Before Saddam Hussein took power in Iraq, four oil companies were partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company: Exxon Mobile, Shell, Total, and BP. Now, those same four companies (along with Chevron and a few smaller oil firms) are set to reassert dominance over Iraq's petroleum. The contracts were awarded no-bid; meaning the companies never had to compete in order to win the lucrative rights to Iraq's vast oil reserves. And the deals are long-term, giving the western companies the rights to Iraqi oil for decades to come.
The no-bid nature of the contracts looked suspicious enough - Russian companies with experience in the region were shut out. Then came the news on Monday that the U.S. government had been taking an active role in the contractual negotiations. In Andrew Kramer's Times article, we can see the laughable justifications put forth by administration officials. A White House spokesperson said that "Iraq is a sovereign country, and it can make decisions based on how it feels" about its oil. These are the same people that tell us the country would collapse without our military support. Convenient.
Some of the contradictions are blatant. One State Department official is quoted in the article saying that the U.S. government simply offered suggestions for the contracts, and the Iraqis could have ignored them. But that same official also pointed out that Iraq hadn't negotiated with an oil company for nearly 40 years, so they had very little knowledge of how to do so. Iraq might have been superficially free to reject U.S. assistance, but without that help no deal could have been reached at all.