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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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 Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 3:52 am Post subject: Dilip Hiro, It's the Oil, Stupid |
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How the Bush Administration's Iraqi Oil Grab Went Awry
Greenspan's Oil Claim in Context
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By Dilip Hiro
Here is the sentence in The Age of Turbulence, the 531-page memoir of former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan, that caused so much turbulence in Washington last week: "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." Honest and accurate...
Here is a prosecutor's brief for the position that "the Iraq War is largely about oil":
The primary evidence indicating that the Bush administration coveted Iraqi oil from the start...
Paul O'Neill, the Treasury Secretary (2001-2003) under President George W. Bush; and Falah Al Jibury, a well-connected Iraqi-American oil consultant, who had acted as President Ronald Reagan's "back channel" to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein during the Iraq-Iran War of 1980-88.
According to O'Neill's memoirs... the top item on the agenda of the National Security Council's first meeting... was Iraq. That was January 30, 2001, more than seven months before the 9/11 attacks. The next... meeting on February 1st was devoted exclusively to Iraq.
Advocating "going after Saddam" during the January 30 meeting, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, according to O'Neill, "Imagine what the region would look like without Saddam and with a regime that's aligned with U.S. interests. It would change everything in the region and beyond. It would demonstrate what U.S. policy is all about." He then discussed post-Saddam Iraq -- the Kurds in the north, the oil fields, and the reconstruction of the country's economy. (Suskind, p. 85)
Among the relevant documents later sent to NSC members... the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)... had already mapped Iraq's oil fields and exploration areas, and listed American corporations likely to be interested in participating in Iraq's petroleum industry.
Another DIA document in the package, entitled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts," listed companies from 30 countries -- France, Germany, Russia, and Britain, among others -- their specialties and bidding histories. The attached maps pinpointed "super-giant oil field," "other oil field," and "earmarked for production sharing," and divided the basically undeveloped but oil-rich southwest of Iraq into nine blocks, indicating promising areas for future exploration. (Suskind., p. 96)
According to ...Falah Al Jibury, the Bush administration began making plans for Iraq's oil industry "within weeks" of Bush taking office in January 2001. ...he referred to his participation in secret meetings in California, Washington, and the Middle East...
By January 2003, a plan for Iraqi oil... emerged under the guidance of Amy Myers Jaffe... recommended maintaining the state-owned Iraq National Oil Company.. but open it up to foreign investment... The existence of this group would come to light in a report by the Wall Street Journal on March 3, 2003.
[Meanwhile]..the Pentagon's planners... devised their own super-secret plan. It involved the sale of all Iraqi oil fields to private companies with a view to increasing output well above the quota set by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) for Iraq in order to weaken, and then destroy, OPEC. |
This is what the currently proposed Oil Law in Iraq would do: sell off the rights via PSAs.
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Secondary Evidence
On October 11, 2002 the New York Times reported that the Pentagon already had plans to occupy and control Iraq's oilfields.... while Ahmed Chalabi, ...delivered this message: "American companies will have a big shot at Iraqi oil -- if he gets to run the show."
On October 30, Oil and Gas International revealed that the Bush administration wanted a working group of 12 to 20 people to (a) recommend ways to rehabilitate the Iraqi oil industry "in order to increase oil exports to partially pay for a possible U.S. military occupation government," (b) consider Iraq's continued membership of OPEC, and (c) consider whether to honor contracts Saddam Hussein had granted to non-American oil companies.
By late October 2002, columnist Maureen Dowd of the New York Times would later reveal, Halliburton, the energy services company previously headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, had prepared a confidential 500-page document on how to handle Iraq's oil industry after an invasion and occupation of Iraq. This was, commented Dowd, "a plan [Halliburton] wrote several months before the invasion of Iraq, and before it got a no-bid contract to implement the plan (and overbill the U.S.)." ...
...At a secret NSC briefing for the President on February 24, 2003...
