American Samizdat

Tuesday, August 07, 2007. *
A private contractor tasked with training Iraqi oil- and gas-sector officials on matter pertaining to international trade agreements and law is being hired by the U.S. Dept. of Commerce. Lex Mercatoria, a London-based publishing house and consultancy, will be responsible under the contract to provide "technical assistance to Iraq to ensure that laws and regulations pertaining directly or indirectly to the Iraqi oil and gas sector are compliant with international trade law, with international trade agreements to which Iraq is, or may become, a party...", according to a recently obtained contracting document.

In an unusual move, the FedBizOpps database where the Commerce document was located, the Aug. 5 presolicitation notice was archived the same day it was uploaded to the federal contract-opportunities system; in other words, the document was immediately removed from the daily listing of business dealings made public by the government. Only a word-specific search by The Peacock Report of the FedBizOpps archives produced evidence of this contracting action.


So, the oil companies are getting the taxpayers to cover the expense of their advisers. Not only is the occupation of Iraq for the benefit of big oil, the so called hydrocarbon law is written to benefit big oil, and the people who are supposed to write this law are hired under less than transparent conditions and their salaries are to come from the federal government rather than big oil.

I am beginning to think that there may be a bit of corruption in Washington DC.
posted by Uncle $cam at 5:53 PM
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