Iraq Oil Report

U.S. Embassy officials in Baghdad told reporters Dallas-based Hunt Oil’s deal with the Kurdistan Regional Government has “needlessly elevated tensions” with the federal Iraq government. AFP has the story from Baghdad.

I’ll bring it up at Friday’s State Department briefing here in Washington, if there is one. So far the U.S. government has been fairly mum amidst accusations the deal undermined U.S. policy in Iraq and that CEO Ray Hunt’s connections to President Bush had something to do with the deal.

Statoil, soon to be StatoilHydro, the Norwegian oil firm, has opened up their Iraq office … in Irbil. Reidar Visser, research fellow at the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs, writes in an article published on his Iraq website www.historiae.org, that although the Irbil office is to be a launching point into Iraqi oil dealings from a relatively safe spot, it may harm reconciliation needed to create an Iraq with a good investment environment.

This feeds into fears that Iraq is de facto being urged to split apart, either from various interests wanting a fragmented Iraq or, as U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden’s legislation which was approved by the Senate Wednesday called for, a decentralized federal Iraq.

His plan has already been panned by nationalist Iraqi officials. Visser, obviously a busy man, writes about the legislation in The US Senate Votes to Partition Iraq. Softly.

Reuters’ World Affairs Columnist Bernd Debusmann writes about the growing suspicion that the war in Iraq is about oil.

Dilip Hiro in the Asia Times Online on The Oil Grab That Went Awry, what he calls “a prosecutor’s brief for the position that “the Iraq war is largely about oil”.”

Newsweek’s Jeffrey Bartholet sat down with Iraq’s Ambassador to the United States, Samir Sumaidaie. The interview, which can be read here, discussed briefly the oil law. It showed, however, the quality of an ambassador from such a war-torn country to the country occupying it.

On the issue of the U.S. demand for an oil law (among other legislative demands):

… there are complex issues that Congress here [in the United States], working in ideal conditions, has not put to bed. Take the immigration issue, which has been going on for years. Still not settled. And nobody is threatening their lives. The Iraqi parliament is doing the best it can. Maybe there is too much emphasis placed on the promulgation of these laws. …
On the oil law, as we speak the oil revenue is being distributed to the regions according to their populations. So we are applying the principles that matter. Sorting out the complex issues of legislation needs time.

Society, Security and Politics

The leader of Iraq’s largest Sunni political party has met with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, an influential Shiite leader, whose non-interference in politics is a blessing undervalued by the U.S. government. Sistani’s top aides have been targeted recently, showing how religious extremism is attempting to turn Iraq into another Iran/Taliban-Afghanistan. Kim Gamel of AP has the story.

The BBC reports Iraq and Turkey have reached what is likely to be a controversial deal giving Ankara the right to enter Iraq territory for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) actors they accuse of terrorism.

Iraq has been ranked by Transparency International as the third most corrupt country in the world.

TI’s 2007 Corruption Perception Index has Baghdad above Myanmar/Burma – in the news today for shooting protesting Buddhist monks – and Somalia.

This comes as House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman is furious that the U.S. State Department won’t answer questions and provide information on Iraq corruption, among other items.

Apparently State considers a working draft of a U.S. Embassy in Baghdad report on Iraq government corruption “classified.”

Iraq Oil Report has already posted the link to the site, which the Federation of American Scientists has on its site.

And just for good measure, here’s the report again.

Reuters reports the Iraq government will begin next week paying Arab families in the disputed Kirkuk area, settled there by Saddam Hussein, to leave. This will pave the way, though not necessarily decrease the violence, for the referendum that voters in oil-rich Kirkuk and other disputed territories will decided whether to join the Kurdistan Regional Government area.

Unfortunately for Iraqis, the rest of the country isn’t as safe as the KRG. McClatchy and Reuters recap violence from Wednesday.

This violence is not just taking a toll on the population of Iraq, or the chance of a government survival, or the ability for its economy to develop. As Bryan Pearson reports for AFP, ordinary Iraqis, like anyone else, bare the “mental scars” of the war.

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