President Bush says the Iraq war is not about oil but his actions belie that claim.  

In the months before the March 2003 invasion, members of the U.S. State Department "Oil and Energy Working Group" met to plan how to open Iraq to international oil companies.  

The oil law now proposed by the Iraqi Council of Ministers is a virtual photocopy of a plan first drafted by U.S. oil industry executives and consultants in Houston long before Iraq was "liberated."  

Giving credence to Iraqis’ fears, the oil law presented to the Iraqi Parliament, if enacted, would put effective control of most of Iraq’s vast oil resources into the hands of foreign companies. Despite great pressure from the U.S. for its adoption, the law remains stalled in the Iraqi Parliament because a majority clearly oppose it.  

Prior to the first Gulf war and the sanctions that followed, Iraq’s oil, nationalized since 1975, provided the foundation for a relatively good standard of living, producing a high level of literacy, the largest number of engineers per capita in the Arab world and a health care system considered the best in the region.  

The proposed oil law creates a Federal Oil and Gas Council on which would sit representatives of Exxon-Mobil, Shell, BP, etc., whose tasks include approving their own contracts. Instead of Iraqi central government decision-making on oil, the legislation authorizes regional authorities to individually sign contracts with foreign companies, promoting bidding wars between regions that could lead to breaking Iraq into three states.  

As Ewa Jasciewicz has noted: "The law would allow regions, represented by sectarian elites originally empowered in 2003, to sign their own contracts, create their own oil laws and develop their own industries, without democratic oversight.  

The Draft Iraqi Oil Law: Making A Mockery Of Sovereignty