| Author | Message | | Guest | | Posted: Sun Nov 17, 2002 9:03 am Post subject: Oil is the obvious motive for US interest in Iraq |
| Sunday, November 17, 2002
Oil is the obvious motive for US interest in Iraq
Installing a pro-U.S. regime in Iraq would clearly open up lucrative possibilities for US oil companies and guarantee the US long-term access to oil reserves
Dateline: Monday, November 11, 2002
by Linda McQuaig
There's a cartoon which depicts two cows laughingly dismissing conspiracy theories as they stand in line outside a slaughterhouse. I was reminded of that cartoon the other day when one of those ubiquitous Washington think-tank experts blithely dismissed a CBC radio interviewer's question about whether oil might be the real motive for the upcoming U.S. invasion of Iraq.
"I think any rational analysis would expose that as a conspiracy theory," the expert said, bringing that line of questioning abruptly to an end.
Why, any fool can see that steak and hamburger grow on trees.
Similarly, we can assume that the mention of oil draws nothing but blank looks from the former oil executives who now occupy the two top positions in the U.S. administration. "Oil? Why would we care about that?," one can imagine the president saying to the vice-president, as they draw up plans to wage war on Iraq, driven by their deep commitment to advancing the democratic aspirations of the Iraqi people.
The main reason given by the Bush administration for invading Iraq is the need to eliminate Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. The White House has maintained this position, even after North Korea, another enemy nation, admitted last month to having nuclear weapons, which, experts agree, are still no more than a gleam in Saddam Hussein's eye. While simple consistency would demand North Korea be invaded first, Bush has resolutely kept his focus on nuclear-challenged Iraq.
Another motive suggested - including by President Bush himself last week - is the U.S. desire to bring about freedom and democracy in Iraq. Most commentators, including those who think war against Iraq is a bad idea, accept the premise that Washington is motivated by a desire to advance the cause of democracy in the Middle East.
A lengthy article in the Atlantic Monthly by prominent U.S. writer James Fallows, for instance, spells out the problems of a U.S. occupation of Iraq, and then goes on to consider the benefits of establishing democracy there. Fallows quotes some high-level Bush types talking about Iraq as an opportunity to show that Arabs are capable of democracy. (Who, other than the Bush crowd, suggested that they weren't?)
Fallows rejects the notion that Arabs are incapable of democracy, but seems to accept at face value the Bush supporters' line that Washington is concerned about democracy in the Middle East.
Certainly, lack of democracy has never prevented the U.S. from supporting dictatorial regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and countless other U.S.-friendly nations in the Middle East and elsewhere. Indeed, Washington engineered the overthrow of the democratically-elected government of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran in the 1950s - after Mossadegh nationalized foreign oil interests - and then replaced Moassadegh with the brutal, widely-hated Shah. For the following two decades, Iranians were spared the nuisance of having to vote - a situation that some might consider undemocratic, but that the U.S. magazine Newsweek once described sympathetically as "an experiment in guided democracy."
Still, the notion remains that Washington, deep down, cares about democracy. Anything else is largely swished aside as a conspiracy theory.
Which brings us back to oil. Although I'm sure it's of no relevance, I'll just point out that U.S. oil companies contributed $26 million to George Bush's Republicans in the 2000 election campaign, according to the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics. Bush and vice-president Dick Cheney are, of course, close to big oil. George Bush Sr. made the Bush family fortune in oil, and Cheney headed the oil equipment company Halliburton Energy.
U. S. oil multinationals - as well as oil interests in France, Russia and China - are already jockeying for control of Iraqi oil in the post-Saddam era, according to the London Observer. Under the headline, "Carve-up of oil riches begins," the Observer noted that the U.S.-supported Iraqi exile group, known as the Iraqi National Congress, held meetings with three U.S. oil multinationals in Washington last month to negotiate the carve-up of Iraq's reserves. A further meeting between oil executives and Iraqi exiles will be held next month at a retreat near Sandringham, England.
The installation of a pro-U.S. regime in Iraq would clearly open up lucrative possibilities for U.S. oil companies and guarantee the U.S. long-term access to oil. It would also, the Observer reports, advance Washington's longtime goal of weakening OPEC, the oil producing countries' cartel.
