[Dialogue] Iraqis Will Never Accept This Sellout to the Oil Corporations

Harry Wainwright h-wainwright at charter.net
Wed Jan 17 11:56:39 EST 2007



Published on Tuesday, January 16, 2007 by the Guardian
<http://www.guardian.co.uk>  / UK 

Iraqis Will Never Accept This Sellout to the Oil Corporations
The US-controlled Iraqi government is preparing to remove the country's most
precious resource from national control



by Kamil Mahdi

 

Today Iraq remains under occupation, and the gulf between those who profess
to rule and those who are ruled is filled with blood. The government is
beholden to the occupation forces that are responsible for a humanitarian
catastrophe and a political impasse. While defenceless citizens are killed
at will, the government carries on with its business of protecting itself,
collecting oil revenues, dispensing favours, justifying the occupation, and
presiding over collapsing security, economic wellbeing, essential services
and public administration. Above all, the rule of law has all but
disappeared, replaced by sectarian demarcations under a parliamentary
facade. Sectarianism promoted by the occupation is tearing apart civil
society, local communities and public institutions, and it is placing people
at the mercy of self appointed communal leaders, without any legal
protection. 

The Iraqi government is failing to properly discharge its duties and
responsibilities. It therefore seems incongruous that the government, with
the help of USAid, the World Bank and the UN, is pushing through a
comprehensive oil law to be promulgated close to an IMF deadline for the end
of last year. Once again, an externally imposed timetable takes precedence
over Iraq's interests. Before embarking on controversial measures such as
this law favouring foreign oil firms, the Iraqi parliament and government
must prove that they are capable of protecting the country's sovereignty and
the people's rights and interests. A government that is failing to protect
the lives of its citizens must not embark on controversial legislation that
ties the hands of future Iraqi leaders, and which threatens to squander the
Iraqis' precious, exhaustible resource in an orgy of waste, corruption and
theft. 

Government officials, including the deputy prime minister, Barham Salih,
have announced that the draft oil law is ready to be presented to the
cabinet for approval. Salih was an enthusiast for the US-led invasion of
Iraq, and the Kurdish militia-led administration he represents has signed
illegal oil agreements that it is now seeking to legalise. Given that
parliament has not been meeting regularly, it is likely that legislation
will be rushed through after a deal brokered under the auspices of the US
occupation. 

Iraq's oil industry is in a parlous state as a result of sanctions, wars and
occupation. The government, through the ministry of oil's inspector general,
has issued damning reports of large-scale corruption and theft across the
oil sector. Many competent senior technical officials have been sacked or
demoted, and the state oil-marketing organisation has had several directors.
Ministries and public organisations are increasingly operating as party
fiefdoms, and private, sectarian and ethnic perspectives prevail over the
national outlook. This state of affairs has negative results for all except
those who are corrupt and unscrupulous, and the voracious foreign oil
corporations. The official version of the draft law has not been published,
but there is no doubt that it will be designed to hand most of the oil
resources to foreign corporations under long-term exploration- and
production-sharing agreements. 

The oil law is likely to open the door to these corporations at a time when
Iraq's capacity to regulate and control their activities will be highly
circumscribed. It would therefore place the responsibility for protecting
the country's vital national interest on the shoulders of a few vulnerable
technocrats in an environment where blood and oil flow together in
abundance. Common sense, fairness and Iraq's national interest dictate that
this draft law must not be allowed to pass during these abnormal times, and
that long-term contracts of 10, 15 or 20 years must not be signed before
peace and stability return, and before Iraqis can ensure that their
interests are protected. 

This law has been discussed behind closed doors for much of the past year.
Secret drafts have been viewed and commented on by the US government, but
have not been released to the Iraqi public - and not even to all members of
parliament. If the law is pushed through in these circumstances, the
political process will be further discredited even further. Talk of a
moderate cross-sectarian front appears designed to ease the passage of the
law and the sellout to oil corporations. 

The US, the IMF and their allies are using fear to pursue their agenda of
privatising and selling off Iraq's oil resources. The effect of this law
will be to marginalise Iraq's oil industry and undermine the nationalisation
measures undertaken between 1972 and 1975. It is designed as a reversal of
Law Number 80 of December 1961 that recovered most of Iraq's oil from a
foreign cartel. Iraq paid dearly for that courageous move: the then prime
minister, General Qasim, was murdered 13 months later in a Ba'athist-led
coup that was supported by many of those who are part of the current ruling
alliance - the US included. Nevertheless, the national oil policy was not
reversed then, and its reversal under US occupation will never be accepted
by Iraqis. 

Kamil Mahdi is an Iraqi academic and senior lecturer in Middle East
economics at the University of Exeter. 

Guardian Unlimited C Guardian News and Media Limited 2007

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