Kurd PM: French, Russians to lose Iraq oil

UPI ^ | 3/14/03 | Martin Walker

[jwalsh07]

Pressure from the inside out. Putin, you listening?

[ladtx]

French and Russian oil and gas contracts signed with the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq "will not be honored," Kurdish Prime Minister Barhim Salih said in Washington Friday.....

Welllll, the plot thickens.

[areafiftyone]

I only have 2 words - Snicker snicker!!!

[Chad Fairbanks]

Ouch! That's gonna leave a mark...

[a_Turk]

>> Senior officers at border crossing have asked us to let them know when the moment (for attack) comes so they can escape.

Uh, oh..

[craig_eddy]

So, the French and Russians (both salad dressings I used to like) have these nice contracts. They won't be honored if the Kurds (or anyone else probably) take over because they will be invalid (the other party in the deal, Saddam's government, will no longer exist) and they won't take effect until the sanctions are lifted.

Both countries know that at this point we will veto any resolution lifing sanctions, so their only course of action is the same as Saddam's: delay, delay, delay, obsctruct, obstruct. And someday our attention will be turned elsewhere (N. Korea?) and then they can slip it to Iraq and get that oil.

[Eowyn-of-Rohan]

WONDERFUL!! Your play Messieurs Chirac et Putin!! ;D

[Constitution Day]

Bwahahaha!

[swarthyguy]

Will Turkey move on Mosul or Kirkuk or both to secure the oilfields for themselves? These were parts of Turkey before the British broke them off to create Iraq.

[SamAdams76]

"A new Iraqi government should not honor any of these contracts, signed against the interests of the Iraqi people. The new Iraqi government should respect those who stood by us, and not those who stood beside the dictator," Salih added.

Amen to that! Those who stood by this "BREW DALL" dictator deserve what's coming to them.

[1Old Pro]

LOL, I think the rench, Germans, and Russians - as well as the Mexicans - are making mistakes here that haunt them for years.

[el_texicano]

If the Turks move on Northern Iraq to grab those oilfields, there may be some hell to pay...as in payback for the blocking of US troops.

[tomahawk]

Da, oui, yes!!!!

[ncooper777]

CHA-CHING!

[Plutarch]

The only democratically elected political leader in Iraq... The Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq... has become an island of democratic and representative government.

I thought that these Middle Eastern types were incapable of self-government, and thus it was foolhardy for the U.S. to even try to establish such a Government. Why, it appears we already have!

Maybe someone should inform the New York Times of this flowering of Democracy. I am sure they'll run a above the fold feature.

[Mo1]

"A new Iraqi government should not honor any of these contracts, signed against the interests of the Iraqi people. The new Iraqi government should respect those who stood by us, and not those who stood beside the dictator," Salih added.

Hey France, Russia and Germany .. can you say .. YOU ARE SCREWED!

[AFreeBird]

So, the French and Russians (both salad dressings I used to like)

Think Catalina. Works for me.

[a_Turk]

All we want regarding the wells is that those wells and pipelines come operational asap.

This guy was just last week given guarantees that we are not interested in conquest.

Our other interest is in the PKK terrorists gang which is hiding in northern Irak. If this guy is PM of alll of northern Irak, then we should have bent his ear while he was in Ankara a week ago..

They better not fight us when we get there en masse. We're not interested in slaughtering their militia, but hey.. I guess we could rent a few trench filling machines from the US.. Remember those? These earth moving machines used during GW1 would kill everything in the trench while dozering it shut. Very efficient...