More than five years after the invasion of Iraq — just in case you were still waiting — the oil giants finally hit the front page…
Last Thursday, the New York Times led with this headline: “Deals with Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back.” (Subhead: “Rare No-bid Contracts, A Foothold for Western Companies Seeking Future Rewards.”)
And who were these four giants? ExxonMobil, Shell, the French company Total and BP (formerly British Petroleum). What these firms got were mere “service contracts” — as in servicing Iraq’s oil fields — not the sort of “production sharing agreements” that President Bush’s representatives in Baghdad once dreamed of, and that would have left them in charge of those fields. Still, it was clearly a start.
McCain & Obama: Two images of America
he two candidates who have emerged from this year’s grueling presidential primaries as their respective parties’ standard bearer present Americans with a dramatic choice. For all that can be said about their differences in background, experience, political philosophies and prescriptions for the future, it is their profoundly distinct personae that I find most compelling.
