Reply #6: The whole idea behind this council is privatize Iraqi OIL [View All]

According to this excellent article that yours truly posted in Editorials yesterday, it describes the council to a Tee:

US convenes Iraqi council with aim of grabbing oil
By Bill Vann
12 July 2003

Among the principal concerns of US officials has been to parcel out the seats on the council to members of different ethnic groups and to include some relatively unknown women, apparently with the aim of lending the panel a superficial appearance of being representative. Excluded from the council, however, is anyone voicing opposition to the continued US occupation.

Given the recent deadly attacks by Iraqi resistance fighters on police recruits and others collaborating with the US occupation, however, it is doubtful that the council will have much contact with the Iraqi people. Instead, it will be on the receiving end of a series of US proposals worked out behind the scenes before the US invasion even began.

At a Tuesday press briefing in Baghdad, Bremer spelled out his determination to push through a wholesale privatization of Iraq’s oil industry and the rest of its large state-owned sector before Iraqis are given any opportunity to vote for a government or express their attitude toward such sweeping economic changes. He and other US officials have acknowledged that there is widespread popular sentiment against the denationalization of oil and its takeover by foreign-owned multinationals.

“Privatization is obviously something we have been giving a lot of thought to,” Bremer said. “When we sit down with the council ... it is going to be on the table.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/jul2003/iraq-j12.shtml