The REAL reason for Iraq. . .

. . .finally comes to light. It's what most of us knew it to be all along: The acronym for this "war" was intentionally "spot on". . .Operation Iraqi Liberation or OIL. . .

Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.

The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.

This law will allow Western oil companies to pocket up to three-quarters of Iraqi oil profits
through "production-sharing agreements" (or PSAs) which are highly unusual in the Middle East, where the oil industry is generally state-controlled as is the case in Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world's two largest producers. Iraq, where oil accounts for 95 per cent of the economy, is being forced to surrender an unacceptable degree of sovereignty.

Americans, at least those of us who are not in the upper classes or are members of the corporatist society, have paid for this endeavour through their income taxes and, in over 3,000 cases, with their very lives. This legislation will allow these corporations to step in and earn huge profits from the hostile takeover of this sovereign nation, while the rest of us have paid the cost. What an excellent investment for Haliburton, Exxon, BP, et al! No outlay of capital, no risk. . .just sit back and rake it in.

Proposing the parliamentary motion for war in 2003, Tony Blair denied the "false claim" that "we want to seize" Iraq's oil revenues. He said the money should be put into a trust fund, run by the UN, for the Iraqis, but the idea came to nothing. The same year Colin Powell, then Secretary of State, said: "It cost a great deal of money to prosecute this war. But the oil of the Iraqi people belongs to the Iraqi people; it is their wealth, it will be used for their benefit. So we did not do it for oil."

This is why George W. Bush refuses to accept any alternative to "success" in Iraq. Nothing that will jeopardize corporate oil profits can be allowed to occur, at any cost. This neo-con wet-dream of massive profits and corporate control of an oil-rich foreign nation, paid for with the blood and tax revenues of average Americans, is nirvana for these guys. And there is NOTHING they will stop at to achieve it. . .

More on this story here. . .