Read the first article carefully. It is the virus in the computer, the poison pill, the Trojan horse, and the primacy of the bottom line.
Bush's response, in article two, was predictable and offers good news and bad. It pitches powerful forces against him, but will either allow or seduce many others to accept these two deadly failures as the only options, most, likely to support Baker/Hamilton. Reality in Iraq will trash both programs, but the carnage continues even while both inperialist views are laid bare, but remain dominant in all branches of our government. Ed Democracy Now Thursday, December 7th, 2006 Oil for Sale: Why the Iraq Study Group is Calling for the Privatization of Iraq's Oil Industry -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Among its recommendations, the Iraq Study Group advised that Iraq privatize its oil industry and to open it up to international companies. Author and activist Antonia Juhasz writes "Put simply, the oil companies are trying to get what they were denied before the war or at anytime in modern Iraqi history: access to Iraq's oil under the ground." [includes rush transcript] a.. Antonia Juhasz, author and activist. Her latest book is "The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time," -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RUSH TRANSCRIPT This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution. Donate - $25, $50, $100, more... AMY GOODMAN: The Iraq Study Group also recommended for Iraq to privatize its oil industry and to open it up to international companies. The author and activist, Antonia Juhasz, has been closely watching this aspect of the Iraq reconstruction process. She's author of The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time. Antonia Juhasz, thanks for joining us in studio in San Francisco. Your response to the report, not talked about almost at all, the issue of privatization? ANTONIA JUHASZ: Yeah, absolutely. And good morning, Amy. It's a completely radical proposal made straightforward in the Iraq Study Group report that the Iraqi national oil industry should be reorganized as a commercial enterprise. The proposal also says that, as you say, Iraq's oil should be opened up to private foreign energy and companies. Also, another radical proposal: that all of Iraq's oil revenues should be centralized in the central government. And the report calls for a US advisor to ensure that a new national oil law is passed in Iraq to make all of this possible and that the constitution of Iraq is amended to ensure that the central government gains control of Iraq's oil revenues. All told, the report calls for privatization of Iraq's oil, turning it over to private foreign corporate hands, putting all of the oil in the hands of the central government, and essentially, I would argue, extending the war in Iraq to ensure that US oil companies get what the Bush administration went in there for: control and greater access to Iraq's oil. AMY GOODMAN: Antonia Juhasz, let's talk about the members of this Iraq Study Group. That might explain what their approach has been, particularly James Baker, the former Secretary of State, and also Lawrence Eagleburger. Talk about the two of them. ANTONIA JUHASZ: Both Baker and Eagleburger have spent their careers doing one of two things: working for the federal government or working in private enterprise taking advantage of the work that they did for the federal government. So, in particular, in this case, both Baker and Eagleburger were key participants throughout the '80s and early 1990s of radically expanding US economic engagement with Saddam Hussein, with a very clear objective of gaining greater access for US corporations, particularly oil corporations, to Iraq's oil, and doing everything that they could to expand that access. Baker has his own private interest. His family is heavily invested in the oil industry, and also Baker Botts, his law firm, is one of the key law firms representing oil companies across the United States and their activities in the Middle East. And Lawrence Eagleburger was president of Kissinger Associates, which was one of the leading multinational advising firms for advising US companies who were trying to get contracts with Saddam Hussein and get work in Iraq. Now, these two members of the Iraq Study Group are joined by two additional members who are representatives of the Heritage Foundation, and the Heritage Foundation is one of the few US organizations that point-blank called for full privatization of Iraq's oil sector prior to the invasion of Iraq, as a stated goal of the invasion. And to call point-blank for full privatization, as I said, is truly radical. It's actually a shift for the Bush administration, which has for the past about two years been working on a more sort of privatization-lite agenda, putting forward what are called production-sharing agreements in Iraq that would have the same outcome of privatization without calling it privatization. For the Iraq Study Group, which is supposed to be, you know, the meeting of the pragmatists, the sort of middle-ground group that's going to help solve the war in Iraq, to put forward this incredibly radical proposal and to have nobody talk about it, to me, is fairly shocking and makes clear that still the Democrats, the Republicans, the media are afraid to talk about oil, but that oil, in my mind, still remains the lynchpin for the administration and for all those in the oil sector in the United States, Baker and Eagleburger counted among them, for why US troops are being committed and committed to stay. And the report says troops will stay until at least 2008 -- I think that is at a minimum -- to guarantee this oil access to US oil companies. AMY GOODMAN: Former Secretary of State James Baker in 2003 went to