Iraq's oil supply is immense; its proven reserves are second only to Saudi Arabia's. Furthermore, the Observer noted, the U.S. Energy Department believes Iraq has undiscovered reserves that put its total oil potential well ahead of even Saudi Arabia's.
But don't expect dossiers about any of this to end up on the President's desk; he's too busy working on a democratic model for the Iraqi people.
And slaughterhouses are fun-filled vacation homes for cows.
***
Linda McQuaig is an economic journalist and a columnist with the Toronto Star, in which this column originally appeared. She is the author of All You Can Eat: Greed, Lust and the New Capitalism (Penguin $34.00)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | |  | | Guest | | Posted: Sun Dec 29, 2002 11:54 pm Post subject: |
| | We all know that support for a Palestinian state in the USA went up to 75 percent during the Arab (Saudi) oil embargo of 1973 (when the Saudis cut off oil to the USA when the USA had supplied F-4 Phantom jets to the Israelis because they were in the midst of being defeated by the Arabs). The resulting oil embargo slowed the US economy (because when the price of oil goes up the economy in the USA obviously goes down and is more prone to recover when the oil price per barrel drops to the point where the Arabs are basically selling it at the price of mineral water). So the Zionists figure (that if the Saudis and OPEC) ever pull a similar embargo they increase production in "occupied" Iraq to counter (along with what oil is being acquired from the Caspian Sea region and other areas). If the USA doesn't eventually occupy Iraq after invading in the very near future, it will put an Israeli-friendly lackey ("strong man" like the Shah of Iran) in power who will do what the USA wishes (in accordance with what the Israeli masters want as instructed via a the pro-Israel lobby-corrupted and Zionist-occupied US government). Don't be surprised if you see a pipeline from Iraq to Israel as well.... | | | | Guest | | | | *Mutt American | | Posted: Mon Dec 30, 2002 2:55 am Post subject: |
| We are actually building up more than the link indicates.
Enjoy. | | | | Guest-c651 | | Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2003 8:48 pm Post subject: US Invading Iraq for Radical JINSA Zionism and Oil |
| US Invading Iraq for Radical JINSA Zionism and Oil:
Radical JINSA (Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs) Zionism (of the Paul Wolfowitz/Richard Perle/Dick Cheney cabal) and oil are the two reasons the USA will be invading Iraq soon (Dick Cheney is the liaison between the two):
Too Many Smoking Guns To Ignore: Israel, US Jews, Iraq Attack:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/uk-and-europe/2003/01/28/too-many-smoking-guns-to-ignore-israel-us-jews-iraq.php
http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,882512,00.html
US buys up Iraqi oil to stave off crisis
Seizing reserves will be an allied priority if forces go in
Faisal Islam and Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow
Sunday January 26, 2003
The Observer
Facing its most chronic shortage in oil stocks for 27 years, the US has this month turned to an unlikely source of help - Iraq. Weeks before a prospective invasion of Iraq, the oil-rich state has doubled its exports of oil to America, helping US refineries cope with a debilitating strike in Venezuela. After the loss of 1.5 million barrels per day of Venezuelan production in December the oil price rocketed, and the scarcity of reserves threatened to do permanent damage to the US oil refinery and transport infrastructure. To keep the pipelines flowing, President Bush stopped adding to the 700m barrel strategic reserve. But ultimately oil giants such as Chevron, Exxon, BP and Shell saved the day by doubling imports from Iraq from 0.5m barrels in November to over 1m barrels per day to solve the problem. Essentially, US importers diverted 0.5m barrels of Iraqi oil per day heading for Europe and Asia to save the American oil infrastructure. The trade, though bizarre given current Pentagon plans to launch around 300 cruise missiles a day on Iraq, is legal under the terms of UN's oil for food programme. But for opponents of war, it shows the unspoken aim of military action in Iraq, which has the world's second largest proven reserves - some 112 billion barrels, and at least another 100bn of unproven reserves, according to the US Department of Energy. Iraqi oil is comparatively simple to extract - less than $1 per barrel, compared with $6 a barrel in Russia. Soon, US and British forces could be securing the source of that oil as a priority in the war strategy. The Iraqi fields south of Basra produce prized 'sweet crudes' that are simpler to refine. On Friday, Pentagon sources said US military planners 'have crafted strategies that will allow us to secure and