This is a good time to clear up some of the issues surrounding the debate over Iraq’s oil and proposed legislation related to the hydrocarbons sector.
Oil Law Semantics
Except for President Bush, most members of Congress and others detached, the “Oil Law,” also referred to as the “Oil and Gas Law” and the “Hydrocarbons Law,” DOES NOT, let’s repeat, DOES NOT address revenue sharing except for calling for a SEPARATE REVENUE SHARING LAW.
The Oil Law is the main piece of legislation that the U.S. government in Iraq has been urging the Iraqi government to make progress on. It is currently before the Parliament, but they have not decided on a final draft version to put forward. This is muddled back here in Washington, where benchmarks call for an oil law that distributes revenue.
Two questions have not been answered by Iraqis, thus are holding up this bill:
1. How much control will the federal government have over the oil sector strategy, and what will be the role of the oil producing regions and provinces?
2. What role will the foreign/private sector play?
The law has been touted as a benchmark that will lead to reconciliation. In reality, reconciliation will come first, and then an oil law will follow.
The Revenue Sharing Law is the bill that goes to the heart of the matter: will the oil proceeds be distributed to all — and on what basis? — or will fears of certain players being excluded be realized?
While an agreement was reached, it has since fell out of favor by parties involved. The law is not even out of the Iraqi cabinet, the step before being sent to Parliament. It is this bill, not the oil law, which will decide how revenue is shared.
Also, most politicos in Iraq say neither law will be approved on its own. They are part of a package of laws to be taken up together. This includes bills to reconstitute the Iraqi National Oil Company and reorganize the Ministry of Oil.
Mariam Karouny reports for Reuters the deputy speaker of Iraq’s parliament says the oil law will be debated next month. For what it’s worth…
The Hunt for Hunt Oil
Jim Landers in The Dallas Morning News reports the Dallas-based firm that signed the deal with Iraqi Kurdistan has defended its contract and the KRG representative to the United States has as well.
”We’re a privately held company. We do not make it a practice to discuss our business dealings with anyone except the involved parties, and in this case the U.S. government is not an involved party,” Hunt Oil spokeswoman Jeanne Phillips said.
“What’s undermining the government is the lack of progress on the [national] oil law,” said (Qubad) Talabani, the son of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. “This deal didn’t undermine the oil law per se. It will give it a good kick up the backside to get the process moving forward.”
More on Iraq Oil
Steve Remp has raised more than $1M in backing to team Ramco Energy with Peter Redman’s Midmar Energy to form the Mesopotamia Petroleum Company. You guessed it, as Mark Williamson reports in The Herald, they’re heading into Iraq.
Remp, who led Ramco’s exploration in Azerbaijan, followed by a disastrous move into production off Ireland, has raised the cash to help fund efforts to win services contracts ahead of possible bids for exploration licences.
The money, which it is believed was provided by a US institution. …
And Greenspan Continues…
Former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan further explains his Iraq oil for war comments to Charlie Rose. Of course, it’s nothing new, as I explained in my report for UPI, Iraq, Oil and Greenspan’s Gospel.
Security, Society and Politics
University of Michigan Middle East expert Juan Cole gives more context to two major events in Iraq.
The US kidnapped another Iranian from Iraqi Kurdistan, alleging that he is an officer in the Quds Force section of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and an arms smuggler. The Kurdistan Regional Authority says that he is Aghai Farhadi, a trade representative of Kirmanshah Province in Iran.
Either the US suspicions about Farhadi are baseless, or the Kurds are the major conduit for Iranian arms into Iraq. Five other Iranians were kidnapped from Irbil by the US military. Farhadi would not be doing what he was doing in Sulaimaniya unless he was the guest of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. If he was smuggling in arms, he was smuggling them to the Peshmerga, the Kurdish paramilitary, which is allied with the United States. Presumably this means that the Peshmerga is either treansfering the weapons to the Badr Corpsselling the arms off on the Iraqi black market. If this scenario is correct, then it is pure propaganda for the USG to complain so loudly and bitterly about Iranian meddling in Iraq, when it is being facilitated by some Kurds, who are in turn putative US allies.
The cholera outbreak in northern Iraq has now reached Baghdad. This article reveals that chlorine shipments into Iraq from Jordan are being held up, presumably by the US military. Sunni Arab guerrillas have launched several chlorine truck bomb attacks, and presumably the chlorine ban responds to such threats. But without chlorine, water purification plants won’t work, which means Iraqis downstream of a big city are drinking sewage.
Meanwhile, two aides to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani were assassinated Friday, a key development in the intra-Shiite power struggle. Katarina Kratovac reports on it for the AP.
And as the Shiite-led government in Baghdad stalls, Waleed Ibrahim and Dominic Evans report the Sunni leadership is getting impatient.
Spencer Ackerman reports for TPMmuckraker on a new Congressional Budget Office estimate that puts the long-term Iraq war plan will cost U.S. taxpayers trillions of dollars.
And, while Blackwater restarts operations in Iraq following their alleged massacre of innocent Iraqis, Stephen Colbert satirizes the situation, in the ‘if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry sort of way.
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