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Actually, I had another gerund in mind, but this is a family blog (more or less.)

But it does look like the, um, action is already heating up at the Baghdad Oasis. Alert reader Don Quijote points me to this Financial Times article:

Early push for sell-off of Iraqi companies

Privatisation of dozens of Iraqi state-owned companies is likely to begin within the next year, Tim Carney, senior coalition adviser to the Iraqi ministry of industry and minerals, said on Sunday.

Previously the US-led coalition had said it would wait until the creation of an elected government, in a year or two, before beginning privatisation. Now both Iraqi ministry technocrats and coalition officials think the need for foreign investment in the economy is too great to delay, Mr Carney told the FT.

I mean why wait for those pesky details like a sovereign government, an investment code or a functioning legal system? Did the '49ers wait? (I mean the miners, not the football team.) Did the Sooners wait? (I mean the Oklahoma land rush cheaters, not the football team.) Hell no. Not with the smell of pay dirt in the air.

Yee Haw! There's oil in them thar ministries, boys!

Compare with:

Decisions regarding the long-term development of Iraq’s oil resources and its economy will be the responsibility of a stable Iraqi government.

Paul Wolfowitz
Testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee
April 10, 2003

Another "inoperative" promise, I'm afraid.

Of course, as the FT correctly notes, a rushed privatization could leave a lot of would-be Iraqi entrepreneurs out in the cold:

Mr Carney said officials were seeking a formula to give priority to Iraqis, who risk being cut out because of a lack of capital.

A formula. Yes. Perhaps something like: "one for you and 25 for me, one for you and 100 for me, one for you . . ."

And of course, the lack of anything resembling a legal framework for carving Iraq's patrimony up like a Christmas turkey is likely to deter many smaller regional players from getting in on the feast. Which could leave the field clear for a handful of huge, deep-pocketed multinational corporations with large legal departments and excellent political connections in Washington. Who knows, some of them might not be named Bechtel or Haliburton.

With luck, there may even be a few crumbs left over to share with the Iraqi people, or at least with the Iraqi mafia, which will need to be kept at a discreet distance from the action -- close enough to be useful, but not close enough to be seen. Something tells me that in the New Iraq®, there may be some very lucrative security contracts in the futures of some very unsavory former Baathist officials.

It all reminds me of a story that Will Rodgers used to tell about the tribes in Olkahoma -- the same ones that who were exiled to "Indian Territory" as part of Andrew Jackson's little ethinic cleasing operation in the Old South.

The U.S. government, Rodgers said, promised the tribes their new home would be theirs "for as long as the wind blows and the water flows." But when oil was discovered, the whites moved in and took the land. So the tribes complained to the government: "You promised us this land for as long as the wind blows and the water flows!"

And the government replied: "Yeah, but we didn't say anything about oil."