Neocon Sandwich: U.S. Building Military Base Directly Atop Iraqi Oil Platform

[kpete]

Neocon Sandwich: U.S. Building Military Base Directly Atop Iraqi Oil Platform
Wall Street Journal | November 12, 2007 09:49 AM


From the Wall Street Journal:

The U.S. Navy is building a military installation atop this petroleum-export platform as the U.S. establishes a more lasting military mission in the oil-rich north Persian Gulf.

While presidential candidates debate whether to start bringing ground troops home from Iraq, the new construction suggests that one footprint of U.S. military power in Iraq isn't shrinking anytime soon: American officials are girding for an open-ended commitment to protect the country's oil industry.

That is a sea change for the U.S., which has patrolled these waters for decades. In the past, American warships and their allies flexed the West's military might in the Persian Gulf to demonstrate a broad commitment to protect the region, which produces almost a third of the world's oil. President Jimmy Carter codified the doctrine in 1980 in response to a perceived Soviet threat.

Now, amid rising prices -- oil futures finished Friday at $96.32 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up 86 cents -- and new vulnerabilities in the world's stretched oil-supply chain -- from militants in Nigeria to occasional Iranian threats to disrupt Persian Gulf shipping -- the Navy finds itself with an additional, much more specific role: playing security guard to Iraq's offshore oil infrastructure.

The new installation will house U.S., British and Australian officers and sailors. The Pentagon has said it has no intention of building permanent U.S. bases in Iraq, and Navy officials say they intend to turn over the facility to Iraqi forces as soon as they can run it on their own.

more at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/11/12/neocon-sandwich-us-bui_n_72174.html

[SpiralHawk]

1. "This is not an oil war. Smirk, smirk, smirk." - Commander AWOL

"No one could have anticipated 9/11. Iraq has weapons of mass destruction WMDs. I am a Texan. I served my country honorably. My family did not provide banking for the Nazis. I stopped drinking long ago. We did a heckuva job helping New Orleans prosper through Hurricane Katrina. We can all trust Pooty Poot, for I has looked into his soul. You can always - SMIRK - trust me to tell the truth."

- Commander AWOL

[Lucinda]

2. That certainly seems to support the notion that we want to slow the oil production

Don't remember who posted it last night, but it was mentioned that junior et al. want to slow production to keep prices elevated. Makes more sense to me every day.

[robinlynne]

3. Greg Palast wrote an entire book about that. an excellent book.

called Armed Madhouse. He tells the history of Iraq (actually the history of Iraqi oil) for the past 90 years, and how keeping the Iraqi oil under control keeps the price up for the Saudis. And that this was agreed to by the Americans and british many many years ago.

[Lucinda]

4. Thanks for mentioning it. I'll look for it!