protect those fields as rapidly as possible in order to then preserve those prior to destruction'. The US military says this is a security issue rather than a grab for oil, after a 'variety of intelligence sources' indicated that Saddam planned to damage or destroy his oil fields - which would inflict up to $30bn damage on the US economy and cause irreparable environmental damage. But the prospect of British and US commandos claiming key oil installations around Basra by force has pushed global oil diplomacy into overdrive. International oil companies have been jockeying position to secure concessions before 'regime change'. Last weekend a Russian delegation flew to Baghdad to patch up relations after Iraq's cancellation of its five-year-old contract to develop the huge West Qurna oil field - worth up to $600bn at today's oil price. Lukoil was punished by Baghdad for negotiating with the US and Iraqi exiles on keeping its concession in a post-Saddam Iraq. The delegation of Ministers and oil executives returned to Moscow with three signed contracts. Oil is the state budget's lifeblood, and Russia requires an oil price of at least $18. Russians fear a US grip on a large reserve of cheap oil could send prices tumbling. But Saddam has offered lucrative contracts to companies from France, China, India and Indonesia as well as Russia. It is only the oil majors based in Britain and America - now the leading military hawks - that don't have current access to Iraqi contracts. Richard Lugar, the hawkish chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, suggests reluctant Europeans risk losing out on oil contracts. 'The case he had made is that the Russians and the French, if they want to have a share in the oil operations or concessions or whatever afterward, they need to be involved in the effort to depose Saddam as well,' said Lugar's spokesman. A delegation of senior US Republicans was in Moscow last Tuesday trying to persuade Kremlin officials and oil companies that a war in Iraq would not compromise their concessions. A leaked oil analyst report from Deutsche Bank said ExxonMobil was in 'pole position in a changed-regime Iraq'. Washington is split along hawk-dove lines about the role of oil in a post-Saddam Iraq. Two sets of meetings sponsored by the State Department and Vice-President Dick Cheney's staff have been attended by representatives of ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhilips and Halliburton, the company that Cheney ran before his election. The dovish line, led by Colin Powell, places the emphasis on 'protection' of Iraq's oil for Iraq's people. His State Department has pointed to a precedent in the US interpretation of international law set in the 1970s. Then, when Israel occupied Egypt's Sinai desert, the US did not support attempts to transfer oil resources. While the State Department is mindful of cynical world opinion about US war aims, officials do not always stick to the script. Grant Aldonas, Under Secretary at the US Department of Commerce, said war 'would open up this spigot on Iraqi oil which certainly would have a profound effect in terms of the performance of the world economy for those countries that are manufacturers and oil consumers'. The US economy will announce zero growth this week, prolonging three years of sluggish performance. Cheap oil would boost an economy importing half of its daily consumption of 20m barrels. But a cheaper oil price could have been reached more easily by lifting sanctions and giving the US oil majors access to Iraq's untapped reserves. Instead, war stands to give control over the oil price to 'new Iraq' and its sponsors, with Saudi Arabia losing its capacity to control prices by altering productive capacity. Paul Wolfowitz, Assistant Defence Secretary, and Richard Perle, a key Pentagon adviser, see military action as part of a grand plan to reshape the Middle East. To this end, control of Iraqi oil needs to bypass the twin tyrannies of UN control and regional fragmentation into Sunni, Shia and Kurdish supplies. The neo-conservatives plan a market structure based on bypassing the state-owned Iraqi National Oil Company and backing new free-market Iraqi companies. But, in the run-up to war, the US oil majors will this week report a big leap in profits. ChevronTexaco is to report a 300 per cent rise. Chevron used to employ the hawkish Condoleezza Rice, Bush's National Security Adviser, as a member of its board. Five years ago the then Chevron chief executive Kenneth Derr, a colleague of Rice, said: 'Iraq possesses huge reserves of oil and gas - reserves I'd love Chevron to have access to.' If US and UK forces have victory in Iraq, the battle for its oil will have only begun. | | | | Guest | | Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2003 5:12 am Post subject: |
| Saddam and his WMD are the motive.
