Crucial law to regulate industry is bogged down in issues that reflect Iraq's continuing instability

Jul 06, 2008 04:30 AM
Olivia Ward
Foreign Affairs Reporter

On a sizzling afternoon near the southern Iraqi town of Basra, the air was heavy with the smell of chemicals, while oozing black patches stained the tinder-dry marsh grass.

"Oil," said a local sheikh. "After so many years of sanctions, the infrastructure is ruined. It's just trickling away."

That was late 2002, a few months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Today, with the country still under occupation, little has changed in the dilapidated oil fields suffering from years of neglect and warfare.

Meanwhile, world oil prices have reached historic highs, spiking above $145.

Reacting to domestic and international pressure, Baghdad has moved to restore Iraq's oil infrastructure and give production a badly needed boost.

But the government's plans depend on a long-stalled oil law that is both crucial to future development and so contentious that critics say it would mean open season on Iraq's economic crown jewels.

"It's a dramatic change of course after years of national control," says Antonia Juhasz, author of the forthcoming The Tyranny of Oil. "It would be perceived negatively by the majority of Iraqis, and that's not what Iraq needs just now."

Urged on by Washington, Baghdad has tried to pass the law, which would allow foreign companies production-sharing agreements for oil and gas exploration, a seismic shift from more than three decades of national control.

But the legislation has run up against strong public opposition, as well as disputes with the Kurdish north on how much control central and regional authorities would have over oil deals, and disagreements among political factions on rights and revenues.

The Kurdistan Regional Government has passed its own oil law and made production-sharing deals with international companies, over protest from the central authorities.

The splits reflect Iraq's damaged social fabric and the difficulties the strife-torn country will have in finding stability.

With the oil law still in dispute, Baghdad last month opened international bidding for long-term contracts to help rejuvenate some of its main oil fields.

It is also finalizing short-term, no-bid – and controversial – consulting contracts with major U.S. and European firms with long histories of involvement in Iraq's oil pre-dating the Saddam Hussein regime.

The efforts are expected to raise Iraq's oil production by 60 per cent – or 1.5 million barrels a day – a rare hint of relief from prices that are delivering pain at pumps around the globe.

But energy critics, including some U.S. legislators, are wary of deals announced without an Iraqi agreement on how revenues will be divided among ethnically and religiously diverse regions.

"Signing these deals without a revenue-sharing law is like putting the cart before the horse," said Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, who called for an assessment of risks to Iraq's fragile political process.

There is also a risk for the oil companies, says Michael Klare, author of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy.

"It depends on how much authority is given to the central government and the regions, and how much opportunity is given to foreign companies for undeveloped `green fields.'

"If the law is written to facilitate foreign companies coming in and developing them, that would be very promising. But they won't want to come in unless it's written in a way that gives them an equity stake. It's unclear that will happen."

Oil companies in a number of countries have been squeezed out when governments suddenly nationalized their energy supplies. But in Iraq, the danger to foreign oil companies is more than political and economic.

Even if a law were passed to safeguard foreign firms' rights, they could become high-profile targets for sectarian insurgents whose turf wars have torn the country apart since the fall of Saddam.

"It would worsen the conflict in Iraq," says Greg Muttit, co-director of Platform, a London-based oil industry watchdog. "First, it would create a conflict between oil companies' defenders and Iraqis critical of what they were doing. Second, it would increase the current sectarian conflict."

In some unstable countries, international oil companies hire private security firms to protect their interests, sometimes sparking conflicts with local communities.

"The security situation is very important, because companies aren't going to move into dangerous areas as though they're in Texas," says Klare. "They want to make sure they will get round-the-clock protection."

In Iraq, oil companies look to the American military.

more

- ghan officials said fighter aircraft battling militants accidentally killed up to 27 Afghans walking to a wedding ceremony in eastern Afghanistan early Sunday, the second military attack in three days with reports of civilian deaths.

