Bush's Petro-Cartel Almost Has Iraq's Oil (Part Two)

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted October 17, 2006.

The Bush administration has co-opted the compassionate language of debt relief to ensure that Big Oil gets its way in Iraq.

Editor's note: This is the second part of a series on the struggle for control of Iraq's oil resources and self-determination. Go here to read the first installment.

With 140,000 U.S. troops on the ground, the largest U.S. embassy in the world sequestered in Baghdad's fortified "Green Zone" and an economy designed by a consulting firm in McLean, Va., post-invasion Iraq was well on its way to becoming a bonanza for foreign investors.

But Big Oil had its sights set on a specific arrangement -- the lucrative production sharing agreements that lock in multinationals' control for long terms and are virtually unheard of in countries as rich in easily accessible oil as Iraq.