Oil/Slime Partnership

When Hunt Oil Co., headed by a longtime friend of the occupied White House, worked a deal with the Kurdistan government, no obstacles were raised. That Kurdistan government considers itself independent from the central Iraqi government, and has given out contracts to oil firms to develop oilfields there.

Now our government is claiming that au contraire, it was insisting on all consideration being given to central government in Baghdad, and the U.S. always intended to keep oil money in the hands of its minions in the Green Zone.

Speaking with a forked tongue hasn't been so prevalent since the U.S. government took away their lands from the native tribes.

A congressional committee exploring whether the Bush administration has pushed Iraq oil contracts to U.S. companies released documents Wednesday showing that Hunt Oil Co. officials and U.S. diplomats talked several times before the company signed an exploration deal in Iraq last September.

The documents show that U.S. officials expressed no objections to what the Dallas-based company was doing, despite their later criticism that the exploration deal could undermine Iraqi unity.

Included in the documents were two letters from company chief executive officer Ray Hunt to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board last year outlining his company's pursuit of an oil deal in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq.

After the Sept. 8 deal was announced, State Department officials criticized the company for signing a contract with a regional government before the Iraqi Parliament had passed a national law covering participation of foreign companies in Iraq's oil industry. President Bush, a friend of Mr. Hunt, said he "knew nothing about the deal."

The documents released Wednesday show that Hunt managers met last year with U.S. diplomats in Erbil, Iraq, on June 12 and June 15 to outline the company's interest, and were told that the U.S. government had no policy "for nor against" contracts with the Kurdish Regional Government.
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Iraq has more oil reserves than any country but Saudi Arabia and Iran, and much of the country's oil potential has not been explored. Oil fields discovered in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein were capped and seeded with land mines to prevent Kurds from gaining economic benefit.

Iraq still hasn't passed a law outlining the role of foreign companies in its oil sector, but Hunt Oil has pressed ahead with plans to do seismic surveys and other site work in an area straddling Sunni and Kurdish areas in northern Iraq.

This week, the Iraqi Oil Ministry invited 35 companies from around the world to bid on long-term service contracts to boost production by 1.5 million barrels a day from six of Iraq's largest oil fields.

Although the worst administration ever has kept from revealing just what voices formed its energy policy, or lack thereof, it is obvious that those voices were antithetical to this country's interest. Our total reliance on oil has been promoted by those 'energy' mavens, and has seriously undermined our economy.

Previous administrations, such as President Carter's, tried to guide the country into better economic postures with respect to oil usage, but the right wing persistently headed away from that safe position.

Bill Clinton did try to raise vehicle fuel-efficiency standards and impose an energy tax in the '90s, but Congress stopped him. Despite all that happened before and since, the Bush administration has barely lifted a pinky to prepare the U.S. economy for the inevitable surges.

And that's why Americans don't have money, and Europeans do.

Any power contracting with the oil companies that have disserved the U.S., the country where they began, should be wary. The nationalization of companies by several countries has been necessary to regain the wealth they have had stolen by abuse of their resources. It will remain a problem governments have to deal with in an honest effort to serve their own citizens.

Government acting against the interests of its electorate is usually a risk taken only after opponents, and public concerns, have been overthrown. The viewpoint many I have talked with online is - that that has taken place here. Hopefully not. But the war criminals are determinedly removing all doubt that they consider themselves above law, here and abroad.

Lies and rejection of public interests have characterized the occupied White House.

201 days.

Happy Independence Day Eve.