Legality of Hunt Oil deal “uncertain”

Hunt Oil’s controversial production-sharing deal with Kurdistan is “legally uncertain” and has “needlessly elevated tensions” between the Kurds and the central Iraqi government, a senior State Department official in Baghdad told The New York Times.

Dallas-based Hunt Oil is run by Ray Hunt, a close friend and advisor of president Bush.

Speaking anonymously, the official told The Times that the State Department advised Hunt before the deal was signed that it might violate eventual Iraqi national law. The same advice was given to at least four other American and international oil companies.

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