Iraq about big oil companies

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." For any degree of oil privatization to take place, and for it to apply to all the country's oil fields, Iraq has to amend its constitution and pass a new national oil law.

The Bush administration hired the consultancy firm Bearing Point more than a year ago to advise the Iraqi Oil Ministry on drafting and passing a new national oil law. Iraqi Finance Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi (who is now vice president) explained how this law would open Iraq's oil industry to private foreign investment.

This, in turn, would be "very promising to the American investors and to American enterprise, certainly to oil companies." The law would implement production-sharing agreements. Much to the deep frustration of the U.S. government and American oil companies, that law has still not been passed.

All told, the Iraq Study Group has simply made the case for extending the war until foreign oil companies — presumably American ones — have guaranteed legal access to all of Iraq's oil fields and until they are assured the best legal and financial terms possible. We can thank the Iraq Study Group for making its case publicly.

It is now our turn to decide if we wish to spill more blood for oil.