Bloody Price Of Oil

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Why did we get involved with Iraq in the first place? Oil. Nothing but oil.

The Bush I administration's stated objective in their Gulf war was to protect the flow of Mideast oil to the U.S. and to prevent Iraq from obtaining a seaport from which Iraqi shipments would supposedly depress an already sputtering world market.

Saddam Hussein hadn't threatened the American people in his power grab for a greater share of the oil pie. Indeed, the U.S. must have been aware that the overproduction of oil by Kuwait and Saudi Arabia prior to Iraq's invasion was a move to drive the price of oil down and in the process weaken Iraq.

Aside from the question of the danger that the expansion of Saddam's dictatorship may have posed to the region, the defense of Kuwait's territorial integrity was a foreign concept to H.W. Bush who had participated in and overseen the ordering of the mining of the Nicaraguan harbor, the invasion of Grenada, the overthrow of the president of Panama and the installation of a U.S. puppet government there, as well as the acquiescence of Britain's invasion of the Falklands in 1982.

The Bush I administration issued a national security directive which listed among its objectives; ". . . the defense of U.S. vital interests in the region, if necessary through the use of military force; and defense against forces that would cause added damage to the U.S. and world economies." http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/research/nsd (National Security Directives, George Bush Presidential Library)

More importantly, the security directive declared that access to Persian Gulf oil was vital to U.S. national security. It was on that basis that President Herbert Walker Bush waged war with Iraq.

Before sanctions were imposed, ninety percent of Iraq's income came from oil exports. Once sanctions restricted oil sales, lack of basic food and medicine soon reached catastrophic levels. The nation's reward for the blood and sacrifice of our men and women in the armed forces in that Gulf war was a further decrease in production by the Mideast oil giants under OPEC- the group which controls around half the world's oil trade. That resulted in the doubling of U.S. oil prices from $20 a barrel to $40 and the fostering of a crippling recession.

As the National Security Strategy of 1991 stated, "Economies around the world were affected by the volatility of oil prices and the disruption of economic ties to countries in the Gulf. Egypt, Turkey and Jordan were particularly hurt." http://www.fas.org/man/docs/918015-nss.htm (DoctrineLINK, National Security Strategy of 1991)

Oil profits for industry CEO's and administration shareholders must have soared. No sacrifice there.


Bush II has the same overriding goal to possess Iraq's oil, despite his now discredited justifications about WMDs, and threats from chemical, biological, and nuclear materials.

As John Kerry put it to Bush in the debate:

"The only building that was guarded when the troops when into Baghdad was the oil ministry. We didn‘t guard the nuclear facilities. We didn‘t guard the foreign office, where you might have found information about weapons of mass destruction. We didn‘t guard the borders."

Oil and Gas International's newsletter reported in April 2003 that:

"(The)Oil ministry was protected but national museum & national library (were) looted. From the moment US forces entered central Baghdad, the Iraqi Ministry of Petroleum has been under 24-hour guard by troops and about 50 tanks that block every entrance, and sharpshooters are stationed on its roof an in windows.

Yet totally neglected by the occupying forces, with not a single guard or tank stationed to protect them, were the Iraqi National Museum, where priceless antiquities from ancient Babylon and Ur were stored, as well as extremely rare samples of the first written word, and countless gold and silver items from earliest history; and the National Library, with an outstanding collection of historical calligraphy and records from the earliest days of the Ottoman Empire - almost all lost to looters and vandals who broke display cases and either destroyed or stole everything they could.

The oil ministry remained untouched. Other government buildings were ransacked and the irrigation ministry, just next door to the oil ministry was burned."
http://www.oilandgasinternational.com/iraq_war/4_16_03.aspx

The present war with Iraq is the ambition of the corporate wing of the conservative establishment who views Iraq as a potential wedge against the domination of Mideast oil-producing nations which, in many respects, are openly hostile to American economic interests in the region. Having failed to turn the first war to their corporate advantage, the exiled power brokers brooded and plotted to revive a public campaign against Saddam Hussein which would unseat the dictator and allow the U.S. to install an authority there compliant to American business concerns.

In one of his weekly radio addresses, President Bush said that, "Iraq is a ". . . place where markets are bustling, shelves are full, oil is flowing and satellite dishes are sprouting up. Since the liberation of that country, thousands of new businesses have been launched," Bush said. (replace the ravaged ones)

Before the war, Condi Rice's Deputy, Stephen Hadley spoke to the Council on Foreign Relations in February 2003 about the Future of Iraq project. "If war comes," Hadley said, "it will be a war of liberation, not occupation. The United States needs the support of Iraq's people and it will work to win that support." http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030212-15.html

"A critical part of the Iraq reconstruction effort will be ensuring that Iraq's oil sector is protected from acts of sabotage by Saddam Hussein's regime," Hadley continued, "and that its proceeds are applied for the benefit of the Iraqi people."

"Iraq's oil and other natural resources belong to all the Iraqi people, and the United States will respect this fact," Hadley
said.

