September 4, 2003: US-Educated Iraqi Oil Minister Announces that Plan for Privatization of Iraq’s Oil Industry is in the Works

Iraqi oil minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum tells the Financial Times that Iraq is preparing plans for the privatization of the country’s oil sector. He says he supports the “full privatization of downstream installations, such as refineries, but [says] he would back production-sharing contracts upstream,” the newspaper reports. He adds that US, possibly European, oil companies will be given priority. But he also says the decision will not be made until Iraq has an elected government. “The new elected government at the end of the transitional period will decide this issue,” he tells the Times. “The Iraqi oil sector needs privatization, but it’s a cultural issue,” he explains. “People lived for the last 30 to 40 years with this idea of nationalism.” Al-Ulum—a US-trained petroleum engineer who lived in London from 1992 until the overthrow of Hussein—was part of a working group organized by the State Department’s Future of Iraq Project before the invasion (see December 20-21, 2002). [Financial Times, 9/5/2003]