Cheney: "if al Qaeda were to take over big parts of Iraq...acquire control of a significant oil"

[sabra]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/04/20080410-10.html

<snip>

Q If we pull out too early, what do you believe the consequences would be?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, what I remember, Sean, is Afghanistan -- I try to remind people of this -- back in the '80s, when we were actively involved in supporting the mujahideen there against the Soviets. We were successful, and then everybody who was involved in the effort walked away from Afghanistan. The result after that was the Taliban -- first you had a civil war; then the Taliban came to power; and then they brought in Osama bin Laden in '96. And then in Afghanistan, they trained 20,000 terrorists, a bunch of whom came here and killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11.

For us to walk away from Iraq I think would have at least that bad an effect, probably worse, because if al Qaeda were to take over big parts of Iraq, among other things, they would acquire control of a significant oil resource. Iraq has almost 100 billion barrel reserves, producing 2.5-3 million barrels of oil a day. If you take a terrorist organization like al Qaeda and give it that kind of revenue, there's no telling the amount of trouble they could get into.

So I -- for us to suggest that somehow we can hide behind our oceans and not worry about what happens in Iraq, or in the Middle East generally, or with respect to al Qaeda is just a travesty. I can't think that any American government can do that and accept the consequences of that. I think it would be a terrible, terrible development for the nation.

[Bluebear]

1. 'there's no telling the amount of trouble they could get into' - True, look at us. nt

[LSK]

2. I didnt know Al Queda had a massive army on Iraq's border ready to go in

[SammyWinstonJack]

3. "So?"

"...walked away from Afghanistan." :spank:

[DS1]

5. Yes. They did.

They promised the fighters that the US would stick around and help rebuild Afghanistan after the Russians were driven out, but 30 minutes after the Russians took off, so did the US.

[SammyWinstonJack]

6. Oh I know. I was just wondering how cheney could say that after

we walked away from Afghanistan to invade Iraq. He really has some nerve.

[DS1]

10. Different timeframes

[SammyWinstonJack]

14. I know.

[bdamomma]

12. yea, his nerve is out of a control, he needs to be arrested.

that power that he thinks he possesses will come crashing down around him some day hopefully.

[SammyWinstonJack]

15. Hopefully sooner rather than never.

[MidwestTransplant]

4. I think he is still confused about al Qaeda. Still doesn't get it.

[mnmoderatedem]

7. how would a clandistine operation like Al Qaeda

gain control of Iraq's oil? :shrug:

[kenny blankenship]

8. The oil of Iraq is in the Kurdish north and the Shia south.

Al-Qaeda, which is a radical movement drawing membership from within Sunni Islam, has something less than a snowball's chance in Hell in either of those 2 regions.

As is his habit, Sneering Dick is just spreading ignorance, fear, and mass murder.

[malaise]

9. So you invade a country illegally

bomb their citizens back to the dark ages, loot and pillages thousands of years of history, occupy their country, deprive them of freedom and basic infrastructure, torture their citizens, rape their women and then have the nerve to come on TeeVee and say that you were really trying to prevent al Qaeda (who weren't there when you invaded and who are a minority of the resistance movement) from getting rich of the oil you came to steal.

Sorry Cheney, you're a fucking thief, murderer and war criminal. By the way anyone with sense knows you and your goons are the real terrorists.

Gr.

[Mountainman]

11. I hate the way this disingenuous lying bastard talks.

I really can't wait till this guy starts to feel the effects of the karma he has been creating!

[JohnyCanuck]

13. "Those who have the ability to shape events with power have the duty to do so"

The Thirty-Year Itch

by Robert Dreyfuss (Mother Jones March/April 2003)

If you were to spin the globe and look for real estate critical to building an American empire, your first stop would have to be the Persian Gulf. The desert sands of this region hold two of every three barrels of oil in the world -- Iraq's reserves alone are equal, by some estimates, to those of Russia, the United States, China, and Mexico combined. For the past 30 years, the Gulf has been in the crosshairs of an influential group of Washington foreign-policy strategists, who believe that in order to ensure its global dominance, the United States must seize control of the region and its oil. Born during the energy crisis of the 1970s and refined since then by a generation of policymakers, this approach is finding its boldest expression yet in the Bush administration -- which, with its plan to invade Iraq and install a regime beholden to Washington, has moved closer than any of its predecessors to transforming the Gulf into an American protectorate.

