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Oil Buddies

by John Mar­shall
Talk­ing Points Memo [1]

An arti­cle [2] in tomor­row’s Times reports that the long-nego­ti­at­ed com­pro­mise which seemed to be lead­ing towards an Iraqi oil law — a key ‘progress’ bench­mark — has appar­ent­ly col­lapsed. All gone down the drain.

The sto­ry though con­nects up with anoth­er one we told you about [3] just a cou­ple days ago — the deci­sion of the Kur­dis­tan region­al gov­ern­ment to sign an oil explo­ration deal with Dal­las-based Hunt Oil [4], run by Mr. Ray L. Hunt [5].

The Shia and Sun­ni lead­ers believe the Kurds are opt­ing for a sort of oil seces­sion that puts them out­side the whole con­cept of a law to share the coun­try’s oil resources. And the Hunt deal is appar­ent­ly the straw that broke the camel’s back, shall we say.

But remem­ber, Hunt, in addi­tion to being the son of leg­endary Texas John Birch Soci­ety extrem­ist H.L. Hunt [6], is also a pal of the pres­i­den­t’s. Indeed, Pres­i­dent Bush has twice appoint­ed Hunt to his For­eign Intel­li­gence Advi­so­ry Board. So while the pres­i­dent is striv­ing to get the Iraqis to meet these bench­marks one of his own pals — and more impor­tant­ly, polit­i­cal appointees — is busy help­ing to tear the whole thing apart.