WASHINGTON — The U.S.-led occupation authority in Iraq has abandoned plans to create an international advisory board to oversee the country's battered oil industry, opting instead to give Iraqi technocrats a freer hand to chart their own course.
While U.S. and allied officials remain in charge of reconstruction, the decision to scale back foreign supervision signals their increasing confidence in the competence of Iraqi oil professionals and heightened concern about Iraqi political sensitivities, officials said. Instead of answering to a global board of directors, oil technocrats will report to a minister named by the new Iraqi Governing Council.
The move could disappoint those who viewed the ouster of Saddam Hussein as an opportunity to set Iraqi oil policy on a pro-American course, open the nation's oil sector to Western companies and reduce the influence of OPEC on world oil production and prices.
The decision was prompted in part by the reluctance of foreign oil company experts and prominent Iraqi expatriates to join the board, officials said. The expatriates expressed concern they would be perceived by Iraqis as agents of a U.S.-orchestrated takeover of the Iraqi industry. Some oil companies reportedly were reluctant to assign key personnel to the effort, fearing that their participation might sour future business deals in Iraq.
Retired Shell Oil Chief Executive Philip Carroll will continue to serve as the U.S.-led administration's senior advisor to the Iraqi Oil Ministry, officials said, but the corporate-style advisory board he was supposed to chair will not be established.
Former Iraqi oil marketing chief Fadhil Othman, who was chosen three months ago to serve as Carroll's vice chairman, said coalition authorities had concluded there was no longer any need for a high-profile oversight panel.
"Since the advisory committee has not met and has not been completed, they thought the best way was just not to continue with it," Othman said. "Since there is a new civilian government which can carry out the job, it is of no use any more."
Othman's account was confirmed Friday by an official with the Coalition Provisional Authority, or CPA, in Baghdad.
"Once we got in here and got to know the folks in the Oil Ministry and the employees at the oil companies, it became obvious that the expertise was already there," said the official, who requested anonymity. "So the advisory board just became unnecessary."
