Progress Now Action

This is looking kind of bad, folks:

Feds look at Schaffer oil deal in Kurdistan

An oil contract U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer helped negotiate in Iraqi Kurdistan is one of several production deals the U.S. State Department has flagged as problematic for Iraq and its attempts to establish a national oil policy.

The oil contract, finalized in November 2007, allows a subsidiary of Schaffer's former employer, Denver-based Aspect Energy, to produce oil on a nearly 104-square-mile plot in the Dohuk Governate in northern Iraq.

Schaffer confirmed Wednesday he was one of several Aspect Energy executives who visited Kurdistan in November 2006 and laid the groundwork for the company's oil deal.

The Kurdistan Regional Government, which governs the semiautonomous region of Iraq, has moved during the past several years to aggressively develop crude oil resources in northern Iraq. Those efforts run counter to moves to implement a national oil policy.

According to a June 23 report from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, Aspect Energy's oil contract and roughly two dozen other similar deals have been a point of contention between Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government.

"The (Kurdistan Regional Government) has negotiated an estimated 25 contracts with foreign oil firms, which the Iraqi federal government claims are illegal," according to the report.

Update: The Dead Guvs sum this one up:

As we discussed late last week, this is another potentially devastating situation for Schaffer, possibly worse than the Abramoff/Marianas scandal--which polls show has already seriously damaged his election prospects. The finalization of an Iraqi petroleum law is viewed by most experts as critical to the stabilization of Iraq, and the story emerging here is about American oil companies--like Schaffer's--who were more concerned with getting 'a piece of the action' than they were with supporting American foreign policy goals in Iraq.

Is there even another former Congressman out there who voted to invade Iraq, then immediately went to work for an oil company pursuing contracts there? We're not aware of any. That's bad enough, but the idea that the contracts he pursued could be prolonging the Iraq war instead of helping end it?

If you were trying to imagine something worse than defending sweatshops and forced abortions on American soil...well, here you are. Horrifying, isn't it?