Oil1
Iraq
War is "War for Oil" - Los Angeles Times
Source:
http://www.wanttoknow.info/061230iraqwaroil
"While
the Bush administration, the media and nearly all the Democrats still refuse to
explain the war in Iraq in terms of oil, the ever-pragmatic members of the Iraq
Study Group share no such reticence. Page 1, Chapter 1 ... lays out Iraq's
importance: "It has the world's second-largest known oil reserves."
The report makes visible to everyone the elephant in the room: that we are
fighting, killing and dying in a war for oil. The Iraq Study Group would commit
U.S. troops to Iraq for several more years to ... provide security for Iraq's
oil infrastructure. We can thank the Iraq Study Group for making its case
publicly. It is now our turn to decide if we wish to spill more blood for oil.
"
--
Los Angeles Times, 12/8/06
Dear friends,
Many thanks to
the Los Angeles Times
for having the courage to say what so many of us know, yet so few media have
reported: the Iraq War is all about oil. The below article is well worth
reading for laying bare the subtle manipulations which keep so many people in
the dark about the deeper purposes of this, and indeed most wars. As one of the most highly decorated U.S. generals said, "war is a racket" to
keep the coffers of the major corporations filled with dollars from the pockets
of tax payers. By spreading the word, we can and will change all this and work
towards real peace and a world which recognizes that we are all one human
family. I wish you all of you a most fabulous, meaningful new year ahead!
With very best
wishes,
Fred Burks for PEERS
and the WantToKnow.info
Team
Former
language interpreter
for Presidents Bush and Clinton
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-juhasz8dec08,0,4717508.story
It's
still about oil in Iraq
A
centerpiece of the Iraq Study Group's report is its advocacy for securing
foreign companies' long-term access to Iraqi oil fields.
By Antonia
Juhasz
ANTONIA JUHASZ
is a visiting scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and author of
"The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time."
December 8,
2006
WHILE THE Bush
administration, the media and nearly all the Democrats still refuse to explain
the war in Iraq in terms of oil, the ever-pragmatic members of the Iraq Study
Group share no such reticence.
Page 1,
Chapter 1 of the Iraq Study Group report lays out Iraq's importance to its
region, the U.S. and the world with this reminder: "It has the world's
second-largest known oil reserves." The group then proceeds to give very
specific and radical recommendations as to what the United States should do to
secure those reserves. If the proposals are followed, Iraq's national oil
industry will be commercialized and opened to foreign firms.
The report
makes visible to everyone the elephant in the room: that we are fighting,
killing and dying in a war for oil. It states in plain language that the U.S.
government should use every tool at its disposal to ensure that American oil
interests and those of its corporations are met.
It's
spelled out in Recommendation No. 63, which calls on the U.S. to "assist
Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial
enterprise" and to "encourage investment in Iraq's oil sector by the
international community and by international energy companies." This recommendation
would turn Iraq's nationalized oil industry into a commercial entity that could
be partly or fully privatized by foreign firms.
This is an
echo of calls made before and immediately after the invasion of Iraq.
The U.S. State
Department's Oil and Energy Working Group, meeting between December 2002 and
April 2003, also said that Iraq "should be opened to international oil
companies as quickly as possible after the war." Its preferred method of
privatization was a form of oil contract called a production-sharing agreement.
These agreements are preferred by the oil industry but rejected by all the top
oil producers in the Middle East because they grant greater control and more
profits to the companies than the governments. The Heritage Foundation also
released a report in March 2003 calling for the full privatization of Iraq's oil sector. One
representative of the foundation, Edwin Meese III, is a member of the Iraq
Study Group. Another, James J. Carafano, assisted in the study group's work.
For any degree
of oil privatization to take place, and for it to apply to all the country's
oil fields, Iraq has to amend its constitution and pass a new national oil law. The constitution is ambiguous as to
whether control over future revenues from as-yet-undeveloped oil fields should
be shared among its provinces or held and distributed by the central
government.
