Remember, Iraq was NEVER about oil, it was a war on terrorists. LOL
Want more of this vote for McSame.
1.
June 30, 2008
Amid Policy Disputes, Qaeda Grows in Pakistan
By MARK MAZZETTI and DAVID ROHDE
WA****NGTON =97 Late last year, top Bush administration officials decided
to take a step they had long resisted. They drafted a secret plan to
make it easer for the Pentagon=92s Special Operations forces to launch
missions into the snow-capped mountains of Pakistan to capture or kill
top leaders of Al Qaeda.
Intelligence re****ts for more than a year had been streaming in about
Osama bin Laden=92s terrorism network rebuilding in the Pakistani tribal
areas, a problem that had been exacerbated by years of missteps in
Wa****ngton and the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, sharp policy
disagreements, and turf battles between American counterterrorism
agencies.
The new plan, outlined in a highly classified Pentagon order, was
intended to eliminate some of those battles. And it was meant to pave
a smoother path into the tribal areas for American commandos, who for
years have bristled at what they see as Wa****ngton=92s risk-averse
attitude toward Special Operations missions inside Pakistan. They also
argue that catching Mr. bin Laden will come only by capturing some of
his senior lieutenants alive.
But more than six months later, the Special Operations forces are
still waiting for the green light. The plan has been held up in
Wa****ngton by the very disagreements it was meant to eliminate. A
senior Defense Department official said there was =93mounting
frustration=94 in the Pentagon at the continued delay.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush committed the nation to a
=93war on terrorism=94 and made the destruction of Mr. bin Laden=92s
networ=
k
the top priority of his presidency. But it is increasingly clear that
the Bush administration will leave office with Al Qaeda having
successfully relocated its base from Afghanistan to Pakistan=92s tribal
areas, where it has rebuilt much of its ability to attack from the
region and broadcast its messages to militants across the world.
A recent American airstrike killing Pakistani troops has only inflamed
tensions along the mountain border and added to tensions between
Wa****ngton and Pakistan=92s new government.
The story of how Al Qaeda, whose name is Arabic for =93the base,=94 has
gained a new haven is in part a story of American accommodation to
President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, whose advisers played down the
terrorist threat. It is also a story of how the White House ****fted
its sights, beginning in 2002, from counterterrorism efforts in
Afghanistan and Pakistan to preparations for the war in Iraq.
Just as it had on the day before 9/11, Al Qaeda now has a band of
terrorist camps from which to plan and train for attacks against
Western targets, including the United States. Officials say the new
camps are smaller than the ones the group used prior to 2001. However,
despite dozens of American missile strikes in Pakistan since 2002, one
retired C.I.A. officer estimated that the make****ft training compounds
now have as many as 2,000 local and foreign militants, up from several
hundred three years ago.
Publicly, senior American and Pakistani officials have said that the
creation of a Qaeda haven in the tribal areas was in many ways
inevitable =97 that the lawless badlands where ethnic Pashtun tribes
have resisted government control for centuries were a natural place
for a dispirited terrorism network to find refuge. The American and
Pakistani officials also blame a disastrous cease-fire brokered
between the Pakistani government and militants in 2006.
But more than four dozen interviews in Wa****ngton and Pakistan tell
another story. American intelligence officials say that the Qaeda hunt
in Pakistan, code-named Operation Cannonball by the C.I.A. in 2006,
was often undermined by bitter disagreements within the Bush
administration and within the C.I.A., including about whether American
commandos should launch ground raids inside the tribal areas.
Inside the C.I.A., the fights included clashes between the agency=92s
outposts in Kabul, Afghanistan, and Islamabad. There were also battles
between field officers and the Counterterrorist Center at C.I.A.
headquarters, whose preference for carrying out raids remotely, via
Predator missile strikes, was derided by officers in the Islamabad
station as the work of =93boys with toys.=94
An early arrangement that allowed American commandos to join Pakistani
units on raids inside the tribal areas was halted in 2003 after
protests in Pakistan. Another combat mission that came within hours of
being launched in 2005 was scuttled because some C.I.A. officials in
Pakistan questioned the accuracy of the intelligence, and because
aides to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld believed that the
mission force had become too large.
