Cheney’s bogus oil argument

[maddezmom]

By: Steve Benen on Saturday, April 12th, 2008 at 5:10 AM - PDT There are probably some grounded, halfway reasonable arguments against withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, but the fact that the White House keeps relying on sheer nonsense suggests the Bush gang can’t think of any, either.

Consider Dick Cheney’s remarks on Sean Hannity’s radio show.

HANNITY: If we pull out too early, what do you believe the consequences would be? <…>

CHENEY: 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.

It’s hard to overstate how far-fetched this is.

What’s especially striking about this is that the president, about three weeks ago, emphasized the same point. Bush insisted that if we withdraw, there will be chaos in Iraq, which would lead al-Qaida to acquire Iraq’s oil. At that point, the president said, the terrorist network “could pursue its ambitions to acquire weapons of mass destruction and to attack America and other free nations.”

Just how groundless is the argument? After Bush’s comments, a White House reporter asked Dana Perino, “I don’t understand how a fragmented, clandestine, non-Iraqi terrorist organization could produce and sell Iraqi oil on the global market, especially when the majority of Iraqis have turned against al-Qaida. Could you describe a plausible scenario?” As it turns out, she couldn’t.

more:http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/04/12/cheneys-bogus-oil-argument/


more from the interview:

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.

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


In the nearly decade-long war against Soviet forces in the 1980s, Afghan tribes and ethnic groups that had been feuding for centuries joined together against the Soviet army, bolstered by training, equipment and money funneled through Pakistan by the CIA.

But soon after the Islamic guerrillas forced the Soviet Union to withdraw in 1989, the coalition of victorious factions disintegrated. Within three years, the country's prime minister and defense minister organized different armies and were shelling each other and raining bombs and missiles on the citizens of Kabul, the capital. The country -- as well as individual cities and neighborhoods within those cities -- was carved up by warlords with their own armies and police forces, most of which routinely robbed, extorted and killed civilians belonging to ethnic groups or tribes different from their own.

more:http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A38162-2001Sep15¬Found=true

Ghost Wars: How Reagan Armed the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan
During Reagan’s 8 years in power, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a US-supported jihad against the Soviet Union. We take a look at America’s role in Afghanistan that led to the rise of Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda with Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001.
Vice President Dick Cheney opened the 34-hour period of Reagan’s lying in state by saying, “It was the vision and the will of Ronald Reagan that gave hope to the oppressed, shamed the oppressors and ended the evil empire.”

What Cheney along with the corporate media failed to mention yesterday was the Reagan administration’s role in financing, arming and training what was destined to become America’s worst enemy in the Middle East and Asia.

During most of the 1980’s, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to Afghanistan to support the mujahedeen–or holy warriors–against the Soviet Union, which had invaded in 1979.

The U.S.-supported jihad succeeded in driving out the Soviets but the Afghan factions allied to the US gave rise to the oppressive Taliban and Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda.

more:http://www.democracynow.org/2004/6/10/ghost_wars_how_reagan_armed_the

[wtmusic]

1. Dick Cheney is one twisted puppy.

Control, control, control...he will never understand.

The oil means nothing next to the resolve we have handed them on a plate.

[Bandit]

2. Supposedly Iran has an even larger amount of oil

They say Iran is a terrorist haven already, so the terrorist gaining access to oil is a moot point wouldn't you say? It all boils down to how boldly they LIE. Cheney is the boldest LIAR amongst them. He has absolutely no shame period.....

[JohnyCanuck]

3. "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

[Canuckistanian]

4. "Terrorists" quickly become repected businessmen when there's oil money

I think Cheney has some vision of a "Mad Max" style of oil production and distribution if the "terrorists" were in charge. Not so.

They probably would quickly ally with Saudi Arabia AND Iran.

[Strelnikov_]

5. "the Middle East . . . is still where the prize ultimately lies"

From the standpoint of the oil industry obviously - and I'll talk a little later on about gas - for over a hundred years we as an industry have had to deal with the pesky problem that once you find oil and pump it out of the ground you've got to turn around and find more or go out of business. Producing oil is obviously a self-depleting activity. Every year you've got to find and develop reserves equal to your output just to stand still, just to stay even. This is as true for companies as well in the broader economic sense it is for the world. A new merged company like Exxon-Mobil will have to secure over a billion and a half barrels of new oil equivalent reserves every year just to replace existing production. It's like making one hundred per cent interest; discovering another major field of some five hundred million barrels equivalent every four months or finding two Hibernias a year. For the world as a whole, oil companies are expected to keep finding and developing enough oil to offset our seventy one million plus barrel a day of oil depletion, but also to meet new demand. By some estimates there will be an average of two per cent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead along with conservatively a three per cent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and the national oil companies are obviously in control of about ninety per cent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world often greet oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow..

- Cheney At London Institute of Petroleum, 1999