Mark Steyn - Welcome to Anglo-Saxon reality

National Post ^ | Thursday, April 10, 2003 | Mark Steyn

[mafree]

Follow da oil bump!

[F-117A]

Inc's Cosy Deals with Iraq at Risk as War Looms

By Benoit Faucon and David Gauthier-Villars
Dow Jones Newswires
January 21, 2003

"For 30 years, French business has enjoyed a close relationship with Iraq. Baghdad has a French phone system, French cars are on the streets, and France's oil giant TotalFinaElf SA (TOT) has been working hard to get access to Iraq's massive oil reserves. But with a U.S.-led coalition threatening to march into Baghdad to topple President Saddam Hussein, France Inc. is worried that the relationship may be shattered - and that the big contracts to rebuild Iraq may instead go to U.S. rivals."

...

"The biggest loser could be TotalFinaElf. Iraq's oil potential suggests its exports could climb rapidly if sanctions were lifted to an estimated EUR25 billion per year from EUR3.2 billion in 2001. The French oil firm spent six years in the 1990s doing preparatory work on the giant Majnoon and Bin Umar oilfields, but it has no guarantee it will be named operator of the fields by Iraqi authorities on the day economic sanctions are removed."

source

[lainde]

Bttt

[Cincinatus' Wife]

***France, Germany, Russia, Belgium and Canada are not on the side of peace or morality or the Iraqi people. The pictures from the streets of Baghdad make that plain. But we are on the side of TotalFinaElf. Twice in recent columns, Diane Francis has mentioned, almost en passant, a curious little fact:

The Western oil company with the closest ties to the late Saddam is France's TotalFinaElf. That's not the curious fact, that's just business as usual in the Fifth Republic. This is the curious fact: As Diane wrote in February and again last week, "Total's biggest shareholder is Montreal's Paul Desmarais, whose youngest son is married to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's daughter."***

_______________________________________________

It's so like the Left to paint their opponent with the smears that belong to them. They don't want Iraqi liberation because of the oil.

[metesky]

One hopes...

[metesky]

Jean Chrétien is just a french rubber stamp, meekie!

Fixed.

[nicmarlo]

ROFL!!

[netmilsmom]

Ping.
Mark Steyn is a Canadian who get America and the world better than some Americans. He is worth getting on a Ping list for!
xxxooo

[Aquinasfan]

Like that event, this week's images mark the start of an epochal, transformational shift.

I expected a victory, and even the joy of liberation. But I didn't expect this at all. I'm now much more optimistic regarding the spread of democracy in the mideast, and I suspect that the author is right.

[MeekOneGOP]

LOL !

[headsonpikes]

"...Liberal somehow doesn't quite describe THAT man's depravity."

You're right; did I mention that he's also a lawyer?

[Grampa Dave]

Most of these whore$ who currently lead the countries who were in bed with Soddomite: hate America and have loved the money from their Cash Cow, Soddomite.

Follow the oil and the money, and we will understand a lot about the hatred of America. That hatred has been financed by Soddomite and his main Whores like France/Canada.

[rudypoot]

Thanks for managing the ping list pokey.

I think the axis of weasels are in a quagmire.

[rightwingreligiousfanatic]

LOL!

"Oh dear, I appear to be caught in a quagmire of gloating." Quote of the Day!

[Smile-n-Win]

Of course, it is typical for socialists to accuse their enemies of actions and motives for which they, the socialists, are the guilty ones.

Lesson Number One for fathoming the socialist mind:

"People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character."

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

[expatpat]

Good quote.

[Freakazoid]

that's to say, his daughter, France Chrétien, and his grandchildren.

Chrétien's daugther's name is France?

How pathetic!

[Lyford]

Steyn bump

[Eva]

The details of numbers behind the oil contracts have been posted but I don't remember the details, except to say that Russia's oil company, Lukoil, held the most contracts.