Reported today on Akhbar Alkhaleej newspaper [link updated]
An Iraqi MP preferred to remain anonymous told the newspaper that highly confidential negotiations took place by representatives from American oil companies, offering $5 million to each MP who votes in favor of the Oil and Gas law.
The amount that could be paid to pass the votes do not exceed $150 million dollars in the case of $5 million to each MP, pointing out that the Oil law requires 138 votes to pass, which the Americans want to guarantee in many ways, including vote-buying, intimidation and threats!
Focusing on the heads of parliamentary blocs and influential figures in the parliament to ensure the votes, the Americans guaranteed the Kurdish votes in advance but they are seeking enough votes to pass and approve the law as soon as possible.
Ladysweetie,
How accurate is this source? Answers.com says that
Akhbar Al Khaleej is a Bahraini daily with a Left wing/Arab nationalist slant. It’s editor in chief is Anwar Abdulrahman and is the sister paper of the English language, Gulf Daily News.
The paper is known to be close to Bahrain’s main leftist opposition party, National Democratic Action and its columnists include some of the country’s most prominent leftists such as Sameera Rajab and Mahmood Al Gassab, who is a leading member of the Jami’at al-Tajammu’ al-Qawmi al-Dimuqrat, one of the four opposition societies to the government.
With its Arab nationalist stance, the newspaper has led condemnation of the United States’ invasion of Iraq, and has been particularly critical those Iraqis who have cooperated with the American backed political order: Samira Rajab in 2005 dismissed Iraqi Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani as an ‘American general’. This resulted in death threats towards Ms Rajab from Shia Islamists – who hold the Iraqi cleric in high regard – and brought to the surface political fissures in the alliance of Shia Islamists and ex-Marxists that had come together to oppose the 2002 Constitution.
Even though it has a leftist editorial bias, it still is open to abuse and propagandist exaggeration. In fact, it is more likely to do so, in this day and age, when the left has scum like Galloway to ‘represent’ it.
It’s great to make a claim, and not offer any proof.
Actually Saddam’s mom offered me five million dollars a few years ago. Do you believe that as well?
Mister Ghost and Furat Al-Samaraie are Americans or pro-American agents. They want the death of Iraq and Iraqis. The website Mister Ghost points to is a well-known anti-Iraqi blog that attacks all nationalist Iraqis, especially those with websites like Raed Jarrar.
this is how fascism works.. you really didn’t think democracy and freedom was the reason for the invasion did you?… ITS BRIBERY AND I’M SURE ITS ILLEGAL… BUT THAT NEVER STOPPED A PARASITIC LOBBYIST BEFORE. *****************GOOGLE AND READ EUSTACE MULLINS BOOK ON PARASITISM
So American “democracy” has really come to Iraq. Will these people sign away the oil revenues that belong to and are sorely needed by the Iraqi people?
Dear Suckers:
As soon as you pass the American drafted “Theft of Iraqi Oil” law, we promise to restore electricity in Baghdad to at least, oh, say 8 hours a day.
We promise to only drop our bombs from 10,000 feet, not 15,000, so we won’t murder as many innocent Iraqi’s.
We promise to learn how to say “Halt” in Arabic, before shooting you between the eyes.
And we promise you can have what’s left of your country back in 50 years or when the oil runs out, whichever comes first.
These promises we promise to keep, just like all the other promises we made to Iraq.
Signed
“Filipino Monkey Boy” Bush and his favorite dick, Dick Cheney
It seems all of these sources are pointing back to a single source. And that source points to a page which is written in Arabic? Hmmmm.…
If anybody here believes that the Invasion of Iraq was good and that the Oil revenue is their to help the Iraqi people then you need help. Of course they will steal, bribe, cheat and lie. What do you think? They Invade, kill and steal and now they are going to all of a sudden turn honest and help a country which they destroyed? Please people, think about it.
$150,000,000 for THIRTY TRILLION DOLLARS worth of oil. What a steal!
Iraqi oil revenue could be used to provide clean drinking water, regular electricity supplies, hospitals, food and most importantly , jobs for unemployed Iraqis. Instead it sits in the Federal Reserve Bank in NY and is invested in U.S. treasuries to help the US economy. They don’t really need this new Oil Law, the USA has already stolen the oil revenues.
Infrastructure collapse cited
http://wpherald.com/articles/6505/1/Iraq-oil-cash-not-spent-for-reconstruction/Infrastructure-collapse-cited.html
Iraq oil cash not spent for reconstruction
By Sharon Behn
The Washington Times
WASHINGTON — Increased Iraqi oil revenues stemming from high prices and improved security are piling up in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York rather than being spent on needed reconstruction projects, a Washington Times study of Iraq’s spending and revenue figures has shown.
U.S. officials and outside analysts blame the collapse of the country’s political and physical infrastructure for Baghdad’s failure to spend the money on projects considered vital to restoring stability in the country.
Out of $10 billion budgeted for capital projects in 2007, only 4.4 percent had been spent by August, according to official Iraqi figures reported this month by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). The report cited unofficial figures saying about 24 percent had been spent.
Meanwhile, some $6 billion to $7 billion from last year’s budget is “being rolled over” and invested in U.S. treasuries, said Yahia Said, director of Iraq Revenue Watch, part of the private watchdog group Revenue Watch Institute.
“The government is broken,” said Mr. Said, speaking by telephone from Baghdad. “The country’s midlevel bureaucracy has either fled the country or been purged in de-Ba’athification, [and] a lot of ministers are politically appointed and not professional.”
The result is that orders go out from the ministers in Baghdad, but there is no structure or staff at the middle level to carry out the instructions.