_{1."George Washington did not cross the Delaware for Capitalism," -Shmuley Boteach.
2.The Dems haven't punished the GOP enough, so you're going to reward the Republicans?}

a different angle, particularly the relationship of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

Asia Times
By Sudha Ramachandran

BANGALORE - The suicide bomber who crashed an explosive-laden car into the Indian Embassy in the Afghan capital Kabul on Monday not only killed 41 people and injured more than 140, he sent a powerful message to Delhi that its significant presence and growing influence in Afghanistan through its reconstruction projects are now in the firing line.

Among the dead were four Indians, including Defense Attache Brigadier R D Mehta, diplomat Venkateswara Rao and two guards at the embassy, who were personnel of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police - a paramilitary outfit. The attack is said to be among the deadliest in Kabul since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

The Indian Embassy stands near Afghanistan's Interior Ministry in a busy part of Kabul. Intelligence sources had apparently warned of an attack on the mission this week and security had been upgraded. Yet the suicide bomber and his explosive-filled vehicle were able to reach the gates unhindered.

The attack comes within the context of spiraling violence in the country, including the capital. More US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops were killed in Afghanistan in June than in any other month since military operations began in 2001. Forty-five soldiers, including 27 American, 13 British, two Canadian, one Polish, one Romanian and one Hungarian, were killed during the month. Coalition fatalities in June in Afghanistan, for the first time, exceeded coalition fatalities in Iraq.

In April 27, militants opened fire on President Hamid Karzai at an annual military parade in Kabul, killing a legislator and two other Afghans. Last month, in a brazen attack, the Taliban stormed a jail in Kandahar, freeing hundreds of prisoners.

The Taliban issued a statement denying responsibility for Monday's attack. But few in India or Afghanistan are convinced. The Taliban generally claim responsibility for attacks against international or Afghan troops and deny their hand in attacks in which victims are mainly Afghan civilians. Most of the victims of Monday's blast were Afghan civilians; many had lined up for visas to travel to India.

Indian experts say that the needle of suspicion points to the Taliban and its backers in the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan's intelligence agency. This is the view in Kabul as well. While Afghanistan's Interior Ministry said the "attack was carried out in coordination and consultation with an active intelligence service in the region" - alluding to the ISI - Karzai said the bombing was the work of the "enemies of Afghanistan-India friendship", an implicit reference to Pakistan.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was quick to deny the allegations, saying that Pakistan "needed a stable Afghanistan".

India and Afghanistan enjoy a close relationship nowadays, a matter that irks their common neighbor and traditional foe, Pakistan.

India and Pakistan have vied for influence in Afghanistan for decades. In the 1990s, with the Pakistan-backed Taliban in power, Islamabad's influence peaked. Then in a reversal of fortune, India, which backed the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance during the years the Taliban were in power, saw its fortunes improve in Kabul, even as Islamabad's influence touched a nadir.

With its old friends in the Northern Alliance in power and an India-educated Karzai at the helm, India's influence has grown significantly in recent years.

more

So does pulling a carrier out of the gulf suggest the probability of a strike on Iran has decreased?

We have a poisonous mindset at work, the result of too much "Military Thinking."
This mindset is focused on win/loose. And this degenerates into a bloody, expensive, loose/loose stalemate that achieves the exact opposite of it goals - loosing friends everywhere.

Win/win is the only way to make progress. Another expression for win/win is trade, or business.

(Stephen Lendman) -- Washington is currently negotiating two accords with the al-Maliki government to take effect after expiration of the UN's military mandate on December 31. One agreement is for a long-term "strategic framework" to establish "cooperation in the political, economic, cultural and security fields." Or according to the administration - to defend Iraq's "sovereignty and integrity of its territories, waters, and airspace."

The other is a so-called "status of forces agreement" (SOFA) to provide legitimacy for the US occupation beginning January 1, 2009. Following the 2003 invasion, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1511. It officially recognized the "Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)" and authorized a multinational force to bring "stability" to the country. Part of the agreement was for the mandate to be reauthorized each year. It's been done "at the request of the Iraqi government." By late 2007, al-Maliki asked for a mandate extension "for the last time" to officially end Iraq's international peace and security threat designation that's been in place since August 1990.

