Hunt Oil, Kurdistan, CBS, Waxman and State Dept.
By kowalski Posted in Democrats — Comments (8) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
This morning CBS/Politico are running a very tersely worded and rhetorically loaded little story [HT Drudge] about the oil deal between Hunt Oil and the Kurdistan Regional Government, consummated in 2007.
It look and reads like they're trying to use it to show the President was somehow negligent in his oversight of the deal, and then insinuate that it has caused problems in the Iraqi oil-sharing agreement process. Side note: they say that the deal "complicated negotiations" for an oil-sharing agreement. And...so what...does that mean? Anything can complicate the process of a negotiation as complex as the Iraqi oil-sharing agreement, but that doesn't necessarily mean those complications are intrinsically wrong, or undesirable. But I digress...
Documents uncovered by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform indicate that the White House probably shouldn’t have been so surprised. Among the many pieces of evidence that the administration knew and approved of the deal:
Read the article for the rest. They cite Commerce and State Department officials as being the ones in the Administration who were all over this one.
-- A Hunt Oil general manager said he met with nine State Department officials and none expressed opposition.
-- Five days after the announcement of the deal, a State Department official told Hunt officials about another “good opportunity in Iraq.”
For Immediate Release
September 8, 2007
Contact for Hunt Oil Company:
Jeanne Phillips
(214) 978-8534
Contact for Impulse Energy:
Matthew Heysel
(403) 681-2887
Three things are immediately curious about this article:
1) The deal between Hunt Oil and the Kurdistan Regional Government was inked back in September of 2007 -- almost 10 months ago -- and announced in a press release from Hunt Oil itself. Yet CBS and Henry Waxman have decided that it's newsworthy today, and are unveiling it as though it was a state secret (pun intended) in July of 2008, nearly ten months later.
2) The article states that the President said that he "know[s] nothing about the deal" -- which prompts me to ask: Isn't that exactly what he should know about the deal unless the State Department found something wrong with it and reported that to him? Unless he wanted to give the appearance of riding roughshod over the State Department or having a direct conflict of interest in the deal itself?
3) There are supposedly 9 people at the State Department who met with representatives of Hunt Oil and apparently shephered this agreement through. Why does Henry Waxman think something was wrong if the State Department didn't?
This is only the tip of the tail of this hit piece, I'm sure. We need some deeper blogospheric investigation on this one.
It still really doesn't answer my first question: which is how this is becoming news today even though Hunt Oil released a press statement about the deal waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in 2007. I know Shakespeare wrote something about the wheels of government turning slowly, but even for Waxman this has to be some kind of a record if there was a real objection to the deal. I mean, how many American oil companies were there making deals in Kurdistan? It looks like Waxman wasn't doing his job and neither were the people in the State Department, if they're complaining about it on the merits...
to enter into agreements with regard to developing their oil fields, then there is no reason that anyone else should have been involved. If the KRG didn't have the authority, then the agreement isn't valid anyway.
The only "complication" I can think of is there may be some factions who think the KRG shouldn't have such authority even though it does posses the authority.
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and that he should sit down and shut up. (I know that's not always the smartest thing to say to a senator, but really, this guy is an idiot of the first order.)
Socialism doesn't work. It looks nice on paper, but it's been tried and it's failed miserably every time (usually accompanied by widespread death and suffering).
Proud member of the V.R.W.C.
Unless the President can't trust the State Department. And I have no idea why anyone would think such a thing.
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My guess is Waxman ceases and desists when it turns out that if there is anything wrong here, and it is unlikely, the blame rests at State, a/k/a Democrats in Exile.
Especially since Hunt Oil announced the agreement in a press release almost a year ago and apparently 9 people at the State Department vetted it, plus some unnamed people in the Commerce Department. I mean, if Waxman really wanted to raise an objection to the deal, he really should start with the people who approved it and encouraged it.
The International Herald Tribune (which is owned by the New York Times) has an article up about this kerfuffle and a fair reading of the article is that the State Department is culpable for whatever Waxman is complaining about.
Will Henry Waxman investigate the 9 people at the State Department who knew about the deal and apparently supported it enthusiastically while leaving the President in the dark about it? Who were those people?
CBS/Politico has a precise number of who they were, but surprisingly it doesn't have any names, the places they worked, who their supervisors were, what their political affiliation is, etc., etc.
Identifying those public servants at the State Department would be a good first step for Henry Waxman if he would like to investigate this matter a little further, but so far I haven't heard anything much. Have you?