Those who were and still are convinced Bush went there for oil: The oil resources in Iraq are firmly in the hands of the Iraqi people, even to the unique and novel policy for the M.E. of itÂ’s being an asset of the Iraqi people and not any regime.
Now, this development is almost
precisely a year behind us. Have you been monitoring the circumstances of this?
FYI – I follow this stuff daily in the WSJ paper edition. I do not follow it online; so what I stated in only a few sentences you quoted which is also in the post directly above now needs to be backed up by a formidable amount of text with links: (I hope this is informative – please pay close attention to the text in bold)
Iraq unveils foreign oil contract shortlist - Times Online
June 10, 2009 – Alice Fordham, Baghdad
"Three British companies have been shortlisted to bid for contracts to work on Iraq's oil and gas fields, pitting themselves against 32 other non-Iraqi companies in a televised, two-day bidding procedure revealed at Baghdad's Oil Ministry.
BP, which provided technical assistance to the Iraqi state oil company in 2004-2006, BG International and Premier Oil were among the 120 companies who put themselves forward in June last year, and which now appear on the shortlist of 35 companies who are invited to submit proposals for consideration by a panel of experts at the Ministry.
Along with other oil majors including Exxonmobil and Total, they are due to present proposals on June 29 and 30 to work on one of six oil fields and two gas fields. It will be the first major foreign investment in Iraqi oil for 40 years, which has the world's third-largest oil reserves but needs massive foreign investment to resurrect the country's energy infrastructure.
The oil and gas fields are already operational. The agreements due to be awarded are service contracts, whereby companies provide technical assistance to increase capacity, and are paid according to how much production of oil or gas increases, rather than production contracts, where revenue is shared."
AND:
Oil giants flock to Iraqi auction - Times Online
September 14, 2008 – Danny Fortson
"THE worldÂ’s largest oil companies will converge on London next month for a chance to re-enter Iraq for the first time in more than three decades.
In all, 34 oil companies, including BP, Royal Dutch Shell, BG, Exxonmobil, Gazprom and Sinopec, are expected to attend a roadshow held by IraqÂ’s oil minister Hussein al-Shahristani when he officially kicks off the bidding for so-called technical-service agreements.
These will govern exploitation of eight of the countryÂ’s largest fields.
At the event, scheduled for October 13, bidders will be given technical data on the sites in question — six giant oilfields including Kirkuk and West Qurna and two gasfields — bidding parameters and remuneration terms.
The opening of Iraq, which sits on the worldÂ’s third-largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia and Iran, has been eagerly awaited by the industry but has been repeatedly delayed by security concerns and political infighting that has held back a crucial hydrocarbons law.
But recent deals struck by the countryÂ’s oil ministry with Shell and China National Petroleum, despite the continuing political limbo of the hydrocarbons law, have raised expectations that oil companies will be welcomed back en masse for the first time since the industry was nationalised in 1972.
The oil ministry called off talks on no-bid short-term advisory contracts this summer in place of the longer deals that feature in the new plan.
The oil ministry is not expected to award contracts for at least another six months, pushing back a previously announced plan to increase production by 500,000 barrels per day to 3m barrels by the end of this year.
The Kurdistan regional administration in northern Iraq has been signing contracts with foreign oil companies for more than two years, but has been unable to attract the largest firms who feared angering the federal government and getting shut out of auctions for the giant fields in the south.
Contracts will be fee-based rather than the industryÂ’s preferred revenue-sharing model."