Criminal and Iranian spy Chalabi: OIL MINISTER OF IRAQ. Giggle-giggle.
The question is this: did he really have a falling out with the Shrub admin or is he still in cahoots with them? He did, after all, sit next to facelift Laura at the SOTU. If so, he's in a perfect position to award massive steal-from-the-Iraqi-people contracts that will make Saddam look like a mere shop-lifter.
IRAQ: Of course it's only ever been about the oil. Redstate Americans are sooooooooooooooooo stupid, sending their children to die to fill up their neighbor's SUV.
===========
"...That would leave Chalabi, who has no expertise in oil, steering the oil industry of the country with the third largest reserves through a turbulent period of suicide bombings and frequent attacks on pipelines.
A Jordanian military court found Chalabi guilty of fraud in 1992. He denied the charges, fled Jordan and filed a law suit in the United States accusing the Jordanian government of framing him.
DAUNTING TASK
Chalabi, a Shi'ite, replaces veteran oil technocrat Thamir al-Ghadbhan at the oil ministry's helm.
Unlike his predecessors Ghadhban and Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum, Chalabi -- scion of a Baghdad merchant family -- has no experience in the state-owned oil sector that employs 80,000.
He, too, will face the daunting task of trying to boost oil production in a country where insurgents frequently target oil pipelines as part of a campaign to topple the government.
It remains to be seen if and how Chalabi will negotiate with U.S. companies interested in developing Iraq's oil reserves, the third largest in the Arab Middle East.
Chalabi, once a staunch U.S. ally, was also named deputy prime minister, marking his political resurgence in a country with many sectarian minefields.
He has been working to make political ties with influential Iraqi leaders, such as top Shi'ite cleric Ali al-Sistani. He also has business connections.
But many Iraqis resent Chalabi and other politicians because they say they spent many years abroad while people who lived under Saddam Hussein's iron grip suffered.
Some Western and Iraqi oil executives expressed concern that Chalabi would install his people in the oil ministry and turn contracts political in a country where sectarian tensions have been running high.
"Chalabi won't let go of the oil ministry that easily -- now that he's finally got what he wants," said an Iraqi oil executive. wireservice.wired.com |
