So while we let our guys on the ground in Afghanistan worry about making Humvee parts from parachute cords, the adminstration is already working on ways to reward its biggest supporters. Here's a story from Yahoo via Buzzflash about the Bush Adminstration's pre-parceling up of the Iraqi Oil Fields, which I believe W wants to save for the Iraqi people about as much as he wants to save old-growth forests for all of us here in the US.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States plans to secure Iraqi oilfields if it invades and is looking into the possibility of ramping up oil production beyond the U.N. oil-for-food program to pay for post-war reconstruction, Bush administration officials said on Sunday.
Business - Reuters
U.S. Would Protect Iraqi Oil Fields
Sun Dec 29,12:02 PM ET
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States plans to secure Iraqi oilfields if it invades and is looking into the possibility of ramping up oil production beyond the U.N. oil-for-food program to pay for post-war reconstruction, Bush administration officials said on Sunday.
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The Bush administration is considering whether it can, under international law, increase Iraqi oil production beyond the oil-for-food program. Proponents say the extra money that could be generated would be used to expedite reconstruction efforts in Iraq.
"It is an option that is being researched," a U.S. official said. "The question is how much further can you go legally."
The administration is carefully weighing how oil policy in a post-Saddam Iraq might affect oil prices, officials say. Its decision could have implications for the fragile global economy.
Increasing Iraqi oil production may help Western oil-consuming nations, including the United States, by lowering oil prices. But it could hurt key U.S. oil-producing allies, such as Saudi Arabia and Russia, by reducing their revenues from oil sales.
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Iraq sits on top of the world's second largest oil reserves, but war and a decade of sanctions has withered its oil infrastructure and official exports.
A recent report by the James Baker Institute at Rice University and the Council on Foreign Relations estimated it would take $5 billion to bring the Iraqi oil industry back to pre-1990s production levels, in addition to $3 billion in annual operating costs.
italics added for emphasis
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Analysts have said international oil companies like Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM), BP (BP.L), and Shell (RD.AS) (SHEL.L) would want to take part in any rehabilitation of the country's oil industry.
Yup, just see who's really behind it. They even mention some of the usual suspects, the James Baker Institute and the CFR.
Take part in "rehabiltation" my aching tukas...more like Take Profits from the Iraqi Oil Industry. Or am I just stating the painfully obvious here?
