test drilling, you don't have a huge investment in new infrastructure, the economy is already in ruins so labor costs are laughably low... what's NOT to like...?
"Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days," Danny Fortson, Andrew Murray-Watson and Tim Webb report in the cover story [Britain's The Independent on Sunday].

According to the paper, the law "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."

"Supporters say the provision allowing oil companies to take up to 75 per cent of the profits will last until they have recouped initial drilling costs," the article continues. "After that, they would collect about 20 per cent of all profits, according to industry sources in Iraq. But that is twice the industry average for such deals."

reading things like this, i just get this incredible feeling of pride in my country... is the u.s. a great place, or what...?

then i posted this back in february...

more on iraq's oil law, the reason we went into iraq in the first place... of course, like everything else these days, it comes with the customary dose of cognitive dissonance...

inter press service news agency...
[The new oil law] specifies that up to two-thirds of Iraq's known reserves would be developed by multinationals, under contracts lasting for 15 to 20 years.

This policy would represent a u-turn for Iraq's oil industry, which has been in the public sector for more than three decades, and would break from normal practice in the Middle East.

According to local labour leaders, transferring ownership to the foreign companies would give a further pretext to continue the U.S. occupation on the grounds that those companies will need protection.

[...]

On Feb. 8, the labour unions sent a letter in Arabic to Iraqi President Jalal Talbani urging him to reconsider this kind of agreement.

"Production-sharing agreements are a relic of the 1960s," said the letter, seen by IPS. "They will re-imprison the Iraqi economy and impinge on Iraq's sovereignty since they only preserve the interests of foreign companies. We warn against falling into this trap."

[...]

The first draft was seen only by the committee of the Iraqi technocrat who penned it, nine international oil companies, the British and the U.S. governments and the International Monetary Fund. The Iraqi parliament will get its first glimpse next week.

[...]

There's no other country in the Middle East with the kind of oil reserves that Iraq has that would consider signing a production-sharing agreement," [Ewa Jasiewicz, a researcher at PLATFORM, a British human rights and environmental group that monitors the oil industry] said. "It's a form of privatisation and that's why those countries haven't signed these because it's not in their interests."