In the geopolitical vision driving current U.S. policy toward Iraq, the key to national security is global hegemony -- dominance over any and all potential rivals. To that end, the United States must not only be able to project its military forces anywhere, at any time. It must also control key resources, chief among them oil -- and especially Gulf oil. To the hawks who now set the tone at the White House and the Pentagon, the region is crucial not simply for its share of the U.S. oil supply (other sources have become more important over the years), but because it would allow the United States to maintain a lock on the world's energy lifeline and potentially deny access to its global competitors. The administration "believes you have to control resources in order to have access to them," says Chas Freeman, who served as U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia under the first President Bush. "They are taken with the idea that the end of the Cold War left the United States able to impose its will globally -- and that those who have the ability to shape events with power have the duty to do so. It's ideology."

SNIP

In 1975, while Akins was ambassador in Saudi Arabia, an article headlined "Seizing Arab Oil" appeared in Harper's. The author, who used the pseudonym Miles Ignotus, was identified as "a Washington-based professor and defense consultant with intimate links to high-level U.S. policymakers." The article outlined, as Akins puts it, "how we could solve all our economic and political problems by taking over the Arab oil fields bringing in Texans and Oklahomans to operate them." Simultaneously, a rash of similar stories appeared in other magazines and newspapers. "I knew that it had to have been the result of a deep background briefing," Akins says. "You don't have eight people coming up with the same screwy idea at the same time, independently.

"Then I made a fatal mistake," Akins continues. "I said on television that anyone who would propose that is either a madman, a criminal, or an agent of the Soviet Union." Soon afterward, he says, he learned that the background briefing had been conducted by his boss, then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Akins was fired later that year.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2003/03/ma_273_01.html

[bdamomma]

16. that is what it is all about its the oil, and only about the oil.

dick cheney can fuck off.

[Vickers]

17. Hey Dick, I fixed your quote for you...

"If you take a terrorist organization like The Bush Administration and give it that kind of revenue, there's no telling the amount of trouble they could get into."

Hope this helps.

[SammyWinstonJack]

19. ...

:thumbsup:

[sinkingfeeling]

18. Can we thank 'Charlie Wilson's War' for Afghanistan?

[Johonny]

20. shh don't tell Dick but they already got that kind of organization

From Saudi Arabian oil money. Anyways it's been 5 years in Iraq and Dick Inc. hasn't been able to secure the country enough to prevent al Qaeda with represents a fighting force of ~3% from taking over Iraq? Does anyone believe these al Qaeda fighters could really defeat the Iranian back militias in Iraq? No. Cheney presents a scenario so fantastic that shows he simply doesn't understand the middle east. Iraq is not a country in danger of being taken over by al Qaeda now nor 5 years ago.

[sabra]

21. I think he does understand - he also knows what Hannity's listeners will believe...

[Johonny]

24. IDK

I think they've come to believe their own BS. They are trapped in their own self delusions.

[damntexdem]

22. That could be nearly as bad as if ...

the Bushistas were successful in their plot to do the same thing.

Petroleumis Envy.

[sakabatou]

23. Replace al Qaeda with America and what do you get?

[Disturbed]

25. Cheney knows that he is spewing pure BS.

AQ in Iraq would be eliminated in a month or so if the US/UK Occupiers
stepped out of the way. The Shiite & Sunni Militias would decimate AQ in Iraq
quickly. After that the various factions would fight each other for power over
various regions in Iraq. The Oil is what Cheney is concerned with. He doesn't give a
damn about the lives of US Troops or Iraqis. He wants the Oil under the control of
US Multi-Natl. Oil Corps.

[petronius]

26. If al qaeda got control of a big oil resource, then Osama would be

sipping mint juleps in Crawford the very next day. Seriously, how does he think al qaeda would bring that oil to market?

Just more of his imaginary 'mushroom cloud' bullshit...

[Wizard777]

27. His name is Usama bin Laden. "Osama" is Japanese and it means King.

By the time Bush is done Usama will be the King of Iraq.