Reidblog [The Reid Report blog]

A top terror suspect apparently wasn't killed by a U-S airstrike in Somalia.

A senior U-S official in Kenya says none of the top three suspected terrorists in Somalia were killed. But some Somalis with close ties to al-Qaida were killed.

Yesterday, a Somali official said a U-S intelligence report had referred to the death of one of the three senior al-Qaida members believed responsible for bombing U-S embassies in East Africa in 1998.

But the U-S official says U-S and Ethiopian troops in southern Somalia are still pursuing the three.

U-S officials say U-S special operations forces are on the ground in Somalia, providing military advice to Ethiopian and Somali forces.

Far beneath the surface of the tragic drama of Somalia, four major U.S. oil companies are quietly sitting on a prospective fortune in exclusive concessions to explore and exploit tens of millions of acres of the Somali countryside.

That land, in the opinion of geologists and industry sources, could yield significant amounts of oil and natural gas if the U.S.-led military mission can restore peace to the impoverished East African nation.

According to documents obtained by The Times, nearly two-thirds of Somalia was allocated to the American oil giants Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips in the final years before Somalia's pro-U.S. President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown and the nation plunged into chaos in January, 1991. Industry sources said the companies holding the rights to the most promising concessions are hoping that the Bush Administration's decision to send U.S. troops to safeguard aid shipments to Somalia will also help protect their multimillion-dollar investments there.

Officially, the Administration and the State Department insist that the U.S. military mission in Somalia is strictly humanitarian. Oil industry spokesmen dismissed as "absurd" and "nonsense" allegations by aid experts, veteran East Africa analysts and several prominent Somalis that President Bush, a former Texas oilman, was moved to act in Somalia, at least in part, by the U.S. corporate oil stake.

But corporate and scientific documents disclosed that the American companies are well positioned to pursue Somalia's most promising potential oil reserves the moment the nation is pacified. And the State Department and U.S. military officials acknowledge that one of those oil companies has done more than simply sit back and hope for peace. ...

The stability that emerged in southern Somalia after 16 years of utter lawlessness is gone, the defeat of the ruling Islamic Courts Union now ushering in looting, martial law and the prospect of another major anti-Western insurgency. Clan warlords, who terrorized Somalia until they were driven out by the Islamists, and who were put back in power by the U.S.-backed and -trained Ethiopian army, have begun carving up the country once again.

With these developments, the Bush administration, undeterred by the horrors and setbacks in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon, has opened another battlefront in this volatile quarter of the Muslim world. As with Iraq, it casts this illegal war as a way to curtail terrorism, but its real goal appears to be to obtain a direct foothold in a highly strategic area of the world through a client regime. The results could destabilize the whole region.

The Horn of Africa, at whose core Somalia lies, is newly oil-rich. It is also just miles across the Red Sea from Saudi Arabia and Yemen, overlooking the daily passage of large numbers of oil tankers and warships through that waterway. The United States has a huge military base in neighboring Djibouti that is being enlarged substantially and will become the headquarters of a new U.S. military command being created specifically for Africa. As evidence of the area's importance, Gen. John Abizaid, the military commander of the region, visited Ethiopia recently to discuss Somalia, while Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Horn countries a few months ago in search of oil and trade agreements.

The current series of events began with the rise of the Islamic Courts more than a year ago. The Islamists avoided large-scale violence in defeating the warlords, who had held sway in Somalia ever since they drove out U.N. peacekeepers by killing eighteen American soldiers in 1993, by rallying people to their side through establishing law and order. Washington was wary, fearing their possible support for terrorists. While they have denied any such intentions, some Islamists do have terrorist ties, but these have been vastly overstated in the West.

Washington, however, chose to view the situation only through the prism of its "war on terror." The Bush administration supported the warlords -- in violation of a U.N. arms embargo it helped impose on Somalia many years ago -- indirectly funneling them arms and suitcases filled with dollars.

Many of these warlords were part of the Western-supported transitional "government" that had been organized in Kenya in 2004. But the "government" was so devoid of internal support that even after two years it was unable to move beyond the small western town of Baidoa, where it had settled. In the end, it was forced to turn to Somalia's archenemy Ethiopia for assistance in holding on even to Baidoa. Again in violation of the U.N. arms embargo, Ethiopia sent 15,000 troops to Somalia. Their arrival eroded whatever domestic credibility the government might have had.

The United States, whose troops have been sighted by Kenyan journalists in the region bordering Somalia, next turned to the U.N. Security Council. In another craven act resembling its post-facto legalization of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the Council bowed to U.S. pressure and authorized a regional peacekeeping force to enter Somalia to protect the government and "restore peace and stability." This despite the fact that the U.N. has no right under its charter to intervene on behalf of one of the parties struggling for political supremacy, and that peace and stability had already been restored by the Islamists.

The war came soon after the U.N. resolution, its outcome a foregone conclusion thanks to the highly trained and war-seasoned Ethiopian army. The African Union called for the Ethiopians to end the invasion, but the U.N. Security Council made no such call. Ban Ki-moon, the incoming secretary-general, is being urged to treat the enormously complex situation in Darfur as his political challenge, but Somalia, while less complex, is more immediate. He has an opportunity to establish his credentials as an unbiased upholder of the U.N. Charter by seeking Ethiopia's withdrawal. ...

If Maliki’s new security plan is not bad enough, backed by 20,000 more US troops to be dispatched to Baghdad, a bill is about to be passed in the so-called Iraq parliament that received little notice as planned that will give America total control over Iraq oil for the next three decades.

The third-largest oil reserves in the world are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under this controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.

The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent last on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalized in 1972.

Let’s put this into perspective. Invade the country, create civil war so that the population can only think about security, jobs and getting through the day, break up the country into manageable parts, murder the leader of the country, eliminate those who don’t go along, and steal the oil. This was the US plan was from the beginning and this is exactly what is transpiring.

While the huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to those who say the Iraq war was fought for oil, it really doesn’t matter much now. These critics are powerless over a US president back by the Zionist lobbies that do not respect international law of territorial sovereignty.

Oil industry executives and analysts say the law, which would permit Western companies to pocket up to three-quarters of profits in the early years and will operate through "production-sharing agreements" (PSAs) which are highly unusual in the Middle East, where the oil industry in Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world's two largest producers, is state controlled.

While the provision allowing oil companies to take up to 75 per cent of the profits will last until they have recouped initial drilling costs, we must look past the window dressing. . Iraq is one of the cheapest and easiest places in the world to drill for and produce oil and there are there are hundred of fields already discovered and are waiting to be developed. Big oil will be using ongoing development to keep 75%percent of the profits for ions to come.

Plunder in other words.

Furthermore, under the chapter entitled "Fiscal Regime" in this new bill, the draft spells out that foreign companies have no restrictions on taking their profits out of the country, and are not subject to any tax when doing so. After that, they would collect about 20 per cent of all profits, according to industry sources in Iraq but that is twice the industry average for such deals. Iraq's sovereign right to manage its own natural resources could also be threatened by the provision in the draft that any disputes with a foreign company must ultimately be settled by international, rather than Iraqi, arbitration.

Amid the furor of “cavil war” and the hanging of Saddam Hussein, the new oil law has quietly been going through several drafts, and is now on the point of being presented to the cabinet and then the parliament in Baghdad, without the consent of the Iraqi population.

James Paul, executive director at the Global Policy Forum, the international government watchdog, said: "It is not an exaggeration to say that the overwhelming majority of the population would be opposed to this. To do it anyway, with minimal discussion within the [Iraqi] parliament is really just pouring more oil on the fire." ...

Labels: Bush, Iraq, Iraq war, President Bush