Thursday, July 3, 2008

Panel Questions State Dept. Role in Iraq Oil Deal

NYTimes

Bush administration officials knew that a Texas oil company with close ties to President Bush was planning to sign an oil deal with the regional Kurdistan government that ran counter to American policy and undercut Iraq’s central government, a Congressional committee has concluded.

Keep in mind that stated policy and actual Cheney/Bush policy are rarely, if ever, the same. Say one thing, do the opposite, lie about it, and blame someone else.

The company, Hunt Oil of Dallas, signed the deal with Kurdistan’s semiautonomous government last September. Its chief executive, Ray L. Hunt, a close political ally of President Bush, briefed an advisory board to Mr. Bush on his contacts with Kurdish officials before the deal was signed.

To which advisory Bush's response, no doubt, was "Where's my check?"

In an e-mail message released by the Congressional committee, a State Department official in Washington, briefed by a colleague about the impending deal with the Kurdistan Regional Government, wrote: “Many thanks for the heads up; getting an American company to sign a deal with the K.R.G. will make big news back here. Please keep us posted.”

The release of the documents comes as the administration is defending help that United States officials provided in drawing up a separate set of no-bid contracts, still pending, between Iraq’s Oil Ministry in Baghdad and five major Western oil companies to provide services at other Iraqi oil fields.

Disclosure of those contracts has provided substantial fuel to critics of the Iraq war, both in the United States and abroad, who contend that the enormous Iraqi oil reserves were a motivation for the American-led invasion — an assertion the administration has repeatedly denied.

Cheney and Bush can deny it until the trap door drops out from under them for all I care. These two oil men/criminals, one pretty good one, one an abject failure, started a war for oil and profit. They are well into the process of getting caught at it by those who have known about it from the start but were too scared of them to do anything about it and are coming out from under their beds only because C&B's war crimes are starting to stink publicly and their power and influence are waning.

The documents released by Mr. Waxman also lay bare what has become a serious dispute between the company and the State Department over what was said between them before the deal last year.

For example, a senior Hunt official said he was told by State Department officials during a meeting on June 15, 2007, that the United States government did not object to deals with the Kurdish regional government.

Sounds to me like part of the State Department was in on the scam and part of it wasn't.

Note to Condi: One of the secrets Cheney and Bush should have told you is that a successful criminal enterprise such as the ones all of you have attempted and are failing at, is based on all parties getting their stories straight. You were in the awl bidness too, and I'm surprised you didn't already know that. You'll be OK. You'll like Paraguay much more than prison or the gallows. Unless B&C throw you to the wolves, of course. They're pretty one-way about loyalty.

If the oil company execs and administration officials ever get in front of investigators who have the power to jail them and offer them immunity from doing the time they should, they will roll over on Cheney and Bush and many others so fast it will make your head spin. As soon as Bush and Cheney are out of power. Pray for the day.

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