China Signs $3 Bn Deal with Iraq;
Iraq Army Takes over Camp Ashraf;
Chalabi Crony Arrested for Terrorism
The US military on Friday arrested Ali Faisal al-Lami, a Sadrist who served on the Debaathification Committee under Ahmad Chalabi. The Pentagon maintains that Al-Lami is deeply involved with Iran-backed "special group" cells and implicated in a bombing in Sadr City that killed several people including two GIs. Chalabi, a notorious liar and embezzler to whom Rumsfeld and the Neocons had intended to turn over Iraq, protested al-Lami's arrest and called for an end of the US ability to arrest Iraqis at will.
Chalabi's closeness to al-Lami raises the question of his own relationship to Iran and/or the special groups.
Al-Hayat writes in Arabic that PM Nuri al-Maliki has changed the team that is negotiating the security agreement with the United States. Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari has been dropped and the new team will be led by national security adviser Muwaffaq al-Rubaie.
The head of the voting commission says that it is now impossible to hold provincial elections on their original schedule. The enabling legislation has not been passed by parliament. February 2009 is the earliest the elections can now be held.
The Iraqi military has taken control of Camp Ashraf, the base of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) terrorist group,in accordance with a longstanding demand of Iraqi Shiite parties that are close to Iran. Saddam Hussein had given the MEK this base in order to harass Iran. It has been alleged that the Pentagon was deploying the MEK against Iran, as well, even though the US State Department has put the group on the terrorist watch list.
China has signed a $3 billion petroleum contract with Iraq for the development of Iraqi fields. A reader at reddit.com entitled this item "4,000 US troops die for China's access to Iraqi oil.""U.S. Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff told the [U.N.} meeting it was a violation of the U.N. charter
for member states to use force against others, or threaten to use it, . . Russia's U.N. envoy, Vitaly Churkin, suggested Wolff's statement was hypocritical and referred to the U.S.-led March 2003 invasion of Iraq, which Moscow strongly opposed. "I would like to ask the distinguished representative of the United States -- weapons of mass destruction. Have you found them yet in Iraq or are you still looking for them?" Wolff accused Churkin of making false comparisons. "I'm not a psychologist and I don't know what brought on the free association we heard from Ambassador Churkin," he said. . . ."
No comment.
McClatchy reports political violence in Iraq on Thursday (please pay attention, Sen. McCain):
' Baghdad
- Early morning, gunmen assassinated the brigadier general Najam Abdullah from the 7th division of the Iraqi army and his wife in front of his house in Adel neighborhood (west Baghdad).
- Mortars hit the international zone (IZ) in central Baghdad. No casualties reported.
- Two roadside bombs targeted an American patrol near Al-Khansa police station in Mashtal(east Baghdad). No casualties reported.
- Around 11 am, a roadside bomb targeted a police patrol in Baladiyat neighborhood (east Baghdad). Five people were injured (three policemen and two civilians).
- A mortar shell hit Baladiyat neighborhood (east Baghdad. Two people were injured.
- Around 2 pm, a roadside bomb targeted a police patrol near Al-Rubayee bridge in Karrada neighborhood (downtown Baghdad). Two policemen were injured.
- Police found two dead bodies in Baghdad today: 1 was found in Shaab neighborhood(north Baghdad) and 1 was found in Jihad neighborhood(west Baghdad).
Diyala
- Around 7:30 am, a roadside bomb detonated at Abu Shanuna in balad Ruz (east Baquba). One shepherd was killed.
Kirkuk
- Around 11 am, a roadside bomb detonated near Rashid Awa restaurant in downtown Kirkuk. One person was killed and 7 others were injured. Also some buildings and cars were damaged in the incident.
- Gunmen kidnapped 4 persons in bani Izz village in Qara Taba (north east Baghdad).'
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 8/29/2008 01:00:00 AM
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7 Comments:
China lands $3-billion oil deal with Iraq
The Al-Ahdab oil field deal is a service contract, which gives oil firms a flat fee for their efforts rather than a share of the profits from oil exploitation.
