Amoco — later taken over by British Petroleum — was an early partner with Khodorkovsky (Yukos CEO) in a highly prospective Siberian oil field Priobskoye. Amoco spent $300 million developing the oil field Khodorkovsky has been reported to be negotiating with ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco about them taking a large stake in Yukos. Khodorkovsky was arrested on tax fraud Yukos is being auction of at a starting bid of $8.6 billions but back taxes to the Russian government is $24 billion to the buyers = keeping Cheney & Exxon out of the bid. Now, "...The dismantling of Russian oil giant Yukos Financial analysts in Moscow fear that the government is attempting to dismantle Yukos and create one large oil and gas giant virtually controlled by the Kremlin...." Should Americans pay for this?