The spectacle of Donald Trump abruptly transitioning the US political system into open fascism is quite horrifying even from the other side of the Pacific, however by and large ourlocal media aren't bothering to report the details.

Paul McGeough at the SMH gets to do a summary piece each day though (today's piece looking on the blatant blackmail involved in the new anti-muslim immigration laws, with countries that host Trump properties exempt and those without them hit hard - it's more a mafia style shakedown than a real immigration policy).

Long time business writer Michael Pascoe was also moved to voice his shock ("Australia is investing billions in madman Donald Trump") after Trump's bizarre interview with ABC News recently where he once again threatened to steal Iraq's oil.

As I've noted here many times before, Iraq has the world's largest and cheapest to extract oil reserves, and trying to gain control of them was a major reason for the Iraq war.

Bush and the neocons at least tried to maintain a fig leaf of legality around their attempt's to bully the Iraqi government into signing over control of the oil, so Trump's naked imperialism has managed to outrage the entire political spectrum outside of the fascist right.

The Washington Post - Trump’s illegal, impossible, and ‘beyond goofy’ idea of seizing Iraq’s oil.

The United States can’t just walk off with Iraq’s oil when it decides to get out. In 2015, Iraq produced about 4 million barrels a day, enough crude oil to fill more than 700 Trump Towers. Billions of barrels more sit underground in conventional reservoirs. The International Energy Agency has estimated that Iraq could produce twice as much as it does currently — by 2035. That means taking the oil would take decades. That might explain Trump’s suggestion that “a certain group” should be left behind to hold down parts of the country so that the United States could siphon off oil. What he didn’t say is that that group – undoubtedly U.S. soldiers — could be there quite a while. ...

“To ‘take the oil’ would require the United States to occupy Iraq. We tried that after 2003 with something approaching 200,000 troops and it did not work,” said Andrew Bacevich, a retired colonel and professor of history and international relations at Boston University. “What would effective occupation actually require? A minimum of a half-million troops, perhaps more.” Bacevich added, “Presumably, Trump would have them stay until the oil runs out, which would entail an occupation running into decades. The total cost? Probably more than the value of the oil itself. The whole idea is beyond goofy.”

Juan Cole - Trump to CIA: We now have 2nd Chance to take Iraq’s Oil.

The United Nations Charter and other treaty instruments that are part of US law actually abolished the principle of ‘to the victors go the spoils.’ Conquering states in a war are not allowed to annex territory from the vanquished as of 1945. That’s what is wrong with the Israeli creeping annexation of Palestine since 1967.

Given that the US has 6000 troops in Iraq, as Thomas Doherty pointed out, this kind of talk puts them in danger from Iraqi nationalists who may begin seeing them not as allies against ISIL but as stalking horses for a sinister imperialism. Trump just painted a big red target on the backs of our troops. ...

This isn’t speculation: the great Borzou Daragahi reports that the Iraqis are indeed ‘pissed’ and ready to fight for their oil.

Trump is also wrong that Iraqi petroleum fueled Daesh (ISIS, ISIL), or that the US could have “taken” Iraqi petroleum. This is because he does not know Iraqi geography or political geography. Most oil in Iraq is either down in Shiite territory at Basra (the vast majority of what is pumped) or up in Kurdish-held territory at Kirkuk. Daesh in Iraq had relatively little access to petroleum revenues, and the experts on it believe that contributions from Gulf supporters and taxes and plunder from local people (including on agriculture) were much more important. The situation is perhaps a little different in Syria, but we’re talking about Iraq.

The Independent - Iraq says Donald Trump's threat to seize the country's oil makes no sense.

US enemies and friends would oppose the move. While Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has accepted US help to retake Isis-held territory in his country, he has repeatedly asserted Iraqi sovereignty. He said of Trump's oil vow in November, “I am going to judge him by what he does later.” Reuters reported Mr al-Abadi as saying: “It wasn't clear what he meant. Did he mean in 2003 or to prevent the terrorists from seizing Iraq's oil? Iraq's oil is constitutionally the property of the Iraqis.”

The Atlantic - Why Iraq Needs the Oil.

It is into this delicate situation that Trump has pitched himself, without apparent regard to the consequences. That his threat to strip Iraq of its oil survived his transition into the White House demands careful consideration of what the proposal could actually entail. The U.S. military would not, as Trump has suggested, occupy Iraq to oversee the illegal extraction of crude from its oil fields, which are dispersed across the country. ...

Or he could just push the Iraqi government to award favorable contracts to American companies like ExxonMobil, whose former CEO Rex Tillerson has just been confirmed as secretary of state. Tillerson’s previous escapades, of course, present a cautionary tale. Under Tillerson, ExxonMobil purchased oil rights to land blocks controlled by the KRG in 2011—a deal that directly challenged the authority of the Iraqi government and was partially responsible for an armed stand-off between the Iraqi army and the Kurdish peshmerga.

Tillerson’s record of aggressively asserting corporate interests into decidedly thorny diplomatic climates also reflects the lack of common purpose among Trump’s team. James Mattis, Trump’s secretary of defense, has a record of seeking to confront Iran’s growing influence in Baghdad. Destabilizing Iraq’s oil sector would weaken Baghdad’s hold on the country, thereby strengthening Iran’s position.

The Boston Globe - As Trump muses about seizing Iraq oil, energy experts say it makes no sense.

“This is foolish,” Kenneth Pollack, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution, said. “This is a typical Trump remark. It’s moronic. It makes no sense. We couldn’t just suddenly grab Iraq’s oil and walk away with it.” In order to extract the oil, American forces would need to occupy the country, a costly, dangerous, and politically risky process, Pollack said. He added Iraqi resistance to these efforts would be quite strong given oil is a crucial source of income for the country.

In response to Trump’s comments, Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton, a former Marine, tweeted on Saturday, “No. That’s pillaging, and it’s a war crime.”

The Guardian - Trump's plan to seize Iraq's oil: 'It's not stealing, we're reimbursing ourselves'.

The idea predates Trump’s presidential campaign. As far back as 2011, he was telling the Wall Street Journal that this was his policy for Iraq. “You heard me, I would take the oil,” he said. “I would not leave Iraq and let Iran take the oil.” And he insisted to ABC News that this did not amount to national theft. “You’re not stealing anything,” Trump said. “We’re reimbursing ourselves … at a minimum, and I say more. We’re taking back $1.5tn to reimburse ourselves.”

As a security strategy, this presents huge problems from almost every angle, according to military, strategic, legal and oil experts. First of all, there are issues of principle and legality. Trump’s frequent invocation of the “spoils of war” seems to hark back to a bygone age of conquistadors and plunder-based imperialism, illegal now under the laws of war.

“In international law, you can’t take civilian goods or seize them. That would amount to a war crime,” Anthony Cordesman, the Arleigh Burke chair in strategy at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. “Oil exports were almost the only Iraqi source of money. So you would have to pay for government salaries, maintain the army, and you have triggered a level of national animosity far worse than we did. It would be the worst kind of neo-colonialism. Not even Britain did that.”

Jay Hakes, the author of A Declaration of Energy Independence, about the relationship between US national security and Middle Eastern oil, was similarly unsparing. “It is hard to overstate the stupidity of this idea,” he wrote on Real Clear Energy. “Even our allies in the Middle East regard oil in their lands as a gift from God and the only major source of income to develop their countries. Seizing Iraq’s oil would make our current allies against Isis our new enemies. We would likely, at the least, have to return to the massive military expenditures and deployment of American troops at the war’s peak.”

