MSNBC — Countdown with Keith Olbermann — 14 September 2007

AMY ROBACH, MSNBC GUEST HOST: We mentioned in passing last night that a friend of the president is profiting from an oil deal that threatens to rip Iraq apart. In the fourth story, the story was bigger than we knew at the time.

Other than religion, the primary issue preventing Iraq’s political reconciliation is of course oil. Kurds have it. So do some Shiites. President Bush has said that a national law sharing oil revenues equally is vital to Iraq’s success.

This week, as Keith mentioned last night, talks for that law fell apart partially because the Kurds, having passed their own oil law, went ahead and signed their first new oil contract with Hunt Oil of Texas sending a signal to the Shiites and Sunnis, hey, you’re on your own.

The CEO and president of Hunt Oil is this man, Ray Hunt, also on Halliburton’s board and not only a friend of President Bush, but a major campaign contributor, not only a major campaign contributor, but a trustee at Southern Methodist University, future home of Bush Presidential Library. And not only a trustee at SMU, but the trustee who suggested the school to Mr. Bush as the site of the library and donated $35 million for the purchase of it.

And as the “New York Times” columnist Paul Krugman pointed out today, not only a Bush friend, not only a donor, not only a patron much his library, but also a Bush appointee to the presidential Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, a position which gives him, according to the White House, access to secret information about Iraq. Leading Mr. Krugman to surmise Hunt has done more than fracture Iraq. He knows enough that he is actually betting the fracture is inevitable.

Let’s bring in Rachel Maddow whose program airs every week night on Air America Radio.

Rachel, thanks for your time tonight.

RACHEL MADDOW, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST, AIR AMERICA RADIO: Hi, Amy.

Thanks.

AMY: Are there any valid legal questions about what Mr. Hunt is doing?

MADDOW: The legality of this remains to be seen. What we know from the White House’s own description of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board is these people on this board have access to all of the foreign intelligence information they need to be able to advise the president on all of our foreign intelligence issues as a nation. And so they have access to really high-level stuff.

The White House remains to confirm what sort of conflict of interest laws are in place to prevent people who get that kind of high-level information from using it to either undermine what our country is trying to do or from privately profiting from that information. The conflict of interest laws, we need to have explained to us, because this is very worrying.

AMY: Give us just a little background on why this oil law is so important that it’s worth spilling American blood over.

MADDOW: Well, arguably, you know, we could fight about whether anything that happens in Iraq is worth spilling American blood over. But in terms of what Iraq has—Iraq has oil. Iraq has historic sites. Iraq has the talents of its people, and it has oil. And the unity and the future of Iraq depends entirely on how its oil resources will be exploited and sold and how the proceeds of that will be divvied up. And if there isn’t a national law about this sort of thing, then it’s possible that Iraq will fracture because it really is the only resource that can be held in common by that country.

Of course, if you’re an American policymaker who wanted to invade Iraq in part so that America could get our hands on some of that oil, if you’re one of the people who sent Americans to their deaths in order to get some of that prize, the Iraqi oil law determines how much of that prize American companies might get. So it’s really the whole game.

AMY: Yeah, and it looks on its face that Mr. Hunt pursued this deal with the Kurds knowing obviously that this would potentially destroy any stability that Iraq had or chance of having in terms of having some type of oil agreement. But do you buy Paul Krugman’s conclusion that it also says Mr. Hunt has inside information suggesting that centralized Iraq—a centralized Iraq is doomed anyway, so why not?

MADDOW: Well, it sounds worrying but it’s a pretty simple conclusion for Krugman to have made. What we know, what is not disputed here is this guy is a smart businessman. He’s been a very successful businessman who has access to very high-level White House information about America’s interests and he has decided to bet with his checkbook, to bet with his business that there will never be a strong enough government in Baghdad to put the ka bash on a side deal like this he has done with the Kurds.

Amy, I mean, the one thing that any country could do to another country to ensure that other country’s central government was impotent and ineffectual, the best thing could you do would be to station tens of thousands of foreign occupying troops in the country’s streets indefinitely. Permanent occupation means a permanently sucky government in Baghdad. For some oil companies that could be very good for business. It sounds conspiratorial but I can’t think of a simpler explanation for what’s going on here.

AMY: Yeah, and we talked about the legality of this obviously. We’re talking about any potential violation of American law but some would argue this violates Iraqi law because of his deal with the Kurds, because it obviously undermines what the ultimate goal was.

MADDOW: Yeah.

AMY: And we should mention another company on whose board he sits, Halliburton, did business for years with Iran, of course an avowed enemy of the United States. How is this man, how is Mr. Hunt on the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board? Should it be questioned? Will it be questioned, do you think?

MADDOW: Well, I think you’ve answered the question yourself in your introduction about all his ties to President Bush and his history. With all of the money and all of the support this guy has given George Bush over the years, I’m frankly surprised they haven’t renamed the Rose Garden for him at this point.

AMY: All right, Rachel Maddow of Air America. Thank you for your time tonight.

-