Ex-UK Army Chief (Iraq) Confirms Peak Oil Motive for War; Praises Fraudulent Reconstruction Programs

[reprehensor]

Exclusive: Ex-UK Army Chief in Iraq Confirms Peak Oil Motive for War; Praises Fraudulent Reconstruction Programmes

by Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed - Tuesday, June 17, 2008

A former senior British Army official in Iraq, James Ellery, admits the link between peak oil and the Anglo-American occupation of Iraq. Currently director of British security firm and US defence contractor, AEGIS, Ellery also whitewashes the massive corruption in Iraqi reconstruction projects.

Brigadier-General James Ellery CBE, the Foreign Office’s Senior Adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad since 2003, confirmed the critical role of Iraqi oil reserves in potentially alleviating a “world shortage” of conventional oil. The Iraq War has helped to head off what Brigadier Ellery described as “the tide of Easternisation” – a shift in global political and economic power toward China and India, to whom goes “two thirds of the Middle East’s oil.” ...

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“The reason that oil reached $117 a barrel last week”, he said, “was less to do with security of supply… than World shortage.” He went on to emphasise the strategic significance of Iraqi petroleum fields in relation to the danger of production peaks being breached in major oil reserves around the world. “Russia’s production has peaked at 10 million barrels per day; Africa has proved slow to yield affordable extra supplies – from Sudan and Angola for example. Thus the only near-term potential increase will be from Iraq,” he said. Whether Iraq began “favouring East or West” could therefore be “de-stabilizing” not only “within the region but to nations far beyond which have an interest.” ...

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Brigadier-General James Ellery is currently Director of Operations at AEGIS Defence Services Ltd., a private British security firm and US defence contractor since June 2004. In April this year, the same month as Ellery’s SOAS lecture, AEGIS won the renewal of its US defence department (DoD) contract for two more years, which at $475 million is the single largest security contract brokered by the DoD. The contract is to provide security services for reconstruction projects in Iraq conducted by mostly American companies. ...

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http://nafeez.blogspot.com/2008/06/exclusive-ex-uk-army-chief-in-iraq.html