| Revealing information that shouldn't be revealed: that's the NYT. |
Baghdad, Jun 30, (VOI) - 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, the New York Times quoted American officials as saying.
“The disclosure, coming on the eve of the contracts’ announcement, is the first confirmation of direct involvement by the Bush administration in deals to open Iraq’s oil to commercial development and is likely to stoke criticism,” the paper said.
| Everything that's done stokes criticism. Issue is whether we have any business providing advice, and whether the process is transparent enough to keep the Iraqis happy. |
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’s decisions,” it added. “The advisers — who, along with the diplomatic official, spoke on condition of anonymity — 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,” the paper noted.
| There you go: that's how much influence. Of course the NYT can't accept that. If we weren't helping the Iraqis and as a result the Oil Ministry wasn't getting anything done, we'd be blamed for that too. |
For its part, the administration has repeatedly denied steering the Iraqis toward decisions. “Iraq 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,” said Dana Perino, the White House spokeswoman. |