Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
T. Boone Pickens says US Firms 'Entitled' to Iraqi Oil
WASHINGTON - Oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens told Congress on Wednesday that U.S. energy companies are "entitled" to some of Iraq's crude because of the large number of American troops that lost their lives fighting in the country and the U.S. taxpayer money spent in Iraq.
Financier T. Boone Pickens speaks during the World Business Forum in New York October 6, 2009. (REUTERS/Lucas Jackson) Boone, speaking to the newly formed Congressional Natural
Gas Caucus, complained that the Iraqi government has awarded
contracts to foreign companies, particularly Chinese firms, to
develop Iraq's vast reserves while American companies have
mostly been shut out.
"They're opening them (oil fields) up to other companies all over the world ... We're entitled to it," Pickens said of Iraq's oil. "Heck, we even lost 5,000 of our people, 65,000 injured and a trillion, five hundred billion dollars."
President Barack Obama has pledged to withdraw U.S. troops in Iraq.
"We leave there with the Chinese getting the oil," Pickens said.
Iraq's Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani told a Washington conference on Wednesday that his government was happy with the energy auction it held earlier this year. The auction was the first chance for foreign oil firms to compete for Iraqi oil since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
"We're pleased with scale and participation of the IOC (International Oil Companies) and the transparent and public competition," Shahristani said at a U.S.-Iraq business and investment conference.
BP and the Chinese oil company CNPC were the only firms to win a contract in Iraq's bid round this summer, the first chance for foreign oil firms to compete for Iraqi oil since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Seven other oil and gas fields failed to attract bidders on the terms Iraq offered.
But a consortium headed by Italy's ENI (ENI.MI: Quote, Profile, Research) said last week it signed a deal to develop the giant Zubair field for a remuneration fee of $2 a barrel. At Iraq's oilfield auction in June, the consortium refused to go below $4.40 a barrel.
Two consortiums are still competing for a deal to develop the even larger West Quran oilfield. They are Russia's LUKOIL (LKOH.MM: Quote, Profile, Research) and ConocoPhillips (COP.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and another consortium headed by Exxon Mobil (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research). (Reporting by Tom Doggett, additional reporting by Simon Webb; editing by Jim Marshall)
- Posted in
149 Comments so far
Show Allyep thats what the war was all about, oil
BEWARE OF ANYONE... who speaks with a pointed index finger!!!
He is secretly pointing (yes) out HE is NUMERO UNO!!!
The rest of you be DAMNED!
good point monk! ever watch tose imams as they deliver their daily diatribe? the pointed index finger is ever present.
Oh that wicked index finger!
Pickens and others like him are one of the main reasons why so many around the world both hate and distrust the US.
We don't have a 'right' to anything that is outside of the boundaries of the United States.
Exactly - if a country decides to commit International warcrimes and start an unprovoked war with a defensless country (enemy du jour)...then surely said country has earned the right to all of the victim countrys' natural resources!
Surely there is an International Law which states such... somewhere?
Oklahoma State Univ. should rename it's football stadium - "War Crimes 'R US Stadium" with a logo of Pickens bloated head at mid-field.
Picken's is a birdbrain (I just used an expression but I don't mean to insult birds). What a total dickhead. Sorry to be using such language, but this kind of evil really pisses me off.
I am a dickhead and resent being compared to T Boone who is actually an asshole.
I agree
"...they hate us for HIS freedom."
People like Pickens make me disgusted to belong to the human species.
Why? At least you don't belong to PICKENS' depraved sub-species!
· Yr Obd't Servant
This blatant show of greed from one of the top 1% of the greediest PROVES what djb said above. This type of non-reality thinking is a disease hat must be eradicated soon. Any bets this fool is an avowed "(c)hristian. Sometimes I hope I'm just dreaming all of the ugliness and insanity around me but my arms are black and blue from pinching them.
PLEASE read Michael Moore's action plan in today's C.D. postings and share it with everyone you know. Taking out anger on a keyboard--alone--will change nothing. WE MUST ACT!!!
What is the controversy? Pickens is right, of course. Aren't armed robbers always entitled to the money they were attempting to steal, especially when some of the gang get killed in the process? Oh, maybe not. Maybe it is just banksters that are entitled to the money they attempt to steal. That's it.