The oil is just a bonus. | | | | Guest-400c | | Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2003 5:56 am Post subject: What about Israeli Weapons of Mass Destruction? |
| | Guest wrote: | Saddam and his WMD are the motive.
The oil is just a bonus. |
What about Israeli weapons of mass destruction?:
Iraq Turns Spotlight on Israel at U.N. Arms Body:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/01/31/iraq-turns-spotlight-on-israel-at-u-n-arms-body.php
Bush is intent on painting allies and enemies in the Middle East as evil:
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=332011
By Robert Fisk
10 September 2002
Just as Americans are recovering from the harrowing television re-runs of the 11 September attacks, their President is going to launch the biggest reshaping of the Middle East since the British and French parcelled out the Arab lands after the 1914-18 war. When he addresses the United Nations on Thursday, George Bush will be threatening not only Iraq which had absolutely nothing to do with the crimes against humanity in New York and Washington but Syria, Iran and, by extension, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.The Syrian Accountability Act, which accuses Damascus of supporting "terrorism", will come into force as President Bush is speaking and will follow only days after the State Department branded the Lebanese Hizbollah as the "A-team of terrorism", more dangerous even than Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'ida. Like Iraq, the Hizbollah had nothing to do with the 11 September attacks indeed, they were among the first to condemn them but the White House now seems set on painting allies and enemies alike in the Middle East as a focus of evil.Only The Nation among all of America's newspapers and magazines has dared to point out that a large number of former Israeli lobbyists are now working within the American administration and the Bush plans for the Middle East which could cause a massive political upheaval in the Arab world fit perfectly into Israel's own dreams for the region. The magazine listed Vice-President Dick Cheney the arch-hawk in the US administration and John Bolton, now under-secretary of state for Arms Control, with Douglas Feith, the third most senior executive at the Pentagon, as members of the advisory board of the pro-Israeli Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (Jinsa) before joining the Bush government. Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon's Defence Policy Board, is still an adviser on the institute, as is the former CIA director James Woolsey.Michael Ledeen, described by The Nation as "one of the most influential 'Jinsans' in Washington" has been calling for "total war" against "terror" with "regime change" for Syria, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority. Mr Perle advises the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld who refers to the West Bank and Gaza as "the so-called occupied territories" and arranged the anti-Saudi "kernel of evil" briefing by Laurent Murawiec that so outraged the Saudi royal family last month. The Saudi regime may itself be in great danger as the princes of the House of Saud attempt to seize more power for themselves in advance of the depart-ure of the dying King Fahd. Jinsa's website says it exists to "inform the American defence and foreign affairs community about the important role Israel can and does play in bolstering democratic interests in the Mediterranean and the Middle East". Next month, Michael Rubin of the right-wing and pro-Israeli American Enterprise Institute who referred to the outgoing UN human rights commissioner Mary Robinson as an abettor of "terrorism" joins the US Defence Department as an Iran-Iraq "expert".According to The Nation, Irving Moskovitz, the California bingo magnate who has funded settlements in the Israeli-occupied territories, is a donor as well as a director of Jinsa. President Bush, of course, will not be talking about the influence of these pro-Israeli lobbyists when he presents his vision of the Middle East at the United Nations on Thursday. Nor will he give the slightest indication that the region is, in the words of its own kings and dictators, a powder keg of resentment and anger. The tectonic plates of the Arab world are now grinding with increasing violence. Into this political earthquake zone, Mr Bush now seems intent on leading his country, with his loyal British ally. Most of today's Arab nations were fashioned out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire by Britain and France in the aftermath of the First World War and Palestinians still blame Britain today for supporting the formation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Both European nations stationed tens of thousands of troops across the region, suppressing Arab revolts in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon itself created by the French at the request of its Christian Maronite community. The whole colonial framework led to the loss of tens of thousands of lives before both the British and French retreated from the Middle East.Now President Bush seems set on following the colonial powers into the region for another military and political adventure ostensibly to spread "democracy" among those nations it most despises (Iraq, Palestine and Iran) but in fact more likely to increase American control of an increasingly anti-Western Arab world.The Arabs themselves warn that this will lead to massive instability and widespread violence. The Israelis and their allies in the US administration are hell bent on the whole shebang.
