Scramble to carve up Iraqi oil reserves lies behind US diplomacy
Manoeuvres shaped by horsetrading between America, Russia and France over control of untapped oilfields

Russian business has long-standing interests in Iraq. Lukoil, the biggest oil company in Russia, signed a $20bn contract in 1997 to drill the West Qurna oilfield. Such a deal could evaporate along with the Saddam regime, together with a more recent contract with Russian giant Zarubezhneft, which was granted a potential $90bn concession to develop the bin Umar oilfield. The total value of Saddam's foreign contract awards could reach $1.1 trillion, according to the International Energy Agency's World Energy Outlook 2001.

The Russian official said his government believed the US had brokered a deal with the coalition of Iraqi opposition forces it backs whereby support against Saddam is conditional on their declaring - on taking power - all oil contracts conceded under his rule to be null and void.

'The concern of my government,' said the official, 'is that the concessions agreed between Baghdad and numerous enterprises will be reneged upon, and that US companies will enter to take the greatest share of those existing contracts... Yes, if you could say it that way - an oil grab by Washington'. [read more]

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You Call That Evidence?

The Bush administration has begun to produce what it calls evidence to support its claim that Iraq is moving very near a nuclear weapon capability. But a story in Sunday’s New York Times (September 8, 2002), especially as elaborated by administration officials on Sunday talk shows, actually suggests just the opposite—that Iraq is not as close as it was before the Gulf War. [read more]