Current and former military and intelligence officials said that the
war in Iraq consistently diverted resources and high-level attention
from the tribal areas. When American military and intelligence
officials requested additional Predator drones to survey the tribal
areas, they were told no drones were available because they had been
sent to Iraq.
Some former officials say Mr. Bush should have done more to confront
Mr. Musharraf, by aggressively demanding that he acknowledge the scale
of the militant threat.
Western military officials say Mr. Musharraf was instead often
distracted by his own political problems, and effectively allowed
militants to regroup by brokering peace agreements with them.
Even critics of the White House agree that there was no foolproof
solution to gaining control of the tribal areas. But by most accounts
the administration failed to develop a comprehensive plan to address
the militant problem there, and never resolved the disagreements
between warring agencies that undermined efforts to fa****on any
coherent strategy.
=93We=92re just kind of drifting,=94 said Richard L. Armitage, who as
deput=
y
secretary of state from 2001 to 2005 was the administration=92s point
person for Pakistan.
Fleeing U.S. Air Power
In March 2002, several hundred bedraggled foreign fighters =97 Uzbeks,
Pakistanis and a handful of Arabs =97 fled the towering mountains of
eastern Afghanistan and crossed into Pakistan=92s South Waziristan
tribal area.
Savaged by American air power in the battles of Tora Bora and the Shah-
i-Kot valley, some were trying to make their way to the Arab states in
the Persian Gulf. Some were simply looking for a haven.
They soon arrived at Shakai, a remote region in South Waziristan of
tree-covered mountains and valleys. Venturing into nearby farming
villages, they asked local tribesmen if they could rent some of the
area=92s walled family compounds, paying two to three times the
impoverished area=92s normal rates as the militants began to lay new
roots.
=93They slowly, steadily from the mountainside tried to establish
communication,=94 recalled Mahmood Shah, the chief civilian
administrator of the tribal areas from 2001 to 2005.
In many ways, the foreigners were returning to their home base. In the
1980s, Mr. bin Laden and hundreds of Arab and foreign fighters backed
by the United States and Pakistan used the tribal areas as a staging
area for cross-border attacks on Soviet forces in Afghanistan.
The militants=92 flight did not go unnoticed by American intelligence
agencies, which began to re****t beginning in the spring of 2002 that
large numbers of foreigners appeared to be hiding in South Waziristan
and neighboring North Waziristan.
But Gen. Ali Mohammad Jan Aurakzai, the commander of Pakistani forces
in northwestern Pakistan, was skeptical. In an interview this year,
General Aurakzai recalled that he regarded the warnings as
=93guesswork,=94 and said that his soldiers =93found nothing,=94 even when
they pushed into dozens of square miles of territory that neither
Pakistani nor British forces had ever entered.
The general, a tall, commanding figure who was born in the tribal
areas, was Mr. Musharraf=92s main adviser on the border areas, according
to former Pakistani officials. For years, he would argue that American
officials exaggerated the threat in the tribal areas and that the
Pakistani Army should avoid causing a tribal rebellion at all costs.
Former American intelligence officials said General Aurakzai=92s sweeps
were slow-moving and easily avoided by militants. Robert L. Grenier,
the C.I.A. station chief in Islamabad from 1999 to 2002, said that
General Aurakzai was dismissive of the re****ts because he and other
Pakistani officials feared the kind of tribal uprising that could have
been touched off by more intrusive military operations. =93Aurakzai and
others didn=92t want to believe it because it would have been an
inconvenient fact,=94 Mr. Grenier recalled.
Signs of Militants Regrouping
Until recent elections pushed Mr. Musharraf off center stage in
Pakistan, senior Bush administration officials consistently praised
his cooperation in the Qaeda hunt.
Beginning shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Musharraf had
allowed American forces to use Pakistani bases to sup****t the American
invasion of Afghanistan, while Pakistani intelligence services worked
closely with the C.I.A. in tracking down Qaeda operatives. But from
their vantage point in Afghanistan, the picture looked different to
American Special Operations forces who saw signs that the militants
whom the Americans had driven out of Afghanistan were effectively
regrouping on the Pakistani side of the border.
