I bet you don't even see the problem with this.
At that time, administration officials said Hunt OilÂ’s deal with the Kurds jeopardized delicate negotiations among competing Iraqi sects and regions for sharing oil revenues, talks seen as vital for achieving national reconciliation.
“I know nothing about the deal,” President Bush said. “To the extent that it does undermine the ability for the government to come up with an oil revenue sharing plan that unifies the country, obviously if it undermines it I’m concerned.”
However, on July 2, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released documents showing that senior administration officials were aware that Hunt was negotiating with the Kurdistan government and even offered him encouragement.
Hunt also personally alerted BushÂ’s PFIAB about his oil companyÂ’s confidential contacts with Kurdish representatives.
In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California, committee chairman, complained that the administration’s comments last year were “misleading.”
“Documents obtained by the Committee indicate that contrary to the denials of Administration officials, advisors to the President and officials in the State and Commerce Departments knew about Hunt Oil’s interest in the Kurdish region months before the contract was executed,” Waxman wrote.
Waxman said the Hunt-Kurdish case also raised questions about the veracity of similar administration denials about its role in arranging more recent contracts between Iraq and major U.S. and multinational oil companies, including Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP and Chevron.
Plus, thereÂ’s the longstanding suspicion that oil was a principal, though unstated, motive behind the Bush administrationÂ’s invasion of Iraq, which sits on the worldÂ’s second-largest oil reserves.
Administration officials – and much of the mainstream U.S. media – have ridiculed the oil motive charge as a conspiracy theory.
Oil deals
But many of the oil companies now stepping forward to benefit from Iraqi oil were instrumental in both supporting BushÂ’s political career and giving advice to CheneyÂ’s secretive energy task force in 2001.
For instance, Ray HuntÂ’s personal relationship with the Bush family dates back to the 1970s as Hunt, the chief of Dallas-based Hunt Oil, helped build the Texas Republican Party as it served as a power base for the Bushes rise to national prominence.
The Hunt family donated more than $500,000 to Republican campaigns in Texas, while Hunt Oil employees and their spouses gave more than $1 million to Republican causes since 1995, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Ray Hunt also had strong ties to Dick Cheney during his years at the helm of Halliburton, the Houston-based oil-services giant. In 1998, Cheney tapped Hunt to serve on HalliburtonÂ’s board of directors, where Hunt became a compensation committee member setting CheneyÂ’s salary and stock options.
In 1999, when Texas Gov. George W. Bush was running for the Republican presidential nomination, Bush turned to Hunt to help fund his presidential campaign efforts in Iowa, according to Robert BryceÂ’s book, Cronies: Oil, The Bushes, And The Rise Of Texas, America's Superstate.
“By the summer of 1999, Bush had already raised $37 million but he wanted to conserve his campaign cash so he turned to a Texas crony, Ray Hunt, to help fund the Iowa effort,” Bryce wrote. “In July of 1999, Hunt was among a handful of Bush supporters who each donated $10,000 to the Iowa Republican party.”
In May 2000, Bush appointed Hunt finance chairman of the Republican National Committee. Hunt also donated $5,000 to the Florida recount battle and spent $100,000 on BushÂ’s inaugural party.
alJazeera Magazine - Bush-Cheney crony got Iraq oil deal