Of course this is absolutely correct! Using the T Boone Pickins formula, I think that all of T Boone Pickins' current and former employees (or their estates) are entitled to nearly all of his many billions of dollars since it was their sacrifice and hard work that enabled T Boone Pickins to acquire all this wealth.
The Congressional Natural Gas Caucus will be holding a fund raising luncheon in the near future where the menu will include big bowls of lima beans, tofu meat substitute entrees, sorbitol sweetened deserts and other flatulance inducing cusine. No Beano allowed!
Don't tell me we have an "energy crisis"--we ain't got no energy crisis that good ol' American ingenuity can't solve.
Poet
I eat lots of tofu and it never gives me gas. And I'm an IBS sufferer...
T. Boone Pickens represents the utter worst of American capitalism, and is a prime force in keeping the USA addicted to oil (his recent "conversion" to wind notwithstanding). He is also one of the douche bags whom bank rolled the Swift Boat obfuscation. Additionally, Pickens would probably not be spluttering right now if one of his companies had been amongst those who signed oil deals with either the Iraqi government or the Kurds. This is the after the fact whining of capitalist baby whom didn't get to frolic in the playpen.
If anyone had any lingering doubts about the psychopathy and cynicism of the ruling class, this should put them to rest.
Aye
Aye Aye.
The USA is entitled to a War Crimes Tribunal for violating the UN Charter and Geneva Conventions
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
Whenever the U.S. invades a country that has not attacked it, the U.S. is entitled to any mineral wealth that country may hold. It is only right and proper that this be so.
(sarcastic afterburners engaged)
- Kent - aka EKATON
A trillion and a half plus 5,000 dead American soldiers. That's the price extracted from America by conservatives. Keep waving the flag and the cross and Americans will forgive you.
Hell yeah! I'll even donate 15 rounds to the cause.
I guess the million-plus Iraqis that died don't count for much in T. Boone's twisted world.
From 1991 to now, Iraq has never been a threat to the U.S.!
Since way before the cold war ended, no one has been a threat to the U.S. but those poor chumps living in the U.S. who might rise up and take their country (not back, it never has belonged to them). The nearest to a threat would have to be China, and China will always be a threat because they've been practicing at 'civilization' for a few thousand years more than we have. In the long run (if there is to be a long run) China will always end up on top.
The terrorist threat we've created ourselves. It is a reaction to the terrorism we've been practicing for a very long time.
Until the ban on hemp is lifted, we'll be sucking off Iraqi oil to the last drop. Pickens was always a green washer and will forever be that. 'Nuff said !
Good 'till the last drop!
Pickens is a jerk and liar. U.S. Big Oil has opportunities like others do; just that the Iraqi government has a requirement that evidently [must] be met and it's that the foreign oil cies mustn't charge over $2 a barrel. China's won two contracts now, including the one it just obtained along with BP. Around 45 cies are bidding for the second round in December.
"Iraq approves oil deal with BP-led consortium",
by Sinan Salaheddin, AP, Oct 17 2009
http://www.uruknet.info/index.php?p=59014
ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil are U.S. cies. Pickens knows this, and that Iraq is demanding fees no higher than $2. So he knows he's lying and that China simply matched this max. $2 before everyone else.
The AP article I linked to states the bids placed by several cies, several more than this Reuteurs article specifies. 45 are expected to participate in bidding in December's round.
Where is the reward for all the shocking and awing, invading, and torturing? Where is the reward for all the misinformation and lies? Where is the reward for killing over a million civilians? The Iraqis are destroying the incentive for powerful nations to attack, bomb, and invade oil-rich nations to steal their energy resources. This is an outrage!
But wait a moment, T-Bone, you know you got to do all the math. We may have lost 5,000 soldiers and expended over a trillion dollars (most of it eaten by contractors and blackholes of theft by US operatives), but we also killed over a million Iraqis and surely hobbled their economy to the tune of billions. So factoring all of that in, we are actually deeply in debt to the Iraqis, so any oil proceeds that we may get must go directly to the Iraqi people.
Snipped. Moved this post's text to make it a reply to my post with the AP article link, at Uruknet.