Counterpunch has a look at the unlikely presence of ex CIA director (and prominent Iraq war era neco, "geo green" and peak oil proponent) James Woolsey in Team Trump - Trump & Woolsey: Was There a Bait-and-Switch?.

The article has an interesting section on the motley collection of characters, including Dick Cheney and Rupert Murdoch, that are behind a company called genie Energy looking to exploit oil fomrations in Syria's Golan Heights region.

For voters hoping to ease global tensions and diminish the threat of World War III, Donald Trump seemed to be saying some sensible things on the campaign trail. He questioned the role of NATO, and the use of “regime change” by the U.S. against other nations. He asked why the U.S. and Russia couldn’t be partners rather than belligerents. He even questioned why the U.S. must always play the role of the world’s policeman and suggested that the U.S. should turn its attention to solving its own domestic problems. Such campaign rhetoric was unusual and likely struck a chord with some war-weary listeners.

But in early September 2016, in a move that should have received far more attention than it did, Trump appointed former CIA director James Woolsey as his senior advisor on national security issues. Woolsey – a key member of the neoconservative Project for a New American Century (PNAC) – had been a strong advocate for invading Iraq in 2003 and for waging war throughout the Middle East.

The only time I ever feel any sympathy for Donald Trump is when I read some journal like The Washington Post and come across some neo-conservative warmonger calling Trump a fascist or some of form of the pot calling the kettle black.

One of Trump's occasional "even a stopped clock is right twice a day" moments came around recently when he referred to the looting of the US taxpayer funds that occurred during the George W Bush years, with billions dispatched to Iraq and straight into the pockets of the sorts of people and organisations that supported the invasion and occupation (not to mention the attempted grab for Iraq's oil).

The Washington Post responded to this outrageous slur with a column from an ex member of the US military talking about how insulted he was and how during his time in Iraq he "had distributed about $2 million to the people of Iraq for justified damage" (apparently the payment for having a parent or child killed while going about their daily business didn't attract a particularly large amount of compensation).

The question which came immediately to mind for me was that if that $2 million is the only money that can be (anecdotally) accounted for, surely someone must be wondering where the rest of the $7 - $12 billion dollars of cash ended up ?

I'm still slightly shocked that Donald Trump (would be seizer of Iraq's oil) has managed to clinch the Republican nomination for the presidential election.

One of the more interesting pieces of commentary on Trump in recent weeks was Andrew Sullivan's elitist article in NYMag, declaring "right now, America is a breeding ground for tyranny" - Democracies end when they are too democratic (criticised here and here and here).

Another observer of the Trump circus act has been Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams, who has long been arguing that Trump is much smarter than he looks or acts, as he is focusing on persuading people rather than appealing to logic (however he admires Trump for it rather than despising him as Sullivan does).

One person who seems less alarmed about Trump than almost everyone else is Bruce Sterling (perhaps because he is far better at imagining dystopias than your average political journalist). Chairman Bruce thinks Trump will be America's Berlusconi rather than its Mussolini - a circus clown act to distract the masses while the pillaging continues apace.

OilPrice.com has an article on the battle between the Iraqi government, the Iraqi Kurds and ISIS for the oil fields of northern Iraq - The Battle Is On For Control Of Iraq’s Oil-Rich Kirkuk.

Upstream Online reports that Iraq wants to diversify its economy, quoting some big numbers for oil production over the next 4-5 years - Iraq ‘to switch focus from oil’.

Iraq is aiming for nearly $360 billion in investment in new development projects as the Opec member nation hatches a plan to move its economy away from such a heavy dependence on oil revenues. The major hydrocarbons producer is to focus on developing its industrial sector under a new plan running until 2017, Reuters reported. ...

Iraq envisages that approximately $357 billion in investment will be needed for development projects with 79% to come from the government and 21% from the private sector. Oil revenues will, however, continue to be the breadwinner for Iraq, hitting around $662 billion in the over four-year plan period.

Production of oil is envisioned rising from 3.2 million barrels per day in 2012 to 9.5 million bpd in 2017, with crude exports climbing from 2.6 million bpd to 6 million bpd in 2017, assuming an average oil price of $85 per barrel over the five years, Reuters reported.

I've been trying to ignore the beating of the war drums as the US, Britain and France attempt to build a pretext for attacking Syria (following the well trodden path they used to invade Iraq a decade ago), but the latest round of stories about chemical attacks in Damascus make it difficult to remain entirely silent.

In Iraq's case the motivation seemed to be a mix of a desire to control the oil, the seemingly insatiable appetite of the military industrial complex for new wars to keep the revenue flowing and pleasing the Israel lobby by keeping one of it's enemies in the middle east weak and under western control.

I've always held that the first of these was the dominant influence.

In Syria's case the country doesn't "float on a sea of oil" (as Paul Wolfowitz once accurately said of Iraq) so it's tempting to view the other 2 influences as the dominant ones in this case. Syria does, however, sit across some of the routes from the middle east to Europe that any potential gas pipelines could take if they wished to move gas from Iran and/or Iraq and/or Qatar to Europe, providing competition to Gazprom's dominant position in the European gas market.

It's this angle that some media reports are starting to look at, noting that Russia's support for Syria may have a strong economic basis (Ambrose Evans Pritchard recently came up with a story about the Saudi's trying to bribe Russia to abandon Assad).

The Guardian has an article looking at the gas pipeline angle - Syria intervention plan fueled by oil interests, not chemical weapon concern.

The 2011 uprisings, it would seem - triggered by a confluence of domestic energy shortages and climate-induced droughts which led to massive food price hikes - came at an opportune moment that was quickly exploited. Leaked emails from the private intelligence firm Stratfor including notes from a meeting with Pentagon officials confirmed US-UK training of Syrian opposition forces since 2011 aimed at eliciting "collapse" of Assad's regime "from within."

So what was this unfolding strategy to undermine Syria and Iran all about? According to retired NATO Secretary General Wesley Clark, a memo from the Office of the US Secretary of Defense just a few weeks after 9/11 revealed plans to "attack and destroy the governments in 7 countries in five years", starting with Iraq and moving on to "Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran." In a subsequent interview, Clark argues that this strategy is fundamentally about control of the region's vast oil and gas resources.

Much of the strategy currently at play was candidly described in a 2008 US Army-funded RAND report, Unfolding the Future of the Long War (pdf). The report noted that "the economies of the industrialized states will continue to rely heavily on oil, thus making it a strategically important resource." ...

The report noted especially that Syria is among several "downstream countries that are becoming increasingly water scarce as their populations grow", increasing a risk of conflict. Thus, although the RAND document fell far short of recognising the prospect of an 'Arab Spring', it illustrates that three years before the 2011 uprisings, US defence officials were alive to the region's growing instabilities, and concerned by the potential consequences for stability of Gulf oil.

These strategic concerns, motivated by fear of expanding Iranian influence, impacted Syria primarily in relation to pipeline geopolitics. In 2009 - the same year former French foreign minister Dumas alleges the British began planning operations in Syria - Assad refused to sign a proposed agreement with Qatar that would run a pipeline from the latter's North field, contiguous with Iran's South Pars field, through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and on to Turkey, with a view to supply European markets - albeit crucially bypassing Russia. Assad's rationale was "to protect the interests of [his] Russian ally, which is Europe's top supplier of natural gas."

