From the ABC

15 Iraqis dead after US gunfire: doctor
An attack on a US military patrol followed by heavy US gunfire has left 15 Iraqis, including eight children, dead and 17 wounded in a town west of Baghdad, residents said on Saturday.
The US military said it was not responsible.
Residents of Nasaf, a town just outside Ramadi, west of Baghdad, said a roadside bomb exploded next to a US armoured patrol as it passed near the Ibn al-Jawzi mosque shortly after prayers on Friday.
Following the explosion, US troops opened fire towards those emerging from the mosque, the residents said.
Pools of blood lay on the steps outside the mosque and bullet holes marked its walls.
Dr Munem Aftan, the director of Ramadi General Hospital, said seven adults and eight children were killed and 17 wounded.
But the US military said its troops had not been involved in any firing in the area.
"US forces were not involved in any shooting incident in eastern Ramadi or anywhere near a mosque," Captain Jeffrey Pool, a spokesman for the Marines in Ramadi, said in an e-mail reply to written questions.
"US forces were certainly not involved in any indiscriminate fire incident," he said.
He did not say whether an attack on a US patrol had occurred or whether any US troops were wounded.
The death toll was initially reported as two dead, but doctors said it had risen sharply overnight, with several of the severely wounded succumbing to their injuries.
Iraqi civilians frequently complain that US troops open fire indiscriminately after they are attacked

‘By all accounts, the draft constitution has failed to provide Iraqis with the means to control their economic future. As Iraq prepares for the October 15 referendum on the constitution these crucial issues must be added to the debate, and the influence of the Bush administration countered, so that Iraqis can truly determine their own economic and political fate.

Just as discussions are finally emerging for ending the U.S. military occupation of Iraq, so too must the economic invasion be brought to an end.’

Bush's Economic Invasion of Iraq

‘Iraqis face the dire prospect of losing up to $200bn (£116bn) of the wealth of their country if an American-inspired plan to hand over development of its oil reserves to US and British multinationals comes into force next year.

A report produced by American and British pressure groups warns Iraq will be caught in an "old colonial trap" if it allows foreign companies to take a share of its vast energy reserves. 

The report is certain to reawaken fears that the real purpose of the 2003 war on Iraq was to ensure its oil came under Western control.’  

Iraq's Oil: The Spoils Of War

‘The British government is trying to stall an investigation into the theft of more than $1.3bn (£740m) from the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, senior Iraqi officials say. 

The government wants to postpone the investigation to help its favored candidate Iyad Allawi, the former prime minister, in the election on December 15. The money disappeared during his administration. 

The UK's enthusiasm for Mr Allawi may have led it into promoting a cover-up of how the money was siphoned off and sent abroad. One Iraqi minister believes the investigation will be dropped when the next government is formed. 

The scandal is expected to explode with renewed force in the next few weeks. The Independent has learnt of secret tape recordings of a wide-ranging conversation between a Ministry of Defense official and a businessman, naming politicians and officials involved. 

"It is possibly one of the largest thefts in history," Ali Allawi, Iraq's Finance Minister, said. "Huge amounts of money have disappeared. In return we got nothing but scraps of metal." Most of the military purchases were made in Poland and Pakistan. They included obsolete helicopters, armoured vehicles unable to stop a bullet and grossly over-priced machine guns and bullets. Payments were made in advance. Often the Ministry of Defense did not even have a copy of contracts under which it was paying hundreds of millions of dollars.’ 

Blair Tries to Cover Up $1.3 Billion Iraqi Theft

‘The Iraqi government faces a December deadline, imposed by the world's wealthiest countries, to complete its final Oil Law. Industry analysts expect that the result will be a radical departure from the laws governing the country's oil-rich neighbours, giving foreign multinationals a much higher rate of return than with other major oil producers, and locking in their control over what George Bush called Iraq's "patrimony" for decades, regardless of what kind of policies future elected governments might want to pursue.

With a Constitution cooked up in DC, the stage was set for foreign multinationals to assume effective control of as much as 87 percent of Iraq's oil, according to projections by the Oil Ministry. If PSAs become the law of the land -- and there are other contractual arrangements that would allow private companies to invest in the sector without giving them the same degree of control or such usurious profits -- the war-torn country stands to lose up to $194 billion vitally important dollars in revenues on just the first 12 fields developed, according to a conservative estimate by Platform (the estimate assumes oil at $40 per barrel; at this writing it stands at more than $59). That's more than six times the country's annual budget. 

To complete the rip-off, the occupying coalition would have to crush Iraqi resistance, make sure it had friendly people in the right places in Iraq's emerging elite and lock the new Iraqi government onto a path that would lead to the Big Four's desired outcome.

’War On Iraq: Bush's Petro-Cartel Almost Has Iraq's Oil

this might happen, and hell might freeze over.

 more likely, the iraqis will be quit of the yanks soon and the shiites will be dealing with iran, and the kurds with usa- which will be very grateful if any part of iraq looks like a success.

commercial exploitation can only happen in places where the gun is not master. the kurds, sunnis, and shia have all demonstrated once again, that it's much easier to invade a country, than it is to occupy it.

in short, dont worry about the iraqis- their only dangerous enemy is themselves.