Another Blairite swimming in Iraqi oil money

This video from the USA is called Big Oil: What Iraq War was ‘ALL” About.

A news report, especially for the last neo-conservative and/or “liberal hawk” pundits who still refuse to see that the Iraq war was very largely about oil.

From British daily The Morning Star:

Blair‘s Iraq envoy ‘takes oil industry job’

Thursday 19 May 2011

Former Labour prime minister Tony Blair‘s special envoy to Iraq was criticised in Parliament today for taking up a consultancy role with the country’s oil industry.

Luton North Labour MP Kelvin Hopkins claimed that Sir Jeremy Greenstock started work only three months after leaving government service in June 2004 – in “clear breach” of the rules governing former civil servants.

Mr Hopkins said the incident highlighted the “revolving door” of ministers and civil servants taking up lobbying positions after leaving Whitehall.

During Commons exchanges on forthcoming parliamentary business, Mr Hopkins said: “This week it was reported that Sir Jeremy Greenstock, former adviser to Tony Blair in the Iraq war, has taken up an advisory consultancy post with the oil industry in Iraq.

“He was advised to delay for six months before doing so. He started work after three months, clearly in breach of the rules governing former civil servants taking up business interests.”

Commons Leader Sir George Young said: “I will draw the attention of my honourable friend, probably the Prime Minister, to the remarks you have made about Sir Jeremy Greenstock.”

Previously classified documents released into the public domain reveal that Britain’s MI6 planned a coup against then Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, just months after 9/11: here.

Britain: The Cabinet Office announced an internal investigation today into the leaking of documents detailing the secret negotiations between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown on the handover of power: here.

From the USA: Tyson Slocum, Public Citizen: “Just what Big Oil needed: another victory. First, Congress fails to pass legislation that would respond to last summer’s catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Then, President Barack Obama announces that his administration will expand offshore drilling, which means more money for the oil industry. But now, despite overwhelming public support, the US Senate has failed to pass the Close Big Oil Tax Loopholes Act (S. 940), which would have repealed tens of billions of dollars in tax breaks for oil and gas companies over the next decade. Big Oil is racking up the victories while working families pay the price. Yet again Big Oil defies the odds and gets a minority of lawmakers to support its narrow agenda at the expense of the American public”: here.

Rinaldo Brutoco and Madeleine Austin, World Business Academy: “US oil companies earn about $3 billion in profits every week, yet get $4 billion in taxpayer subsidies every year. In the first quarter of 2011, Big Oil’s profits were up 38 percent from the first quarter of 2010…. The industry’s outsize profits didn’t stop it from squealing like a stuck pig over proposals to trim $2 billion from its annual subsidies and use the revenue to reduce the deficit by about $21 billion over ten years. The oil companies tried to characterize the end of their subsidies as a ‘tax hike,’ despite growing and widespread recognition across the political spectrum that tax breaks are just another form of government spending”: here.

USA: John Glaser takes Reason magazine to task for embarrassing profit-based determination that US doesn’t go to war for oil: here.

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