Instead, the following year, Assad pursued negotiations for an alternative $10 billion pipeline plan with Iran, across Iraq to Syria, that would also potentially allow Iran to supply gas to Europe from its South Pars field shared with Qatar. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the project was signed in July 2012 - just as Syria's civil war was spreading to Damascus and Aleppo - and earlier this year Iraq signed a framework agreement for construction of the gas pipelines.

The Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline plan was a "direct slap in the face" to Qatar's plans. No wonder Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, in a failed attempt to bribe Russia to switch sides, told President Vladmir Putin that "whatever regime comes after" Assad, it will be "completely" in Saudi Arabia's hands and will "not sign any agreement allowing any Gulf country to transport its gas across Syria to Europe and compete with Russian gas exports", according to diplomatic sources. When Putin refused, the Prince vowed military action.

It would seem that contradictory self-serving Saudi and Qatari oil interests are pulling the strings of an equally self-serving oil-focused US policy in Syria, if not the wider region. It is this - the problem of establishing a pliable opposition which the US and its oil allies feel confident will play ball, pipeline-style, in a post-Assad Syria - that will determine the nature of any prospective intervention: not concern for Syrian life.

Looking at a map of the region many of the proposed pipelines from Iran and/or Iraq go direct from Iraq to Turkey, bypassing Syria entirely, so its not clear how much of an advantage having passage across Syria would provide - other than perhaps being more economic as the route would avoid the mountainous regions and political instability in Kurdistan.

When the Iraq war was in full swing the phrase "The Salvador Option" was used to describe the death squad operations that afflicted the country for a couple of years. Paul McGeough at the SMH points this this pair of articles in The Guardian on the men who implemented this strategy - From El Salvador to Iraq: Washington's man behind brutal police squads and Revealed: Pentagon's link to Iraqi torture centres. One interesting aspect of the new round of stories is that the puppet master for the operation is apparently no longer John Negroponte - David Petraeus (career already destroyed via an extra-marital affair being outed) is now the villain of the piece. Smells a little like political infighting to me...

With Steele and Coffman as his point men, Petraeus began pouring money from a multimillion dollar fund into what would become the Special Police Commandos. According to the US Government Accounts Office, they received a share of an $8.2bn (£5.4bn) fund paid for by the US taxpayer. The exact amount they received is classified.

With Petraeus's almost unlimited access to money and weapons, and Steele's field expertise in counterinsurgency the stage was set for the commandos to emerge as a terrifying force. One more element would complete the picture. The US had barred members of the violent Shia militias like the Badr Brigade and the Mahdi Army from joining the security forces, but by the summer of 2004 they had lifted the ban.

Shia militia members from all over the country arrived in Baghdad "by the lorry-load" to join the new commandos. These men were eager to fight the Sunnis: many sought revenge for decades of Sunni-supported, brutal Saddam rule, and a chance to hit back at the violent insurgents and the indiscriminate terror of al-Qaida.

Petraeus and Steele would unleash this local force on the Sunni population as well as the insurgents and their supporters and anyone else who was unlucky enough to get in the way. It was classic counterinsurgency. It was also letting a lethal, sectarian genie out of the bottle. The consequences for Iraqi society would be catastrophic. At the height of the civil war two years later 3,000 bodies a month were turning up on the streets of Iraq — many of them innocent civilians of sectarian war.

But it was the actions of the commandos inside the detention centres that raises the most troubling questions for their American masters. Desperate for information, the commandos set up a network of secret detention centres where insurgents could be brought and information extracted from them.

The commandos used the most brutal methods to make detainees talk. There is no evidence that Steele or Coffman took part in these torture sessions, but General Muntadher al Samari, a former general in the Iraqi army, who worked after the invasion with the US to rebuild the police force, claims that they knew exactly what was going on and were supplying the commandos with lists of people they wanted brought in. He says he tried to stop the torture, but failed and fled the country.

"We were having lunch. Col Steele, Col Coffman, and the door opened and Captain Jabr was there torturing a prisoner. He [the victim] was hanging upside down and Steele got up and just closed the door, he didn't say anything – it was just normal for him."

He says there were 13 to 14 secret prisons in Baghdad under the control of the interior ministry and used by the Special Police Commandos. He alleges that Steele and Coffman had access to all these prisons and that he visited one in Baghdad with both men.

"They were secret, never declared. But the American top brass and the Iraqi leadership knew all about these prisons. The things that went on there: drilling, murder, torture. The ugliest sort of torture I've ever seen."

James Fallows at The Atlantic has a look back at the Iraq war - As We Near the 10th Anniversary of the Iraq War.

Here is something other than The Sequester to think about at the beginning of March:

This month marks ten years since the U.S. launched its invasion of Iraq. In my view this was the biggest strategic error by the United States since at least the end of World War II and perhaps over a much longer period. Vietnam was costlier and more damaging, but also more understandable. As many people have chronicled, the decision to fight in Vietnam was a years-long accretion of step-by-step choices, each of which could be rationalized at the time. Invading Iraq was an unforced, unnecessary decision to risk everything on a "war of choice" whose costs we are still paying.

My reasons for bringing this up:

1) Reckoning. Anyone now age 30 or above should probably reflect on what he or she got right and wrong ten years ago.

I feel I was right in arguing, six months before the war in "The Fifty-First State," that invading Iraq would bring on a slew of complications and ramifications that would take at least a decade to unwind.

I feel not "wrong" but regretful for having resigned myself even by that point to the certainty that war was coming. We know, now, that within a few days of the 9/11 attacks many members of the Bush Administration had resolved to "go to the source," in Iraq. Here at the magazine, it was because of our resigned certainty about the war that Cullen Murphy, then serving as editor, encouraged me in early 2002 to begin an examination of what invading and occupying Iraq would mean. The resulting article was in our November, 2002 issue; we put it on line in late August in hopes of influencing the debate.

My article didn't come out and say as bluntly as it could have: we are about to make a terrible mistake we will regret and should avoid. Instead I couched the argument as cautionary advice. We know this is coming, and when it does, the results are going to be costly, damaging, and self-defeating. So we should prepare and try to diminish the worst effects (for Iraq and for us). This form of argument reflected my conclusion that the wheels were turning and that there was no way to stop them. Analytically, that was correct: Tony Blair or Colin Powell might conceivably have slowed the momentum, if either of them had turned anti-war in time, but few other people could have. Still, I'd feel better now if I had pushed the argument even harder at the time.

Bradley Manning has pleaded guilty to the illegal possession and communication of government documents, and he is facing a sentence of 20 years. New revelations paint a sadder picture.

Bradley Manning, the US soldier long supposed to be the source of Wikileaks “collateral murder’ video and massive document drops, has pleaded guilty in a military court to the illegal possession and communication of government documents — some of the lesser charges against him.

The charges were a series of “sample” charges relating to documents within each of the main WikiLeaks releases — the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, the Guantanamo prisoner files, the “collateral murder” video itself and other isolated documents. That added up to 10 counts, at two years per count, for a maximum sentence of 20 years. But that’s only on the charges Manning has pleaded guilty to.

There’s also a range of more serious charges of espionage and aiding the enemy, which potentially carry life in military prison without parole. Manning has pleaded not guilty to these, and the full court martial for that will begin in early June. Originally slated to run for several months, the trial could be somewhat shorter now that Manning has admitted handling the documents in question. Despite that, the government has lined up more than 140 potential witnesses for the prosecution.