Printing this trash talk :
"4,000 US troops die for China's access to Iraqi oil."
is utterly unworthy of you, Juan Cole.
Four thousand US troops and one million Iraqis died for US access to Iraqi oil via production sharing agreements... not unlike the old Hollywood contracts that give you a share of the profits... except the way the studios and multinationals keep the books there are never any profits.
The Iraqis know something, a lot in fact, about the oil business, and can see the US doddering on its last legs as well. China's willing to go fee for service... to do real business with Iraq.
To the crony capitalists who threw in with the Neocons oil exploration is a "shock and awe" invasion of another country with vast proven reserves and the lowest lifting costs on the planet.
And then extorting a deal wherein they are in charge of sharing the receipts with the country whose oil it is!.. and which "needs" them only for "insurance"... to keep the US armed forces out of their country as well as from bombing and destroying their country by remote control from the comfort of the continental US.
The Iraqi negotiating team has been replaced wholesale. The original was from the Foreign Ministry, supervised by the Kurdish Deputy PM, and the new team being from the PM office.
The first team was an echo chamber as the Kurds who controlled it are even more eager than the US team to maintain the occupation.
The reason handed out for the change is that the Kurds insisted on artificial deadlines to seal the deal, and used them as an execuse to overlook the Iraqi needs in the rush to sign.
An outspoken independent(ish) Kurdish MP declared that the change is nothing special and just reflects a new phase. However, he has also been calling on fellow Kurds not to trust the USA who have double-crossed them many times in the past.
Interesting times ahead.
re "4,000 US troops die for China's access to Iraqi oil."
This point was made by author and Rumsfeld advisor Tom Barnett many years ago. The Asian powers were willing to take our debt notes as the occupation dragged on, but can't be happy about the run-up in crude prices that accompanies Gulf instability. I wonder what security arrangement for Chinese engineers has been worked out. For sure the Chinese aren't going to pay Triple Canopy rates.
Note that China is competing with Russia and the US for missile sales in the Gulf, as Team W, Likud and the Russians aim to set the Gulf agenda for our next President.
re Maliki / ISCI-Hakim forces beginning to take charge of the MKO 'terrorist' camp:
This is probably just an opening play. A battalion seems only sufficient to control the roads, superceding US access and control. My guess is that Saddam set the camp up for easy control of access. But disarming/dismantling the camp will take more time, and/or a larger force.
There is a humanitarian side to the question of whether Maliki will force a return of Arab refugees to Iran. Most camp residents are probably families, but MKO fighters are said to be a third female.
Dispersing cadres of anti-Iranian 'liberation theology' revolutionaries into the pisplaced Iraqi population is probably not what Maliki aims for. If Iraq's Badr forces attempt to serve Iranian warrants on armed regime opponents in the camp, fighting may break out. Iran has sought a 'Roman peace' with this lethal opposition before.
In a way the MKO is a mirror image of the Iranian trained Badr Brigade, and blood was spilled against Saddam's Kurd and Shiite enemies.
Dismissing MKO and it's related political arms as US agents seems a gross oversimplification.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Mujahedin_of_Iran
An Iranian viewpoint on MKO at
http://www.payvand.com/news/08/aug/1228.html
Muqtada and Ahmed Chalabi have been linked at the hip since before the fall of Saddam.
In fact, inside Iraq they have always been seen as joint collaborators with each other and some powerful factions in Iran.
The $3 billion oil service agreement is good news. The GoI has wanted to sign such an agreement for some time. But only now has the security situation inside Iraq improved to the point that a global energy company is willing to sign contracts on terms acceptable to the Iraqi government.
Still the GoI is upset that more global energy companies are not aggressively bidding for Iraqi hydrocarban contracts.
This is backwards. The GoI has to make investing inside Iraq as attractive as possible to encourage more companies to bid competitively for Iraqi energy contracts.
John Francis Lee, the professionals at the Iraqi oil ministry have wanted competitively bid energy development contracts in Iraq from the start. The problem has been that global energy companies have been very reluctant to invest in Iraq from 2003 on.
What Iraqi oil ministry official do you know from June, 2004, (transfer of sovereignty) onwards who was willing to let energy contracts at worse than market terms?
