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Dems dodge questions about Iraq's usurious Oil Law [VIDEO] …

Posted by Joshua Holland at 10:23 AM on January 22, 2007.


Joshua Holland: Quelle surprise!
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It's been striking to see the degree to which the corporate media has ignored the great Iraq oil grab. Every story about the pending hydrocarbon law has focused on the difficult issue of how revenues would be shared among Iraq's regions and sectarian groups. But while that issue is vitally important, almost none of the coverage discusses the terms under which Iraq's oil might be exploited -- terms that may cost the Iraqi people tens of billions of dollars over the next years. Reporters for papers like the Times and the Post refuse to ask questions about it, so the oil law has been drafted mostly outside of the view of the public, both here and in Iraq.

Enter the Institute for Public Accuracy -- founded by AlterNet columnist Norman Solomon. IPA is a nice piece of progressive infrastructure that connects people with expertise in various areas of public policy with the corporate media. They're quite effective at getting different perspectives into the discourse -- a couple of weeks ago, they included me on a release about the pending oil law and I ended up doing a flurry of radio, including appearances on a few big ClearChannel stations that I wouldn't otherwise have gotten.

Sam Husseini, IPA's director and someone who I consider a casual friend, also hangs around the studios for the Sunday morning gab-fests and after the taping is done he ambushes the guests with the kind of questions Tim Russert should have asked them, often drawing interesting reponses.

In the upper right are three clips of Husseini trying to get Dems to talk about the oil law…

First up is Lee Hamilton, Co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, which strongly endorsed privatizing Iraq's oil wealth …

Transcript here.

Next is Joe Biden …

Transcript.

And, finally, Ted Kennedy plays a round of dodge-ball …

Transcript.

Digg!

Tagged as: iraq, biden, kennedy, oil law, hamilton

Joshua Holland is a staff writer at Alternet and a regular contributor to The Gadflyer.


Return to Video  » Post Tools: email EMAIL print PRINT 12 COMMENTS PERMALINK
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about oil program
[Report this comment]
Posted by: jcutler9 on Jan 22, 2007 10:46 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
In all fairness to Hamilton, Biden, and Kennedy, do you think it possible they don't even know about the provisions in the oil deal as explained in the Independent article, vis a vis Exxon et al getting control of the oil for 30 years, and getting 75 percent of the revenues for most of that time? That the oil giants were just waiting in the wings, as were the Baptists on the border, for Iraqi to fall and the military to occupy and provide them protection to go in and take over their realm, oil or the people's souls, as the case may be.

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» RE: about oil program Posted by: Joshua Holland
Props to Husseini
[Report this comment]
Posted by: lessbread on Jan 22, 2007 11:23 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
He puts corporate media reporters to shame.

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Neoconservative Kristol wishes Democrats would 'be quiet' about Iraq for six or nine months
[Report this comment]
Posted by: rwa on Jan 22, 2007 12:41 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
David Edwards:


A leading neoconservative pundit wishes that Democrats would "be quiet" about Iraq for at least six or nine months so that President Bush's "surge" plan can have a "chance to work."

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/Neocon servative_Kristol_wishes_Democrats_would_shut_0121.html

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The Economic Hitmen in action
[Report this comment]
Posted by: thoughtcriminal on Jan 22, 2007 2:35 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The name of the 'global consulting firm' who engineered the Iraqi oil law is "BearingPoint." After reading John Perkins's "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" (perhaps the most important book published in the past five years on the global economy), I began wondering who the most recent incarnation of his old firm, Chas T. Main, was. P.S. he's got a new book coming out! The Secret History of the American Empire

Thanks to these two articles, one need wonder no more:

Parable of the Self-Licking Ice Cream Cone - Why We Fight

Shock and oil: Iraq's billions & the White House connection, by Stephen Foley

Bob Cesca at the Huffington Post had this take on the situation, apropos: "Finding information about the much-discussed but barely reported Iraqi hydrocarbon law has been about as easy as finding information about which specific breed of puppy the vice president uses in his top secret ghoul smoothies."

Anyway, here's an excerpt from ref#1

"The BearingPoint employees, who work out of offices in the State Department, arrange the meetings, set the agendas, take notes and provide summaries of the discussions, the official said. They also maintain the Web site of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad."

As any veteran of bureaucratic wars surely knows, whoever arranges meetings, sets agendas, and takes the official notes determines the policy, regardless of who is nominally in charge. But who is BearingPoint, and what interest do they have in Iraq? The media watchdog Sourcewatch.org provides the following:

In July of 2003, BearingPoint was awarded a contract by USAID worth $79.5 million to facilitate Iraq's economic recovery with a two-year option worth a total of $240,162,688. Responsibilities in this contract include:

1. Creating Iraq's budget.
2. Writing business law.
3. Setting up tax collection.
4. Laying out trade and customs rules.
5. Privatize state-owned enterprises by auctioning them off or issuing Iraqis shares in the enterprises. oil law!
6. Reopen banks and jump-start the private sector by making small loans of $100 to $10,000.
7. Wean Iraqis from the U.N. oil-for-food program, the main source of food for 60% of the population.
8. Issue a new currency and set exchange rates.

Thus, the hydrocarbon law was just one part of the entire privatization & puppetization program.

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Good try, but I think the questioning could have been framed better
[Report this comment]
Posted by: davem on Jan 23, 2007 5:37 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It seems to me that Hamilton understood the framework of your question and avoided answering, but Biden and Kennedy did not.

I think that if you had framed the question like this: "In the begininng of the war, many critics claimed that it was all about the oil, and with this new proposed Iraqi law that gives 75% of the oil revenues to big oil companies for thirty years, aren't the critics being proved correct?" ... maybe Biden and Kennedy would have answered.

As senators, I think they have the war escalation on their minds and not the oil giveaway.

By the way, the 75% for 30 years is how I heard the law was written, but I haven't read it for myself.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

This is one more peg in the "no difference between the parties"...
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Prophit on Jan 23, 2007 7:12 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
.... theft of a sovereign nations resources through aggression is still theft, I don't care which party engages in approving it. Are the oil companies now firmly in control of our government?

Are we now truly a fascist state??? If they do this, there will never be an end to the attacks by the locals there. If they see this as it is, they will continue to see to it that the oil never flows freely. At least if it were me that is how I would view it.

How short sighted and greedy can you get??? Amazing.

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Iraqi Oil
[Report this comment]
Posted by: brainvib on Jan 23, 2007 8:05 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The proposed oil deal in Iraq for the enrichment of big oil should not be a surprise to
anyone. That is what the whole thing is for and about.
Oil rights for the Exxons, Mobils and Chevrons bought with little investment on their
part and paid for with your tax dollars and the lives of your sons and daughters.
The verbal dances played on the video clips are colored documentation of both parties
serving the same master, corporate america, not American voters.
Iran has oil too. Somolia, no oil, no interest.

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» RE: Iraqi Oil Posted by: Joshua Holland
(Crooked) politics as usual
[Report this comment]
Posted by: willymack on Jan 23, 2007 11:33 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Does the fact that 75% of all Iraqi oil profits will go to American and British compaiies have anything at all to do with our presence there, now, or that there will be huge kickbacks to our politicians for looking the other way? Nah!!!

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» Counting eggs Posted by: rwa
How could they not?!?!
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Astroboy on Jan 23, 2007 4:19 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
How could these bloviators NOT know the details of the hydrocarbon "oil" law??

WE fucking DO!!

It's the whole fucking reason why we're there in the first goddamned place!!!

GODFUCKINGDAMNTHISPISSESMEOFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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