Oil Deal you probably won't see reported on Fox

[telcoman]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07...login

And we wonder why so many people in other parts of the world are pissed at the US?

Telcoman

[OriginalWheelman]

When you link an article, especially one that requires a log in to see, you should quote the article. Often with online stories content will change and you may find yourself criticized for something you haven't read. Furthermore I'm not registering just to read it.

[Cold_Zero]

yup Linky no worky

[rn79870]

I don't know if someone fixed it, but I get the articles when I click the link.

That is a good point about quoting the important part of the article just in case it is modified after you link it. It happened to me one time, and the question I had raised was answered later on, which made me look like a Nico administrator.

[Cold_Zero]

I see like the first line of the article....

[telcoman]

When you link an article, especially one that requires a log in to see, you should quote the article. Often with online stories content will change and you may find yourself criticized for something you haven't read. Furthermore I'm not registering just to read it.

Happy to assist you!

Panel Questions State Dept. Role in Iraq Oil Deal E-MailPrint Single Page Reprints Save ShareDiggFacebookMixxYahoo! BuzzPermalink By JAMES GLANZ and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.Published: July 3, 2008Bush 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.

Skip to next paragraph Bloomberg NewsRay L. Hunt, the chairman and chief executive of Hunt Oil, in an undated photo.

Managing Globalization Blog (IHT)High Energy Thursday: New Revelations on Iraqi Oil Deals

Go to Blog »The conclusions were based on e-mail messages and other documents that the committee released Wednesday.

United States policy is to warn companies that they incur risks in signing contracts until Iraq passes an oil law and to strengthen Iraq’s central government. The Kurdistan deal, by ceding responsibility for writing contracts directly to a regional government, infuriated Iraqi officials. But State Department officials did nothing to discourage the deal and in some cases appeared to welcome it, the documents show.

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.

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.

In the no-bid contracts, the administration said it had provided what it called purely technical help writing the contracts. The United States played no role in choosing the companies, the administration has said.

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.

Iraq’s oil minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, has condemned the Kurdistan deal as illegal because it was not approved by Iraq’s central government and was struck without an oil law, which has still not been passed.

After the deal was signed last year, a senior State Department official in Baghdad criticized it, saying, “We believe these contracts have needlessly elevated tensions between the K.R.G. and the national government of Iraq.”

The State Department said Wednesday that it had discouraged the deal. Hunt officials declined to comment, and Kurdish government officials said there was no impropriety.

In a letter to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, whose chairman is Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, a State Department official wrote that the department had strongly discouraged Hunt from signing the deal until an oil law had been passed.

The State Department told Hunt that “we continue to advise all companies that they incur significant political and legal risk by signing contracts” before then, wrote Jeffrey T. Bergner, an assistant secretary for legislative affairs at the department, in one of the documents made public on Wednesday.

But in a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Mr. Waxman wrote that the documents his committee had collected “tell a different story about the role of administration officials.” In letters obtained by the committee, Mr. Hunt informed the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, of which he was a member, last July and August that he was pursuing serious business interests in Kurdistan.

“We were approached a month ago by representatives of a private group in Kurdistan as to the possibility of our becoming interested in that region,” Mr. Hunt wrote to the board last July 12. “We had one team of geoscientists travel to Kurdistan several weeks ago and we were encouraged by what we saw.”

In August 2007, Mr. Hunt informed State Department officials directly of his intentions in Kurdistan, and on Sept. 5, three days before the deal was signed, a flurry of e-mail messages among Hunt and State Department officials make clear that the department was aware of what was in the works.

Panel Questions State Dept. Role in Iraq Oil Deal E-MailPrint Single Page Reprints Save ShareDiggFacebookMixxYahoo! BuzzPermalink Published: July 3, 2008(Page 2 of 2)

In a message to a colleague with the subject line “Hunt Oil to Sign Contract With K.R.G.,” one State Department official gives a highly detailed summary of the agreement. Mr. Hunt, the official wrote, “is expecting to sign an exploration contract with the K.R.G. for a field located in the Shakkan district, an area under K.R.G. control (inside the Green Line) but technically in Nineveh Governorate.”

Skip to next paragraph Managing Globalization Blog (IHT)High Energy Thursday: New Revelations on Iraqi Oil Deals

Go to Blog »“Hunt would be the first U.S. company to sign such a deal,” the official wrote, suggesting that the news should be rushed onto the State Department’s internal distribution network as quickly as possible.

Despite those exchanges, a State Department official said Wednesday that the company had in fact been discouraged from completing its deal.

“All companies, including Hunt Oil, which have spoken with the United States government about investing in Iraq’s oil sector, have and will continue to be given the same advice,” John Fleming, an Iraq press officer in the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, wrote Wednesday in an e-mailed response to questions. “We advise companies that they incur significant political and legal risk by signing any contracts with any party before a national law is passed by the Iraqi Parliament.”

Another State Department official, who asked to remain anonymous, expressed frustration, saying that a local State Department official in Erbil, the Kurdish provincial capital, who was the head of a so-called Regional Reconstruction Team, tried to dissuade Hunt officials from making the deal.

