Monday, January 08, 2007

Lives for profits: The U.S.- Iraqi oil deal

So you were wondering why over 3,000 young American men and women have been killed since the Bush invasion of Iraq in 2003 and over 17,000 Iraqis have been killed in the last six months and why Bush now wants to send 30,000 more U.S. troops into battle, well check this out from Monday's edition of Democracy Now:

In an article headlined Blood and oil: How the West will profit from Iraq's most precious commodity,
"The Independent of London is reporting the Iraqi government is drafting a new law that would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude. The law is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days. Foreign oil companies would be allowed to take up to 75 percent of the profits until they have recouped initial drilling costs. After that, they would collect about 20 per cent of all profits -- that is about twice the industry average for such deals. The oil law would allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalized in 1972."

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