US Bill bans permanent bases, control of oil in Iraq

Well nothing is forever. I guess that is the moral of this bill. Or maybe the moral is that disguising policy by denial has bipartisan support. If there is no desire to control oil why is the new oil bill giving oil companies a much freer hand and privatising much oil except in name so important as a benchmark. How is it that the bases in Iraq are being expanded and that the US embassy is going to be the largest in the world. The US may not be in Iraq permanently but it will certainly be there as in Korea for the indefinite future.

WASHINGTON, July 25 (UPI) -- The U.S. House overwhelmingly approved a bill Wednesday forbidding permanent U.S. bases and any U.S. control over Iraq's oil.

The bill, approved 399-24, bans any funds appropriated by Congress from being used "to establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq" or "to exercise United States economic control of the oil resources of Iraq."

It comes as the Democratic Party tepidly challenges President Bush's war policies. The party is moving toward demanding that troops be pulled from Iraq by a certain time, which Bush has criticized as hampering any chance of success in the more than four-year-old war.

Both Iraqis and campaigners around the world have raised the issue of U.S. insistence on a less nationalized oil sector in Iraq and pressure for the government to approve a controversial oil law.

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., who introduced the bill, said in a House floor statement the law "makes a clear statement of policy that the U.S. does not intend to maintain an open-ended military presence in Iraq and that we won't exercise control over Iraqi oil, and it backs that policy up with the power of the purse."

The law capitalized on Bush officials' historic insistence that there is no plan to create permanent bases in Iraq, mixed with a more recent message from White House spokesman Tony Snow that the "Korea model" is being looked at. U.S. troops are still in South Korea.

"Putting Congress on record with this clear statement helps take the targets off our troops' backs and it support our goals of handing over responsibility for security and public safety to Iraqi forces," Lee said.