When American military officials proposed in 2002 that Special
Operations forces be allowed to establish bases in the tribal areas,
Pakistan flatly refused. Instead, a small number of =93black=94 Special
Operations forces =97 Army Delta Force and Navy Seal units =97 were
allowed to accompany Pakistani forces on raids in the tribal areas in
2002 and early 2003.
That arrangement only angered both sides. American forces used to
operating on their own felt that the Pakistanis were limiting their
movements. And while Pakistani officials publicly denied the presence
of Americans, local tribesmen spotted the Americans and protested.
Under pressure from Pakistan, the Bush administration decided in 2003
to end the American military presence on the ground. In a recent
interview, Mr. Armitage said he had sup****ted the pullback in
recognition of the political risks that Mr. Musharraf had already
taken. =93We were pu****ng them almost to the breaking point,=94 Mr.
Armitage said.
The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 added another complicating
factor, by cementing a view among Pakistanis that American forces in
the tribal areas would be a prelude to an eventual American
occupation.
To have insisted that American forces be allowed to cross from
Afghanistan into Pakistan, Mr. Armitage added, =93might have been a
bridge too far.=94
Dealing With Musharraf
Mr. Bush=92s re-election in 2004 brought with it another problem once
the president overhauled his national security team. By early 2005,
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Mr. Armitage had resigned,
joining George J. Tenet, who had stepped down earlier as director of
central intelligence. Their departures left the administration with no
senior officials with close personal relation****ps with Mr. Musharraf.
In order to keep pressure on the Pakistanis about the tribal areas,
officials decided to have Mr. Bush raise the issue in personal phone
calls with Mr. Musharraf.
The conversations backfired. Two former United States government
officials say they were surprised and frustrated when instead of
demanding action from Mr. Musharraf, Mr. Bush repeatedly thanked him
for his contributions to the war on terrorism. =93He never pounded his
fist on the table and said, =91Pervez you have to do this,=92 =94 said a
former senior intelligence official who saw transcripts of the phone
conversations. But another senior administration official defended the
president, saying Mr. Bush had not gone easy on the Pakistani leader.
=93I would say the president pushes quite hard,=94 said the official, who
would speak about the confidential conversations only on condition of
anonymity. At the same time, the official said Mr. Bush was keenly
aware of the =93unique burden=94 that rested on any head of state, and had
the ability to determine =93what the traffic will bear=94 when applying
pressure to foreign leaders.
Tensions Within the C.I.A.
As attacks into Afghanistan by militants based in the tribal areas
continued, tensions escalated between the C.I.A. stations in Kabul and
Islamabad, whose lines of responsibility for battling terrorism were
blurred by the ****ous border that divides Afghanistan and Pakistan,
and whose disagreements reflected animosities between the countries.
Along with the Afghan government, the C.I.A. officers in Afghanistan
expressed alarm at what they saw as a growing threat from the tribal
areas. But the C.I.A. officers in Pakistan played down the problem, to
the extent that some colleagues in Kabul said their colleagues in
Islamabad were =93drinking the Kool-Aid,=94 as one former officer put it,
by accepting Pakistani assurances that no one could control the tribal
areas.
On several occasions, senior C.I.A. officials at agency headquarters
had to intervene to dampen tensions between the dueling C.I.A.
outposts. Other intragovernmental battles raged at higher altitudes,
most notably over the plan in early 2005 for a Special Operations
mission intended to capture Ayman al-Zawahri, Mr. bin Laden=92s top
deputy, in what would have been the most aggressive use of American
ground troops inside Pakistan. The New York Times disclosed the
aborted operation in a 2007 article, but interviews since then have
produced new details about the episode.
As described by current and former government officials, Mr. Zawahri
was believed by intelligence officials to be attending a meeting at a
compound in Bajaur, a tribal area, and the plan to send commandos to
capture him had the sup****t of ****ter J. Goss, the C.I.A. director,
and the Special Operations commander, Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal.
