Iraq War & Wars

Iraqi Unions fight new oil law
Home
The Deal for Permanent US Presence
Iraqi War Costs
Oil, Iraq War, & Neoliberalism
Zionism: history and roots of Muslem hatred
10-Reasons to leave Iraq
DEATH COUNT 650,000--Oct 06
CIA Confirms War spawns Islamic Radical
Iraq for Sale--Edward Kennedy
Iraqi Unions fight new oil law
Iraq government death squads
Opium, Afghanistan, Bin Laden, & U.S. Policy
Democracy in Iraq
Cause of Iraq War--gen. William Clark
Marjority of the troops favor rapid exit
Milirary Base Building Reveals U.S. Plans to Stay
IRAQ WAR CAUSED BY OIL--proof, Palast
Iraq war costs $440 Billion
No Chance of Victory U.S. General Admits
U.S. DESTABILIZED REGION--Must Stay Now
Iraq war and imperialism
reconstruction? who stold the funds?
Iraq history from WWI to present
OIL-WAR PLANS BEFORE 911--document
War, Another From of Corporate Welfare
Iraq, Sunni, Shiite Struggle
General Odom on Iraq War and Isreal
Iraq War Stimulates Our Economy
U.S. Policy of Delay brought on the insurgency--Palast
Military Budget should be cut

The US government as part of their long-term plan is black mailing the Iraq people by promising a rebuilding of their infrastructure if their government and the factions agree to allow the oil cartel to run their oil fields.  So far there has been continued strong resistance to this scam--jk.

 

From In These Times, a monthly political news, pro-labor magazine also available on the internet at www.inthesetimes.com

Iraqi Unions Fight the New Oil Law

By David Moberg,  7/9/07

David Moberg, a senior editor of In These Times, has been on the staff of the magazine since it began publishing. Before joining In These Times, he completed his work for a Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Chicago and worked for Newsweek. Recently he has received fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Nation Institute for research on the new global economy.

Iraq’s proposed oil law, which would open up control of the country’s oilfields to multinational corporations, is one of the Bush administration’s top political priorities. On July 3, Bush called Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to encourage him and other leaders to move “aggressively forward” on it, and as In These Times went to press, its latest draft appeared headed to the Iraqi Parliament for debate. Even if it passes, however, enacting it won’t be easy, as it faces strong opposition from Iraqi oil workers.

“It doesn’t serve the interests of the Iraqi people,” says Faleh Abood Umara, general secretary of the Basra-based Southern Oil Company Union and the Iraqi Federation of Oil Workers’ Unions. Umara recently toured the United States, advocating both national control of Iraqi oil assets and immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq

Umara says that the law—”written in the United States”—would permit joint ownership of many Iraqi oil fields by foreign companies, which could export much of the oil and profits from these fields for up to 35 years under what are called “production sharing agreements.”

“We want the national Iraqi oil company to make service contracts with the companies, not partnerships,” Umara said in an interview, shortly after dedicating a plaque that extolled international labor solidarity at the Chicago monument to the Haymarket workers, whose protests in 1886 led to the declaration of May Day as the international workers’ holiday.

“We want new technology for the production of oil but to have foreign companies work with Iraqi workers and professionals for a limited time,” he says. “We are not opposed to being developed with advanced and imported technology, but we would like to be sole owner of our wealth and use it to develop our country and cities.”

The proposed oil law partly would govern distribution of revenue, which Umara says the oil workers’ unions want directed to a national redevelopment fund. But the Bush administration has long wanted to give foreign oil companies as much control as possible over Iraqi oil fields. Under the law, the Iraqi national company would have to compete with foreign companies for production rights, Umara says. Antonia Juhasz, an analyst for the watchdog group Oil Change International, says that the law gives foreign oil companies great flexibility, with no requirement to hire or invest profits locally, and opens the door to the long-term production-sharing agreements that other Middle East oil-producing nations have rejected as exploitative.

The oil workers’ opposition to the law could prove a serious obstacle to the already much-delayed legislation. In June, oil pipeline workers struck for a week “for the rights of workers and against the proposed law,” including demands on companies to live up to promises for profit-sharing, affordable housing construction and other benefits, Umara says. Although the government had frozen union assets, issued warrants for union leaders’ arrests and even worsened the old labor law from Saddam’s era—preserved by the Provisional Coalition Authority—Umara says the 23,000-member union, representing 36,000 workers, is growing stronger. In 2003, the union forced Halliburton out of the oil fields, which inspired port workers to oust the Danish shipping company Maersk from the docks.

The oil workers’ union also wants U.S. troops to start withdrawing immediately. “I’d rather they withdraw yesterday than today,” Umara says. “I assure you, chaos will not happen, and even if it happened, I’m very sure we can solve our own problems.”

Different religious and ethnic groups cooperate now in a Basra controlled by the Iraqi security forces, he says. While the average oil worker still worries about security, their main concern is the future of Iraq’s oil.

“Most important,” says Umara, “is not to let that new oil law pass.”

 

The problem is that the neocons want to privatize the Middle East; but they don’t have the blessings of the zealot masses--jk.

Enter supporting content here

  1. WAR MAKES MORE EVIL PEOPLE THAN IT KILLS—Immanuel Kant
 
 

The single greatest waste of human resources is war related activities.  In the period from 1945 until 1985 the United states had consumed through its military expenditures enough to build a second United States—from factories, roads to homes and consumer items.    

 

Skeptically cartoon directory

 

CARTOONS

Over 30 assorted cartoons

6 Bush cartoons

Links to best on web of bush cartoons, jokes and animation

Danish cartoons that offend Moslems

More Danish Moslems

Moslems cartoons on Jews

More Moslems cartoons plus photos

Page of links including political cartoons

Cartoon gallery, latest ones

Another California Skeptic’s collection—huge, biting, for adults

Her collection of Bush Cartoons

 

SATIRE HUMOR

One act play on Bush’s tax cut—Al Franken

Brotherhood of religions—the Nation

Letters from Earth, Mark Twain at his best

5 humorous blasts at religion—Mark Twain

Eros & Zeus—Lucian

Zeus & the modern thinking Greeks—Lucian

The damned human race—Mark Twain

Zeus the pedophile—Lucian

Doc Laura, Old Testament morality

 

 

OFF SITE CARTOONS

PILLSBURY DOUGH BOY

A FUN COLLECTION

DAN COLLINS OF HUSTLER MAGAZINE

EXCELLENT COLLECTION OF UNDERGROUND COMICS

A FUN COLLECTION

POLITICAL & SOCIAL GEMS—Mark Froce

SEXUALLY ORIENTED COLLECTION

A FUN COLLECTION

EXCELLENT MUSICAL CARTOONS—JibJab

A FUN COLLECTION

LUNACY TOONS—outrageous, quality sounds