On entering Baghdad on April 9th, the American troops stood by as looters burned and ransacked public buildings, including government ministries -- except for the Oil Ministry, which they guarded diligently. Within the next few days, at a secret meeting in London, the Pentagon's scheme of the sale of all Iraqi oil fields got a go-ahead in principle.
The Bush administration's assertions that oil was not a prime reason for invading Iraq did not fool Iraqis though. A July 2003 poll of Baghdad residents -- who represented a quarter of the Iraqi national population -- by the London Spectator showed that while 23% believed the reason for the Anglo-American war on Iraq was "to liberate us from dictatorship," twice as many responded, "to get oil". (Cited in Dilip Hiro, Secrets and Lies: Operation "Iraqi Freedom" and After, p. 398.)
Hurdles to Oil Privatization Prove Impassable
...Carroll decided not to tinker with the industry's ownership and told Bremer so. "There was to be no privatization of Iraqi oil resources or facilities while I was involved," Carroll said in an interview with the BBC's Newsnight program on March 17, 2005.
This was, however, but a partial explanation for why Bremer excluded the oil industry when issuing Order 39 in September 2003 privatizing nearly 200 Iraqi public sector companies and opening them up to 100% foreign ownership. The Bush White House had also realized by then that denationalizing the oil industry would be a blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions which bar an occupying power from altering the fundamental structure of the occupied territory's economy...
Bush Pushes for Iraq's Flawed Draft Hydrocarbon Law
...that particular article... stated that a separate Federal Revenue Law would be necessary to settle the matter of distribution ...They promised to provide ample opportunities to America's Oil Majors to reap handsome profits in an oil-rich Iraq whose vast western desert had yet to be explored fully for hydrocarbons...
The Bush administration's failure to achieve its short-term objectives does not detract from the overarching fact -- established by the copious evidence marshaled in this article -- that gaining privileged access to Iraqi oil for American companies was a primary objective of the Pentagon's invasion of Iraq. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 5:22 am Post subject: |
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| Both Oneil and Greenspan have qualified what they said. I wish people on the left would stop claiming to speak for them. |
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stevemcgarrett
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 1:18 am Post subject: |
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Joo noted:
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| Both Oneil and Greenspan have qualified what they said. I wish people on the left would stop claiming to speak for them. |
Don't confuse keane with all the facts. He has an axe to grind bigger than Paul Bunyan and more ill-intended than Lizzy Borden.
Oil is NOT the reason we went to war in Iraq. But don't expect the Left to avoid simplistic explanations. |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 9:07 am Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| Both Oneil and Greenspan have qualified what they said. I wish people on the left would stop claiming to speak for them. |
Yes, they have. Unfortunately for them, they did say it. That they are doing cya after the fact is no surprise. Psychologically speaking, what one says in unguarded moments is far more reliable than what on says when one knows others are listening. Besides, in both cases the "clarification" doesn't change the gist of the original comment, so who cares? |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 9:15 am Post subject: |
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| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
Joo noted:
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| Both Oneil and Greenspan have qualified what they said. I wish people on the left would stop claiming to speak for them. |
Don't confuse keane with all the facts. He has an axe to grind bigger than Paul Bunyan and more ill-intended than Lizzy Borden.
Oil is NOT the reason we went to war in Iraq. But don't expect the Left to avoid simplistic explanations. |
Stevie, sevie, stevie... such anger. Hard to be nearing sixty with so little to show, eh?
So, yes, I'm ignoring facts. Tell us, wicked one, where are your facts? Mine have been listed. The call for the war even before 9/11. The designing of the war starting in the fist weeks of the Bush administration. The lying about Saddam being in league with al Queda. The round filing of work on al Queda left to Bush by Clinton. The Downing Street Memo. The secret oil company meetings. The protection of nothing in Iraq except the oil ministry and the oil fields. The threat to pull out of Iraq if they don't pass the oil law Bush wants while at the same time calling Dems and opponents of the war cut-n-runners. Now, the Spanish Fly on the Wall. Etc., etc.