But even as members of the Navy Seals and Army Rangers in parachute
gear were boarding C-130 cargo planes in Afghanistan, there were
frenzied exchanges between officials at the Pentagon, Central Command
and the C.I.A. about whether the mission was too risky. Some
complained that the American commando force was too large, numbering
more than 100, while others argued that the intelligence was from a
single source and unreliable.
Mr. Goss urged the military to carry out the mission, and some C.I.A.
officials in Wa****ngton even tried to give orders to execute the raid
without informing Ryan C. Crocker, then the American ambassador in
Islamabad. But other C.I.A. officials were opposed to the raid,
including a former officer who said in an interview that he had =93told
the military guys that this thing was going to be the biggest folly
since the Bay of Pigs.=94
In the end, the mission was aborted after Mr. Rumsfeld refused to give
his approval for it. The decision remains controversial, with some
former officials seeing the episode as a squandered op****tunity to
capture a figure who might have led the United States to Mr. bin
Laden, while others dismiss its significance, saying that there had
been previous false alarms and that there remained no solid evidence
that Mr. Zawahri was present.
Bin Laden Hunt at Dead End
By late 2005, many inside the C.I.A. headquarters in Virginia had
reached the conclusion that their hunt for Mr. bin Laden had made
little progress since Tora Bora.
Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., who at the time ran the C.I.A.=92s clandestine
operations branch, decided in late 2005 to make a series of swift
changes to the agency=92s counterterrorism operations.
He replaced Mr. Grenier, the former Islamabad station chief who in
late 2004 took over as head of the agency=92s Counterterrorist Center.
The two men had barely spoken for months, and some inside the agency
believed this personality clash was beginning to affect C.I.A.
operations.
Mr. Grenier had worked to expand the agency=92s counterterrorism focus,
reinforcing operations in places like the Horn of Africa, Southeast
Asia and North Africa. He also reorganized and renamed Alec Station,
the secret C.I.A. unit formed in the 1990s to hunt Al Qaeda.
Mr. Grenier believed that the Counterterrorist Center and Alec Station
had both grown very rapidly since 2001 and needed to be restructured
to eliminate overlap.
But Mr. Rodriguez believed that the Qaeda hunt had lost its focus on
Mr. bin Laden and the militant threat in Pakistan.
So he appointed a new head of the Counterterrorist Center, who has not
been publicly identified, and sent dozens more C.I.A. operatives to
Pakistan. The new push was called Operation Cannonball, and Mr.
Rodriguez demanded urgency, but the response had a make****ft air.
There was nowhere to house an expanding headquarters staff, so giant
Quonset huts were erected outside the cafeteria on the C.I.A.=92s leafy
Virginia campus to house a new team assigned to the bin Laden mission.
In Pakistan, the new operation was staffed not only with C.I.A.
operatives drawn from around the world, but also with recent graduates
of =93the Farm,=94 the agency=92s training center at Camp Peary in
Virginia=
..
=93We had to put people out in the field who had less than ideal levels
of experience,=94 one former senior C.I.A. official said. =93But there
wasn=92t much to choose from.=94
One reason for this, according to two former intelligence officials
directly involved in the Qaeda hunt, was that by 2006 the Iraq war had
drained away most of the C.I.A. officers with field experience in the
Islamic world. =93You had a very finite number=94 of experienced officers,
said one former senior intelligence official. =93Those people all went
to Iraq. We were all hurting because of Iraq.=94
Surge in Suicide Bombings
The increase had little impact in Pakistan, where militants only
continued to gain strength. In the spring of 2006, Taliban leaders
based in Pakistan launched an offensive in southern Afghanistan,
increasing suicide bombings by sixfold and American and NATO casualty
rates by 45 percent. At the same time, they assassinated tribal elders
in Pakistan who were cooperating with the government.
Once again, Pakistani Army units launched a military campaign in the
tribal areas. Once again, they suffered heavy casualties.