JINSA (Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs) Planned Iraq 'Regime Change' before Bush Presidency:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/31/bush-planned-iraq-regime-change-before-becoming-president.php
Included below is that "Men from JINSA and CSP" article from "The Nation" magazine which Mr. Fisk mentions in his article referenced above:
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020902&s=vest&c=1
The Men From JINSA and CSP
by JASON VEST
[from the September 2, 2002 issue of "The Nation" magazine in the USA]
The Men From JINSA and CSP
by JASON VEST
[from the September 2, 2002 issue]
Almost thirty years ago, a prominent group of neoconservative hawks found an effective vehicle for advocating their views via the Committee on the Present Danger, a group that fervently believed the United States was a hair away from being militarily surpassed by the Soviet Union, and whose raison d'κtre was strident advocacy of bigger military budgets, near-fanatical opposition to any form of arms control and zealous championing of a Likudnik Israel. Considered a marginal group in its nascent days during the Carter Administration, with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 CPD went from the margins to the center of power. Just as the right-wing defense intellectuals made CPD a cornerstone of a shadow defense establishment during the Carter Administration, so, too, did the right during the Clinton years, in part through two organizations: the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and the Center for Security Policy (CSP). And just as was the case two decades ago, dozens of their members have ascended to powerful government posts, where their advocacy in support of the same agenda continues, abetted by the out-of-government adjuncts from which they came. Industrious and persistent, they've managed to weave a number of issues--support for national missile defense, opposition to arms control treaties, championing of wasteful weapons systems, arms aid to Turkey and American unilateralism in general--into a hard line, with support for the Israeli right at its core. On no issue is the JINSA/CSP hard line more evident than in its relentless campaign for war--not just with Iraq, but "total war," as Michael Ledeen, one of the most influential JINSAns in Washington, put it last year. For this crew, "regime change" by any means necessary in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority is an urgent imperative.
General James. David on the Iraqi situation:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/01/29/gen-j-david-on-the-iraqi-situation.php
Gore Vidal claims 'Bush junta' complicit in 9/11:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/01/21/gore-vidal-claims-bush-junta-complicit-in-9-11.php | | | | Guest-400c | | | | Guest-c651 | | | | Ed Toner | | Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2003 9:28 pm Post subject: It's about oil in Afghanistan, too. |
| http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAQ51OR6AD.html
Pakistani, Turkmen, Afghan Leaders to Sign $3.2 Billion Pipeline Deal
By Bagila Bukharbayeva Associated Press Writer
Published: Dec 26, 2002
ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan (AP) - Leaders from Afghanistan, Pakistan and
Turkmenistan met Thursday to work out the final details of an ambitious deal
to build a gas pipeline through war-ravaged Afghanistan.
The long-delayed $3.2-billion natural gas pipeline, known as the
Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline, would carry gas from energy-rich Turkmenistan to
Pakistan. It would be one of the first major investment projects in
Afghanistan in decades.
The project promises to give an economic boost to Afghanistan but lacks
solid financial backing. Investors are leery of the risks of doing business
in a country where U.S.-led coalition forces are still hunting down remnants
of Taliban and al-Qaida fighters.
Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov welcomed Afghan President *Hamid Karzai, Pakistani Prime .........................
AP-ES-12-26-02 0859EST
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*Hamid Karzai is the oil man Bush appointed to govern Afghanistan. He
represented Occidental at a conference in Houston which discussed two
pipelines, this one, plus a huge one to connect the Caucus oil field with
the Arabian Sea ports. The Taliban rejected the plan. Bad Taliban. They are
bad like Hudsein when he nationalized Iraqi oil industry.
The Taliban is verry baad also, because they forbade the cultivation of
poppies.
Of course this is all occidental, er, excuse the typo, accidental, er, darn,
I meant "coincidental."
Ed | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
