SEEN: Operation Oily Immunity

Seen.org has an interesting article where authors Steve Kretzmann and Jim Vallette discuss the ramifications of Executive Order 13303, which seems to give Oil Companies extreme leeway in their actions and practices in Iraq. Here is a quote from the article:

"For the Bush/Cheney administration and their allies in the oil industry, this was not enough. Hours after the UN endorsed US control of the 'Development Fund' for Iraq, Bush signed an executive order that was spun as implementing Resolution 1483, but in reality, went much further towards attracting investment and minimizing risk for US corporations in Iraq. Executive Order 13303 decrees that 'any attachment, judgment, decree, lien, execution, garnishment, or other judicial process is prohibited, and shall be deemed null and void', with respect to the Development Fund for Iraq and 'all Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products, and interests therein.' In other words, if ExxonMobil or ChevronTexaco touch Iraqi oil, it will be immune from legal proceedings in the US. Anything that could go, and elsewhere has gone, awry with U.S. corporate oil operations will be immune to judgment: a massive tanker accident; an explosion at an oil refinery; the employment of slave labor to build a pipeline; murder of locals by corporate security; the release of billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The President, with a stroke of the pen, signed away the rights of Saddam's victims, creditors and of the next true Iraqi government to be compensated through legal action. Bush's order unilaterally declares Iraqi oil to be the unassailable province of U.S. corporations. "