WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – U.S. and British energy firms signed multiple agreements with the Iraqi government on Saturday for oil and gas projects worth a staggering $60 billion, cementing Washington’s domination over Iraq’s energy sector. 
The deals, finalized at a U.S.-Iraq business summit at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, represent the most significant expansion of American control over Iraqi oil since the 2003 invasion. 
Iraqi officials signed dozens of non-binding agreements and memorandums of understanding with U.S. energy, healthcare, and technology companies during the summit.
On July 13, Iraq reached a deal with Syria’s takfiri regime to build a 500-mile pipeline from the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq to the port city of Baniyas on Syria’s Mediterranean coast. 
U.S. President Donald Trump’s regional envoy, Tom Barrack, said the war on Iran, while creating “chaos and confusion,” has simultaneously thrust Iraq “at the forefront of a new strategic security alliance” with Washington and its allies. 
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for his part, has urged Persian Gulf states to build pipelines moving their oil west through Israeli occupied territories.
Among the agreements signed Friday, Chevron secured a deal to export oil from Iraq’s West Qurna 2 and Nassiriya oilfields. Jake Spiering, a Chevron president, said the Houston-based major will also invest in the Kirkuk-Baniyas pipeline. 
ConocoPhillips officials announced they will purchase a 42 percent stake in Energy of Kirkuk Ltd, a subsidiary of British energy major BP, to redevelop four producing oilfields in northern Iraq. 
The business summit followed Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi’s visit to the White House, where Trump praised the new Iraqi premier, calling him “young” and “handsome.” 
Since taking office in May, Zaidi has committed to disarming resistance groups, including the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU). The U.S. bombed numerous PMU bases as part of the broader war on Iran in its early weeks. 
The PMU, formed in response to the Daesh takeover of large parts of Iraq in 2014, has long exposed Washington’s covert support for the terrorist group to justify renewed military occupation.
Iraqi resistance factions have warned that the energy bonanza is a disguised theft of the country’s resources, pointing to the longstanding U.S. practice of holding Iraqi oil revenues in New York Federal Reserve accounts. 
This mechanism gives Washington direct leverage over Baghdad’s finances, allowing it to pressure the Iraqi government and meddle in its internal affairs at will. 
Resistance leaders say the U.S. has systematically used this financial stranglehold to force favorable contracts with Western firms, effectively siphoning Iraqi wealth through economic colonization.
The PMU and other factions have condemned the deals as a surrender of national sovereignty, warning that U.S. domination over Iraqi oil — from production and export to revenue control — entrenches a neocolonial relationship that leaves Baghdad little more than a vassal state.