U.S. adviser to Kurds stands to reap oil profits

By JAMES GLANZ and WALTER GIBBS New York Times

OSLO, NORWAY — Peter Galbraith, an influential former U.S. ambassador, is a powerful voice on Iraq who helped shape the views of policymakers like Joe Biden and John Kerry. In 2005, he was also an adviser to the Kurdish regional government as Iraq wrote its constitution — tough and sensitive talks not least because of issues like how Iraq would divide up its vast oil wealth.

Now Galbraith, 58, son of the renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith, stands to earn perhaps $100 million or more as a result of his closeness to the Kurds, his relations with a Norwegian oil company and constitutional provisions he helped the Kurds extract.

Galbraith has always described himself as an unpaid adviser to the Kurds, although he has spoken in general terms about having business interests in Kurdistan, as the north of Iraq is known.

So it came as a shock to many last month when Norwegian journalists at the newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv began publishing documents linking Galbraith to a Norwegian oil company with major contracts in Iraq.

Galbraith received the rights after he helped negotiate a potentially lucrative contract that allowed the Norwegian oil company DNO to drill for oil in the promising Dohuk region of Kurdistan, documents show. He says his actions were proper because he was at the time a private citizen deeply involved in Kurdish causes.

As the scope of Galbraith's financial interests in Kurdistan become clear, they have the potential to inflame some of Iraqis' deepest fears, including conspiracy theories that the true reason for the American invasion of their country was to take its oil. It may not help that outside Kurdistan, Galbraith's view that Iraq should be broken up along ethnic lines is considered offensive to many Iraqis' nationalism.

Biden and Kerry, who do not advocate such a partitioning of the country, were not aware of Galbraith's oil dealings in Iraq, aides to both say
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/6716151.html

The weaseling 5% Porcupine .... إشتم جيفة السمكة من رأسها

Imad Khadduri

October 19, 2009"Porcupine was established in Delaware on June 30, 2004 -- one day after DNO signed its own contract with KRG to drill for oil in northern Iraq....The minutes of the Stock Exchange meeting showed only that the fine was to punish DNO for selling 5 percent of its shares to a publicly undisclosed buyer. "Dagens Naeringsliv" filed a Freedom of Information request with the Stock Exchange and learned that the undisclosed buyer of the shares was the KRG itself.

When "Dagens Naeringsliv" published that news, the KRG reacted vehemently to being publicly named. It threatened to suspend DNO’s activities in Kurdistan and evict the company without compensation. It also set some conditions for continued cooperation with DNO, including one that was completely unexpected: for the company to clear up all conflicts with "third party interests."Again the newspaper’s interest was piqued. This time, the challenge was to find out the identity of the "third party," and why the conflict was so important it needed to be solved immediately.

In the search, the paper learned of an arbitration case in London which started sometime after March of last year and pits DNO against two companies: one called Porcupine, the other belonging to a Yemeni businessman.

[The paper reported last week that Galbraith acquired a 5 percent share in an oil field in the Iraqi Kurdish region at a time when he was a leading voice in the U.S. debate over the structure of post-Saddam Iraq. And he helped draft Iraq’s 2005 Constitution by advising Kurdish leaders on legal language they should seek to insert into it -- including keeping future oil development in their region under their own control].Tracking down Porcupine led to Delaware, where it turned out the company’s incorporation document was signed by Peter Galbraith [Former US diplomat, recently dismissed from his post at the UN mission in Afghanistan]."Iraq Oil Scandal Threatens Former Diplomat, Ocotber 16, 2009

Galbraith is among many senior US officials who are thought to be involved in business relationship with KRG, like Garner and Zalmay Kahlil Zadeh. During past few months, Zadeh has been attending major oil celebrations held by KRG..

