Above-the-fold story in this morning's New York Times breaks the news that Big Oil (the American variety) is getting a no-bid leg up on the oil industry in Iraq 36 years after Sadaam Hussein booted them.

The deals, expected to be announced on June 30, will lay the foundation for the first commercial work for the major companies in Iraq since the American invasion, and open a new and potentially lucrative country for their operations.The no-bid contracts are unusual for the industry, and the offers prevailed over others by more than 40 companies, including companies in Russia, China and India. The contracts, which would run for one to two years and are relatively small by industry standards, would nonetheless give the companies an advantage in bidding on future contracts in a country that many experts consider to be the best hope for a large-scale increase in oil production.There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract. The Bush administration has said that the war was necessary to combat terrorism. It is not clear what role the United States played in awarding the contracts; there are still American advisers to Iraqs Oil Ministry.Sensitive to the appearance that they were profiting from the war and already under pressure because of record high oil prices, senior officials of two of the companies, speaking only on the condition that they not be identified, said they were helping Iraq rebuild its decrepit oil industry.For an industry being frozen out of new ventures in the worlds dominant oil-producing countries, from Russia to Venezuela, Iraq offers a rare and prized opportunity.

This sounds like the perfectplan to confirm every worst fear everyone ever had about our Iraq adventure. Shows theadministration isn't always inept.The above story should also be considered in light of the administration's push to open offshore and domestic drilling, and should definitely be read in tandem with this Times editorial on the purging of a Pentagon watchdog who tried to blow the whistle on a Texas defense contractor's suspicious billion-dollar billing.