The James Burke Dept.

I can't help wondering how much of a connection this opening paragraph from a January 28 AP wire story,

Baghdad, Iraq - The privatization of Iraq's state-run oil industry has faded as a priority for U.S. officials advising the Iraqi Oil Ministry, despite enthusiastic support for the idea among some American conservatives in the months leading up to the war.

has to do with these two later paragraphs:

U.S. oil advisers and their Iraqi counterparts, speaking to The Associated Press in recent interviews, said they are focusing for now on the immediate goals of boosting Iraq's crude output to prewar levels and securing its oil facilities and pipelines against sabotage. ...

Wars, mismanagement and 12 years of U.N. sanctions devastated the economy, and looters pillaged much of what was left after Saddam Hussein's ouster last April. Iraq, once home to the Arab world's largest middle class, now has no national phone network. Its hospitals lack medicines, and the capital, Baghdad, suffers lengthy power outages each day.

It couldn't be that the "fading priority" is because it at least for now appears a risky investment, could it? The bold entrepreneurs of free market capitalism couldn't be getting cold feet because their sure thing ain't quite so sure, could they?

Nah, of course not. How dare I even think such a thing.

Footnote: Early warning sign of future troubles:

Because mature oil fields in southern Iraq are already producing at close to their capacity, the quickest way to boost the country's output would be to exploit the oil wealth trapped in fields near the northern city of Kirkuk.

Kirkuk being the traditionally Kurdish city which Saddam depopulated of Kurds, replacing them with Arabs, and which many Kurds are now demanding be included in an autonomous Kurdish area in an Iraqi federation.

But just like the war itself, none of this is about oil, of course.