Is the President Paving the Way for U.S. Control of Iraqi Oil?
October 20th, 2008
President Bush apparently believes that he may need to seize control of Iraq’s oil fields and control Iraqi oil at some time in the future.
It’s hard to see any other logic behind the signing statement he issued last week rejecting a provision in the military funding authorization bill that prohibited using funds to “exercise United States control over the oil resources of Iraq.” The president said in his signing statement that this provision would “inhibit” his constitutional authority as commander in chief to protect national security. The executive branch would construe the provision, he said, “in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority and obligations of the President.” In other words, the president will pay no attention to the law that Congress wrote.
The president’s signing statement sounds like he’s trying to pave the way for U.S. control of Iraqi oil. This may sound preposterous in the U.S., as it comes from a president with only three more months left to govern. But it can hardly sound reassuring to Iraqis—and particularly to Iraqi lawmakers, as they prepare to take up a U.S.-Iraq status of forces agreement that would allow the U.S. military to remain in Iraqi until the end of 2011 and give Iraq’s government the option of extending the U.S. presence further without the approval of the Iraqi parliament.
What is the president thinking? That a successor, if not he himself, should seize the natural resources of a foreign country if that president deems it necessary for national security? It seems so. Is this a corollary to the Bush doctrine of preventive war? It certainly appears to be, and a corollary that needs to be repudiated by the next president, along with the doctrine of preventive war.
-Jim Fine, Legislative Secretary
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