Iraqi Government To Sell Off State-Owned Assets: Big Payoffs For Western Contractors

The Sunday Telegraph via The Raw Story:

The Iraqi government has begun preparing the groundwork for what could be one of the biggest privatisations of state-owned assets.

The Sunday Telegraph has learned that officials from the government have ecently held talks with banking and legal advisers in London. City sources said Iraq’s minister for industry, Fawzi Hariri, was looking to appoint advisers to draw up a emorandum of understanding to sell off the country’s non-oil assets, ranging from petrochemical plants to construction companies, hotels and airlines, as early as this month.

The privatisation proposals could also include a massive extension of foreign participation in the oil industry. Sources close to the foreign ministry said the government believed it had struck a deal on the long-awaited hydrocarbon law which could see Parliament vote the legislation through in two weeks’ time. If the legislation is passed, arrangements to allow foreign oil majors to enter into production-sharing agreements with Iraq’s national oil company could then make it into the memorandum. Read more…

Logan Murphy, Crooks and Liars: This is why we’re still in Iraq. President Bush and his cronies have spent a lot of blood, sweat and tears to earn a slice of the Iraqi pie and they aren’t leaving till they get it.