A former US ambassador who played an instrumental role in the drafting of Iraq’s constitution stands to make “hundreds of millions” of dollars from an oil deal he struck that was only possible because of a constitutional provision he helped push through, news reports say.

A story first broken by the Norwegian newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv earlier this month and moved forward by the [New York] Times states that Peter Galbraith, a former US ambassador to Croatia and staffer at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was receiving compensation from Norwegian oil firm DNO when he helped negotiate the Iraqi constitution.

According to the Times, Galbraith was instrumental in helping Kurdistan gain semi-autonomy under Iraq’s constitution, which gave the Kurdish regional government control over future oil development. At the time, by Galbraith’s own admission, he was being paid by DNO to help negotiate oil contracts with the Kurdish government.

Records obtained by the Times show Galbraith received a five-percent stake in Kurdistan’s Tawke oil field, which was developed by DNO and struck oil in late 2005.

via Former US diplomat could make ‘hundreds of millions’ off Iraqi oil fields | Raw Story.

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