Our "Vital" National Interest in Iraq? Oil, Oil, Oil

[babylonsister]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/10020

Our "Vital" National Interest in Iraq? Oil, Oil, Oil
by Randolph T Holhut | Sep 19 2007

snip//

Remember how quickly Gen. Jay Garner was sacked from his position as the U.S. viceroy in Iraq in April 2003? That was because he was more interested in helping set up a new government that represented the will of the Iraqi people. Doing that, however, would have meant the end of the grand privatization plan. So Garner was fired.

Garner was replaced by Paul Bremer, who agreed to follow the PNAC script. The problem was that the script called for denying Iraqis a say in the rebuilding of their country. It helped fuel the insurgency that has killed thousands of Americans and more than a million Iraqis over the past four years.

And the kicker to all this is that Iraq's oil industry still hasn't been privatized and is producing less oil than before the war. That's why the United States has been so adamant about the Iraqi government, such as it is, approving an agreement that would not only equitably split oil revenues between the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, but give the big oil companies a much larger cut of the profits.

That agreement has not been reached. There are no signs it will be reached. If you were sitting on a commodity that the whole world wants and will pay dearly for, would you give it away?

The story of how the Bush administration and its allies in the oil industry sought to control Iraq's oil is a long and convoluted one. It's certainly a story that Bush doesn't want to talk about, but it is one that has to be acknowledged.

As long as America is totally dependent on oil for its economic survival, our soldiers are going to be in the Middle East. As oil becomes a more scarce and expensive commodity, there will be more wars fought over it. It is disingenuous for the people running this nation to deny this.

Unfortunately, they still do.