The Thailand expat forum for Travel, Lifestyle and Fun.

Originally Posted by Panda

Well why do you think they would want to be there if it wasn't for the oil? There's plenty of other US allies in the ME where they could set up bases to protect USA from whoever.

Originally Posted by britmaveric

Well if it that were the case the yanks aren't benefiting from any oil. They should be taking oil profits from Iraq govt, paying for yank presence there. However as always yanks get stuck in the arse for helping out and not taking a single cent.

Originally Posted by stroller

Such as?

Plenty of material on the motives for invading Iraq, the now defunct PNAC was a good one to get it all from the horse's mouth, so to speak.
Yes, oil/resources are key factors, not in the narrow sense of short-term exploitation of Iraqi reserves, though.

Originally Posted by stroller

Such as?

Plenty of material on the motives for invading Iraq, the now defunct PNAC was a good one to get it all from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

Originally Posted by Panda

Well, for a start there was certainly no other reason for the invasion and occupation.

But on to the oil issue. The Chinese deal is only a proposal at this stage as far as I am aware.

All the Middle East oil producing countries (including Iraq) nationalized their oil industries in the 1970s to stop exploitation by multinational oil companies.

Despite having massive oil reserves, Iraq's oil industry didn't fare well due to successive wars and later the sanctions placed on it by the west in the 90s.

Bush has been pushing the new Iraqi government to scrap the nationalized oil industry and open it up to privatization by the multinationals once again. There has been great debate about this and the idea is opposed by most Iraqis as it will mean the big international oil countries will make nearly all the profit while paying the Iraqi people a pittance of a royalty around 10%. This is a case of blatant exploitation, but little the Iraqi people can do about it with their country in ruins and occupied by a foreign army. No other ME oil producing country would allow such a law.

See the Wikipedia script below.
"
Iraq oil law (2007)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Jump to: navigation, search
The Iraq oil law, also referred to as the Iraq hydrocarbon law,[1] is a proposed piece of legislation submitted to the Iraqi Council of Representatives in May 2007.[2]
The Bush administration hired the consulting firm BearingPoint to help write the law in 2004.[3][4] The bill was approved by the Iraqi cabinet in February 2007.[5] The Bush administration considers the passage of the law a benchmark for the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.[6][7]
The new law would authorise production share agreements (PSAs) which guarantees a profit for foreign oil companies.[2] The industry had been completely nationalized by 1972.[8][2] The government in the 1990s, under the presidency of Saddam Hussein, gave PSAs to Russian and Chinese companies which gave a profit percentage of less than 10 percent.[2]
The central government would distribute remaining oil revenues throughout the nation on a per capita basis.[1] The draft law would allow Iraq's provinces freedom from the central government in giving exploration and production contracts.[2] Iraq's constitution allows governorates to form a semi-independent regions, fully controlling their own natural resources.[2]
The Iraq National Oil Company would have exclusive operational control of just 17 of Iraq’s 80 known oil fields. Normally countries do not have the type of exclusivity that would leave two-thirds of known and unknown fields open to foreign control. However, operational control of the fields does not mean control of the money made from them, and a percentage of the profits will be going into Iraqi tax revenue.[1][9] Iraq’s oil reserves are believed to be the second largest in the world[1] after Saudi Arabia.[10]
Journalist Pepe Escobar points to the destiny of the Iraq oil law as the crucial point determining the will of the American administrations to withdraw from the Iraq war.[11]"

Some more discussion on the subject here---


ZNet - Iraqi oil law

"The draft oil law is no doubt "re-privatizing" Iraqi oil wealth and will return Iraq to the era prior to Law 80 of 1961. Law 80 nationalized 99.5% of the Iraqi land from the IOCs and returned it to the Iraqi nation."

Originally Posted by attaboy

Although not a particular reason for invading Iraq, Communist Chinese military officers who were getting full of themselves have witnessed what the US is capable of doing to a conventional army with a conventional army. I'm pretty sure the Chinese are less full of themselves these days. They might even reconsider wasting billions of yuan on useless military projects.

Originally Posted by attaboy

Our military has shown the Chinese military that our troops will fight for years and are still willing to fight.

Originally Posted by attaboy

As far as vulnerable is concerned, the US military has shown itself to be very adaptive in Iraq. Incompetent? That statement is nothing more than a wind up. The rest of your post is only passing gas.

Originally Posted by justwingit

god bless america

Originally Posted by Butterfly

Not without oil and a huge debt in USD that the Chinese hold. You are super screwed, and since you live in lala land, you can't even grasp the ramifications of that reality.

Adaptive ? they are getting hammered, question of time before they leave Saigon style. You need to wake up, atta, you are seriously delusional.