Bush-Linked Texas Company Signs Oil Deal With Kurds

By Joe Kay
Sep 15, 2007


Earlier this month, the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq announced that it had signed a production-sharing deal with Texas-based Hunt Oil. The move is an indication that Western oil companies, frustrated over the delay in the passage of a national oil law by the Iraqi government, are moving to make deals with regional bodies to get access to Iraq’s vast oil reserves.

As significant as the deal itself is the identity of the company involved. Ray Hunt, the CEO and president of privately held Hunt Oil, is a close confidant of President Bush and a prominent figure in the US political and intelligence establishment.

To what extent the policy of the Bush administration is motivating the deal—and to what extent it is motivated by purely profit interests—cannot be determined with precision. However, the announcement comes at a time of growing strains between the Iraqi national government, led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and the Bush administration. Many commentators have noted that the moves by Kurdish authorities to establish autonomy in the control of the region’s oil resources could contribute to a fracturing of the Iraqi state along sectarian lines.

Hussain al-Shahristani, the Iraqi oil minister in the Maliki cabinet, denounced the agreement, saying, “Any oil deal has no standing as far as the government of Iraq is concerned. All these contracts have to be approved by the Federal Authority before they are legal. This [contract] was not presented for approval. It has no standing.” full text