Yep, I thought the Mr. Natural Wind Power act was just that. Pickens is simply another in a long line of white guys who have always felt white guys are pretty much entitled to whatever they could take.
So, apparently he feels that since we went over there and basically destroyed whatever fragile fabric held thier country together, killed hundreds of thousands of innocents including burning and dismembering thousands of children, did nothing to prevent the loss of the culture's irreplaceable antiquities, destroyed the infrastructure, bombed homes and cities, and terrorized the populace...we also are deserving of their oil?
There is enough hot air coming from Pickens mouth to power 1,000 wind turbines.
What, and blow his stenchful breath all over the place? No thanks. Well, you could position the wind turbines so that the air's blown in your direction, if you like.
Get off the 'white guy' shit! Pickens does NOT feel that white guys are entitled. You have to be a certain kind of 'white guy', and I'll venture that Pickens would even accept certain less than white guys as entitled if they were rich and powerful enough. I'm really tired of people inferring that black or brown people can't be subject to the same evil impulses and attitudes that European men and their descendants are. And that goes for women too.
Otherwise, blueskykate, you are absolutely right on.
T. Boone Pickens - what a scumbag!
You have just libeled scumbags everywhere. Unlike Pickens, scumbags provide a socially useful function.
The Bush admin. used the US military to destroy Iraq and its people, so that rich no-nothings like Pickens could loot the oil. Its just that simple. This is NOT a democracy, it is a corporate empire, and anyone who thinks that Barack Obama, or any other president, can single-handedly stop these amoral entities, is dreaming. Unless the American people, (that's you and me, folks) wake up, rise up, and take back our country, things will only get worse. We have a good-hearted man in the White House who cares about the common good, and he needs the help of everyone of us. We need to stop attacking him and stand beside him, letting him know what we expect of him, and, like Michael Moore said, giving him a little shove when he needs it.
What are you talking about? We should support more war?
We're talking here about Pickens' comments on the the illegal Iraq war that your Obama voted over and over again to fund. It was brutal, illegal, evil, wrong - and he knew it. Now he's drone killing children in Pakistan and murdering the poorest people on earth in Afghanistan. Do you know why? or do you even care?
Are you off your rocker? You want me to support a war criminal? Are you familiar with the Geneva Conventions? International law?
We should be protesting in the streets not supporting war criminals. or is international law only for Republicans?
I'm suspicious of your motives.
Although genierae's motives may be truly ill, like to try to deceive others, f.e., I won't bother with this question and will just second the rest of your post. genierae's off of his (or her) rocker; not even having feet on this planet, evidently. Or maybe the feet are on the planet, while the head is ... detached from the body and floating in dark space.
Obama, a good-hearted man? genierae's definitely not speaking of reality. Obama knows what he's doing, and also did with all of his rotten (to say the least) votes while senator.
Rvrwalker
Bingo! You nailed it. And to think that a war hawk like Obama was actually awarded, of all things, a peace prize. George Orwell must be rolling over in his grave.
BS!
T. Boone Pickens = One Sick Nob Pet.
That statement that we; no, substitute he and big oil, is entitled to Iraqi oil since we lost 5000 American soldiers there has to be one of the most heartless and extraordinary evil remarks I have ever heard! How in the hell do you think the families that lost 5000 loved ones in Iraq feel!
Pickens is likely privately happy with the 5000 dead US troups - they really only represent the white trash/ghetto black/assorted loosers who would only end up on welfare roles anyway - so it is a kind of Social Darwinism at work here.
Worthless shits must die in order to fulfill their destiny... to make the rich uber-class as comfortable as possible in an uncertain world.
They have sacrificed their lives for the Greater Good!
You definitely exaggerate about who the soldiers are. Your post inherently refers to National Guard, who were never supposed to serve overseas, have families and businesses or jobs, etcetera. And soldiers who enlisted in the Army, some, perhaps even many enough of them, weren't on welfare before serving in this war that they were lied, deceived into serving in.
Usually, people who stereotype others are not only exaggerating, but often Wrong (capitalized), idiotic, etcetera.
So, according to Pickens, the nation which lied to commit war crimes deserves 'reimbursement'from the nation and people it victimized?
How much longer will we tolerate sociopaths in positions of power and influence?