Benchmark Pressures Iraqis To Forfeit Oil

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One of the eighteen “benchmarks” Iraqis must achieve as a precondition to U.S. troop withdrawal is the acceptance of an oil franchise agreement authored by the Dick Cheney Energy Task Force. If you recall, this "secret" meeting involved a geological survey of Iraq laid out like a pirate treasure map with Cheney and Big Oil executives placing markers and staking claims years before the invasion.

The Energy Taskforce framework was then used as the roadmap to guide Congress to write the current benchmark for Iraq, loosely referred to as the hydrocarbon agreement. The agreement is expected to achieve the transformation of Iraq's oil system from a nationalized model -- all but closed to U.S. oil companies -- to a privatized model open to foreign corporate control. At least two-thirds of Iraq's oil would be open to foreign oil companies under terms they usually only dream about, including 30-year-long contracts. Most oil-rich countries reject the privatized model for obvious reasons.

AlterNet Excerpt:
With few exceptions, the American press has adopted the administration's language and continually and virtually exclusively refers to the oil law as a revenue sharing measure -- ignoring completely the fact that Iraqis would only be able to share the revenues left over after the foreign oil companies received their very sizable cut.

The sizable cut foreign oil companies expect to receive from the Bush Administration’s hydrocarbon “benchmark” amounts to about 63 out of approximately 80 known mother lode oil fields leaving the Iraqis control of only seventeen.

If the Iraqis don’t sign this agreement, I would expect come November that the Bush Administration will announce that an increase in troops is necessary, either with re-enforcements or another “surge” to put pressure on Iraqis to fulfill these benchmarks.
In America, the corporate-backed government-fed media passes off the troop surge as the only way to defeat the insurgency and stabilize Iraq. While in Iraq, it is becoming increasing reasonable to consider the surge pressure as a form of blackmail to fulfill certain benchmarks, among them of all things - a contract for oil.

Although most of us knew the invasion of Iraq was about oil, it sometimes isn’t enough to just say it. The truth about the Iraq Hydrocarbon Law is just another piece of the puzzle in the avalanche of evidence supporting our worst fears.

Read additional: Expert Opinion On Iraq Hydrocarbon Law

Read additional: Whose oil is it anyway?