Manning and his team have elected not to go with a military jury, presenting their case to a judge only and placing a great deal of emphasis on the draconian treatment that Manning has suffered during three years of incarceration, including four months of “suicide watch”, when he was stripped naked and subject to sleep deprivation.

Making a guilty plea gave Manning a chance to make an extended statement to the court, and it was this 35-page document that really set things on their ear. Acknowledging that he had leaked the documents — an admission of an open secret, since his confession of such to fellow hacker Adrian Lamo is what had got him arrested in the first place — Manning made a bold defense of his won autonomy, saying that he did not believe himself to be communicating with the enemy, simply presenting the American people with the things that were being done in their name.

He noted his horror at the obvious dehumanisation of the US soldiers responsible for the massacre of Iraqi civilians in the “collateral murder” video and of the various massacres featured in the Afghanistan documents. He said that he had leaked the documents of his own volition after logging onto the WikiLeaks chat site and communicating with someone who presented himself as “XO” — someone he assumed was Julian Assange (Assange has neither confirmed nor denied).

Manning says there was no enticement, coercion or gaming of him by “XO” — he uploaded the files of his own volition. Most spectacularly, he revealed that WikiLeaks had not been his first port of call — he had previously tried The New York Times, The Washington Post and the website Politico. Manning says he called the tips line at the NYT and got a recorded message. More indicatively, he spoke to a Washington Post junior reporter, who gave him the brush off (and lost a Pulitzer in the process). ...

Some have tried to turn this moment of personal crisis into a purely psychological explanation of his actions; others have tried to ignore it altogether. The truth, most likely, is that such personal crises will sometimes compel us to higher ethical action, and that what Manning did was, in the final analysis, an act of love: love of truth, love of the people he had been asked to defend through the transmission of lies, and an ultimate finding of self-respect in rising out of the ruins and the loss. His statement today confirms that he is, and was, lucid and purposeful.

He was the originator of a process whose ultimate result, I believe, was the decisive and final discrediting of the decade of war and projected imperial power that began in the wake of 9/11. He is that most overapplied of adjectives, heroic. We are in his debt, and we must hope that he lands as gently as possible on the hard earth in the days and years to come.

George Monbiot's campaign to have Tony Blair arrested for his involvement in starting the Iraq war is trundling along (with Desmond Tutu creating some added anti-Blair publicity recently) - Bounty Paid for Blair Arrest Attempt.

On Tuesday the Arrest Blair campaign will pay Tom Grundy £2,400 for his attempt to arrest Tony Blair during a public event in Hong Kong.

The campaign was established to uphold the principle that no one is above the law. The 2003 invasion of Iraq, commissioned by George W. Bush and Tony Blair, meets the definition of a crime against peace, established by the Nuremberg Principles and described by the Nuremberg Tribunal as “the supreme international crime.”

The 2003 Iraq war caused the deaths of between 100,000 and one million people, depending on whose estimate you believe. A series of leaked documents shows that the Bush and Blair governments knew they did not possess legal justification. Without it, the war with Iraq was an act of mass murder, committed by those who launched it.

Though the former leaders of other states have been prosecuted under international law, none of those responsible for the Iraq war have yet been charged. The aim of Arrest Blair is to ensure that this illegal war is not forgotten, and to maintain international pressure for charges to be brought.

The campaign, which was set up in 2010 by the journalist George Monbiot(4), encourages people to attempt non-violent citizens’ arrests of the former prime minister. Donations are made by the public to a bounty fund. When an attempt is judged to meet the Arrest Blair rules, a quarter of the money in the pot is paid to the person who carried it out. Tom Grundy’s attempt is the fourth that meets the campaign rules. Almost £11,000 has now been paid.

TomDispatch has an update on Iraq's oil - Greg Muttitt, Whatever Happened to Iraqi Oil?.

In 2011, after nearly nine years of war and occupation, U.S. troops finally left Iraq. In their place, Big Oil is now present in force and the country’s oil output, crippled for decades, is growing again. Iraq recently reclaimed the number two position in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), overtaking oil-sanctioned Iran. Now, there’s talk of a new world petroleum glut. So is this finally mission accomplished?

Well, not exactly. In fact, any oil company victory in Iraq is likely to prove as temporary as George W. Bush’s triumph in 2003. The main reason is yet another of those stories the mainstream media didn’t quite find room for: the role of Iraqi civil society. But before telling that story, let’s look at what’s happening to Iraqi oil today, and how we got from the “no blood for oil” global protests of 2003 to the present moment.

Here, as a start, is a little scorecard of what’s gone on in Iraq since Big Oil arrived two and a half years ago: corruption’s skyrocketed; two Western oil companies are being investigated for either giving or receiving bribes; the Iraqi government is paying oil companies a per-barrel fee according to wildly unrealistic production targets they’ve set, whether or not they deliver that number of barrels; contractors are heavily over-charging for drilling wells, which the companies don’t mind since the Iraqi government picks up the tab.

Meanwhile, to protect the oil giants from dissent and protest, trade union offices have been raided, computers seized and equipment smashed, leaders arrested and prosecuted. And that’s just in the oil-rich southern part of the country.

In Kurdistan in the north, the regional government awards contracts on land outside its jurisdiction, contracts which permit the government to transfer its stake in the oil projects -- up to 25% -- to private companies of its choice. Fuel is smuggled across the border to the tune of hundreds of tankers a day.

In Kurdistan, at least the approach is deliberate: the two ruling families of the region, the Barzanis and Talabanis, know that they can do whatever they like, since their Peshmerga militia control the territory. In contrast, the Iraqi federal government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has little control over anything. As a result, in the rest of the country the oil industry operates, gold-rush-style, in an almost complete absence of oversight or regulation.

Oil companies differ as to which of these two Iraqs they prefer to operate in. BP and Shell have opted to rush for black gold in the super-giant oilfields of southern Iraq. Exxon has hedged its bets by investing in both options. This summer, Chevron and the French oil company Total voted for the Kurdish approach, trading smaller oil fields for better terms and a bit more stability.

Keep in mind that the incapacity of the Iraqi government is hardly limited to the oil business: stagnation hangs over its every institution. Iraqis still have an average of just five hours of electricity a day, which in 130-degree heat causes tempers to boil over regularly. The country’s two great rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, which watered the cradle of civilization 5,000 years ago, are drying up. This is largely due to the inability of the government to engage in effective regional diplomacy that would control upstream dam-building by Turkey.

After elections in 2010, the country’s leading politicians couldn’t even agree on how to form a government until the Iraqi Supreme Court forced them to. This record of haplessness, along with rampant corruption, significant repression, and a revival of sectarianism can all be traced back to American decisions in the occupation years. Tragically, these persistent ills have manifested themselves in a recent spate of car-bombings and other bloody attacks.

Washington’s Yen for Oil

In the period before and around the invasion, the Bush administration barely mentioned Iraqi oil, describing it reverently only as that country’s “patrimony.” As for the reasons for war, the administration insisted that it had barely noticed Iraq had one-tenth of the world’s oil reserves. But my new book reveals documents I received, marked SECRET/NOFORN, that laid out for the first time pre-war oil plans hatched in the Pentagon by arch-neoconservative Douglas Feith’s Energy Infrastructure Planning Group (EIPG).

