Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: La guerra in Iraq va benone...

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/06/todays_must_read_359.php
Today's Must Read
By Andrew Tilghman - June 30, 2008, 10:07AM
A couple weeks ago, we learned that Iraq's oh-so-very-sovereign
Ministry of Oil was about to award a round of no-bid contracts to
several western oil companies that would bring the large
multinationals back into Iraq for the first time in more than 35
years.
The Bush Administration insisted that they were not going to interfere
in this deal, which was between Iraq's democratic leaders and private-
sector companies.
But today's New York Times report confirms what many people have
suspected for years -- that U.S. officials are working behind the
scenes to influence the future of Iraq's massive oil reserves.
    In their role as advisers to the Iraqi Oil Ministry, American
government lawyers and private-sector consultants provided template
contracts and detailed suggestions on drafting the contracts, advisers
and a senior State Department official said.
    ...
    The American government lawyers provided specific advice, the
State Department official said, like: "These are the clauses you may
want. You will need a clause on arbitration. You will need this clause
to make this work."
Near the end of the story, the Times reports:
    Advisers from the State, Commerce, Energy and Interior Departments
are assigned to work with the Iraqi Oil Ministry, according to the
senior diplomat. In addition, the United States Agency for
International Development has a contract for Management Systems
International, a Washington consulting firm, to advise the oil and
other ministries. The agency's program is called Tatweer, the Arabic
word for development.
A Washington consulting firm? Actually, Management Systems
International is a subsidiary of a massive Australian company, Coffey
International Ltd. focusing on mining, oil and gas infrastructure
projects.
And guess who some of their clients are? Global oil companies
including Cheveron, Royal Dutch Shell and BP.
So the company that touts big oil as clients is helping the Iraqi
government negotiate with those companies -- and getting paid by the
U.S. government to do so.
But USAID and the consulting firm they hired don't call that a
conflict of interest, the call it "mentoring."
    "The legal department of the Ministry of Oil passed us a draft of
the contract," Samir Abid, a Canadian of Iraqi origin who is an
employee of the Tatweer program, said in a telephone interview. "They
passed it to us and asked for our comments because we were mentoring
them."
U.S. officials suggested that the Iraqi's needed their help since they
haven't dealt with western oil companies since the 1970s. That's when,
you might recall, Saddam Hussein kicked out all the international oil
firms and nationalized the Iraq National Oil Company.
The Times wrote Sunday, in a story about Iraq's oil in the Week in
Review section, many oil experts say that Iraq is among the easiest
places in the world to pull oil out of the ground.
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Qualcuno dica la buona novella a mogli, mariti figli, madri,
fratelli,sorelle dei:
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26-June	3	Three Marines were killed during a bombing in Karma.--------
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(L'ultima casualty di cui si hanno i nomi).   Non sono morti
invano.  :-/
GT

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Lo sanno da soli, caro *PIRLA* di un Torrieri.
-Stefano