And once again, Mr. Musharraf turned to General Aurakzai to deal with
the problem. Having retired from the Pakistani Army, General Aurakzai
had become the governor of North-West Frontier Province, and he
immediately began negotiating with the militants. On Sept. 5, 2006,
General Aurakzai signed a truce with militants in North Waziristan,
one in which the militants agreed to surrender to local tribes and
carry out no further attacks in Afghanistan.
To help sell Wa****ngton on the deal, Mr. Musharraf brought General
Aurakzai to the Oval Office several weeks later.
In a presentation to Mr. Bush, General Aurakzai advocated a strategy
that would rely even more heavily on cease-fires, and said striking
deals with the Taliban inside Afghanistan could allow American forces
to withdraw from Afghanistan within seven years.
But the cease-fire in Waziristan had disastrous consequences. In the
months after the agreement was signed, cross-border incursions from
the tribal areas into Afghanistan rose by 300 percent. Some American
officials began to refer to General Aurakzai as a =93s**** oil
salesman.=94
A Rising Terror Threat
By the fall of 2006, the top American commander in Afghanistan had had
enough.
Intelligence re****ts were painting an increasingly dark picture of the
terrorism threat in the tribal areas. But with senior Bush
administration officials consumed for much of that year with the
spiraling violence in Iraq, the Qaeda threat in Pakistan was not at
the top of the White House agenda.
Mr. Bush had declared in a White House news conference that fall that
Al Qaeda was =93on the run.=94
To get Wa****ngton=92s attention, the commander, Lt. Gen. Karl W.
Eikenberry, ordered military officers, Special Operations forces and
C.I.A. operatives to assemble a dossier showing Pakistan=92s role in
allowing militants to establish a haven.
Behind the general=92s order was a broader feeling of outrage within the
military =97 at a terrorist war that had been outsourced to an
unreliable ally, and at the grim fact that America=92s most deadly enemy
had become stronger.
For months, military officers inside a walled-off compound at Bagram
Air Base in Afghanistan, where a branch of the military=92s classified
Joint Special Operations Command is based, had grown increasingly
frustrated at what they saw as missed op****tunities in the tribal
areas.
American commanders had been pressing for much of 2006 to get approval
from Mr. Rumsfeld for an operation to capture Sheik Saiid al-Masri, a
top Qaeda operator and paymaster whom American intelligence had been
tracking in the Pakistani mountains.
Mr. Rumsfeld and his staff were reluctant to approve the mission,
worried about possible American military casualties and a popular
backlash in Pakistan.
Finally, in November 2006, Mr. Rumsfeld approved a plan for Navy Seal
and Army Delta Force commandos to move into Pakistan and capture Mr.
Masri. But the operation was put on hold days later, after Mr.
Rumsfeld was pushed out of the Pentagon, a casualty of the Democratic
sweep of the 2006 election.
When General Eikenberry presented his dossier to several members of
Mr. Bush=92s cabinet, some inside the State Department and the C.I.A.
dismissed the briefing as exaggerated and simplistic. But the White
House took note of his warnings, and decided to send Vice President
Dick Cheney to Islamabad in March 2007, along with Stephen R. Kappes,
the deputy C.I.A. director, to register American concern.
That visit was the beginning of a more aggressive effort by the
administration to pressure Pakistan=92s government into stepping up its
fight. The decision last year to draw up the Pentagon order
authorizing for a Special Operations campaign in the tribal areas was
part of that effort.
But the fact that the order remains unsigned reflects the infighting
that persists. Administration lawyers and State Department officials
are concerned about any new authorities that would allow military
missions to be launched without the approval of the American
ambassador in Islamabad. With Qaeda operatives now described in
intelligence re****ts as deeply entrenched in the tribal areas and
immersed in the civilian population, there is also a view among some
military and C.I.A. officials that the op****tunity for decisive
American action against the militants may have been lost.
Pakistani military officials, meanwhile, express growing frustration
with the American pressure, and point out that Pakistan has lost more
than 1,000 members of its security forces in the tribal areas since
2001, nearly double the number of Americans killed in Afghanistan.