Disputing this war is about oil is about as laughable as claiming the Earth is flat. So, Stevie, please prove your contention, or shut your mealy mouth, eh? |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 10:20 am Post subject: |
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| keane wrote: |
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| Both Oneil and Greenspan have qualified what they said. I wish people on the left would stop claiming to speak for them. |
Yes, they have. Unfortunately for them, they did say it. That they are doing cya after the fact is no surprise. Psychologically speaking, what one says in unguarded moments is far more reliable than what on says when one knows others are listening. Besides, in both cases the "clarification" doesn't change the gist of the original comment, so who cares? |
You mean once they said something they can not clarify what they meant or said?
Who cares ? Someone who is paying attention to what they say. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 10:21 am Post subject: |
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| keane wrote: |
| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
Joo noted:
| Quote: |
| Both Oneil and Greenspan have qualified what they said. I wish people on the left would stop claiming to speak for them. |
Don't confuse keane with all the facts. He has an axe to grind bigger than Paul Bunyan and more ill-intended than Lizzy Borden.
Oil is NOT the reason we went to war in Iraq. But don't expect the Left to avoid simplistic explanations. |
Stevie, sevie, stevie... such anger. Hard to be nearing sixty with so little to show, eh?
So, yes, I'm ignoring facts. Tell us, wicked one, where are your facts? Mine have been listed. The call for the war even before 9/11. The designing of the war starting in the fist weeks of the Bush administration. The lying about Saddam being in league with al Queda. The round filing of work on al Queda left to Bush by Clinton. The Downing Street Memo. The secret oil company meetings. The protection of nothing in Iraq except the oil ministry and the oil fields. The threat to pull out of Iraq if they don't pass the oil law Bush wants while at the same time calling Dems and opponents of the war cut-n-runners. Now, the Spanish Fly on the Wall. Etc., etc.
Disputing this war is about oil is about as laughable as claiming the Earth is flat. So, Stevie, please prove your contention, or shut your mealy mouth, eh? |
Wolfowitz has said it was to get US troops out of Saudi Arabia. He was more in the war planning than just about anyone else. |
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stevemcgarrett
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 6:05 pm Post subject: |
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Keane:
Just for the record, I am not 60, nor approaching it. Not bitter or hopelessly cynical, unlike you.
I've written several EFL textbook series and graded readers over the years in addition to publishing papers. I have two book proposals (one for a m/c YAL novel) in the works. I have trained more than 5,000 East Asian EFL teachers in the past decade.
You might want to look in the mirror and ask the same question of yourself: What have I, the BLT man, done with my life besides chasing fascist phantoms? |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 12:13 am Post subject: |
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| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
Keane:
Just for the record, I am not 60, nor approaching it. Not bitter or hopelessly cynical, unlike you.
I've written several EFL textbook series and graded readers over the years in addition to publishing papers. I have two book proposals (one for a m/c YAL novel) in the works. I have trained more than 5,000 East Asian EFL teachers in the past decade.
You might want to look in the mirror and ask the same question of yourself: What have I, the BLT man, done with my life besides chasing fascist phantoms? |
Watch what one does, stevie, not what one says. As for your resume? Yeah? Well, I invented the internet!!
See how easy that is?
Now, tell us, if you've done all this, what makes you such a mean, nasty bugger? I mean, you've got your Asian Flower on your arm, your pedigree of authorship, etc., and you hang out here insulting people for no good reason?
Not buying. And, don't give a damn, either way. If you've nothing to say on the topic, why don't you go write another graded reader?
I really should write and edit off-line...
Last edited by keane on Mon Oct 01, 2007 2:38 am; edited 2 times in total |
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cbclark4
Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Location: Masan
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| Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 12:19 am Post subject: |
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No statement should be believed because it is made by an authority.
{R.A.H.} |
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