Oil companies proudly state: We deserve to get paid before victi
I guess having the most profitable industries in the history of the world just ain’t good enough for some folks:
Libya Seeks Exemption for Its Debt to Victims
WASHINGTON – One by one, top executives of American oil companies met privately over the last year with Libya’s leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, often in his signature Bedouin tent, as they lined up contracts allowing them to tap into the country’s oil reserves.
But now, the new allies are working Capitol Hill, trying to weaken a law that threatens those deals. The Libyan government, once a pariah, and the American oil industry have hired high-profile lobbyists, buttonholed lawmakers and enlisted help from the Bush administration, all in an effort to win an exemption from a law that Congress passed in January that is intended to ensure that victims of terrorist attacks are compensated.
The law allows victims of state-sponsored terrorism to collect court judgments by seizing foreign assets in the United States or money from those governments held by American companies doing business with them. If Libya loses a half-dozen court cases still pending, $3 billion to $6 billion could be at stake, according to lawyers’ estimates.</em>
Contemptible. But wait! Of course, oil companies can only do so much damage on their own. For people really, really adept at making bad things worse, and screwing victims, you need high level government officials:
The lobbying effort has already produced one important result: four Bush administration cabinet members wrote Congress last month urging lawmakers to agree to the waiver. Likening the asset-seizure provision to “a new form of economic sanctions,” the letter said it would have “a chilling effect on potentially billions of dollars in investments by U.S. companies in Libya’s oil sector.”
The law also puts the American oil companies at a disadvantage in competing for access to Libya’s 40 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, said the letter, which was signed by Robert M. Gates, the defense secretary; Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state; Samuel W. Bodman, the energy secretary; and Carlos M. Gutierrez, the commerce secretary. </em>
Words fail. What utterly unredeemable jackals.
