Bush Supported Iraq Oil Deal Benefiting his Texas Friend

More proof that Iraq war was about oil:

U.S. officials condoned Hunt Oil Co. efforts to obtain an exploration deal with Iraq’s Kurdish regional government, contrary to public statements discouraging it, according to documents cited by a congressional committee.

When the agreement was announced in September, it was criticized as undermining efforts to strengthen Iraq central government, which still had no national oil revenue-sharing law.

Bush administration officials expressed public concern and denied any knowledge of the contract.

On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman released e-mails and letters obtained by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that appeared to show the opposite.

“Contrary to the denials of administration officials, advisors to the president and officials in the State and Commerce Departments knew about Hunt Oil’s interest in the Kurdish region months before the contract was executed,” Waxman, a California Democrat, wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

[...]“You and other administration officials have denied playing any role in these contracts. In the case of Hunt Oil, however, similar denials appear to have been misleading,” Waxman wrote.

This follows recent news that Western oil companies would get access to Iraq's large reserves.

Iraq is close to signing oil service deals with several major Western oil companies in an effort to boost its output capacity, the country's oil ministry said Thursday — the first major Iraqi contracts with big Western companies since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

[...]The deals, once signed, are something of a stopgap measure to help Iraq begin to increase production until the country is able to approve a new national oil law — now held up by political squabbles among Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

But they also could mark the beginning of an important long-term toehold by big Western companies into Iraq's potentially lucrative oil industry, by giving the companies a bidding advantage over other companies in the future.

You can tell the fix is in when the Iraqi government is trying to cover-up the deal:

Iraq's oil ministry spokesman would not name the companies set to get the deals.

But last December, four major companies — Royal Dutch Shell PLC, BP PLC, ExxonMobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. — submitted technical and financial proposals for the five oil fields and received counterproposals from the Iraqi side.

The New York Times reported Thursday that Shell, BP and Exxon Mobil, plus Total, were the four major companies close to signing deals, along with Chevron and some smaller companies.