Iraq, Oil and the ISG report

by soccerdad

Anybody who is not drunk on kool aid knows that the invasion of Iraq had as one of its major driving forces the desire to make sure that the Iraqi oil did not fall into the wrong hands.

The ISG report makes this rather clear. This quote about sums things up rather nicely

Iraq is vital to regional and even global stability, and is critical to U.S. interests. It runs along the sectarian fault lines of Shia and Sunni Islam, and of Kurdish and Arab populations. It has the world’s second-largest known oil reserves. It is now a base of operations for international terrorism, including al Qaeda.

emphasis mine

From the specific recommendation section.

#62 [snip]
The U.S. military should work with the Iraqi military
and with private security forces to protect oil infrastructure
and contractors. Protective measures could include a
program to improve pipeline security by paying local
tribes solely on the basis of throughput (rather than fixed
amounts).
[snip]
In conjunction with the International Monetary Fund, the
U.S. government should press Iraq to continue reducing
subsidies in the energy sector, instead of providing grant
assistance. Until Iraqis pay market prices for oil products,
drastic fuel shortages will remain.

Lets see we reduce the country to rubble and now we are concerned with subsidies. Why the nerve of help poor unemployed Iraqis have fuel. Let the price go up that way there will be profits and fuel for the elite.

#63 The United States should encourage investment in Iraq’s oil sector by the international community and by international energy companies. • The United States should assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise, in order to enhance efficiency, transparency, and accountability.

In other words open it up to Western Big Oil companies. No nationalization, let the companies make the profits.