Rome, Moscow, London, first official trip since he joined the Bush administration as a point person on issues around Iraq in 2003, but remained a senior partner in the law firm, Baker Botts, which, among others, represents Halliburton, as well as the Saudi government, in the suit filed by family members who lost relatives in 9/11. Now, that's the family members who lost their loved ones versus the Saudi government, and he was representing the Saudi government. ANTONIA JUHASZ: Yeah, he's definitely had his allegiance spread, and it almost always, in the bottom line, has to do with oil. And as the public has been very clear in saying in its reports on Baker -- or rather, excuse me, the media -- that Baker is a pragmatist. He is a pragmatist. The Iraq Study Group report, page 1, chapter one, says that the reason why Iraq is a critical country in the Middle East, in the world and for the United States, is because it has the second-largest reserves of oil in the world. The report is very clear. The report is also very clear, however, that this isn't a report where the recommendations can be picked and choosed. It says that all of the recommendations should be applied together as one proposal, that they shouldn't be separated out. That means that the authors of the report are saying that oil, privatization of oil, and foreign corporate access to oil is as key as any other recommendation that they have made. And the report also says that the US government will withhold military, economic and political support of the Iraqi government, unless the recommendations are met. That's a pretty straightforward statement. The US government will not provide any support to the al-Maliki government, unless it advances the changes to the Iraqi constitution and changes to Iraqi national law that essentially privatize Iraq's oil. That is something for us in the antiwar movement to be very, very clear about, that this is their objective and that we have to, as I repeatedly say, not just call for the end of troops in Iraq, but make clear that the US corporate invasion cannot be progressed or continue, as well. AMY GOODMAN: Antonia Juhasz, I want to thank you very much for being with us, author of The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time, speaking to us from San Francisco. To purchase an audio or video copy of this entire program, click here for our new online ordering or call 1 (888) 999-3877. *** http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/08/world/middleeast/08prexy.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th Bush Backs Away From 2 Key Ideas of Panel on Iraq By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and KATE ZERNIKE Published: December 8, 2006 WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 - President Bush moved quickly to distance himself on Thursday from the central recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, even as the panel's co-chairmen opened an intensive lobbying effort on Capitol Hill to press Mr. Bush to adopt their report wholesale. One day after the study group rattled Washington with its bleak assessment of conditions in Iraq, its Republican co-chairman, James A. Baker III, said the White House must not treat the report "like a fruit salad," while the Democratic co-chairman, Lee H. Hamilton, called on Congress to abandon its "extremely timid" approach to overseeing the war. But Mr. Bush, making his first extended comments on the study, seemed to push back against two of its most fundamental recommendations: pulling back American combat brigades from Iraq over the next 15 months, and engaging in direct talks with Iran and Syria. He said he needed to be "flexible and realistic" in making decisions about troop movements, and he set conditions for talks with Iran and Syria that neither country was likely to accept. The president addressed reporters after meeting in the White House with his closest ally in the war, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain. In light of the report's stark warning that the situation in Iraq was "grave and deteriorating," Mr. Bush came close to acknowledging mistakes. "You wanted frankness - I thought we would succeed quicker than we did," the president said to a British reporter who asked for candor. "And I am disappointed by the pace of success." But Mr. Bush, and to a lesser extent, Mr. Blair, continued to talk about the war in the kind of sweeping, ideological terms the Iraq Study Group avoided in its report. While the commission settled on stability as a realistic American goal for Iraq, Mr. Bush cast the conflict as part of a broader struggle between good and evil, totalitarianism and democracy. If extremists emerge triumphant in the Middle East, Mr. Bush warned, "History will look back on our time with unforgiving clarity and demand to know, what happened? How come free nations did not act to preserve the peace?" While the president said he would give the report serious consideration, he said he did not intend to accept all 79 recommendations. "Congress isn't going to accept every recommendation in the report," Mr. Bush said, "and neither will the administration." Three other reviews - one by the Pentagon, one by the State Department and one by the National Security Council - are under way, and Mr. Bush reiterated Thursday that while he believed that the nation needed "a new approach" in Iraq, he would make no decision until he received those reports. The current White House plan is for Mr. Bush to receive them over the next week to 10 days, then make a decision about what both he and the Baker-Hamilton commission are calling "the way forward" in Iraq. He intends to announce his plans in a speech before the end of the year, probably before Christmas, according to administration officials. Pentagon officials are scheduled to brief Mr. Bush soon on the department's recommendations for a strategy shift in Iraq. The department's recommendations are likely to differ in some respects from the ideas presented by the Iraq Study Group, particularly over the role to be played by American combat troops over the next 12 to 18 months. Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair have long stood side by side on the war in Iraq. The White House insisted that Mr. Blair's appearance on Thursday was not timed to coincide with the release of the report, but it did help them underscore - as Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, put it - that "the president isn't standing alone." The Pentagon recommendations, which are still being completed, are the product of discussions in recent weeks among ground commanders, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and civilian officials in the department. While department officials are likely to present Mr. Bush with one set of recommendations, differences remain. Some officials still back the idea of a temporary surge in American troops, though the top commander in the Middle East, Gen. John P. Abizaid, has been urging recently that any troop shortfall to restore security in Baghdad should be filled by more Iraqi forces or by repositioning American forces now in Iraq. Military officials are also concerned about the Iraq Study Group's call for pulling back all American combat brigades over the next 15 months, a goal that some uniformed officials see as desirable but possibly unrealistic. Pentagon officials remain skeptical about the timetable, and they are leaning toward an approach that pulls back some combat brigades but keeps others in Baghdad and other violence-ridden areas of Iraq until Iraqi units can better handle the fight on their own. Though the Iraq Study Group also called for keeping enough American troops in place to provide protection to expanded teams of American advisers attached to Iraqi Army units, Pentagon officials fear that the panel's recommendations, if adopted, could lead to withdrawals of substantial American troops before the Iraqi units can stand on their own. The study group said combat brigades could withdraw from Iraq by the first quarter of 2008 if conditions on the ground permitted. Some analysts say that phrasing gives Mr. Bush wiggle room to ignore the call for withdrawal, and on Thursday Mr. Bush seized on that "qualifier," as he called it. "I thought that made a lot of sense. I've always said we'd like our troops out as fast as possible." Mr. Bush was sensitive about commenting on the military recommendations put forth by the Iraq Study Group until he heard from his own commanders, according to a senior administration official, who was authorized to discuss the president's point of view. "When you have your military leadership who are tasked with fighting this war, who are in the process of giving him military advice, you also have to be deferential to that," this official said. On Iran and Syria, Mr. Bush stuck to the conditions he set long ago for talks: Iran must abandon its nuclear program, and Syria must give up its support for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. "If they want to sit down at the table with the United States, it's easy - just make some decisions that will lead to peace, not to conflict," he said. The Baker-Hamilton panel - five Republicans and five Democrats - made an intense plea for a bipartisan consensus, and Mr. Bush's aides say the president has taken at least that part of their effort to heart. He met Wednesday with leaders of committees that oversee foreign affairs, defense and intelligence, and plans to meet with Republican and Democratic leaders on Friday. The Wednesday meeting opened with Mr. Bush making an overture to Democrats, the senior official said, and telling them that although they may believe he has made the wrong decisions, they needed to work together. "The president started by saying that, you know, there's a lot of water under the bridge, but that while we may not share all the views of this report, we ought to use it as an opportunity to work together," the official said, adding, "I've been through a lot of those meetings, and sometimes you feel like people are going through the motions. And I felt yesterday that there was really a sincere effort, both Republican and Democrat, to say this could provide us an opportunity to find common ground." On Capitol Hill on Thursday, Republican and Democratic senators pressed Mr. Baker and Mr. Hamilton for ways that Congress could be involved in shaping the president's response to the report - noting that the original impetus for the study group had come from Capitol Hill. "We've now heard from the Iraq Study Group, but we need the White House to become the Iraq Results Group," said Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York. Mr. Baker replied by asking Congress to accept the report, saying that would put pressure on the administration to do the same. "If the Congress could come together behind supporting, let's say, utopianly, all of the recommendations of this report, that would do a lot toward moving things downtown, in my opinion," he said. Both he and Mr. Hamilton argued that cherry-picking the suggestions would not work. "I hope we don't treat this like a fruit salad and say, 'I like this but I don't like that. I like this, but I don't like that,' " Mr. Baker said. "This is a comprehensive strategy designed to deal with this problem we're facing in Iraq, but also designed to deal with other problems that we face in the region, and to restore America's standing and credibility in that part of the world." --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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