Bush's economic invasion of Iraq

Oil is, of course, at the heart of the agenda. In 2004, U.S.-appointed interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi submitted guidelines to Iraq's Supreme Council for Oil Policy suggesting that the "Iraqi government disengage from running the oil sector ... and that the [Iraq National Oil Company] be partly privatized in the future" and opened to international foreign investment, according to International Oil Daily. (U.S oil imports from Iraq increased by more than 86% between 2003 and 2004 alone.)

Plans for a new Iraqi oil law were made public last December at a news conference in Washington hosted by the U.S. government. The U.S.-appointed interim Finance Minister Adel Abdul Mehdi explained that the new law would be "very promising to the American investors and to American enterprise, certainly to oil companies."

A few weeks later, Mehdi became one of Iraq's two vice presidents and Allawi was elected to the National Assembly. Iraq's new oil law is on track for implementation in 2006.

Finally, consider Iraq's reconstruction, which also remains firmly under U.S. control. One of Bremer's orders denied the Iraqi government the ability to give preference to Iraqis in the reconstruction effort. Instead, more than 150 U.S. companies were awarded contracts totaling more than $50 billion, more than twice the GDP of Iraq. Halliburton has the largest, worth more than $11 billion, while 13 other U.S. companies are earning more than $1.5 billion each.

These contractors answer to the U.S. government not the Iraqi people, several thousand of whom in the last few days have protested the failure of U.S. companies to provide accessible water, sanitation and electricity at pre-war levels. Iraqis argue that they have the knowledge, skill and experience to conduct the reconstruction themselves; what they need is the money and decision-making control that they are being denied.

By all accounts, the draft constitution has failed to provide Iraqis with the means to control their economic future. As Iraq prepares for the October 15 referendum on the constitution these crucial issues must be added to the debate, and the influence of the Bush administration countered, so that Iraqis can truly determine their own economic and political fate.

Just as discussions are finally emerging for ending the U.S. military occupation of Iraq, so too must the economic invasion be brought to an end.