But no notes were taken at that meeting, the official said, and Hunt representatives later gave a conflicting account of what had been said.

“I have talked to the R.R.T. team leader personally, and he sticks by his story and they stick by theirs,” the State Department official said.

Jeanne L. Phillips, a senior vice president for corporate affairs and international relations at Hunt Oil whose correspondence appears at certain points in the documents released Wednesday, said that because Mr. Waxman’s letter was not addressed directly to the company, she could not comment on it.

“As a matter of company policy, Hunt Oil Company does not comment on correspondence between third parties,” Ms. Phillips wrote in an e-mail message.

An official in the Kurdistan Regional Government reached late Wednesday who asked not to be named said that the government had written some 22 contracts to date.

“Anyone can have a contract with the K.R.G., but it must be accepted and suitable according to assessment by our experts,” the official said. “Hunt is a good company and never had its contracts with us illegally or improperly.”

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.

“I specifically asked if the U.S.G. had a policy toward companies entering contracts with the K.R.G.,” the Hunt official, David McDonald, wrote in an e-mail message to a colleague last Sept. 28. The State Department officials, Mr. McDonald wrote, replied that there was no policy, neither for nor against.

His message concluded: “There was no communication to me or in my presence made by the nine State Department officials with whom I met prior to 8 September that Hunt should not pursue our course of action leading to a contract. In fact, there was ample opportunity to do so, but it did not happen.”

The encouragement by State Department officials did not end with the signing of the contract on Sept. 8, the documents suggest. Five days later, a State Department official in the southern city of Basra wrote to Ms. Phillips, “I read and heard about with interest your deal with the regional Kurdish government.”

“I don’t know if you are aware of another opportunity,” the official wrote, mentioning an enormous port project and a natural gas project in the south. After a few more lines, the official concluded, “This seems like it would be a good opportunity for Hunt.”

« Previous Page1 2 James Glanz reported from New York, and Richard A. Oppel Jr. from Baghdad. Andrew E. Kramer contributed reporting from Moscow, Mudhafer al-Husaini from Baghdad and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Kurdistan.

More Articles in World »Need to know more? 50% off home delivery of The Times.Ads by Google what's this? 10 Rules to Flat StomachDrop 9 lbs of Stomach Fat every 11 Days by Obeying these 10 Rules.FatLoss4Idiots.com Hugh Downs ReportsLittle known heart attack symptom many people tragically ignore.http://www.bottomlinesecrets.com The Petraeus Report MythThe Petraeus Report's Real Benefactor: Big Oil. New Report.EnergyAndCapital.com/Petraeus_Rpt

Past CoverageIraq to Open Oil Fields for 35 Foreign Companies; Initial No-Bid Contracts Delayed (July 1, 2008)U.S. Advised Iraqi Ministry on Oil Deals (June 30, 2008)THE WORLD; For Iraq’s Oil Contracts, a Question of Motive (June 29, 2008)DEALS WITH IRAQ ARE SET TO BRING OIL GIANTS BACK (June 19, 2008)Related Searches Iraq Add Alert Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline Add Alert Hunt Oil Co Add Alert Kurds Add Alert More Articles in World »

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Telcoman

[wingFeather]

And we wonder why so many people in other parts of the world are pissed at the US?

Speak for yourself, Dem

Don't worry, Bin Osama will save us all in '08

[telcoman]

I don't know if someone fixed it, but I get the articles when I click the link.

That is a good point about quoting the important part of the article just in case it is modified after you link it. It happened to me one time, and the question I had raised was answered later on, which made me look like a Nico administrator.

Gee could it be the New York Times is only open to liberals?

[AZhitman]

Definitely interesting...

I can see this playing out poorly for the current administration, even if it proves to be innocent... Simply for the fact that it involves the words "Bush", "Iraq war" and "oil".

Personally, if you're gonna be blamed for invading FOR oil, then you damned well better start bringing some home.

[skylndrftr]

AZ,

my real disgust in this is that while they say they were waiting for stability or whatver...they were actually waiting to ramp up the Iran and drive the price of oil much higher. .helpign to mitigate the financial risk and maximize the profit to these companies.

[OriginalWheelman]

No one is surprised that a wealthy Texas oil tycoon is a supporter of Bush. They even identified their contacts and told the administration how the deal was going down. The government can't stop them. They are free to do whatever they want. At least we know know who is making those deals and how they are going down. More oil companies have been signing to drill in the region, not just this one. As far as the the "we went to Iraq for oil" being "proved" by this, that is absurd. Iraq needs to sell this oil to keep it's economy running. So what if they are letting the US in to drill it? Sweet! They are going to sell it anyway. The inflating price of oil is a horrid thing for our economy and the Big 3 that the libs are always accusing the Feds of supporting. (What happened to the cry "Detroit is in bed with the oil companies!"? Mysteriously I haven't heard that one in a while...) This was the natural progression of events. Go find your conspiracy elsewhere.

[Repo Man]

Definitely interesting...

What's interesting to me is that telco gets totally pwnt in one thread, doesn't respond, so he starts another.

