Oil again.

The kiss of death

I feel compelled to keep posting about the oil situation in Iraq, since, as you may know, some people think that may be what the Iraq invasion was all about. It seems from this BBC news article that the Kurds went off the reservation. They have begun signing oil deals with western countries.

The "surge" was really about giving the government time to sign the legislation that would govern the Iraq oil industry and offer protections for investments. This agreement would serve to mandate how oil profits would be distributed between Sunni, Shia and Kurds. It would also stipulate that the oil industry would be privatized (taken from the Iraqi government) and run by western oil powers. So far the Bush administration can't get the Iraq government to sign it.

The bizarre complication of the Kurds signing oil deals without Iraqi approval or governing rules is just one more insane event in the Iraq debacle. Worse, one of the companies that the Kurds have signed agreements with is Hunt Oil of Dallas, Texas.

This CBS News article provides interesting background. Ray Hunt, the CEO of Hunt Oil, and a powerful conservative, is on the Board of Halliburton, is a key Bush fund raiser and sits on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. If anyone would know what a disaster it would be to have the Kurds independently signing away Iraqi oil it would be this insider, Ray Hunt. So WHAT is going on? Stay tuned.