BP, Iraq war profiteers and polluters

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From Socialist Worker weekly in Britain:

Tue 2 Aug 2011

Blood for oil as BP takes Iraq’s oil

The huge multinational oil firm BP has gained a stranglehold over Iraqi oil production, leaked documents reveal.

The company, which signed a contract in 2009 for control over the country’s largest oil field Rumaila, has been criticised for introducing new clauses into the contract.

These now state that BP will be paid even if the oil stops flowing—whether from government decisions, strikes or any other disruption.

It was always the goal of big business to trade blood for oil in the Iraq war.

Sadly it looks like BP has got its own way.

•The Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war is poised to slam warmonger Tony Blair when it delivers its report on the Iraq war in January, according to sources inside the inquiry.

They say Blair will be heavily criticised for hiding from the cabinet secret deals he made with then US president George W Bush to go to war.

He will also he chided for failing to prepare for post-war reconstruction, distorting “intelligence” and the extensive use of the infamous “dodgy dossier”.

U.S. Planning to Stay in Iraq: here. And here.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has sacked scandal-hit electricity minister Raad Shalal who stands accused of breaching government guidelines to award £1 billion worth of deals to two transnational corporations: here.

Adam Bessie, Truthout: “Thirty-something Brooklynite, self-professed news-junkie and author Sarah Glidden laments that Iraq has become ‘yesterday’s news,’ which editors now treat like yesterday’s bread – a stale subject. So, Glidden decided to take the news into her own hands. With no promise of funding and ‘no training in journalism at all,’ Glidden, author of the graphic travel memoir ‘How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less,’ was determined to shed light on the all but ignored stories of the nearly two million Iraqis who fled to Syria in the eight years since the war began”: here.

Two Iraqis who faced the death penalty after being detained and handed over to the Iraq authorities by British forces have been acquitted of all charges, their legal team announced today: here.

An alliance of Kurdish groups in northern Iraq have called on the international community to prevent further Turkish “aggression against Iraqi Kurdistan”: here.

Turkish jets invaded Iraqi airspace August 17-22, carrying out an intense bombardment of the Kurdish autonomous region: here.

‘New’ Iraq a nightmare for women, minority groups: here.

War and cancer in Iraq: here.

Iraq: Foreign Workers Stranded Without Money or Visas: here.

William Rivers Pitt, Truthout: “A pair of vitally important news reports were lost recently amid a blizzard of stories about the gyrating stock market and a rogue East Coast earthquake. The first came from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who announced that a deal had been struck to keep US forces in Iraq beyond the oft-publicized December 31st withdrawal deadline and into 2012, contrary to Mr. Obama’s promises. Not long after, a spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki came forward to say hold on, wait a minute, nothing along these lines has been agreed upon as yet, and negotiations are still ongoing”: here.