The EU’s Blood For Oil

The EU’s Commissioner of Development Poul Neilson is saying that the US wants to steal Iraq’s oil. This charge is patently ludicrous – the cost of the war would far outweigh the cost of the oil we’ll get from Iraq for years, along with the fact that if we wanted oil that badly we could have taken it ten years ago when we were already in Iraq. Furthermore, the US has already proposed a plan which ensures that Iraqi oil profits are used for Iraqi reconstruction. As the Washington Post explains:

But the United States and its allies would control the political and economic life of Iraq until an internationally recognized Iraqi government emerges. Under the system proposed by the administration, the proceeds of Iraq’s oil revenue would be placed in an Iraqi Assistance Fund held by the Central Bank of Iraq, which is being managed by Peter McPherson, a former deputy Treasury secretary and Bank of America executive.

The United States and its allies would have the sole power to spend the money on relief, reconstruction and disarmament and to pay "for other purposes benefiting the people of Iraq." The "funds in the Iraqi Assistance Fund shall be disbursed at the direction of the [U.S.-led coalition], in consultation with the Iraqi Interim Authority," the resolution states. It adds that Iraq’s oil profits shall remain in the assistance fund "until such time as a new Iraqi government is properly constituted and capable of discharging its responsibilities." According to some estimates, it may take years for such a government to be established.

The fund’s expenditures would be subject to oversight by an international advisory board comprising representatives of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations. The board would choose a team of accountants to audit the funds.

(Emphasis mine)

Which means that all profits from Iraqi oil sales will be going back to the people of Iraq through a fund with international oversight, including the United Nations. This is a far cry from firms such as Russia’s LUKoil and France’s TotalFinaElf, which signed contracts to the Hussein government worth hundreds of billions of dollars for oil rights in 1997 while the Hussein government was committing acts of genocide against their own people.

Moreover, it appears as though the cozy relationships between Hussein, French oil companies, and top officials had a great influence on policy towards Iraq. If that weren’t enough, there’s significant evidence of corruption in the UN’s "oil-for-food" program. It certainly appears that the money that was supposed to go to the Iraqi people ended up building more palaces for Hussein than feeding and caring for the Iraqi people.

Now the same people who willingly turned a blind eye to Iraqi gencide for over ten years want to have control over Iraqi oil once again. The same UN whose oil-for-food program was an utter disgrace wants to once again administer Iraq’s oil wealth, undoubtedly so that the same pattern of corruption and kickbacks can continue unabated.

If anyone is lusting after Iraqi oil and the money that comes with it, it’s the EU, Russia, and China along with the bureaucrats who were all too glad to take Iraqi blood money. The US should make it very clear that their previous actions make them entirely unwelcome under the Iraqi transitional government.