Benchmark Provision Proves War-Oil Connection, Kucinich Says

Anti-war Congressman Dennis Kucinich took to the House floor Wednesday to try to block legislation that would establish benchmarks for progress in the Iraq war, alleging that the measure hides the Bush administration's real motive - to "steal the oil resources of Iraq."

The supplemental military funding bill under consideration contains numerous benchmarks for progress in Iraq, including one for President Bush to report on whether the Iraqi government enacts "a broadly accepted hydro-carbon law that equitably shares oil revenues among all Iraqis."

But the Iraqi Parliament is already considering legislation backed by the Bush administration that would open up the majority of the country's oil fields to international investment and privatization, according to Kucinich.

In an hour-long address to a mostly empty House chamber, Kucinich, a long-shot contender for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, railed against the Iraqi legislation, calling it an "outrageous exploitation of a nation that is in shambles due to the American intervention."

"This [Bush] administration has pushed the Congress to put language in funding bills for Iraq that would set the stage for the privatization of Iraq's oil," Kucinich said. "It is clear that the people of Iraq are under enormous pressure to give up control of their oil."

Kucinich called the Iraqi provision "proof" that America's March 2003 invasion of Iraq was about seizing that country's oil resources and not about freeing the Iraqi people from the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein or pursuing allegations that Saddam had amassed weapons of mass destruction.

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