03/05/10 Baltimore, Maryland – Iraq will pump up oil production from 2.4 million barrels a day now to 12 million barrels by 2017. That’s the promise of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who’d like to hold onto his job after elections on Sunday.
It’s not 2004 anymore. And it’s no longer in Washington’s interest to play up purple fingers in Iraqi elections. So let’s bring you up to speed on what’s been happening there since the “surge” was deemed a success:
- A bevy of suicide bombings this week went underreported in the US press. Three explosions just today killed 12 people. Chances are it’s the work of the Sunni minority, who’ve stayed quiet the last couple years because US troops paid them off to lie low – a key reason “the surge” has kept the fighting to a dull roar.
- The Sunnis are restless because the Shiite majority maneuvered recently to keep hundreds of Sunni candidates for parliament and local offices off the ballot. Of course, we were told the whole idea of “the surge” was to give Iraq’s factions breathing room to settle their differences. So much for that.
We still have 100,000 American troops in Babylon trying to make sure that non-American oil companies like BP and China National Petroleum Corp. have reasonably secure access to the giant Rumaila oil field. (ExxonMobil got a small consolation prize in the bidding.) We marvel at the spectacle.
Addison Wiggin
for The Daily Reckoning
Addison Wiggin
Addison Wiggin is the executive publisher of Agora Financial, LLC, a fiercely independent economic forecasting and financial research firm. He’s the creator and editorial director of Agora Financial’s daily 5 Min. Forecast and editorial director of The Daily Reckoning. Wiggin is the founder of Agora Entertainment, executive producer and co-writer of I.O.U.S.A., which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, the 2009 Critics Choice Award for Best Documentary Feature, and was also shortlisted for a 2009 Academy Award. He is the author of the companion book of the film I.O.U.S.A.and his second edition of The Demise of the Dollar… and Why it’s Even Better for Your Investments was just fully revised and updated. Wiggin is a three-time New York Times best-selling author whose work has been recognized by The New York Times Magazine, The Economist, Worth, The New York Times, The Washington Post as well as major network news programs. He also co-authored international bestsellers Financial Reckoning Day and Empire of Debt with Bill Bonner.
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President Obama says “America is no longer a Christian Nation.”
AG Eric Holder hires nine attorneys who previously defended Al Qaeda terrorists and wants to try all terrorists as though they were American citizens.
Yesterday the White House announced that Obama is going to hold a “Muslim Entrepreneurship Summit.” And now we see that foreign companies will have access / control over Iraqi oil fields.
It all makes perfect sense.
If you support the destruction of America.