In November 2002, four months before the invasion, that planning group came up with a novel idea: it proposed that any American occupation authority not repair war damage to the country’s oil infrastructure, as doing so “could discourage private sector involvement.” In other words, it suggested that the landscape should be cleared of Iraq’s homegrown oil industry to make room for Big Oil.

When the administration worried that this might disrupt oil markets, EIPG came up with a new strategy under which initial repairs would be carried out by KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton. Long-term contracts with multinational companies, awarded by the U.S. occupation authority, would follow. International law notwithstanding, the EIPG documents noted cheerily that such an approach would put “long-term downward pressure on [the oil] price” and force “questions about Iraq’s future relations with OPEC.”

At the same time, the Pentagon planning group recommended that Washington state that its policy was “not to prejudice Iraq’s future decisions regarding its oil development policies.” Here, in writing, was the approach adopted in the years to come by the Bush administration and the occupation authorities: lie to the public while secretly planning to hand Iraq over to Big Oil.

There turned out, however, to be a small kink in the plan: the oil companies declined the American-awarded contracts, fearing that they would not stand up in international courts and so prove illegitimate. They wanted Iraq first to have an elected permanent government that would arrive at the same results. The question then became how to get the required results with the Iraqis nominally in charge. The answer: install a friendly government and destroy the Iraqi oil industry.

In July 2003, the U.S. occupation established the Iraqi Governing Council, a quasi-governmental body led by friendly Iraqi exiles who had been out of the country for the previous few decades. They would be housed in an area of Baghdad isolated from the Iraqi population by concrete blast walls and machine gun towers, and dubbed the Green Zone. There, the politicians would feast, oblivious to and unconcerned with the suffering of the rest of the population.

The first post-invasion Oil Minister was Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum, a man who held the country’s homegrown oil expertise in open contempt. He quickly set about sacking the technicians and managers who had built the industry following nationalization in the 1970s and had kept it running through wars and sanctions. He replaced them with friends and fellow party members. One typical replacement was a former pizza chef.

The resulting damage to the oil industry exceeded anything caused by missiles and tanks. As a result the country found itself -- as Washington had hoped -- dependent on the expertise of foreign companies. Meanwhile, not only did the Coalition Provisional authority (CPA) that oversaw the occupation lose $6.6 billion of Iraqi money, it effectively suggested corruption wasn't something to worry about. A December 2003 CPA policy document recommended that Iraq follow the lead of Azerbaijan, where the government had attracted oil multinationals despite an atmosphere of staggering corruption (“less attractive governance”) simply by offering highly profitable deals.

Now, so many years later, the corruption is all-pervasive and the multinationals continue to operate without oversight, since the country’s ministry is run by the equivalent of pizza chefs.

The first permanent government was formed under Prime Minister Maliki in May 2006. In the preceding months, the American and British governments made sure the candidates for prime minister knew what their first priority had to be: to pass a law legalizing the return of the foreign multinationals -- tossed out of the country in the 1970s -- to run the oil sector.

The law was drafted within weeks, dutifully shown to U.S. officials within days, and to oil multinationals not long after. Members of the Iraqi parliament, however, had to wait seven months to see the text.

How Temporary the Victory of Big Oil?

The trouble was: getting it through that parliament proved far more difficult than Washington or its officials in Iraq had anticipated. In January 2007, an impatient President Bush announced a “surge” of 30,000 U.S. troops into the country, by then wracked by a bloody civil war. Compliant journalists accepted the story of a gamble by General David Petraeus to bring peace to warring Iraqis.

In fact, those troops spearheaded a strategy with rather less altruistic objectives: first, broker a new political deal among U.S. allies, who were the most sectarian and corrupt of Iraq’s politicians (hence, with the irony characteristic of American foreign policy, regularly described as “moderates”); second, pressure them to deliver on political objectives set in Washington and known as “benchmarks” -- of which passing the oil law was the only one ever really talked about: in President Bush’s biweekly video conferences with Maliki, in almost daily meetings of the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, and in frequent visits by senior administration officials.

On this issue, the Democrats, by then increasingly against the Iraq War but still pro-Big Oil, lent a helping hand to a Republican administration. Having failed to end the war, the newly Democrat-controlled Congress passed an appropriations bill that would cut off reconstruction funds to Iraq if the oil law weren’t passed. Generals warned that without an oil law Prime Minister Maliki would lose their support, which he knew well would mean losing his job. And to ramp up the pressure further, the U.S. set a deadline of September 2007 to pass the law or face the consequences.

It was then that things started going really wrong for Bush and company. In December 2006, I was at a meeting where leaders of Iraq’s trade unions decided to fight the oil law. One of them summed up the general sentiment this way: “We do not need thieves to take us back to the middle ages.” So they began organizing. They printed pamphlets, held public meetings and conferences, staged protests, and watched support for their movement grow.

Most Iraqis feel strongly that the country’s oil reserves belong in the public sector, to be developed to benefit them, not foreign energy companies. And so word spread fast -- and with it, popular anger. Iraq’s oil professionals and various civil society groups denounced the law. Preachers railed against it in Friday sermons. Demonstrations were held in Baghdad and elsewhere, and as Washington ratcheted up the pressure, members of the Iraqi parliament started to see political opportunity in aligning themselves with this ever more popular cause. Even some U.S. allies in Parliament confided in diplomats at the American embassy that it would be political suicide to vote for the law.

By the September deadline, a majority of the parliament was against the law and -- a remarkable victory for the trade unions -- it was not passed. It’s still not passed today.

Given the political capital the Bush administration had invested in the passage of the oil law, its failure offered Iraqis a glimpse of the limits of U.S. power, and from that moment on, Washington’s influence began to wane.

Things changed again in 2009 when the Maliki government, eager for oil revenues, began awarding contracts to them even without an oil law in place. As a result, however, the victory of Big Oil is likely to be a temporary one: the present contracts are illegal, and so they will last only as long as there’s a government in Baghdad that supports them.

Stuart at Early Warning has a look at global oil production trends - 2012 Global Fuel Supply Still Flat.

I seem to be the only person paying much attention to this, but I still think it's significant. May figures for global liquid fuel supply are out from OPEC and the IEA and they continue to show that global supply has increased very little since January (in contrast to the very strong increases in the second half of 2011).

Other things being equal, we would expect this to lead to rising prices. Instead, prices have been weak/falling as a result of Eurozone fears. The fears about the eurozone are legitimate, but still, at present the global economy has got to be growing, if a little weaker than normal. Only Europe is actually contracting at present and that mildly. Thus, if the fears do not translate into much more pronounced global contraction in reality fairly soon, oil prices could jump up quite a bit. On the other hand, of course, if Europe does turn into a full-blown financial crisis then they could fall further.

There is a strong Schrodinger quality to the oil markets at present: prices are a superposition of the state in which Europe turns into a major global financial crisis, and the state in which it doesn't. I wonder how long before the measurement is made?

Stuart also has a look at oil production in Iraq and some of the dodgy reporting of production trends- Is "Soaring" the Right Word Here?.

Ten days or so ago, I posted the graph above under the headline "Sharp Uptick in Iraqi Production". I chose my words carefully - "uptick" to indicate that this was a movement upward of the same general order of magnitude as other recent movements in the time series, and "sharp" to emphasize that, as upticks in Iraqi production go, this was a somewhat larger and faster one than has been typical (but not, in my judgement, so great as to make the use of "uptick" misleading).

