Claim: Global oil firms to divide up Iraq oil

Tom Burgis

As the costs of the Iraq occupation spiral, British and American oil companies meet in secret next week to carve up the country's oil reserves for themselves. Tom Burgis reports

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Executives from BP, Shell, Exxon Mobil and Halliburton, Dick Cheney's old firm, are expected to congregate at the Paddington Hilton for a two-day chinwag with top-level officials from Iraq's oil ministry. The gathering, sponsored by the British Government, is being described as the "premier event" for those with designs on Iraqi oil, and will go ahead despite opposition from Iraqi oil workers, who fear their livelihoods are being flogged to foreigners.

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But Iraqi oil workers are furious about the conference. "The second phase of the war will be started by this conference carving up the industry," said an outraged Hasan Juma'a, head of the Iraqi General Union of Oil Employees. "It is about giving shares of Iraq to the countries who invaded it - they get a piece of the action as a reward. The British government will back this action in order to pay its debt in Iraq."

Hasan, who represents 23,000 skilled oil workers, fears that deals struck at the conference will see profits from Iraq's massive oil reserves - the second richest in the world - lining the pockets of multinational corporations at the expense of the Iraqi people.

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Greg Muttitt, a researcher with Platform, an independent environmental think thank, agrees. "The decisions on how to carve up Iraq are being made behind closed doors in Washington, London and Baghdad.


In the driving seat: with so much clear profit at stake, the question of who owns Iraq's biggest natural resource is hotly contended / Getty

I wonder if we'll see some oil pipe lines being damage due to this?

Semper Fi