Turns out Tony Blair had his hand in the oil jar, while he was talking up the Iraq war….and after. The Daily Mail (UK) reports:
Last night Tory MP Douglas Carswell said of Mr Blair’s links to UI Energy Corporation: ‘This doesn’t just look bad, it stinks.
‘It seems that the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has been in the pay of a very big foreign oil corporation and we have been kept in the dark about it.
‘Even now we do not know what he was paid or what the company got out of it. We need that information now.
“This is revolving door politics at its worst. It’s not as if Mr Blair has even stepped back from politics, because he is still politically active in the Middle East.
‘I’m afraid I have no confidence at all in the committee that vets these appointments. It’s no good telling us these deals may be commercially sensitive – we are talking about the appointment of our former Prime Minister and the public interest, rather than any commercial interests, must come first.’
Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker said: ‘These revelations show that our former Prime Minister is for sale – he is driven by making as much money as possible.
‘I think many people will find it deeply insensitive that he is apparently cashing in on his contacts from the Iraq war to make money for himself.’
“The committee said yesterday that Mr Blair had taken a paid job advising a consortium of investors led by UI Energy in August 2008. The exact nature of the deal is unknown, but UI Energy is one of the biggest investors in Iraq’s oil-rich Kurdistan region, which became semi-autonomous in the wake of the Iraq war.
“Mr Blair’s fee has not been disclosed but is likely to have run into hundreds of thousands of pounds.
“The secrecy is particularly odd because UI Energy is fond of boasting of its foreign political advisers, who include the former Australian prime minister Bob Hawke and several prominent American politicians.
“Mr Blair successfully persuaded the committee that the appointment was ‘market sensitive’ and could not be made public.”