Antonia Juhasz, author of the article below, has long been a chronicler of United States economic actions and motives in Iraq. She is a Visiting Scholar at the Washington, DC-based Institute for Policy Studies. Juhasz is an expert on all aspects of international trade and finance policy with a Masters Degree in Public Policy from Georgetown University and experience as a legislative assistant to two United States Members of Congress. She is author of The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time.
I’ve never been completely sold on oil access and economics being THE primary reason for the Iraq invasion. Partial grounds, yes, along with the burning psychological need for George Bush to top his father, the need for a George Bush legacy, the simmering neo-con desire to put their long cloistered policy into real time action, a touch of international manifest destiny and more.
Now Paul Bremer certainly jumped in right away at transforming a large number of aspects of the Iraqi economic system, issuing 100 or so orders to ‘make over’ financial governance, including:
Order #39 allowed privatization of 200 state-owned enterprises, complete foreign ownership of Iraqi businesses, unrestricted tax-free remittance of all profits and 40-year ownership licenses.
Order #40 turned the banking sector into a market-driven system, allowing foreign banks to enter the Iraqi market
Order #49 dropped the tax rate on corporations from a high of 40% to a flat rate of 15% and the income tax rate is became capped at 15%
Order #12 suspended all tariffs, customs duties, import taxes and licensing fees for goods arriving or departing Iraq
Order #17 granted foreign contractors, including private security firms, full immunity from Iraq’s laws
Order #81 prohibited Iraqi farmers from using the methods of agriculture used for centuries–the common worldwide practice of saving heirloom seeds from one year to the next is now illegal in Iraq.
But absolutely do not discount liquid gold as A primary reason for the impetus of the current debacle/quagmire.
It’s still about oil in Iraq
A centerpiece of the Iraq Study Group’s report is its advocacy for securing foreign companies’ long-term access to Iraqi oil fields.
Antonia Juhasz
Los Angeles Times
December 8, 2006
WHILE THE Bush administration, the media and nearly all the Democrats still refuse to explain the war in Iraq in terms of oil, the ever-pragmatic members of the Iraq Study Group share no such reticence.
Page 1, Chapter 1 of the Iraq Study Group report lays out Iraq’s importance to its region, the U.S. and the world with this reminder: “It has the world’s second-largest known oil reserves.” The group then proceeds to give very specific and radical recommendations as to what the United States should do to secure those reserves. If the proposals are followed, Iraq’s national oil industry will be commercialized and opened to foreign firms.
The report makes visible to everyone the elephant in the room: that we are fighting, killing and dying in a war for oil. It states in plain language that the U.S. government should use every tool at its disposal to ensure that American oil interests and those of its corporations are met.
It’s spelled out in Recommendation No. 63, which calls on the U.S. to “assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise” and to “encourage investment in Iraq’s oil sector by the international community and by international energy companies.” This recommendation would turn Iraq’s nationalized oil industry into a commercial entity that could be partly or fully privatized by foreign firms.
This is an echo of calls made before and immediately after the invasion of Iraq.
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