3 years ago this week at DU....a couple of prescient threads.

[madfloridian]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=6144&forum=DCForumID38&archive=#2

Vancouver Sun: War on Iraq is already under way

17 August 2002
Jonathan Manthorpe
Vancouver Sun

There is growing evidence to suggest the physical war against Saddam Hussein has been under way for nearly six months.
… … The new war against Saddam Hussein probably began early this year when Bush authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to launch a covert operation to remove the Iraqi leader. More formal opening moves began in March when troop deployments began that have doubled the number of U.S. and British forces in the region from 50,000 to 100,000.

… …The overall picture suggests a war of the python rather than the cobra; the slow and steady squeezing of the life out of Saddam Hussein's regime rather than a quick strike."

The link does not work now, but I think someone found this the other day.


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Stockpiling oil...this is the only article I ever saw on this issue. Have no idea if true or not.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=5790&forum=DCForumID38&archive=
This link still works.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/bush/story/0,7369,768592,00.html
US stockpiles oil to avoid price shock

Bush learns a lesson from slump after first Gulf conflict

Julian Borger, Washington
Saturday August 3, 2002
The Guardian

"Beneath the gently curving coastline of Texas and Louisiana, vast underground caverns are being filled with crude oil as part of Washington's war preparations that could be as important as the Pentagon's military blueprints.

The caverns were once subterranean pillars of salt, but the salt has been dissolved and sucked out, leaving gigantic sealed reservoirs which for the past quarter century have served as the US strategic petroleum reserve (SPR). Last November, when the Bush administration began to think about extending its "war on terror" from Afghanistan to Iraq, the president ordered the reserve to be filled to its 700 million barrel capacity."

Just a couple of things that happened 3 years ago this week here.

[Gman]

1. I was already noticing C-5 cargo planes flying out of the old BRAC'd

Kelly AFB. It had been closed already for a few years and the C-5 maintenance had been moved to Oklahoma. Now, C-5's were flying in and out, then they would leave headed east and climbing. After the first four or five I saw leaving headed east and climbing, I thought, "Hmmm... I'll bet they're headed for Iraq."

[madfloridian]

2. I wish I could find some info from an old poster here....

I have some archived threads of his, and I used to email him. He had a website called BurningBush or theburningbush, and he was from UK I think. He had a lot on stuff that was going on back then. His website seems to no longer exist.

I thought I had saved some old emails from him, but I can't find them. He went by the user name johnhorne.

[charlie]

4. Wayback has archives of his site

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://burningbush.netfirms.com
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://elitewatch.netfirms.com

DU forum software mungs the above links -- copy them and strip out the spaces. Or just copy the URLs after the asterisk-slash and enter them into the Wayback Machine.

[madfloridian]

7. Wow! Thanks. I did not think to look there.

I have often wondered what happened to him. I think I do have some emails saved, but under another address. Wonder what happened to him.

[charlie]

8. Dunno

Your mention got me curious about his whereabouts too.

[madfloridian]

9. Aw gee, I found an old email from him.

Just to share a portion....and we had our high hopes back then. A lot of water under the bridge, and Blair and Bush are still standing. This portion really moved me. It is dated August 10, 2002.

"I seriously believe that dissent is inching close to critical mass. Certainly in the UK, Tony Blair could not be more unpopular & if he approves of any action in Iraq, there will be some serious political fallout.

The grand irony is that the UK and the US do have a "special friendship" -- our citizens are united in the hating of our leaders!!!

Keep the faith!!"
John

[Ilsa]

3. Salt domes were part of the Austin chalk geography, IIRC.

They would be in the area of Texas east of Austin and west of Houston, and maybe slightly north, IIRC. I can't imagine anything going on around there having to do with storage. I pass that area occasionally and haven't seen anything "off". Then again, I could be batshit crazy.

[madfloridian]

5. We wondered about that article then.

Never saw anything else on the subject. There was a lot of discussion on it then, then nothing.

[madfloridian]

6. Ok, found an article on this at Bloomberg...no year, but date of May

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006&sid=aTV.4Sa8t4rM&refer=home

Filling the SPR

``The SPR is only 8 million barrels short of being filled, which will make more oil available,'' O'Grady said.

President George W. Bush has said he wants to fill the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to its 700 million-barrel capacity by this summer. The reserve holds 692.1 million barrels, the Energy Department reported on its Web site today.

The petroleum reserve was created in 1975 following the Arab oil embargo of 1973 and 1974. The oil is stored in more than 50 underground salt caverns along the Texas and Louisiana coast.

The Energy Department on May 10 lowered its estimate of crude-oil prices this year by 6.2 percent to an average of $51.36 a barrel. The price for West Texas Intermediate crude oil, the U.S. benchmark, was cut from $54.74 a barrel estimated in April, the department's Energy Information Administration said in its monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook.

U.S. Economy

Article is a little over halfway down.

And something from CATO Institute. Must be something to the article.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/reg13n2-singer.html

Snake Oil in the SPR
S. Fred Singer
Washington Institute for Values in Public Policy

"A little iconoclasm may be in order as Congress, alarmed about rising oil imports, prepares to expand the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). Now a 600-million-barrel store of crude oil, accumulated at an average price per barrel substantially higher than the current price, the $25 billion SPR rests in underground salt caverns in Texas and Louisiana under the watchful eyes of Department of Energy (DOE) bureaucrats. It is problematic whether they will ever release it; they might as well be storing snake oil.

On February 1, 1990, the Secretary of Energy delivered a study to Congress that discourages expanding the SPR beyond its currently authorized 750 million barrels. Yet legislative proposals call for a SPR of one billion barrels, the goal chosen by the Carter administration; H.R. 3193, introduced in August 1989, would also add regional stockpiles and even stocks of oil products-to further increase our demand for imports from OPEC and other exporting countries. With reauthorization of the 1975 Energy Policy and Conservation Act coming up, this is a good time to reexamine the purpose and operation of the SPR and to expose some myths."

[Gman]

10. Wasn't the Austin Chalk pretty much a bust for oil?

There was a lot of talk about it in the late '80's but nothing significant seems to have come of it.