In Iraq, Coalition Provisional Authority head L. Paul Bremer “excluded the oil industry when issuing Order 39 in September [19] 2003″ which privatized “nearly 200 Iraqi public sector companies…opening them up to 100 percent foreign ownership. The Bush White House had also realized by then that denationalizing the oil industry would be a blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions which bar an occupying power from altering the fundamental structure of the occupied territory’s economy.”
– Dilip Hiro, “How Bush’s Iraqi Oil Grab Went Awry,” The Nation, Sep. 26, 2007