Philip Thornton (Extracted from "The spoils of war", The Independent, 22 November 2005)

"Iraqis face the dire prospect of losing up to $200 billion of the wealth of their country if an American-inspired plan to hand over development of its oil reserves to US and British multinationals comes into force next year. A report produced by American and British pressure groups warns Iraq will be caught in an 'old colonial trap' if it allows foreign companies to take a share of its vast energy reserves."

[Ed When the Bush-Cheney administration invaded Iraq it made a bad mistake in assuming that the major US and UK oil corporations would eagerly follow the troops in order to exploit the 50-70 hitherto undeveloped oilfields -- probably now the largest in the world according to oil expert Matthew Simmons and others. The administration was wrong and were turned down within weeks during the summer of 2003. Likewise, Lukoil -- the Russian corporation which already had a legitimate contract with Saddam Hussein -- also turned down an approach by ex-President George H. W. Bush and ex-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. (This can be the only interpretation of their flight to St Petersburg in mid-November of that year and the announcement from Washington on their return that elections would be held in Iraq.) The oil majors (of any country) will not be developing the oilfields of Iraq until there's a legitimate government in place able to guarantee security. This is unlikely for a very long time to come, and even then there are likely to be three separate governments in Baghdad, Kirkuk and Basra. The American administration is pipe-dreaming again.]