[telcoman]

What's interesting to me is that telco gets totally pwnt in one thread, doesn't respond, so he starts another.

Repo

Why not?

In reading some of the posts here I have to wonder where some of you get your news? My experience in having driven across Indiana is there is none. Other than Rush and Bill Orelly there is a lack of accurate news reporting in many parts of the US. There are two full time 24 hr all news radio stations here as well as Bloomberg radio. Once outside the range of Chicago radio there is not much. With Sirius radio in my G, I no longer have that problem when traveling and I can listen to CNN or Fox if I get tired of listening to Howard Stern

The other reason I start some of these threads is to hopefully try to educate some on this forum that so strongly believe that this present administration has been good for America.This is the worst administration that I have witnessed in my lifetime. Well its close between this one and Nixon:

Telcoman

[AZhitman]

You drove across Indiana and deduced that there is no accurate news reporting? You live in New Jersey, the butthole of America.

Are we supposed to take anything you say seriously after reading that?

You're not "educating" anyone by saying things that carry no weight.

Just because a thought pops into your head that appears profound, doesn't mean it is.

[AZhitman]

(What happened to the cry "Detroit is in bed with the oil companies!"? Mysteriously I haven't heard that one in a while... This was the natural progression of events. Go find your conspiracy elsewhere.

Ahhhhh! Now you're onto something!

[Repo Man]

Repo

Why not?

In reading some of the posts here I have to wonder where some of you get your news? My experience in having driven across Indiana is there is none. Other than Rush and Bill Orelly there is a lack of accurate news reporting in many parts of the US. There are two full time 24 hr all news radio stations here as well as Bloomberg radio. Once outside the range of Chicago radio there is not much. With Sirius radio in my G, I no longer have that problem when traveling and I can listen to CNN or Fox if I get tired of listening to Howard Stern

The other reason I start some of these threads is to hopefully try to educate some on this forum that so strongly believe that this present administration has been good for America.This is the worst administration that I have witnessed in my lifetime. Well its close between this one and Nixon:

Telcoman

Telco, if you are good for anything, it's a good laugh. You really think that we bassackwards hilljacks here in bum**** Indiana only listen to Limbaugh and O'Reilly? You are one arrogant nozzle to believe that you are so much more enlightened than the rest of us. I've said it before, but I'll say it again for the cheap seats. I get my news from POTUS on XM, Fox, AP News, various internet sources, Reuters and so on.

Your posting various threads to "educate" the rest of us is ridiculous. We all know that you're going to regurgitate something that the Times has published, or some other far-left media abortion.

Here's one that WON'T get published in the Times:

NRA-ILA.orgFairfax, VA - Carmel, Indiana Mayor Jim Brainard is the most recent addition to a list of the nation’s mayors to resign from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun coalition.

“These mayors, one-by-one, have come to realize the misinformation Bloomberg has given them regarding the true intent of his coalition,” said Chris W. Cox, NRA’s chief lobbyist. “The real agenda is not taking firearms out of the hands of criminals, but gaining access to confidential law enforcement information for the purposes of bringing predatory lawsuits against firearms manufacturers and retailers.”

Bloomberg’s efforts are in direct opposition to the position taken by NRA, the National Fraternal Order of Police, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the U.S. Department of Justice. NRA stands with leading law enforcement groups in opposing the release of this confidential information because it’s release will infringe on the privacy rights of law-abiding American citizens, compromise on-going investigations and endanger the safety of law enforcement officers.

“I applaud Mayor Brainard and other mayors who realized they were mislead and resigned from this anti-gun coalition,” said Cox. “If Mayor Bloomberg were serious about getting guns out of the hands of criminals, he would push to enforce current laws 100 percent of the time, as well as prosecute criminals to the fullest extent of the law. At the same time, he would respect the Second Amendment rights of American citizens.”



But what do I know. I'm just some backwards hilljack that is perpetually fascinated by NASCAR and has fantasies about my sister.

[AZhitman]

That's gonna leave a mark.

[audtatious]

No, he is telling the majority of US citizens that he lives in NJ and has more stations that he likes to listen to, thus like the Democratic party as a whole, he knows more than the rest of us and should be able to steer the US in his direction for the betterment of us all.

Why, we all need someone to straighten us ignorant bumpkins out.....

[AZhitman]

No one ever accused NJ residents of being terribly bright:

http://www.mibazaar.com/education/actscores.html

http://www.midwestsites.com/st....hcsp

47th in the US on the ACT... and 36th on the CAT... Ouch.

[audtatious]

That's fine, I'm sure the Govt is taking care of them....

[smockers83]

You can't really use the percentage of graduates tested as students on the coasts usually take the SAT instead of the ACT. Even average score can't be a good judging point because those that do take the ACT in these SAT states are probably smarter than the rest and applying to universities that take ACT scores, driving up the average where as in ACT states, most people take them which drives down the average. The same can be said in comparing SAT scores. Students from ACT states taking the SAT are generally going to be smarter as they're applying for Ivy League schools and other major universities on the coasts, which drives up their average.

[AZhitman]

I know, I was jacking with ol' boy.