Abstract
Greg Muttitt adroitly demolishes the myth that the Iraq invasion in 2003 was a mission civilisatrice and the persistent denial by the US and UK governments that it had anything to do with oil. Here we have the testimony of an activist who immersed himself in the politics of Iraqi oil for almost a decade. Not only did he doggedly make Freedom of Information (FOI) inquiries for years in the UK to obtain vital minutes of meetings, but he also followed the machinations of oil monopolies, governments and think-tanks and interviewed key players. By also engaging with the Iraqi oil trade unions resisting to the privatisation of oil, he unravels for us the web of deceit permeating the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
He provides a chronicle in five parts: the first recalls the struggle over oil over the last eighty years; the second from the invasion to mid-2004 when the occupation set in; the third describes the spiralling violence as US counterinsurgency asserted control; the fourth begins with the formation of the new government in spring 2006, when the occupying powers pressed for the oil law, which led to a popular campaign against it. The final section, from 2007 onwards, is about how the oil monopolies gradually took over control of the oil fields.
The brief historical detour is a salutary reminder of the tortuous history of Iraq since its colonisation in 1914 by the British. Despite the 1958 revolution and the coup in 1963 that decimated the socialist and nationalist resistance movements, the long struggle over the control of oil ended in 1972 with nationalisation. Despite the political repression, there followed a seven-year ‘golden period’, when, free from foreign control, Iraqi experts and workers doubled oil production and produced six million barrels of new oil per year – enabling unprecedented modernisation of the Iraqi economy and public sector. This ended after 1979 with Saddam Hussein’s seizure of the presidency, the war against Iran, the Gulf War in 1990 and the subsequent sanctions, all of which reduced the Iraqi economy to a pre-industrial level. Muttitt has nothing but praise for Iraqi engineers and workers who were able to maintain production with great ingenuity through all those turbulent years.
The media conveys the impression that Iraq is mired in sectarian violence without ever questioning why. Against the background of the destruction of the Iraqi state and public sector, displacement and loss of life and limb, Muttitt shows that the US encouraged sectarian politics right from the beginning – which then became the main driver of strife. Simultaneously, the erasing of Iraqi institutions, such as the army, and the political cleansing of key personnel made Iraq dependent on the US for both its security and economic development. Two years of rule by decree followed by the sham parliamentary elections in 2005 was a caricature of democracy, with an Arab façade providing legitimacy for the occupation. The author shows how the state grafted on to Iraqi society is essentially based on shifting patronage between different sectarian parties.
By far the most important story Muttitt tells is the long struggle over the control of oil, Iraq’s vital national resource. He demonstrates how planning to take control of Iraqi oil began over a decade ago, intensified well before the invasion and became relentless during the occupation. The embedding of the free market in a legal framework by decree set out from the beginning to privatise the entire economy. It was not only the multinationals and US government that exerted pressure, but also a range of international institutions, from the UN to the IMF and World Bank, as well as think-tanks that shaped the agenda and future options. Their ‘tactics’ included publishing reports, holding conferences, insisting on debt repayment, restricting access to international funds, threatening to partition Iraq, sacking dissident professionals, employing compliant cadres, deploying advisers linked to oil monopolies, suppressing trade union activity and building up compliant social networks. Here military and diplomatic efforts converged: the strategy being to push for long-term contracts in so-called ‘production sharing agreements’ that were to the financial disadvantage of Iraq, and to ensure that oil monopolies would be immune from any future decisions by any Iraqi government.
Muttitt vividly captures how, when the covert draft oil law was leaked, resistance spread across all sectors of Iraqi society irrespective of religious sect or ethnicity, showing a political shift to a more nationalistic configuration. Here is the most trenchant account of the emergence of an independent trade union movement, its obdurate leadership, its fight for better conditions, its mobilisation against privatisation, the prohibition on its activity and, finally, its endurance against all odds. This ensured that the oil law did not pass through parliament after eighteen months of US efforts.
Meanwhile, over the years, the oil industry was left to decline through deliberate lack of investment. As two generations of Iraqi experts were gradually sidelined through disappearances, death, exile or sackings, the possibility of a sovereign Iraq controlling its own oil receded. A weak government used its executive power to auction off the oil fields to international companies under secret contracts never approved by the parliament. In the absence of accountability, with endemic government corruption and public sector malfeasance, Muttitt argues, the Iraqi people are not likely to benefit from any growth in oil production.
This riveting book, written in a brisk and jargon-free style, ends on a positive note – the capacity of Iraqi civil society to overcome obstacles and to shape its future. It attests to Iraq as a portent of the resource wars to come this century.