Some architects of America=92s efforts in Pakistan defend the Bush
administration=92s record in the tribal areas, and vigorously deny that
Wa****ngton took its eye off the terrorist threat as it focused on Iraq
policy. Some also question whether Mr. bin Laden and Mr. Zawahri, Al
Qaeda=92s top two leaders, are really still able to orchestrate large-
scale attacks.
=93I do wonder if it=92s in fact the case that Al Qaeda has really
reconstituted itself to a pre-9/11 capability, and in fact I would say
I seriously doubt that,=94 said Mr. Crocker, the American ambassador to
Pakistan between 2004 and 2006 and currently the ambassador to Iraq.
=93Their top-level leader****p is still out there, but they=92re not
communicating and they=92re not moving around. I think they=92re symbolic
more than operationally effective,=94 Mr. Crocker said.
But while Mr. Bush vowed early on that Mr. bin Laden would be captured
=93dead or alive,=94 the moment in late 2001 when Mr. bin Laden and his
followers escaped at Tora Bora was almost certainly the last time the
Qaeda leader was in American sights, current and former intelligence
officials say. Leading terrorism experts have warned that it is only a
matter of time before a major terrorist attack planned in the
mountains of Pakistan is carried out on American soil.
=93The United States faces a threat from Al Qaeda today that is
comparable to what it faced on Sept. 11, 2001,=94 said Seth Jones, a
Pentagon consultant and a terrorism expert at the RAND Cor****ation.
=93The base of operations has moved only a short distance, roughly the
difference from New York to Philadelphia.=94
Mark Mazzetti re****ted from Wa****ngton, and David Rohde from
Wa****ngton and Islamabad, Peshawar and Rawalpindi, Pakistan. David E.
Sanger contributed re****ting from Wa****ngton.
2.
June 30, 2008
U.S. Advised Iraqi Ministry on Oil Deals
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
A group of American advisers led by a small State Department team
played an integral part in drawing up contracts between the Iraqi
government and five major Western oil companies to develop some of the
largest fields in Iraq, American officials say.
The disclosure, coming on the eve of the contracts=92 announcement, is
the first confirmation of direct involvement by the Bush
administration in deals to open Iraq=92s oil to commercial development
and is likely to stoke criticism.
In their role as advisers to the Iraqi Oil Ministry, American
government lawyers and private-sector consultants provided template
contracts and detailed suggestions on drafting the contracts, advisers
and a senior State Department official said.
It is unclear how much influence their work had on the ministry=92s
decisions.
The advisers =97 who, along with the diplomatic official, spoke on
condition of anonymity =97 say that their involvement was only to help
an understaffed Iraqi ministry with technical and legal details of the
contracts and that they in no way helped choose which companies got
the deals.
Repeated calls to the Oil Ministry=92s press office for comment were not
returned.
At a time of spiraling oil prices, the no-bid contracts, in a country
with some of the world=92s largest untapped fields and potential for
vast profits, are a rare prize to the industry. The contracts are
expected to be awarded Monday to Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, Total and
Chevron, as well as to several smaller oil companies.
The deals have been criticized by opponents of the Iraq war, who
accuse the Bush administration of working behind the scenes to ensure
Western access to Iraqi oil fields even as most other oil-ex****ting
countries have been sharply limiting the roles of international oil
companies in development.
For its part, the administration has repeatedly denied steering the
Iraqis toward decisions. =93Iraq is a sovereign country, and it can make
decisions based on how it feels that it wants to move forward in its
development of its oil resources,=94 said Dana Perino, the White House
spokeswoman.
Though enriched by high prices, the companies are starved for new oil
fields. The United States government, too, has eagerly encouraged
investment anywhere in the world that could provide new oil to
alleviate the exceptionally tight global supply, which is a cause of
high prices.
Iraq is particularly attractive in that light, because in addition to
its vast reserves, it has the potential to bring new sources of oil
onto the market relatively cheaply.
As sabotage on oil ex****t pipelines has declined with improved
security, this potential is closer to being realized. American
military officials say the pipelines now have excess capacity, waiting
for output to increase at the fields.
But any perception of American meddling in Iraq=92s oil policies
threatens to inflame opinion against the United States, particularly
in Arab nations that are skeptical of American intentions in Iraq,
which has the third-largest oil reserves in the world.
