http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-oil13may13,0,3946185.story?coll=la-home-center

by Tina Susman, Times Staff Writer

May 13, 2007

BAGHDAD — It has not even reached parliament, but the oil law that U.S. officials call vital to ending Iraq's civil war is in serious trouble among Iraqi lawmakers, many of whom see it as a sloppy document rushed forward to satisfy Washington's clock.

Opposition ranges from vehement to measured, but two things are clear: The May deadline that the White House had been banking on is in doubt. And even if the law is passed, it fails to resolve key issues, including how to divide Iraq's oil revenue among its Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni regions, and how much foreign investment to allow. Those questions would be put off for future debates.
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http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/11/1131/

Jerry Landay: Iraq War is all about controlling the oil

08:38 AM EDT on Friday, May 11, 2007

Jerry M. Landay

AFTER WORLD WAR II, the president’s national security council propounded a policy that would shape the world’s geopolitical future: “Oil operations are, for all practical purposes, instruments of our foreign policy.”

More than a half-century later, that policy has not changed.

With the invasion of Iraq already secretly being planned, freshly selected President George W. Bush listed “energy security” as his first action priority.

Energy security is the invisible elephant in Washington, guiding Bush policy on Iraq, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. It explains the “surge,” the absence of an exit strategy from Iraq, the stubborn resistance of the Bush-Cheney team to efforts by the Congressional Democrats to impose a withdrawal deadline for 170,000 American soldiers, as well as the ongoing construction of permanent military bases in Iraq, and the costly stationing of thousands of American troops on foreign soil from Kuwait to Djibouti.

Energy security is the invisible presence shaping what the 2008 presidential candidates say or don’t say about oil and energy. Energy security is the reason Hillary Clinton refuses to embrace a withdrawal deadline and why Republican presidential hopeful John McCain declares that there is “no alternative Plan B” to the ongoing build-up of American forces.

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http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/07/1020/

Published on Monday, May 7, 2007 by TomDispatch.com
 
The Struggle Over Iraqi Oil:
 
Eyes Eternally on the Prize

by Michael Schwartz

The struggle over Iraqi oil has been going on for a long, long time. One could date it back to 1980 when President Jimmy Carter — before his Habitat for Humanity days — declared that Persian Gulf oil was “vital” to American national interests. So vital was it, he announced, that the U.S. would use “any means necessary, including military force” to sustain access to it. Soon afterwards, he announced the creation of a Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force, a new military command structure that would eventually develop into United States Central Command (Centcom) and give future presidents the ability to intervene relatively quickly and massively in the region.

Or we could date it all the way back to World War II, when British officials declared Middle Eastern oil “a vital prize for any power interested in world influence or domination,” and U.S. officials seconded the thought, calling it “a stupendous source of strategic power and one of the greatest material prizes in world history.”

The date when the struggle for Iraqi oil began is less critical than our ability to trace the ever growing willingness to use “any means necessary” to control such a “vital prize” into the present. We know, for example, that, before and after he ascended to the Vice-Presidency, Dick Cheney has had his eye squarely on the prize. In 1999, for example, he told the Institute of Petroleum Engineers that, when it came to satisfying the exploding demand for oil, “the Middle East, with two thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies.” The mysterious Energy Task Force he headed on taking office in 2001 eschewed conservation or developing alternative sources as the main response to any impending energy crisis, preferring instead to make the Middle East “a primary focus of U.S. international energy policy.” As part of this focus, the Task Force recommended that the administration put its energy, so to speak, into convincing Middle Eastern countries “to open up areas of their energy sectors to foreign investment” — in other words, into a policy of reversing 25 years of state control over the petroleum industry in the region.

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