WASHINGTON, September 15 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The ouster of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein will open a bonanza for American oil companies who have been long banished from Iraq, a U.S. newspaper reported Sunday, September 15.

The Washington Post said that if this were to happen oil deals between Iraq and Russia, France and other countries would be foiled and the world petroleum market will be reshuffled.

Although senior Bush administration officials say they have not begun to focus on the issues involving oil and Iraq, American and foreign oil companies have already begun maneuvering for a stake in the country’s huge proven reserves of 112 billion barrels of crude oil, the largest in the world outside Saudi Arabia, reported the Post.

“The importance of Iraq’s oil has made it potentially one of the administration’s biggest bargaining chips in negotiations to win backing from the U.N. Security Council and Western allies for President Bush’s call for tough international action against Hussein.

“All five permanent members of the Security Council - the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China - have international oil companies with major stakes in a change of leadership in Baghdad,” said the paper.

The Post quoted former CIA director R. James Woolsey, who has been one of the leading advocates of forcing Hussein from power saying that it was “pretty straightforward. France and Russia have oil companies and interests in Iraq. They should be told that if they are of assistance in moving Iraq toward decent government, we'll do the best we can to ensure that the new government and American companies work closely with them.”

But he added: “If they throw in their lot with Saddam, it will be difficult to the point of impossible to persuade the new Iraqi government to work with them.”

The Post added that the mere prospect of a new Iraqi government has fanned concerns by non-American oil companies that they will be excluded by the United States, which almost certainly would be the dominant foreign power in Iraq in the aftermath of Hussein’s fall.

“Representatives of many foreign oil concerns have been meeting with leaders of the Iraqi opposition to make their case for a future stake and to sound them out about their intentions,” it said.

Since the Persian Gulf War in 1991, companies from more than a dozen nations, including France, Russia, China, India, Italy, Vietnam and Algeria, have either reached or sought to reach agreements in principle to develop Iraqi oil fields, refurbish existing facilities or explore undeveloped tracts.

Most of the deals are on hold until the lifting of U.N. sanctions, reported the Post adding that Iraqi opposition officials made clear in interviews last week that they will not be bound by any of the deals.

“We will review all these agreements, definitely,” said Faisal Qaragholi, a petroleum engineer who directs the London office of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an umbrella organization of opposition groups that is backed by the United States, reported the Post. “Our oil policies should be decided by a government in Iraq elected by the people.”

Meanwhile, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz said Saturday, September 14, that the Aziz charged that U.S.-British plans to attack Iraq had nothing to do with its alleged pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, which he strongly denied, and everything to do with their quest to seize Iraqi oil and “redraw the map of the region.”

“The way Bush and (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair are conducting their campaign against Iraq is: doomed if you do, doomed if you don’t,” Aziz said.