Yesterday, the New York Times decided to report on the same development under the headline "Oil Output Soars as Iraq Retools":

BAGHDAD — Despite sectarian bombings and political gridlock, Iraq’s crude oil production is soaring, providing a singular bright spot for the nation’s future and relief for global oil markets as the West tightens sanctions on Iranian exports. ...

I don't object to the graphic. Nor of course do I disagree that Iraq's production has increased and is likely to increase further (I've been covering this for a long time).

But I do really question whether the sober grey-lady paper-of-record should refer to an increase of about 300kbd above the level of last fall as "soaring" in the present tense. I don't think so. I think "soaring" carries a strong connotation of already being way up in the air, or ascending very materially and rapidly. I don't think 300kbd merits that term. I think, if we wanted to use a flight metaphor, we might reasonably say "has begun to take off" or even "looks set to soar". But I think the use of "soaring" in the present tense is an exaggeration. I think this fits in a long-standing pattern at the New York Times of distorted coverage in which positive oil market developments are over-hyped while negative ones are minimized.

Glenn Greenwald has a cynical look at the announcement that US troops will be out of Iraq by year end (if you don't count a division of mercenaries operated by the state department that is) - About that Iraq withdrawal.

President Obama announced today that all U.S. troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of the year, and this announcement is being seized upon exactly the way you would predict: by the Right to argue that Obama is a weak, appeasing Chamberlain and by Democrats to hail his greatness for keeping his promise and (yet again) Ending the War. It’s obviously a good thing that these troops are leaving Iraq, but let’s note three clear facts before either of these absurd narratives ossify:

First, the troop withdrawal is required by an agreement which George W. Bush negotiated and entered into with Iraq and which was ratified by the Iraqi Parliament prior to Obama’s inauguration. Let’s listen to the White House itself today: “’This deal was cut by the Bush administration, the agreement was always that at end of the year we would leave. . . .’ an administration official said.” As I said, it’s a good thing that this agreement is being adhered to, and one can reasonably argue that Obama’s campaign advocacy for the war’s end influenced the making of that agreement, but the Year End 2011 withdrawal date was agreed to by the Bush administration and codified by them in a binding agreement.

Second, the Obama administration has been working for months to persuade, pressure and cajole Iraq to allow U.S. troops to remain in that country beyond the deadline. The reason they’re being withdrawn isn’t because Obama insisted on this, but because he tried — but failed — to get out of this obligation. Again, listen to the White House itself:

The Status of Forces Agreement between the United States and Iraq expires at the end of the year. Officials had been discussing the possibility of maintaining several thousand U.S. troops to train Iraqi security forces, and the Iraqis wanted troops to stay but would not give them immunity, a key demand of the administration. . . .

“The Iraqis wanted additional troops to stay,” an administration official said. “We said here are the conditions, including immunities. But the Iraqis because of a variety of reasons wanted the troops and didn’t want to give immunity.”

The Obama administration — as it’s telling you itself — was willing to keep troops in Iraq after the 2011 deadline (indeed, they weren’t just willing, but eager). The only reason they aren’t is because the Iraqi Government refused to agree that U.S. soldiers would be immunized if they commit serious crimes, such as gunning down Iraqis without cause . As we know, the U.S. is not and must never be subject to the rule of law when operating on foreign soil (and its government and owners must never be subject to the rule of law in any context). So Obama was willing (even desirous) to keep troops there, but the Iraqis refused to meet his demands (more on that fact from Foreign Policy‘s Josh Rogin).

Third, there will still be a very substantial presence in that country, including what McClatchy called a “small army” under the control of the State Department. They will remain indefinitely, and that includes a large number of private contractors.

None of this is to say that this is bad news (it isn’t: it’s good news), nor is it to say that Obama deserves criticism for adhering to the withdrawal plan (he doesn’t). It would just be nice if these central facts — painfully at odds with the two self-serving narratives that started being churned out before the President even spoke — were acknowledged.

I believe the country has not even gotten close to coming to terms with the magnitude of the national crime that was the attack on Iraq (I think that’s why we’re so eager to find pride and purpose in the ocean of Bad Guy corpses our military generates: tellingly, the only type of event that generates collective national celebrations these days). Needless to say, none of the responsible leaders for that attack have been punished; many continue to serve right this very minute in key positions (such as Vice President and Secretary of State); and (other than scapegoated Judy Miller) none of the media stars and think-tank “scholars” who cheered it on and enabled it have suffered an iota of stigma or loss of credibility. The aggressive war waged on Iraq began by virtue of a huge cloud of deceit and propaganda; perhaps it could end without that.

Crikey has some thoughts on Wikileaks’ latest dump of US diplomatic cables in this editorial - A wizard of Oz moment.

One of the regular criticisms of WikiLeaks when it and its media partners began releasing US diplomatic cables was of the "chilling effect" the release would have not merely on the willingness of people across the world to speak frankly with US diplomats, but on the very art of diplomacy itself. Foreign policy, we were told, is special, and different, and the practice of such a high art couldn't be done transparently. Stopping wars, brokering treaties and handling the fine nuances of interstate relations needs to be done behind closed doors.

What WikiLeaks has done, however, is reveal foreign policy as no different to any other kind of bureaucratic game playing, and driven by the same tawdry commercial imperatives that drive so much domestic policy.

It is clear, for example, that the prosecution of the interests of American pharmaceutical companies was a key priority for the State Department. One analyst, James Love, has found literally hundreds of cables devoted to the issue of ensuring exclusivity for US drug company products, even when US diplomats themselves acknowledged that lower prices for pharamceuticals were important for access to life-saving medicine in developing countries. The lives and health of citizens in developing countries was clearly a lower priority than the commercial interests of US companies.

It is clear, too, that the State Department aggressively pushed the interests of the GM crops industry, particularly in developing countries, where "biotechnology outreach programs" were established to influence decision-makers in favour of US companies such as Monsanto. And in developed countries, particularly in Europe, diplomats aggressively responded to any perceived threats to GM crop companies, calling for "retaliation" to ensure the Europeans understood there were "real costs" in refusing to do things the Monsanto way.

The WikiLeaks material also confirms what was already apparent from the conduct of the US in trying to negotiate international treaties relating to copyright: it aggressively pushes the interests of the US copyright industry in trying to convince other countries to impose draconian restrictions on any perceived threats to the movie and music industries. The cables, for example, reveal that litigation against Australian ISP iiNet by the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft was actually the beginning of a concerted campaign by the American copyright industry's chief lobbying body, the MPAA (which wanted its involvement in the issue to be kept quiet). The campaign was to use a successful attack on iiNet to attack ISPs in a number of Commonwealth countries, with iiNet selected because the MPAA was intimidated by the size and legal resources of Telstra.

All three industries, it it known from other contexts, have strong links with the US government, with lobbyists and executives engaged in a revolving door between US government positions and industry positions.

WikiLeaks has in effect provided a Wizard of Oz moment, showing much diplomacy is anything but high-minded statecraft, ostensibly so delicate it can only be undertaken in private. Instead, it has demonstrated, in closely-written detail, the extent to which foreign policy is merely the grubbiest domestic policy given the gloss of international diplomacy.

'How did the 20 year war get started?' asks the Texan. Turns out US gave Saddam the green light to invade Kuwait in 1990 - then turned on him when he did with a massive propaganda campaign. No longer hearsay or rumour: Ron Paul dug it up in a WikiLeaks Cablegate release. The US government lied to the citizenry.