In November 2007, George Bush and al-Maliki signed a preliminary US - Iraq political, economic, and security agreement. Part of it is for an indefinite US military presence. Final completion was to be by July 31, 2008, but with the date fast approaching and widespread opposition, things may likely change.

For months, US plans generated considerable opposition - within and outside Iraq. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani objected. So has Iran and a majority of Iraqi parliamentarians who vowed to veto any agreement not approved by the country's Council of Representatives. On May 29, they further said that any US - Iraq bilateral agreement must "obligate the occupying American military forces to fully withdraw from Iraq." On May 28, Muqtada al-Sadr went further. He called for protests against the ("forces of darkness") SOFA and issued orders to:
Continued at link

_{"While not a Playboy reader, she invites a male acquaintance in for a quiet discussion of Chagall, Nietzsche, jazz, sex." - not a Hugh Hefner quote}

They defeated the Soviets with Washington’s help, but now they attack Americans as the new occupiers
By Anna Mulrine US News
Posted July 11, 2008

KABUL—The war in Afghanistan reached a wrenching milestone this summer: For the second month in a row, U.S. and coalition troop deaths in the country surpassed casualties in Iraq. This is driven in large part, U.S. officials point out, by simple cause and effect. Marines flowed into southern Afghanistan earlier this year to rout firmly entrenched Taliban fighters, prompting a spike in combat in territory where NATO forces previously didn't have the manpower to send troops. "We're doing something we haven't done in seven years, which is go after the Taliban where they're living," says a U.S. official.

But amid a well-coordinated assassination attempt on Afghan President Hamid Karzai and large-scale bombings last week in the capitals of both Afghanistan and Pakistan, U.S. forces are keenly aware that they are facing an increasingly complex enemy here—what U.S. military officials now call a syndicate—composed not only of Taliban fighters but also powerful warlords who were once on the payroll of the Central Intelligence Agency. "You could almost describe the insurgency as having two branches," says a senior U.S. military official here. "It's the Taliban in the south and a 'rainbow coalition' in the east."

more

* James Sturcke and agencies
* guardian.co.uk,
* Friday July 11, 2008

A US air strike killed 47 civilians, including 39 women and children, as they were travelling to a wedding in Afghanistan, an official inquiry found today. The bride was among the dead.

Another nine people were wounded in Sunday's attack, the head of the Afghan government investigation, Burhanullah Shinwari, said.

Fighter aircraft attacked a group of militants near the village of Kacu in the eastern Nuristan province, but one missile went off course and hit the wedding party, said the provincial police chief spokesman, Ghafor Khan.

The US military initially denied any civilians had been killed.

Lieutenant Rumi Nielson-Green, a spokeswoman for the US-led coalition, told AFP today the military regretted the loss of any civilian life and was investigating the incident.

The US is facing similar charges over strikes two days earlier in another border area of Afghanistan.

more

Pakistan's top diplomat said Saturday there are no U.S. or other foreign military personnel on the hunt for Osama bin Laden in his nation, and none will be allowed in to search for the al-Qaida leader.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said his nation's new government has ruled out such military operations, covert or otherwise, to catch militants.

"Our government's policy is that our troops, paramilitary forces and our regular forces are deployed in sufficient numbers. They are capable of taking action there. And any foreign intrusion would be counterproductive," he said Saturday. "People will not accept it. Questions of sovereignty come in."

More

By Russell Carollo | Sacramento Bee

From 2003 to 2007, the percentage of Army recruits receiving so-called "moral conduct" waivers more than doubled, from 4.6 percent to 11.2 percent, as the U.S. military desperately sought to fill the demand for troops to send to Iraq. How that increase has affected the military is open to debate. But an examination of civilian and military records show that many soldiers and Marines involved in controversial incidents in Iraq had histories that should have made recruiters suspicious of how they would perform in the military. » read more