=93We pretend it is not a centerpiece of our motivation, yet we keep
confirming that it is,=94 Frederick D. Barton, senior adviser at the
Center for Strategic and International Studies in Wa****ngton, said in
a telephone interview. =93And we undermine our own veracity by citing
issues like sovereignty, when we have our hands right in the middle of
it.=94
United States officials are directly advising Iraq on a host of
issues, from electricity to education. But they have avoided the
limelight when questions turn to how Iraq should manage its oil
endowment, insisting that a decision must rest with the Iraqi
government.
The State Department advisers on the Western contracts say they
purposely avoid trying to shape Iraqi policy.
=93They have not negotiated with the international oil companies since
the 1970s,=94 said the senior State Department official, who was
speaking about Iraqi oil officials and who is directly involved in
shaping United States energy policy in Iraq.
The advice on the drafting of the contracts was not binding, he said,
and sometimes the ministry chose to ignore it. =93The ministry did not
have to take our advice,=94 he said, adding that the Iraqis had also
turned to the Norwegian government for counsel. =93It has been their
sole decision.=94
The advisers say they were not involved in advancing the oil
companies=92 interests, but rather treated the Oil Ministry as a client,
the State Department official said. =93I do not see this as a conflict
of interest,=94 he said. A potential area of criticism, however, is that
only Western companies got the bigger oil contracts. In particular,
Russian companies that have experience in Iraq and had sought
development contracts are still waiting.
Earlier in the occupation of Iraq, American advisers sup****ted the Oil
Ministry=92s effort to dismiss claims by the Russian company Lukoil to a
large Saddam Hussein-era deal. The ministry maintains that the Hussein
government canceled the contract three months before the invasion.
Lukoil says the attempt to cancel the deal was illegal because Mr.
Hussein had not appealed to international arbitration first, as
required in the contract terms.
The new oil contracts have also become a significant political issue
in the United States.
Three Democratic senators, led by Charles E. Schumer of New York, sent
a letter to the State Department last week asking that the deals be
delayed until after the Iraqi Parliament p***** a hydrocarbons law
outlining the distribution of oil revenues and regulatory matters.
They contend the contracts could deepen political tensions in Iraq and
endanger American soldiers.
Criticism like that has prompted objections by the Bush administration
and the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, who say the deals are
purely commercial matters. Ms. Rice, speaking on Fox News this month,
said: =93The United States government has stayed out of the matter of
awarding the Iraq oil contracts. It=92s a private sector matter.=94
Advisers from the State, Commerce, Energy and Interior Departments are
assigned to work with the Iraqi Oil Ministry, according to the senior
diplomat. In addition, the United States Agency for International
Development has a contract for Management Systems International, a
Wa****ngton consulting firm, to advise the oil and other ministries.
The agency=92s program is called Tatweer, the Arabic word for
development.
=93The legal department of the Ministry of Oil passed us a draft of the
contract,=94 Samir Abid, a Canadian of Iraqi origin who is an employee
of the Tatweer program, said in a telephone interview. =93They passed it
to us and asked for our comments because we were mentoring them.=94
He added: =93It was an exercise in deciding how best to do these
contracts. I don=92t know if they used our comments or not.=94
In a statement, the agency said its advisers had reviewed the oil
company contracts, known as technical sup****t agreements: =93At the
request of the Ministry of Oil, the Tatweer Energy Team has done a
review of the format, structure and clarity of language of blank draft
contracts.=94
The statement said the team did not have access to confidential
information from the oil companies.
Consultants said the advice was necessary because the Oil Ministry,
like other sectors of the Iraqi government, has experienced an exodus
of qualified employees and lacks lawyers schooled in drawing up
contracts.
A supervisor with the Tatweer program, who was not authorized to speak
publicly and declined to be quoted by name, said that ministry
officials, many of them near retirement, needed help.
The American government lawyers provided specific advice, the State
Department official said, like: =93These are the clauses you may want.
You will need a clause on arbitration. You will need this clause to
make this work.=94
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