by Steve Kretzmann and Jim Vallette
During the initial assault on Baghdad, soldiers set up forward bases named
Camp Shell and Camp Exxon. Those soldiers knew the score, even if the Pentagon’s
talking points dismissed any ties between Iraqi oil and their blood.
The Bush/Cheney administration has moved quickly to ensure US corporate control
over Iraqi resources at least through the year 2007. The first part of the plan,
created by the UN under US pressure is the Development Fund for Iraq which is
being controlled by the US and advised by the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund (IMF). The second is a recent Bush executive order that provides
absolute legal protection for US interests in Iraqi oil.
In May, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1483, which ended
sanctions and endorsed the creation of Development Fund for Iraq, to be controlled
by Paul Bremer and overseen by a board of accountants, including UN, World Bank,
and IMF representatives. It endorsed the transfer of over $1 billion (of Iraqi
oil money) from the Oil-for-Food program into the Development Fund. All proceeds
from the sale of Iraqi oil and natural gas are also to be placed into the fund.
In the creation and expected implementation of this Development Fund for Iraq,
one finds the fingerprints of the global economic structural adjustment that
has attracted so much protest in recent years. World Bank and IMF programs,
backed by the rigged rules of the World Trade Organization, have imposed dramatic
financial restructuring upon much of the world. Developing countries have amassed
huge debts in exchange for selling out their natural resources to powerful Northern
corporations. This paradigm cloaks corporate welfare and neocolonialism in terms
of “poverty alleviation” and now in Iraq, “humanitarian assistance.”
New debt for Iraq will accrue through the very program that President Bush pledged
would “benefit the people of Iraq.” The Development Fund, derived
from actual and expected Iraqi oil and gas sales, apparently will be used to
leverage US government-backed loans, credit, and direct financing for US corporate
forays into Iraq. Besides financing reconstruction projects, some of the funds
will also be used as collateral for projects approved by the US Export-Import
Bank (ExIm), whose mission is not development or poverty alleviation, but rather
the creation of US jobs and the promotion of American business abroad.
ExIm recently announced that it was open for business in Iraq and would begin
considering applications by subcontractors (that is, companies hired by Bechtel
and Halliburton) in Iraq. Corporations have found it next to impossible to obtain
private bank credit for work in Iraq, due to the ongoing insecure environment.
But ExIm has stepped in to take a lead role in facilitating US business in Iraq.
“The primary source of repayment,” explained an ExIm release, “is
the Development Fund for Iraq, or another entity established under the auspices
of the Coalition Provisional Authority with access to foreign exchange and protection
from claims of creditors of the former regime.” In other words, the US
government is happy to provide credit to any US business wishing to do business
in Iraq — especially because the money comes from Iraq.
For the Bush/Cheney administration and their allies in the oil industry, this
was not enough. Hours after the UN endorsed US control of the “Development
Fund” for Iraq, Bush signed an executive order that was spun as implementing
Resolution 1483, but in reality, went much further towards attracting investment
and minimizing risk for US corporations in Iraq.
Executive Order 13303 decrees that “any attachment, judgment, decree, lien,
execution, garnishment, or other judicial process is prohibited, and shall be
deemed null and void,” with respect to the Development Fund for Iraq and
“all Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products, and interests therein.”
In other words, if ExxonMobil or ChevronTexaco touch Iraqi oil, it will be immune
from legal proceedings in the US. Anything that could go, and elsewhere has
gone, awry with US corporate oil operations will be immune to judgment: a massive
tanker accident; an explosion at an oil refinery; the employment of slave labor
to build a pipeline; murder of locals by corporate security; the release of
billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The President, with
a stroke of the pen, signed away the rights of Saddam’s victims, creditors
and of the next true Iraqi government to be compensated through legal action.
Bush’s order unilaterally declares Iraqi oil to be the unassailable province
of US corporations.
In the short term, through the Development Fund and the Export-Import Bank programs,
the Iraqi peoples’ oil will finance US corporate entrees into Iraq. In
the long term, Executive Order 13303 protects anything those corporations do
to seize control of Iraq’s oil, from the point of production to the gas
pump — and places oil companies above the rule of law.
Steve and Jim are analysts with the Sustainable Energy & Economy Network
of the Institute for Policy Studies. For more information on Executive Order
13303, see <www.seen.org>. This article was
published on July 23, 2003 by CommonDreams.org