Who's Sorry Now?
No one in the Bush camp, that's for sure. A sigh of relief all around for these guys; and the weeping continues for the Dems. Darn!
And you thought Rove was a goner....not so fast...Rove, seems to be a modern day Machiavelli to many. "Although private morality may rest on other factors—divine approval, personal character, or abstract duties, for example—in public life only the praise and blame of fellow human beings really counts. Thus, Machiavelli supposed, the ruler needs to acquire a good reputation while actually doing whatever wrong seems necessary in the circumstances. " We know that Progressives are weeping quietly...this would have been a great boon to their cause. Our advice? Get over it and get busy mobilizing for the fall.
Bigger news is Bush's surprise visit to Iraq. All the nonsense that there "wasn't a post-envasion plan" is hooey. There was a plan and it is being executed to a T. That plan was designed by the PNAC and Bearing Point - a consulting company that just renewed it's $250M contract to continue on.
Anotnia Juhasz (The Bush Agena) here: "That plan was ready two months before the invasion. It was written by BearingPoint, Inc., a company based in Virginia that received a $250 million contract to rewrite the entire economy of Iraq. It drafted that new economy. That new economy was put into place systematically by L. Paul Bremer, the head of the occupation government of Iraq for 14 months, who implemented exactly one hundred orders, basically all of which are still in place today. And everyone who is watching who is familiar with the policies of the World Trade Organization, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the World Bank, the I.M.F., will understand the orders."
So Bush is in Iraq like any good CEO to oversee the oil control handover to his top team! Oh, he'll visit troops, etc., but the primary news from Iraq was NOT Zarqawi' death...it was that the final barrier to a permanent base and oil production are finally in place. The base ban was quietly removed over the weekend; and the Defense Minister and Interior Minister were the final barriers to the PSA plans.
"Control of Iraq's future oil wealth is being handed to multinational oil companies through long-term contracts that will cost Iraq hundreds of billions of dollars. Crude Designs: The Rip-Off of Iraq's Oil Wealth reveals that current Iraqi oil policy will allocate the development of at least 64% of Iraq’s reserves to foreign oil companies. Iraq has the world’s third largest oil reserves.
Figures published in the report for the first time show:
• the estimated cost to Iraq over the life of the new oil contracts is $74 to $194 billion, compared with leaving oil development in public hands. These sums represent between two and seven times the current Iraqi state budget.
• the contracts would guarantee massive profits to foreign companies, with rates of return of 42% to 162%.
The kinds of contracts that will provide these returns are known as production sharing agreements (PSAs). PSAs have been heavily promoted by the US government and oil majors and have the backing of senior figures in the Iraqi Oil Ministry. Britain has also encouraged Iraq to open its oilfields to foreign investment.
However PSAs last for 25-40 years, are usually secret and prevent governments from later altering the terms of the contract."
