It is and always was all about oil

This received absolutely no attention in the US media.
New Oil Law Means Victory in Iraq for Bush

At any time within the next few days, the Iraqi Council of Ministers is expected to approve a new "hydrocarbon law" essentially drawn up by the Bush administration and its UK lackey, the Independent on Sunday reported. The new bill will "radically redraw the Iraqi oil industry and throw open the doors to the third-largest oil reserves in the world," says the paper, whose reporters have seen a draft of the new law. "It would allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil companies in the country since the industry was nationalized in 1972." If the government's parliamentary majority prevails, the law should take effect in March.

As the paper notes, the law will give Exxon Mobil, BP, Shell and other carbon cronies of the White House unprecedented sweetheart deals, allowing them to pump gargantuan profits from Iraq's nominally state-owned oilfields for decades to come. This law has been in the works since the very beginning of the invasion - indeed, since months before the invasion, when the Bush administration brought in Phillip Carroll, former CEO of both Shell and Fluor, the politically-wired oil servicing firm, to devise "contingency plans" for divvying up Iraq's oil after the attack. Once the deed was done, Carroll was made head of the American "advisory committee" overseeing the oil industry of the conquered land, as Joshua Holland of Alternet.com has chronicled in two remarkable reports on the backroom maneuvering over Iraq's oil: "Bush's Petro-Cartel Almost Has Iraq's Oil and "The US Takeover of Iraqi Oil."

I remained convinced that it was necessary for Cheney to keep his energy task force secret because months before 911 it had divided up Iraq's oil among the major oil companies. The administration planned to over throw Saddam and privatize Iraq's vast oil resources long before the war on terror. They spent so much time looking at the oil reserves that they didn't spend any time looking at the culture and political situation in Iraq and had no plans on how to deal with the religious and ethnic civil war that began shortly after Saddam's removal. The initial plan called for putting another brutal tyrant in charge, one that was US friendly. That didn't work out and it has been down hill since the initial invasion. The "surge" for oil is one last attempt to secure the country for easy pillaging by Exon-Mobil, BP and Chevron. Is it going to work? We have seen that the generals in charge didn't think so. Bush listened to them and then fired them. So how do the troops on the line feel? Nancy A. Youssef of McClatchy tells us Soldiers doubt an influx of American troops will benefit Iraqi army

On Wednesday night, President Bush is expected to announce that he's sending thousands more American soldiers to Iraq as part of a new plan to overcome the country's widening sectarian violence. But to many of the U.S. soldiers who already are struggling to prepare Iraqi troops in Diyala province say that more Americans won't solve Iraq's problems.


"The Iraqis will accept mediocrity," said Staff Sgt. Luke Alphonso, a U.S. Army medic from Morgan City, La., who's been assigned to train members of Iraq's 5th Army Division for the past six months. "They will let us do everything" for them.


In the end, no matter what the Americans do, the Iraqis will find their own way, the U.S. commander of the trainers here said.


"There is no doubt in my mind that when the coalition does leave that this situation will get resolved within a fairly short period of time. These people will figure it out. It may be ugly. It may be very ugly. But they will figure it out," said Lt. Col. Jody Creekmore, who arrived in Iraq last summer from Huntsville, Ala., leaving behind his three teenage children.

Now nearly everyone agrees that this is Bush's Cheney's last chance to achieve US hegemony over Iraqi oil. Most also agree that it won't work.