US Started Iraq War 'Just for oil?' Apparently Not

Critics of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq cite the American "thirst for oil" as the primary motivation. Recent events have proven them wrong. The recently completed auction of Iraqi oil production rights was dominated by other countries.

To this day, critics of the 2003 U. S. invasion of Iraq have based their positions on the American “thirst for oil.” Recent events have apparently proven such criticisms false. Iraq has concluded the bidding for oil-development and production from its largest and most lucrative fields. American oil companies were absent from the field of winners, dominated by oil companies from China, Russia, Angola, Japan, France, Britain, the Netherlands and Malaysia. Many of these companies are "state-owned," with no American participation or investments. Iraqi officials said this proved their independence from U.S. influence and that their two bidding rounds this year for deals to tap Iraq's vast oil reserves, the world's third largest, were free of foreign political interference.

"For us in Iraq, it shows the government is fully free from outside influence. Neither Russia nor America could put pressure on anyone in Iraq -- it is a pure commercial, transparent competition,"

said government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh.

"No one, even the United States, can steal the oil, whatever people think."

The Oil Ministry ended its second bidding round after awarding seven of the oilfields offered for development, adding to deals from a first auction in June that could together take Iraq up to a capacity to pump 12 million barrels per day. Only one U.S. firm bid in the second round. Of the four fields bid on by U.S. firms in the first round, only Exxon Mobil won a major prize, as part of a group awarded a contract for the West Qurna Phase One field. U.S.-based Occidental was able to participate with a minor stake in a group that won a contract for the Zubair field.

"The results of the bid round should lay to rest the old canard that the U.S. intervened in Iraq to secure Iraqi oil for American companies,"

said Philip Frayne, a spokesman at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. While American companies continue to develop properties and rights in Saudi Arabia and gas fields in Qatar, other nations have been touting their success in the bidding wars for Iraqi oil “Production Asset Security” (PAS) rights, which allow foreigners to participate in development while retaining oil revenue for the Iraqi government and its citizens. These include Russia, China and France, Malaysia and Japan, and the Dutch and Britain. While no one will dispute that protection of oil rights and oil fields figured into the rationale for divesting Saddam Hussein of his dominance of Iraq's oil production, events have shown that enrichment of US producers was far from the main motivation.