Good news for oil companies!

[billvon 3,121]

Even though the war wasn't about oil, Bush has granted immunity to prosecution to any US oil company that buys Iraqi oil. That means they can't be prosecuted for oil spills, human rights violations, environmental problems etc as long as they were related to Iraqi oil. From the LA Times:
----------------------
An executive order signed by President Bush more than two months ago is raising concerns that U.S. oil companies may have been handed blanket immunity from lawsuits and criminal prosecution in connection with the sale of Iraqi oil.

The Bush administration said Wednesday that the immunity wouldn't be nearly so broad.

But lawyers for various advocacy organizations said the two-page executive order seemed to completely shield oil companies from liability — even if it could be proved that they had committed human rights violations, bribed officials or caused great environmental damage in the course of their Iraqi-related business.

"As written, the executive order appears to cancel the rule of law for the oil industry or anyone else who gets possession or control of Iraqi oil or anything of value related to Iraqi oil," said Tom Devine, legal director for the Washington-based Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit group that defends whistle-blowers.

[AggieDave 6]

Quote

That means they can't be prosecuted for oil spills, human rights violations

Sweet! That makes me want to sign up, so I can go be a rotten asshole, hit people with sticks and thoroghly enjoy life as an American.


(note: thats a joke)

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[ChasingBlueSky 0]

Quote

Even though the war wasn't about oil, Bush has granted immunity to prosecution to any US oil company that buys Iraqi oil. That means they can't be prosecuted for oil spills, human rights violations, environmental problems etc as long as they were related to Iraqi oil. From the LA Times:
----------------------

Nothing like passing immunity laws to help out close friends. From yahoo news today:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=68&u=/nyt/20030808/ts_nyt/rivalssayhalliburtondominatesiraqoilwork&printer=1

Rivals Say Halliburton Dominates Iraq Oil Work
The New York Times

By NEELA BANERJEE The New York Times

The Bechtel Group, one of the world's biggest engineering and construction companies, has dropped out of the running for a contract to rebuild the Iraqi oil industry, as other competitors have begun to conclude that the bidding process favors the one company already working in Iraq (news - web sites), Halliburton.

After the United States Army Corps of Engineers quietly selected Halliburton in the spring to perform early repairs of the Iraqi oil business in the aftermath of the war, other companies and members of Congress protested that the work should have been awarded through competitive bidding.


Halliburton's role in the rebuilding has been under political scrutiny because the company was formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites). But the Bush administration and the Corps of Engineers, which is overseeing the Iraqi oil reconstruction effort, have repeatedly said that Halliburton has no inside track.


Preliminary plans for a new contract, which industry executives had thought might total $1 billion, were announced late in June by the Corps of Engineers. The bidding was meant, in part, to introduce competition and a sense of fairness into the lucrative Iraqi reconstruction market, an executive with a major engineering concern said. Like many industry executives, he would speak only on condition of anonymity because his company does not want to jeopardize its chances for future government contracts.


But in the last month, the corps, which is overseeing the reconstruction efforts, has specified a timetable for the work that effectively means that the value of any contract companies other than Halliburton could win would be worth only about $176 million, according to Corps of Engineers documents and executives in the engineering and construction business.


Earlier this week, Bechtel cited the timetable as its reason for dropping out of the bidding. The company now plans to deal directly with the Iraqi oil ministry for future reconstruction work, a spokesman, Howard N. Menaker, said.


Although the oil ministry and the Army Corps of Engineers nominally cooperate, industry analysts say the Americans have the upper hand.


Officials of the Corps of Engineers did not return numerous phone calls yesterday seeking comment on the contract. But last month, in response to questions from other companies about Halliburton's role, the corps said on its Web site that all potential bidders had received the same information to "eliminate any competitive advantage" Halliburton might have from its involvement in the Iraqi reconstruction work so far.


A spokeswoman for Halliburton, Wendy Hall, would not discuss whether its engineering unit, Kellogg Brown & Root, would bid, saying only that "we will evaluate the opportunity."


After indicating in June that it planned to solicit bids, the Corps of Engineers held a conference of prospective bidders in Dallas on July 14. Records of the meeting show that it was attended by some of the most experienced engineering and construction companies in the world including, besides Halliburton and Bechtel, Fluor, the Parsons Group, Schlumberger and Foster Wheeler.


Among those companies, only Fluor and Parsons have indicated so far that they plan to make bids by the Aug. 14 deadline. A winner will be announced by Oct. 15, according to the Corps of Engineers.


At the meeting and in the initial request for proposals, the Corps of Engineers put forth what the industry calls "an indefinite quantity, indefinite delivery" contract. Industry executives said they were told there could in fact be two principal contracts, one for the oil industry in northern Iraq and the other for the south. The value of each contract could range from $500,000 to $500 million over several years, according to the Corps of Engineers, which cited the continued instability in Iraq as a reason for keeping the terms so vague.