Stuart at Early Warning has an update on oil production in Iraq - Latest Iraqi Oil Production Stats.

Here are the latest Iraqi oil production statistics (recall the history). The new slightly higher plateau of 2.6-2.7mbd that was first achieved at the end of last year has held since then.

At this point, compared to when I was first discussing this (eg here and here) it seems to me that the political stability risks have declined considerably. It now seems unlikely that Iraq will collapse into disorder when the US finally leaves altogether (though not impossible I suppose). However, there is still some level of armed insurrection, and Iraq still has to contend with a very old inadequate set of infrastructure (oil and otherwise) which will have to be upgraded and replaced.

So my favored scenario at this point would be that Iraq will eventually produce far more oil than it does today, but that the expansion will be slow and fitful, especially at first, and will fall behind the articulated schedule of the oil ministry. Peak production for this country is probably at least a decade away.

Iraq’s oil reserves, revised to 143.5 billion bbl in late 2010 from the 115 billion bbl official figure that held for several years, will no doubt turn out to be much larger than the late-2010 estimate.

The Iraq Ministry of Oil also announced an estimate of potential reserves of 215 billion bbl.

In the nationalized decades leading up to the 1990s, 155 wells were drilled on 113 structures, many of which are 10 km long. Even structures that produced oil were not sufficiently investigated. The concept of what was commercial was influenced by oil priced at $1-3/bbl and conservative recovery factors.

The exploratory drilling density in Iraq’s 441,840 sq km is 1 well/2,900 sq km. Iraq is the least-explored Middle East country.

Iraq’s known oil reserves are roughly distributed almost one fourth in formations of Tertiary age, nearly three fourths in those of Cretaceous age, and a small percentage in Jurassic/Triassic.

Of 530 structural anomalies identified by geophysical means, the 113 wells established the presence of oil in 73. Reinterpretation of seismic using state of the art computer software indicates the presence of a large number of stratigraphic traps and many more structural anomalies than the delineated 530.

The new identified stratigraphic and structural anomalies, remaining identified but undrilled ones, untested shows, the many discovered fields—especially those in the south that are yet to be tested in the deeper (Lower Cretaceous, Jurassic, and Triassic) horizons, and Jurassic/Triassic oil resources in the relatively virgin Western Desert and the Folded Zone along the Zagros Belt will no doubt increase Iraq’s oil reserves to or beyond the latest estimates.

The author believes Iraq to be capable of increasing its oil production rate to 10 million b/d and possibly even to 12 million b/d.

The story of billions of dollars of Iraqi "reconstruction" money that went missing in Iraq was the backstory for William Gibson's book "Spook Country". The LA Times has an update (personally I think the Bush administration were the world's greatest robbers, successfully pillaging the US treasury in a way that they mostly failed to do with Iraq's oil) - Missing Iraq money may have been stolen, auditors say.

After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the George W. Bush administration flooded the conquered country with so much cash to pay for reconstruction and other projects in the first year that a new unit of measurement was born.

Pentagon officials determined that one giant C-130 Hercules cargo plane could carry $2.4 billion in shrink-wrapped bricks of $100 bills. They sent an initial full planeload of cash, followed by 20 other flights to Iraq by May 2004 in a $12-billion haul that U.S. officials believe to be the biggest international cash airlift of all time.

This month, the Pentagon and the Iraqi government are finally closing the books on the program that handled all those Benjamins. But despite years of audits and investigations, U.S. Defense officials still cannot say what happened to $6.6 billion in cash — enough to run the Los Angeles Unified School District or the Chicago Public Schools for a year, among many other things.

For the first time, federal auditors are suggesting that some or all of the cash may have been stolen, not just mislaid in an accounting error. Stuart Bowen, special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, an office created by Congress, said the missing $6.6 billion may be "the largest theft of funds in national history."

The mystery is a growing embarrassment to the Pentagon, and an irritant to Washington's relations with Baghdad. Iraqi officials are threatening to go to court to reclaim the money, which came from Iraqi oil sales, seized Iraqi assets and surplus funds from the United Nations' oil-for-food program.

It's fair to say that Congress, which has already shelled out $61 billion of U.S. taxpayer money for similar reconstruction and development projects in Iraq, is none too thrilled either.

The battle for control of Iraq's oil seems to be moving into interesting territory, with the US due to remove all troops from the country by the end of the year (something which will never happen of course).

In the lead up to the last Iraqi election there was a spurt of deals done which didn't give the international oil companies particularly good terms - now the election is over and the punters are back in their usual position of having no influence, these deals are looking to be renegotiated - within production levels being reduced and the oil majors getting a bigger cut of the action - another case of history repeating itself.

The Australian has a good example of how this is being reported, focusing on the national production targets being reduced rather than where the money is going - Iraqi oil production cutback plan adds to global supply fear.

IRAQ is preparing to halve its official oil production target, forcing companies including BP and Shell to renegotiate their contracts.

The country's Oil Ministry, with backing from the Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, will set a new target to produce between 6.5 million and 7 million barrels per day by 2017, down from original plans to pump 12 million barrels, according to industry insiders.

Iraq, which is a member of the OPEC cartel that pumps 40 per cent of the world's oil, produces about 2.68 million barrels a day, barely higher than under Saddam Hussein.

It had been hoped that with a huge injection of foreign investment, it would be able to challenge Saudi Arabia as the world's biggest oil exporter this decade.

Confirmation it has scrapped the old target will add to fears that global supply will be unable to keep pace with demand in coming years.

It is understood that government negotiations to change the long-term service agreements signed by companies in the past two years based on the old production target will begin soon.

Analysts said companies would seek improved terms to compensate them for losing out on revenue, which at present is earned for each barrel of oil produced above a base target.

Baghdad believes it would not be in its interests to try to achieve the 12 million target by 2017 because boosting global supply would depress prices.

Ministers also argue that there is not sufficient demand for the extra oil, despite soaring prices. Last month, Saudi Arabia cut its output by 800,000 barrels a day after pumping more in response to the political crisis in North Africa, complaining that the extra crude was sitting in tankers with no customers.

High oil prices, which have doubled since the 12 million target was set two years ago, will compensate Iraq for the lower production. ...

Samuel Ciszuk, senior energy analyst for IHS Energy, said an over-ambitious target was politically motivated, being set before elections in 2009. "It was clearly designed to impress the Iraqis ahead of the elections. The oil majors will now seek more attractive terms."

The consigliere was send out to deliver first a threat

Gates: Iraq will face problems if U.S. troops withdraw

"They will not be able to do the kind of job in intelligence fusion. They won't be able to protect their own airspace. They will have problems with logistics and maintenance."

then an offer

Gates: Some US troops may stay if Iraq wants

and making clear that it can not be refused

Gates Presses Iraq to Decide on Extension of U.S. Presence

But the guy in charge of pizza joint says "No!"

Sadr calls for an end to 'US occupation'

Al Jazeera correspondent Jane Arraf, reporting from Baghdad, said that this time Sadr had not only warned US troops but also the contractors.

What will the mafia Don do next?

Donald Trump is nothing if not honest (as well as unpleasant), saying in a recent interview of Fox with the equally unpleasant Sean Hannity that the US should seize Iraq's oil - Donald Trump says Iraq has the second-biggest oilfields in the world.

During an April 14, 2011, interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, businessman and potential Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Iraq is strategically important to the United States because of its vast supply of oil.