ـ"اعترف دبلوماسي امريكي سابق (كان في أفغانستان الى قبل بضعة أسابيع حيث أقيل من منصبه) بأنه مارس نشاطات تجارية في قطاع النفط بكردستان العراق بعد الكشف عن وقوع خلاف بين شركته وشركة نفط نرويجية. واشارت صحيفة فايننشال تايمز الصادرة الجمعة الي أن بيتر غالبريث المدافع عن الحكم الذاتي للأكراد استغل، كما يري النقاد، مكانته السياسية للحصول علي مكاسب مالية وكان يتعين عليه الكشف عن مصالحه التجارية في شمال العراق وقتها، وقبل الكشف عن الخلاف بين شركته وشركة النفط النروجية (دي ان أو) التي تعد أول شركة نفطية تدخل الي كردستان العراق. وأصر غالبريث، السفير الأمريكي السابق في كرواتيا، في مقابلة مع الصحيفة بأن تعاملاته التجارية لم تتناقض مع عمله كمستشار لدي القادة الأكراد في كردستان العراق، وشدد علي أنه سعي دائماً لدعم مصالح الأكراد".ـفايننشال تايمز: دبلوماسي أمريكي يعترف بالتجارة في نفط كردستان
ـ16 تشرين الأول 2009
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تبين بأن حصة بيتر كالبريث في العقد المبرم بين الأقليم وشركة دي.أن.أو النرويجية هي 5% ، فقط ولا غير! كما كان كولبنكيان مستر فايف برسنت لحوالي 50 عاما.ـ
ها نحن اليوم نرى ظهور أخرين، وهذا أولهم، ممن يضطر للأعتراف ويقر بدوره في اعداد الدستور ( ومعروف أيضا دوره في أعداد مسودة قانون النفط والغاز لا بل ومشاركته في المفاوضات التي سبقت اقرار المسودة )ـً والباقي نتعرف عليهم لاحقا
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Galbriath had the audacity to demand (in 2006):

"Galbraith recounted some of his experiences from The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End. He contends the Bush administration’s incompetence regarding planning for a military occupation has greatly contributed to the mess U.S. forces currently face. The most glaring example was the widespread looting after the invasion. [emphasis added. Comment: He had already dipped himself in the oil pot]....

Rather than preserving or holding together a unified Iraq, Galbraith believes the U.S. must accept the reality of Iraq’s breakup and work with the Shiites, Kurds, and Sunni Arabs to strengthen the existing semi-independent regions. In addition, he suggests that U.S. forces be redeployed to Kurdistan where they will be welcomed and can keep tabs on al-Qaeda." [emphasis added. Comment: And guard his 5%]
Experts see grim prospects in Iraq, Iran

October 13, 2006
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وعزى كالبريث (في عام 2006) أحد أهم أسباب هزيمة بوش في العراق الى السماح بالنهب بدون رادع، في حين كان مطمّس إيده بالنفط ... كما وطالب بتقسيم العراق ونقل الجيش الأمريكي الى شمال العراق حيث سيلقى الترحيب وليتعقب فلول القاعدة (و ليحمي الخمسة بالمائة من نفط أبوه)ـ
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abutamam.blogspot.com/2009/10/weaseling-5-porcupine.html

New DNO Revelations: While He was Influencing the Shape of the Iraqi Constitution, Peter Galbraith Held Stakes in an Oilfield in Dahuk

By Reidar Visser

See:
http://historiae.org/galbraith.asp

10 October 2009

Excerpt :

It is widely known that the former US diplomat Peter Galbraith has been one of the most prominent figures in shaping the state structure of Iraq in the period after 2003, especially with his vocal advocacy of various forms of partition solutions for Iraq’s political problems that are reflected in his books and numerous articles in the New York Review of Books, especially in the period from 2004 to 2008. Until now, however, it has generally been assumed that Galbraith’s fervent pro-partition propaganda was rooted in an ideological belief in national self-determination and a principled view of radical federalism as the best option for Iraq’s Kurds.

Many have highlighted Galbraith’s experience as a former US diplomat (especially in the Balkans in the 1990s) as key elements of his academic and policy-making credentials.

Today, however, it has emerged that the realities were probably rather different. For some time, Norway’s most respected financial newspaper, Dagens Næringsliv (DN), has been focusing on the operations of DNO, a small Norwegian private oil company in Kurdistan, especially focusing on unclear aspects concerning share ownership and its contractual partnerships related to the Tawke field in the Dahuk governorate. One particular goal has been to establish the identity of a hitherto unknown “third party” which participated with DNO in the initial production sharing agreement (PSA) for Tawke between 2004 and 2008, but was squeezed out when this deal was converted to a new contract in early 2008, prompting a huge financial claim of around 500 million US dollars against DNO which has yet to be settled.

Today, DN claims to present proof that one of the two major “mystery stake-holders” involved in the claim was none other than Peter Galbraith, who allegedly held a five-percent share in the PSA for Tawke from June 2004 until 2008 through his Delaware-based company Porcupine. Galbraith’s partner was the Yemenite multi-millionaire Shahir Abd al-Haqq, whose identity was revealed by the same newspaper earlier this month.

DN has published documents from Porcupine showing Galbraith’s personal signature, and today’s reports are complete with paparazzi photographs of Galbraith literally running away from reporters as they confront him in Bergen, where he is currently staying with his Norwegian wife. He refused to give any comment citing potential legal complications.

If proven correct, the implications of this revelation are so enormous that the story is almost unbelievable.