Juan, Al Anbar goes PIC next week. It looks like the provincial government and GoI have reached an agreement.
I have no inside knowledge of the Iraqi oil industry.
The "crony capitalists" I was referring to were and are the US multinationals, the cronies of those who effected the Neocon putsch and now hold power in both parties in the USA.
I have no doubt that the Iraqi professionals can see through the PSA's "offered" by the multinationals, from their position behind the occupation forces, more easily than I can.
The Iraqi oil workers' union has been defending Iraqi oil since the beginning of the US aggression and invasion of Iraq.
Just the top few links from a google of "Iraqi oil workers union" :
Oil Workers’ Union Confronts Occupation and Privatization
Oil Minister's transfer of union activists a 'human rights crime'
Founder of Iraq Oil Workers Union Rejects U.S.-Backed Oil Law as “Robbery”
Iraq’s oil wealth on the block
Government forced transfer of Iraq oil union leaders withdrawn - International Solidarity Works!
Does the delay in elections benefit McCain by keeping Iraq quiet? (I.e. if Sadrists and Sunnis outside gov't won the elections and Kurds were diminished?)
Anand asked "What Iraqi oil ministry official do you know from June, 2004, (transfer of sovereignty) onwards who was willing to let energy contracts at worse than market terms?"
The answer is the present Iraqi Oil Minister : Hussein al-Shahristani.
iraq's oil wealth on the block - Niqash - Greg Muttitt (London) – 9 July 2008:
Last week saw the biggest step so far towards transferring Iraqi oil into the hands of foreign multinational companies, sparking renewed accusations that the US-UK war on Iraq was really motivated by an oil grab.
The contracts were (with one exception) for the second stage of development of the oilfields, to come after the one- or two-year no-bid contracts that the Ministry has been privately negotiating...
Last week’s announcement was of longer-term “risk service contracts” (RSCs), a kind of half-way house in the range of contract types...
These are contrasted with what the companies really want in Iraq – the dreaded “production sharing agreements” (PSAs), which would give them control over the fields, a large share of the oil extracted, and the potential for huge profits.
Last week’s RSCs are somewhere between TSCs and PSAs. It’s a model that has been used in Latin America, and is very similar to the “buyback contracts” used in Iran.
The Oil Minister [Hussein al-Shahristani] made much of the fact that he was not offering PSAs – to reassure Iraqis that they need not fear a great giveaway.
But that the contracts were not PSAs misses the point. All six of the fields – Rumaila, Kirkuk, West Qurna, Zubair, Maysan and Bai Hasan – are already producing oil, and actually together account for more than 90% of Iraq’s current production. As such, their investment and technology needs are relatively minor, and could easily be provided within the public sector, as they have been for more than 30 years.
Ever since the Constitution was written in 2005, Iraqi oil policy has been that fields already producing oil would stay in Iraqi hands – and that only for new, undeveloped fields would development contracts be offered to foreign companies. Even the draft Oil Law – which has been so controversial for giving away too much – required that fields already producing oil would be “managed and operated” by the Iraq National Oil Company (INOC).
That policy was reversed last week – giving the “backbone of Iraq’s oil production” (in the Minister’s own words) also to foreign companies – fields that were never going to be on offer in any form. It remains to be seen what happens to new fields.
The positive portrayal of a negative step was repeated when the Minister also emphasised that companies would have to “give” at least a 25% stake in each project to INOC. But this was never the companies’ to give – in fact, the true implication of the announcement is that they may take 75% away from INOC.
Even for new fields, a 25% INOC stake would have been derisory. Libya, for instance, requires a public stake of around 80% for new exploration contracts (and for much smaller fields than Iraq’s). Nigeria, which is seen as one of the OPEC members most friendly to western companies, requires that the Nigeria National Petroleum Company take a 55% stake in onshore projects.
It was in the 1950s, as the colonial era was coming to a close, that a minimum of 51% became the norm in major oil producers. Now Iraq appears to be stepping back to the age of subjugation to the interests of foreign powers. Hardly the progressive move the Minister claimed.
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