Documents suggest that Richard Perle, top aide to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, has been in talks with government officials and its Washington envoy, and Turkish AG Group International, over a plan to drill for oil near the Kurdish city of Erbil. Perle is also in talks with the oil-rich nation of Kazakhstan, whose ruler, Nursultan Nazarbayev, has been involved in a US oil bribery investigation.

The State Department recently said that it was investigating deals brokered between the Kurds and other American energy companies, such as Dallas-based Hunt Oil Company, "infuriating" the Iraqi government, which called such deals "illegal attempts" to circumvent Baghdad's authority as the Iraqi government works to pass a national oil law. Documents suggest, however, that the State Department did not object to such deals.