BEN LANDO
President Bush has repeatedly called for the passage of the proposed Iraqi oil law. Lando is energy editor for UPI. He has recently launched the web page IraqOilReport.com.

ANTONIA JUHASZ
Juhasz is the author of the book The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time and is with the group Oil Change International. She said today: “Five years after the invasion, the very same oil companies that owned and controlled Iraq’s oil from the end of World War I until nationalization in the early 1970s — Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP, Shell and Total — are now poised to make their grand return. Each has signed technical service contracts with the Iraqi government for work on five of Iraq’s largest oil fields. These contracts offer a mere foot in the door, however, as both the companies and the Bush administration pressure the Iraqis to pass the Iraq oil law and give the companies the Big Prize: renewed ownership and control of Iraq’s oil. Oil was the reason for this war five years ago, it is the reason why we remain entrenched in this war today.”

On Friday, Juhasz will be testifying at the “Corporate Pillaging and Military Contractors” civilian panel at Winter Soldier with journalist Jeremy Scahill. Juhasz wrote the oped “Whose Oil Is It, Anyway?” which appeared in the New York Times. Her forthcoming book is titled The Tyranny of Oil: The World’s Most Powerful Industry and What We Must Do to Stop It.

Oil Change International will be one of the groups participating in protests on the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the invasion of Iraq on March 19 in Washington. They will lead protests at the American Petroleum Institute in Washington. See nowarnowarming.org and 5YearsTooMany.org.
More Information

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167