Monday Wash: Pipe dream or not, Iraq plans to pay back in oil
By Odie Arambula
03/10/2008
Email to a friendPost a CommentPrinter-friendlyPerhaps readers of this newspaper heard or read this bit of news elsewhere. If not, the following may cause you to spill your morning coffee or at least put you at some advantage at telling stories at your favorite Snake Pit in town.Here's the shot for this morning's coffee table: Somewhere (in all the nutty stuff in writing) coming from our executive branch of federal government (not Congress) is something about Iraq repaying the billions we have spent to bring peace and good things to that country and the rest of the region.
Listen up. We have not been talking or listening to departed storytellers from past. It's been coming from some of our finest in our own State Department in Washington.
It may sound like a pipe dream, but the information has been coming for days via C-SPAN 1, 2 and 3, and in some cases right in front of the world to hear and see during Congressional hearings.
THE IRONY OF ALL THIS
silliness is that we got a straight answer from a Republican member of a House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee to a question about what really got us into this costly war. The subcommittee chairman, Democrat Gary Ackerman of New York, set the stage in an overtime diatribe on the administration over the billions and billions spent in Iraq for the sake of democracy.
In the course of the Ackerman comments, people kept hearing in the background, "Mr. Chairman." People were hearing the voice of one of the star witnesses, none other than a ranking senior advisor for the State Department. Secretary Rice would not have any of that.
The witness, a fellow named Satterfield, felt more at ease when Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, followed with a gracious welcome, but the California Republican dropped the witness flat when he mentioned the word "oil." Rohrabacher thanked the witness for his testimony. However, the solon qualified the bouquet, saying, "I'm afraid you're a little too late."
The lawmaker said he wished the witness had come before the committee much earlier "but your bosses would not allow you to come and answer questions."
THE CONGRESSMAN, NEVERTHELESS,
asked for time to ask the witness two or three more questions. The lawmaker asked Satterfield about the population of Iraq. The witness said it was about 28 million, more or less depending on how many have returned since the downfall of Saddam Hussein. Then he was asked about Iraq's oil reserves.
The lawmaker suggested that Iraq had the largest oil reserves in the world. "The second-largest, sir," the witness replied. The congressman continued, "Maybe the largest, if not the second largest?" The GOP lawmaker went on to suggest that oil is the real reason why the U.S. is up to its neck in Iraq, spending billions and billions while the public debt is up there the trillions. The witness, nevertheless, admitted that an agreement with the Iraqi leaders provides for the oil-rich government to pay back for all the U.S. outlays over the years.
Enter a representative from Massachusetts, a Democrat (William Delahunt), suggesting that the real U.S. interest in Iraq centered on one thing: the oil reserves. The next day, Helen Thomas, the Hearst White House correspondent, lectured a college group for one of the C-SPANS on Iraq and oil.
OUR GRACIOUS BUT TESTY
Helen told the moderator and students that Saddam nationalized Iraq's oil in 1973 and it was de-nationalized when the U.S. got there, splitting the stuff to Kurds, the Sunnis and the Shiites, 20 percent each, and the other 40 percent to the rest - mostly to U.S. companies.
The Satterfield man, meanwhile, said he could not elaborate on reported Intelligence details on an agreement with the Iraqi government about continued presence in Iraq after democracy as reported by the New York Times. The man suggested that the Congressional inquiries be directed to the Pentagon.
If you have a working adding machine, start adding, and make a list of all the wonderful domestic economic and social wonders we and the rest of the country could have if Iraq's big oil would pay us back for all we've spent over there.
Defense had 3,974 U.S. military killed since war began in March 2003, including at least eight Defense civilian workers. At least 3,237 died from hostile action. Defense acknowledges another 415 military members dead in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan since the Afghan invasion in late 2001.
"It's a tough job," Helen Thomas told a Washington college student group. "We may not always get it right, but it's the only way we (the press) are going to get the information to the American people. We have a hard time getting information from people in your government, the ones you pay their salaries and are responsible to you."
AMEN AND
amen again.
Meanwhile, tell it to the neighbor across the street that keeps asking the same question, "When do we get paid?"
First, we better demand that the Iraqi prime minister get his port directors to do something about all that oil being smuggled out of the country. A CNN television reporter last week interviewed a crew supervisor for an oil tanker wherein the man (face covered) shows on camera a section of the ship where tons of crude is pumped to be smuggled to somewhere. This particular tanker, according to the man, was delivering the main load to Iran!
The woman reporter asked the man how much oil was pumped in this particular section of the floating steel monster. The guy had no idea, but he assured the U.S. reporter that "we fill it up to the top and it's delivered where it's supposed to go."
We can't wait to hear what wonderful stories the mayor and his happy troopers have to tell from their recent lobbying efforts in Washington. The neighbor across the street says he could use a few vouchers for gasoline.
(Odie Arambula is at 728-2561 or e-mail, odiea@stx.rr.com and odie@lmtonline.com)
©Laredo Morning Times 2008