However, White House Executive Order, 13303, is a bald contradiction of that assertion by this administration that the Iraqi people are to benefit from our seizure of their resources.

Executive Order, 13303 decrees that 'any attachment, judgment, decree, lien, execution, garnishment, or other judicial process is prohibited, and shall be deemed null and void', with respect to the Development Fund for Iraq and "all Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products, and interests therein." (The Development Fund, derived from actual and expected Iraqi oil and gas sales, apparently will be used to leverage U.S. government-backed loans, credit, and direct financing for U.S. corporate reconstruction operations in Iraq.) 241

In other words, all of the oil, resources and industry are the property of the U.S.; to trade, sell, and disperse at its discretion. The only ones who will benefit from the robbery of the Iraqi oil are the companies that we will allow to exploit it. The oil mongers will incestuously share the stolen profits at the expense of American lives.

The oil was supposed to fund the war, as obscene as that sounds. But the money from big oil never, never reaches the indigenous cultures. No Iraqi should expect to wrest control over their own wells from the U.S. or its allies. It's likely that the only contact Iraqis will have with their own oil will be at the foreign-owned gas stations.

Shell and British Petroleum (Tony Blair's payoff), were among the first foreign companies to be given contracts from the resumption of Iraqi oil exports when the country signed its first long-term supply deals since the war was declared over.

Among the other companies that are thought to have signed deals with Iraq are, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Marathon Oil Corp, Sinochem of China, Mitsubishi Corp, Repsol YPF and Vitol SA.

BP continues to search for oil and, along with other companies, it has been criticized for operations in the Amazon, where a number of Indian Reserves have been affected.

From the Philippines to Louisiana, oil wells and refineries victimize the people and destroy the pristine environments with polluted air which causes skin lesions and respiratory illnesses, and damage from spills which no amount of money can replace or mollify. The land is useless for farming of wildlife after the rigs are set up. The monsters spew their toxic flares of unusable chemicals into the atmosphere and regularly spray the surrounding land and pollute the nearby water sources with deadly residues. The plants and the trees in previously fertile regions turn brown and lose their foliage.

The community's money is often used up with the promise of providing jobs which never materialize.

The U.S. currently receives 16 percent of its imported oil from sub-Saharan Africa—more than it gets from Saudi Arabia. West Africa exported almost twice as much crude oil to the U.S. in 2001 as it did to Europe (68.1 million tons to the U.S., 34.9 million tons to Europe). http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/aug2002/oil-a20.shtml

According to projections by the U.S. National Intelligence Council, the proportion of oil imported to the U.S. from sub-Saharan Africa will reach 25 percent by 2015, exceeding that from the Persian Gulf. http://www.odci.gov/nic/NIC_globaltrend2015.html#link8c

The consumption of oil per dollar of GDP is now more than 40 percent higher in the United States than it is in Germany and France. The U.S. possesses only 3% of the world's oil reserves, but we consume over 25 percent of the world's oil supply.

There is ample opportunity for a lessening of our dependence through the promotion and utilization of any combination of renewable sources of energy. No war should be waged to defend this wasteful and destructive reliance on fossil fuel.

Today Bush's handpicked Treasury Secretary, John Snow admitted that high oil prices were having a negative impact on the economy:

After meeting with finance ministers from the world's biggest economies, Treasury Secretary John Snow said leaders were concerned about higher oil prices, but, "I don't think it's a recession," Snow said. Snow told a press conference that part of the problem is in the oil markets themselves. http://www.ustreas.gov./press/releases/js1981.htm

In a speech he cautioned . . . risks remain, notably from oil prices.


So Bush and his cabal have profited again from our soldier's sacrifices in another bloody war with Iraq, but haven't bothered to find any way to lessen the burden on the oil consumption side, our side. Higher oil prices, winter heating oil prices included, mean more profits for Bush and his robber barons. Why should we expect them to pressure the Saudis to do what they have been promising us for the past year, to increase production and lessen the costs? What's in it for them?

Besides, the miles of pipelines that spirit the Iraqi's oil away and into the hands of American interests are subject to frequent and continuous attack, making it uncertain whether Bush's oily Iraq prize will ever produce any more revenue for him and his associates than his early day's Harken Oil venture.

According to the WSJ and the NYT, a significant investor in G.W. Bush's early oil ventures was the bin Laden Group, a multinational construction conglomerate based in Saudi Arabia. James R. Bath, a friend and associate of then- Gov. George W. Bush, used money from Osama bin Laden's father, Sheikh bin Laden, to set up G.W.'s oil business.

In this incestuous neocon pyramid a two-percent confederation controls the majority of the nation's wealth and received the lion's share of Bush's tax giveaway. There's no question that they will continue to perpetuate and cheer lead this war, especially when so many of the principles in and out of government have such large amounts of money and prestige invested in the successful theft of the oil. If the oil grab ever falters, so will their hunger for the war and occupation.

Count on it.


*contains excerpts from my book, Power of Mischief

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