A transcript of the July meeting shows that bidders were concerned even then that Halliburton would have a competitive advantage over other companies because it was already working with the Corps of Engineers in Iraq and helping to assess the repairs needed at oil production sites and pipelines after the war and years of an economic embargo.


The corps denied that such a conflict of interest existed, according to the transcript.


Over the last three weeks, however, the Corps of Engineers has provided additional information to bidders indicating that by the July meeting, it and Halliburton already had a fairly clear understanding of the scope and financial value of the work to be done and the timetable for completing it.


The newly released information indicates that a week before the Dallas meeting, the Corps of Engineers and Halliburton participated in a large workshop in Baghdad that also included representatives of the Iraqi oil ministry and the ruling Coalition Provisional Authority to draw up a detailed plan for rebuilding much of the Iraqi oil industry by the end of March 2004.


A week ago, the Corps of Engineers Web site carried an amendment to the contract proposal, saying that 220 projects, mostly at installations above the ground, must be completed for Iraq's oil production to reach prewar levels. The projects are divided into three phases, with a total estimated cost of $1.14 billion.


But the corps notes in the plan that the first two phases, which together would require about $967 million in investments, would have to be completed by Dec. 31.

Halliburton's competitors worry that if the winner of the new contracts is not announced until Oct. 15, that company could not even begin the work before year's end. The only company that could do the work based on that timetable is Halliburton, its competitors say.

Only the third and final phase, worth about $176 million and requiring the work to be completed by March 31, could realistically be performed by a Halliburton competitor, its rivals say.

"The feeling at our company was `Yes, Halliburton is the incumbent, but we had an opportunity there,' " a representative of another engineering concern said. "But if we had believed that from the beginning we had no chance of winning this, we wouldn't have bid."

Responding to pointed questions about the timetable by potential bidders, the Corps of Engineers' Web site said the proposed schedule was "not intended to change anything" about the bidding process.

For its part, the Kellogg Brown & Root unit of Halliburton will do whatever work the corps gives it, Ms. Hall, the spokeswoman, said.

"It is not known at this time how or if the future award of another Corps of Engineers contract will affect current K.B.R. operations or the terms and conditions of its contract," she said.

The first wave of Halliburton employees arrived in Iraq in March, to oversee the extinguishing of several oil well fires near Basra. Since then, its responsibilities, under the direction of the Corps of Engineers, have expanded from its initial job of making emergency repairs.

Working in Iraq has helped turn around Halliburton's financial performance, its second-quarter results showed. The company made a profit of $26 million, in contrast to a loss of $498 million in the period a year earlier. The company stated that 9 percent, or $324 million, of its second-quarter revenue of $3.6 billion came from its work in Iraq.

_________________________________________
you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me....
I WILL fly again.....

[Muenkel 0]

Yipee, yipee, yipee. Muenkel runs to check to see how his oil company stocks are doing today.

_________________________________________
Chris

[Maxim 0]

Quote

Even though the war wasn't about oil.

So what was the war about? to my knowledge they still havent found any wepons of mass destruction.

Life is Great. Even Greater what we do with it.

[Jayruss 0]

Maybe we should form our own oil company, think of all the skydiving we could do then! We could have slaves pack our chutes.

I call president!!

__________________________________________________
"Beware how you take away hope from another human being."
-Oliver Wendell Holmes

[Muenkel 0]

Quote

So what was the war about?

Bush liked the frosty side and Saddam liked the wheaty side of Sugar Coated Mini -Wheats.

_________________________________________
Chris

[Maxim 0]

Bush liked the frosty side and Saddam liked the wheaty side of Sugar Coated Mini -Wheats.

[billvon 3,121]

>So what was the war about?

Now or then? Back then it was to stop Hussein's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons program; now it's to "free the people of Iraq." Remember the war in Afghanistan? Originally it was to get Bin Laden. After we failed on that one it became a war to "free the people of Afghanistan."

And who's to say they're not better off? Perhaps it's better to fear death from american troops, terrorists and criminals than to fear death from a despot. I mean, sure, they're dead afterwards, but perhaps it's a better sort of death.

[redtwiga 0]

Quote

>Remember the war in Afghanistan? Originally it was to get Bin Laden. After we failed on that one it became a war to "free the people of Afghanistan."

And who's to say they're not better off? Perhaps it's better to fear death from american troops, terrorists and criminals than to fear death from a despot. I mean, sure, they're dead afterwards, but perhaps it's a better sort of death.

Yeah, that was really effective. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3134217.stm