“It’s like they lost the manual for driving the government,” said Mr. Said, who is working to put that blueprint back together. “They lost the landing instructions for landing the airplane.”
A quarterly report to be released today by Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the U.S. special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, says rising production and high prices could produce a revenue windfall for Iraq this year, according to the Associated Press.
Maybe if the website was written in Hebrew it would be more reliable.
Not only has the USA already stolen Iraq’s oil revenue, Bush intends to keep doing so.
2008 National Defense Authorization Act
The provisions Bush plans to disregard
1) A commission to probe contracting fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan.
2) Expanding protections for whistleblowers who work for government contractors.
3) A third requires that U.S. intelligence agencies promptly respond to congressional requests for documents.
4) Banning funding for permanent bases in Iraq .
5) Banning any attempt to stop any action that exercises U.S. control over Iraq’s oil money.
http://www.mathaba.net/rss/?x=580084
Reference http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/12/20071228–5.html
Memorandum of Disapproval
I would like to take issue with Mister Ghost’s implication that the publication that released this story is biased because they were against the U.S. invasion of Iraq. That does not make them biased. That simply makes them on the right side of international law. The invasion of Iraq was a criminal enterprise from day one, no matter what the reasons given by the Bush administration. Does this lone, anonymous source prove that that this story is true? No. But considering the huge profits to be gained by American oil companies should this deal ever be passed, is it believable? Absolutely. $150 million is a drop in the bucket to these oil companies whose profits are now reaching several billions of dollars a quarter. The American political system is rife this corruption, but here, it needs to be much more sophisticated to avoid attention. But in Iraq, where there really is no law, a simple bribe must seem like child’s play to these aficionados of corruption. Does anyone really think that these guys won’t do absolutely everything they can to get what they want. If $5 million doesn’t do it, how about $10 million? They can surely afford it. To think otherwise is simply naive.
Harris wrote: “Maybe if the website was written in Hebrew it would be more reliable.”
Ex-fucking-actly. This isn’t to defend the source persay. Only to point out that the critical eye of these skeptics likely only peers in one direction.
Bubby say’s.… “If anybody here believes that the Invasion of Iraq was good and that the Oil revenue is their to help the Iraqi people then you need help. Of course they will steal, bribe, cheat and lie. What do you think? They Invade, kill and steal and now they are going to all of a sudden turn honest and help a country which they destroyed? Please people, think about it.”
Listen to Bubby, an angel with a heart and a BRAIN.….….
I can’t believe our paranoid brinwashed “nazi style police state clowns in the west haven’t started building ovens yet” .…however, they still want us to hate “muslims” and be complicity in killing them &, stealing off them .…at least so far, they have mysteriously failed to remove all dissent from the net and, start locking up people for extermination but .…looks like they have started “take names”.….….…. really we should do the same!!
Bubba.….is the winner!
This is not something that wasn’t foreen! Question is, what do we as a people do about it!? From the begining its been about oil/money while our fed reserve dollar collapses! We have an election comming up and more warmongers are in the front running in the polls??????? If we as a people vote another murderer to office then we are to blame for our ignorance or our evil. The world has a good reason to hate americans after all of this! We can’t sit back and say ‘they hate us for our freedom’.…..we are LOOSING our freedoms every day!!! Please for ALL our sakes…NO MORE BLOOD SHED.…Vote for the ONE person who will stop the killing…RON PAUL 08!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LIVE FREE OR DIE
I don’t believe this new.
If an american companie want something, just send the dogs
it´s really posible… in mexico the oil private company are trying the same, i don´t know how much the have to offers for the state oil company but there is a lot of local politics that will accept money for a law.
Just get those wretched yankee stealing murderers out of even if you haVE TO kill them one by one.
A form of American Democracy is brought to Iraq by our beloved oil Companies — You know; THE POLITICAL BRIBE. Oh well they must do something with their ill-gotten gains at the pumps.
JACK SMITH
206–321-4815
erie1917@gmail.com
Ah, all you people who don’t believe this report, take a look at the profits just announced by Royal Dutch Shell, 32 billion.
Of course they would bribe, do you brain dead Republicans even doubt this???????????????
I only doubt it was 5 million, I would hold out for double that. Its a bargain to the oil companies, what with Iraq sitting on huge amounts of oil reserves.
Wake up people.…look at halliburtons stock price. In 2000 it was $9, now its 10 x that much. Coincidence? or the fact that Cheney wanted this war?
Dear Camel Jockeys,
All of the conspiracy theories from the greatest minds the desert can give rise to,NOW HEAR THIS:
If the west wanted the oil,the west would have the oil.
As demonstrated against the “Best army in the middle east” Americas army squashed them quickly,Continue with your idiotic suicide bombings and piss us off enough and one day you might wake up to a pretty mushroom in the sky.
Suicide bombings.…if you maniacs are that eager to die,why take the time to strap on a bomb? Put a gun to your head your nasty hairy curry smelling virgins are waiting. Go now.
There used to be 40 million people in Iraq before the US under Bush/Cheney killed 1 million and displaced 1.2 of the rest.
So, assume 20,000,000 Iraqis in Iraq.
The US is destroying $3,000,000,000,000 on its Iraq stupidity.
That’s $3,000,000/20 or $150,000,000 per Iraqi.
So 5 million per representative is very cheap!
SHAME ON BUSH/CHENEY AND THE REPUBLICAN KILLERS AND JINGOISTS WHO HAVE DONE THIS!
AS AN AMERICAN, I WILL NEVER FORGIVE THEM.
HOW CAN WE EXPECT THOSE THE US HAS KILLED TO
FORGIVE!
3
hell give me a million so i can see how it is
hell give me a million so i can see how it is.if you have a billion spare a million you wont even miss it