Operation Oily Immunity (must read)

( this is a must read )

http://www.alternet.org/print.html?StoryID=16480

Operation Oily Immunity
Steve Kretzmann and Jim Valette, AlterNet
July 24, 2003
Viewed on July 28, 2003

During the initial assault on Baghdad, soldiers set up forward bases named Camp Shell and Camp Exxon. Those soldiers knew the score, even if the Pentagon's talking points dismissed any ties between Iraqi oil and their blood.

The Bush/Cheney administration has moved quickly to ensure U.S. corporate control over Iraqi resources at least through the year 2007. The first part of the plan, created by the UN under U.S. pressure is the Development Fund for Iraq which is being controlled by the U.S. and advised by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The second is a recent Bush executive order that provides absolute legal protection for U.S. interests in Iraqi oil.

In May, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1483, which ended sanctions and endorsed the creation of Development Fund for Iraq, to be controlled by Paul Bremer and overseen by a board of accountants, including UN, World Bank, and IMF representatives. It endorsed the transfer of over $1 billion (of Iraqi oil money) from the Oil-for-Food program into the Development Fund. All proceeds from the sale of Iraqi oil and natural gas are also to be placed into the fund.

-continued-

Their evil knows no bounds.

....and logic. There are no words for this.

I believe this has been debunked as a bit of an urban myth. Use of big gas (petrol) station names for refueling depots is apparently a practice of long standing.

another snip>

For the Bush/Cheney administration and their allies in the oil industry, this was not enough. Hours after the UN endorsed U.S. control of the 'Development Fund' for Iraq, Bush signed an executive order that was spun as implementing Resolution 1483, but in reality, went much further towards attracting investment and minimizing risk for U.S. corporations in Iraq.


Executive Order 13303 decrees that 'any attachment, judgment, decree, lien, execution, garnishment, or other judicial process is prohibited, and shall be deemed null and void', with respect to the Development Fund for Iraq and "all Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products, and interests therein."


In other words, if ExxonMobil or ChevronTexaco touch Iraqi oil, it will be immune from legal proceedings in the U.S.. Anything that could go, and elsewhere has gone, awry with U.S. corporate oil operations will be immune to judgment: a massive tanker accident; an explosion at an oil refinery; the employment of slave labor to build a pipeline; murder of locals by corporate security; the release of billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The President, with a stroke of the pen, signed away the rights of Saddam's victims, creditors and of the next true Iraqi government to be compensated through legal action. Bush's order unilaterally declares Iraqi oil to be the unassailable province of U.S. corporations.

more>

You're right, this is a must read.

it wasn't ABOUT oil, dontcha know . . . really . . . the President of the United States told us so . . . oil had NOTHING to do with our invasion of Iraq . . . really . . . no, I mean REALLY . . . (sigh)

Here is a letter from 2001.

http://65.64.114.185/economy3.htm

Not everyone saw it, but it wasn't subtle enough back then, even.
The core assertions have been proven over time.