Trump said the United States spent $1.5 trillion on the Iraq War, and it could all go down the drain because the nation is so unstable.

"Iraq has the second-largest oilfields in the world. Fifteen trillion dollars worth of oil, second to Saudi Arabia. We go over, we decapitate their armies. Their armies are wiped out. They have weak armies, it is a corrupt society anyway, I mean, it's totally corrupt what is going on over there. We then leave in Iran which has fought for years back and forth, back and forth, because they were basically of equal strength, well, now they are not. Iran will come in. And they will take over Iraq, within two seconds after we leave, forget it, it is not even a contest. ...

"So, they are going to have the second-best oilfields in the world, second-biggest oilfields in the world that we made possible with our soldiers, thousands of people dead, wounded and … less importantly, $1.5 trillion. So, I said very simply. That if it is me, we take the oil. You know, in the old days, when you win a country, you win a country. Now with our stupid people, we win a country, we lose money, we lose soldiers, we lose lives, and then we leave."

Energy Bulletin has an article by Ray McGovern looking at the Greg Muttitt's new book about the Iraq war - Surprise, surprise! Iraq war was about oil.

If you don’t tune in to Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now or read the British press, you will have missed the latest documentary evidence showing that Great Britain’s Lords and Ladies lied about how big oil companies, like BP, lusted after Iraqi oil in the months leading up to the attack on Iraq.

Oil researcher Greg Muttitt’s new book Fuel on Fire: Oil and Politics in Occupied Iraq presents that evidence, since Muttitt had better luck than American counterparts in getting responses to his Freedom of Information requests.

After a five-year struggle, he obtained more than 1,000 official documents which — how to say this — do not reflect well on the peerage, the captains of the oil industry, and the government of Tony Blair.

On April 19, the British Independent published a major story about these disclosures, which America’s FCM have avoided like the plague. ["Secret memos expose link between oil firms and invasion of Iraq"]

Quoting the released British documents, the Independent showed BP salivating over an expected windfall of Iraqi oil, with the saliva politely sponged up by Foreign Office functionaries. From the Independent:

“The Foreign Office invited BP in on 6 November 2002 to talk about opportunities in Iraq ‘post regime change.’ Its minutes state: ‘Iraq is the big oil prospect. BP is desperate to get in there.’ …

“Whereas BP was insisting in public that it had ‘no strategic interest’ in Iraq, in private it told the Foreign Office that Iraq was ‘more important than anything we’ve seen for a long time’ … it [BP] was willing to take ‘big risks’ to get a share of the Iraqi reserves, the second largest in the world.”

Of course, BP was singing a different tune for the average folks. Lord Browne, then-BP chief executive, insisted on March 12, 2003, a week before the invasion of Iraq: “It is not, in my or BP’s opinion, a war about oil.”

The official documents, however, offer a contradictory account. Gosh, would BP officials lie?

The minutes of a similar meeting with BP and Shell on Oct. 31, 2002, reinforce the point. They show then-British Trade Minister, Lady Symons, agreeing that British oil companies must not lose out in competing for Iraqi oil, particularly “if the U.K. had itself been a conspicuous supporter of the U.S. government throughout the crisis.”

Prime Minister Tony Blair was equally disingenuous in his public remarks. On April 19, Democracy Now ran a brief clip in which British author Muttitt called to mind Blair’s assurances to a TV audience on Feb. 6, 2003, six weeks before the war: “The idea that we’re interested in Iraq’s oil is absurd, it’s one of the most absurd conspiracy theories you can imagine.”

Muttitt pointed out that, as Blair was saying this, a secret (until now) Foreign Office document setting out British strategy toward Iraqi oil asserted, “Britain has an absolutely vital interest in Iraq’s oil.”

The London Mail Online on April 20 summed up the contradictions with classic English understatement. It noted that the flurry of meetings between oil executives and the Labour government in late 2002 “appear to be at odds with their insistence Iraq’s vast oil reserves were not a consideration ahead of the March 2003 invasion.”

ZNet has a look at the Iraq oil law - Iraqi Oil: What is hidden inside the Oil Contracts from the 1st and 2nd Bid Rounds ? (via Energy Bulletin). I found the point that the international oil companies will get additional payments for *not* producing oil kind of interesting, given their long history of suppressing Iraqi oil production.

Over eleven months have passed since the signing of the oil contracts between the Federal Ministry of Oil in Baghdad and the International oil companies (IOCs) resulting from the first and second bid rounds. However, to this date none of these contracts have been publicly released or published in any foreign language. Amazingly, all the contracts are written in English and none of them have even been translated into Arabic by the oil ministry in Baghdad, for the Iraqi people or even their representatives in the Federal parliament in Baghdad to look at and to see how their future is going to be shaped.

I have now obtained access to some of the contracts. My sources have specified that I cannot publish them in full, but I can discuss several aspects of them, which I shall do here.

My analyses will not cover the consequences of these contracts for the future of the Iraqi oil and gas industries or the future relations between Iraq and OPEC and its effect on international oil prices, as I already have covered these important topics in my previous articles [Iraqi Oil: The influence of the 1st Bid Round on the Future of Iraq's National Oil and Gas industries and [Iraqi Oil: Are the 1st and 2nd Bid Rounds Part of A Wise Resource Development Strategy Or Could They Turn Out To Be Steps in the Wilderness? ]

... Conclusions

1. Articles 12 and 37 explain the reasons for the secrecy surrounding the 1st and 2nd bid round oil contracts and the lack of real transparency by the Federal Ministry in Baghdad. Not only have the contracts not been made public, but they have not even been translated into Arabic, which should make every Iraqi suspicious of the motives behind all the secrecy covering the contracts to this date.

2. Article 12 shows that the margin of profits which were agreed on officially with the IOCs' contractors does not represent the only profit that the IOCs will receive from the Iraqi Ministry of Oil, as the Ministry of Oil will compensate the contractors for the quantity of oil that they do not produce, which will in itself represent a penalty on the Iraqi people, whilst the IOC will receive additional profits for doing nothing.

3. Article 37 is a very significant article in terms of setting up the economic future of the Iraqi people and their future sovereignty. Therefore it is not wise to leave these vital decisions in the hands of bureaucrats in the Ministry of Oil or, for that matter, in the hands of a very weak government, without allowing the Iraqi people to have their say on their future by ensuring that such laws can only turn into lawful contracts if they are at least passed by an elected parliament, as required by existing Law number 97 dated 1967 which is still in force, or by a public referendum.

4. There are some analysts who believe that the US oil companies lost out from the awarded contracts, since only two of them, Exxon Mobil and Occidental have been awarded contracts. In my judgment this was not the case, as today what we call the International Oil Companies are really no longer national oil companies operating in the international market, as was the case up to the 1970s. In today's market, what we call IOCs are in fact multinational oil companies (MOC), owned by the multinational financial institutions (mostly US), with share holders from around the globe, and not by one nation's share holders. It is more likely today that the external size of operations and profits of theses companies comes from projects from all over the globe rather than from one nation, as shown by the cases of BP, Shell and most others including CNPC.

5. The contracts awarded in the 1st and 2nd bid rounds confirm that the US occupation of Iraq which started in 2003 did achieve some of its targets. In particular the occupation succeeded in ensuring that the future control of Iraqi oil stayed in the hands of the multinational oil companies and not in the hands of the Iraqi people and their legislative body.