The US is building 14 permanent military bases and the largest US 'embassy' in the world in Iraq and shows every sign of intending to stay for a long time. The US is currently spending 3-5 times as much per year occupying Iraq as it spends for all biomedical research.

It helps to see the bias in this piece by imagining the situation reversed. Say, for example, that the US (or more appropriately for this author, France) had been bombed, invaded, and occupied by a foreign power, and that this foreign power was building permanent military bases with a giant headquarters in Paris. The French population rises up in resistance but is unable to throw the invaders out. Then the invaders start to 'negotiate' profit sharing agreements with the Vichy government about the exploitation of France's natural resources. For example, France has a lot of farmland, but the invader knows that current French farming techniques are inefficient because they refuse to use enough pesticides and allow genetically altered organisms.

It's just a normal tool of business. It's not a bad thing because the economy of occupied France is having trouble raising money to exploit its own farmland. And besides, the agreement will probably never be implemented because of the short-sightedness of the invaders.

Bien sur!