Ah, but contemplate the significance of this:

Wednesday the 13th of November will be a day to remember. For a number of hours I and my research group had the opportunity to discuss Iraq’s oil in detail with Dr Issam A. R. al-Chalabi. He has worked in Iraq’s oil industry for 23 years and has been chairman for SCOP, the State Company for Oil Projects, the chairman of INOC, the Iraq National Oil Company, as well as Iraq’s vice-oil minister and oil minister. At the time of war in Kuwait he was dismissed and moved to Jordan. Few people can have a better knowledge of Iraq’s oil.

In 1968 the decision was made to hold Iraq’s oil reserve figures secret, but during his time Dr al-Chalabi worked to have them openly accounted. He asserted that during the years that he was responsible for Iraq’s reserve figures there was not a single time that Saddam Hussein had ordered him to report these in any way to suit a political purpose.

From Iraq’s Oil and the Future « Aleklett’s Energy Mix. Mr. al-Chalabi's tenure covered the time of reserves revisions, and if he is sincere it would call into question the significance of the 80s OPEC gains as indicative of a definite near-term peak - assuming the size of reserves is the be-all and end-all of dating when a nation does peak. Contrast this with the 2006 revelation that in all likelihood Kuwait did fudge their reserves estimates upward, to confuse matters.

Peakoil.com thread on Iraq: Iraq has ‘more crude oil’ than Saudi Arabia, says author. User rockdoc123 has some interesting insights about the geology of the region. With all this talk of reserves in abundance it is curious that only a few smallish new fields have been discovered, in the north. Moujahed and Sadad Al-Husseini authored a paper strongly critizing the IHS notion that the western desert has hundreds of billions of barrels waiting to be tapped: Petroleum Resources Of The Western Desert of Iraq.

"In an area under exploration since at least the WWI era)."

yes except the period in the early '80's when iraq was conducting a war with iran, since the '91 sanctions, and since the search for wmd's began.

the problem with the us occupying iraq, is that it is just too profitable, imo.