Nothing But Politics

[Amaunet]

The U.S. is bribing the Iraqis to sell their future. Look a little below the surface of the following text, US Mulls Annual Cash Payout for All Iraqis. Write to your representatives and object to privatization. So, why are we really in Iraq?

Note - Leaks from the state department's "future of Iraq" office show Washington plans to privatize the Iraqi economy and particularly the state-owned national oil company. Experts on its energy panel want to start with "downstream" assets like retail petrol stations. This would be a quick way to gouge money from Iraqi consumers. Later they would privatize exploration and development.

Iraq’s oil industry is a government-run monopoly, the State Oil Marketing Organization, controls the production, processing and sale of Iraqi crude. Some U.S. officials want to dismantle the monopoly and privatize Iraq's oil industry. They argue this would boost efficiency and ensure investment opportunities for private businesses, including multinational companies from the United States.

Even if majority ownership were restricted to Iraqis, Russia's grim experience of energy privatization shows how a new class of oil magnates quickly send their profits to offshore banks. If the interests of all Iraqis are to be protected, it would be better to keep state control.
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0331-08.htm

On May 11 Mr. Rice reported that the U.S. Congress thinks that U.S. oil companies should be able to own part of Mexico. That is not to suggest an invasion. It simply wants to buy part of Mexico. The trouble is that the part of Mexico the Congress wants to buy isn't for sale. The part of Mexico referred to is Pemex, the state-owned oil company.

The House International Relations Committee wants American oil companies to be able to own part of Pemex. On May 8 the committee approved a measure requiring Mexico to sell part of Pemex to U.S. companies if it wants an an accord on immigration issues.
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=1016346

The American public, let alone the Muslim world, would object strenuously if the U.S. and Britain openly stated that they were fighting to install a friendly regime in Iraq that would privatize the country’s oil industry.

The top corporations want all government-owned companies privatized. Through propaganda and the World Bank they have succeeded in getting many governments to sell off their public companies, especially if they are profitable.

Even water services have been privatized, with U.S. corporations buying them out.

Some years ago the CIA engineered the downfall of an elected government in Iran and installed the Shah. The government-owned oil industry was duly privatized, with U.S. oil companies getting 40%, the British 40%, and the rest to others.

It is a safe bet, then, that the first item on the agenda after the invasion of Iraq will be the nullification of Public Law 80, passed in 1958. It mandates the Iraq Oil Co. own all assets connected with oil and prohibits “concessions to any foreign company.”
http://www1.minn.net/~nup/4Feb2003.htm

Now the U.S. is proposing paying all Iraqis an annual dividend from a trust fund established with the country’s oil revenues if they shift from state owned to private firms. This amounts to nothing more than a bribe, dangled in front of a people who are largely in poverty and have suffered greatly. Once they are bribed or paid to switch to energy privatization American oil magnates can ‘buy’ their oil thus getting the oil revenue out of the country. Am

US Mulls Annual Cash Payout for All Iraqis
Updated 9:15 PM ET July 12, 2003

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States is considering paying all Iraqis an annual dividend from a trust fund established with the country's oil revenues, U.S. administrator Paul Bremer said on Sunday.

In an article in the New York Times marking the first meeting of Iraq's governing council in Baghdad, Bremer said the United States planned economic reforms for Iraq that entailed "a major shift of capital from the value-destroying state sector to private firms."

"We are also creating a social safety net for any resulting disruptions," he said, adding that every Iraqi should benefit from the country's oil wealth.

"One possibility would be to pay social benefits from a trust financed by oil revenues," he said. "Another could be to pay an annual cash dividend directly to each citizen from that trust."

Bremer said the first meeting of the governing council was an important step toward establishing a new constitution and ending the U.S. presence in the country.

The council, filling a power vacuum after the fall of Saddam Hussein on April 9, has 25 members roughly reflecting Iraq's religious and ethnic make-up.

"The council will immediately exercise real political power, appointing interim ministers and working with the coalition on policy and budgets," Bremer wrote.

He said the council would establish procedures to write a new constitution.

"Once it is ratified by the people, elections can be held and a sovereign Iraqi government will come into being," Bremer said.

"So the question of the coalition will stay in Iraq depends in part on how quickly the Iraqi people can write and approve a constitution."

Opinion polls have shown growing uneasiness in the United States over the U.S. role in Iraq, where American soldiers face continuing guerrilla attacks. More than 30 have been killed since President Bush declared major combat over on May 1.

"The combination of a broken infrastructure and acts of sabotage could mean a rough summer," Bremer said. "We will suffer casualties, as the bitter-enders resort to violence."

He said U.S. forces were braced for "an increase in terrorism by non-Iraqis."

"No one should doubt our determination to use our power in the face of violent acts."