Biden explains oil in Iraq bill flap

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden said Iraq’s oil strategy and revenue will be managed by the central government in an Iraq federalism amendment that has come under fire.

The Delaware Democrat and candidate for his party’s presidential nomination held a conference call with reporters Monday after his amendment, widely approved by the Senate, met opposition from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and the Iraqi government.

The amendment to the 2008 Defense Authorization bill was approved by 75 senators last week. It calls for reaching compromise and reducing violence in Iraq via a decentralized form of government. The provinces and regions would control “police and certain laws, including those related to employment, education, religion and marriage.”

The federal government’s purview would include national defense and the oil sector. The amendment calls on Iraq to approve “a law providing for the equitable distribution of oil revenues.”

Currently, a revenue-sharing law is stuck in the Council of Ministers, which must approve it before the Parliament takes it up. Parliament has been unable to agree on a separate oil law. It sets out the governance of the oil sector as well as the extent foreign/private oil firms are allowed to enter the sector, two issues on which the political factions have been unable to find consensus.

“The revenue law should be part of the oil law,” Biden said, and all of the oil decisions “will be a central decision.”

Iraq’s Sunni Arabs populate land with virtually no known oil reserves. The Kurds, in the north, have more. Oil and natural gas is expected to be found in further exploration of both areas. The Shiite Arabs, Iraq’s majority population who dominate the government in Baghdad, control land where most of the oil -- the third-largest reserves in the world -- is located.

Nearly every leader in Iraq’s government, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Iraqi ambassador to the United States, have panned Biden’s bill. The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad did as well.

The Kurdistan Regional Government, a semi-autonomous region in Iraq, immediately issued support for it.

Biden and co-sponsor Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., also a candidate for his party’s presidential nod, have requested a meeting with President Bush to discuss the amendment.

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Ben Lando, UPI Energy Editor