This is a
crucial issue, with trillions of dollars at stake, because only 17 of Iraq's 80
known oil fields have been developed. Recommendation No. 26 of the Iraq Study
Group calls for a review of the constitution to be "pursued on an urgent
basis." Recommendation No. 28 calls for putting control of Iraq's oil
revenues in the hands of the central government. Recommendation No. 63 also
calls on the U.S. government to "provide technical assistance to the Iraqi
government to prepare a draft oil law."
This last step
is already underway. The Bush administration hired the consultancy firm
BearingPoint more than a year ago to advise the Iraqi Oil Ministry on drafting
and passing a new national oil law.
Plans for this
new law were first made public at a news conference in late 2004 in Washington.
Flanked by State Department officials, Iraqi Finance Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi
(who is now vice president) explained how this law would open Iraq's oil
industry to private foreign investment. This, in turn, would be "very
promising to the American investors and to American enterprise, certainly to
oil companies." The law would implement production-sharing agreements.
Much to the
deep frustration of the U.S. government and American oil companies, that law
has still not been passed.
In July, U.S.
Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman announced in Baghdad that oil executives told
him that their companies would not enter Iraq without passage of the new oil
law. Petroleum Economist magazine later reported that U.S. oil companies
considered passage of the new oil law more important than increased security
when deciding whether to go into business in Iraq.
The Iraq Study
Group report states that continuing military, political and economic support is
contingent upon Iraq's government meeting certain undefined
"milestones." It's apparent that these milestones are embedded in the
report itself.
Further, the
Iraq Study Group would commit U.S. troops to Iraq for several more years to,
among other duties, provide security for Iraq's oil infrastructure. Finally,
the report unequivocally declares that the 79 total recommendations "are
comprehensive and need to be implemented in a coordinated fashion. They should
not be separated or carried out in isolation."
All told,
the Iraq Study Group has simply made the case for extending the war until
foreign oil companies — presumably American ones — have guaranteed
legal access to all of Iraq's oil fields and until they are assured the best
legal and financial terms possible.
We can thank
the Iraq Study Group for making its case publicly. It is now our turn to decide
if we wish to spill more blood for oil.
Note: To understand the well hidden reasons
behind most wars, don't miss the excellent two-page summary of the words of one
of the most highly decorated U.S. generals at http://www.WantToKnow.info/warcoverup
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======================
WHAT PRICE SADDAM? David S. Larsen
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/whatpricesaddam.php
3000
soldiers fighting for the American army are dead, and the world is a better
place for it. It's hard to understand. I don't really believe it inside myself,
but it must be true, because the President said it is so. 3000 dead, and the
world is a better place. And no matter how many more die, it's going to be
okay, because that's the price we're willing to pay to capture a 75 year old
scapegoat and put him in a cage, and kill him.
Of
course that's only one small part of the payment. We've also paid with the
blood of what may eventually exceed a million other people, few of whom could
have been considered an enemy, but whose surviving friends and relatives must
certainly be enemies now.
Yes,
Saddam Hussein became ever more valuable, like the vanishing natural resource
his country symbolizes. As his life grew shorter, the cost in blood and
treasure spiraled exponentially higher. We have made him that valuable.
Just
how valuable was Saddam? What exactly are we to pay for the pleasure of having
one old man in a cage like a captive bear, kept alive for his bile, only to be
killed when his bile proved not to be the cure for what ails us? Well, whatever
we've had to pay, it must have been worth it. The Secretary of State has said
it is so.
America's
credibility. No country in its right mind can believe anything that comes out
of Washington anymore, and only time will tell if this is the beginning of a
long slow decline for America, or whether it will be able to remember the
things that made it great, and by imitating its past somehow restore the patina
of goodness that has always enabled its plans for guiding the unfolding of the
world.
America's
credibility, spent to make Saddam the most valuable man in the history of the
world. Thank goodness we possessed him however briefly. He was a jewel of
infinite worth, if it costs 3000 troops, and 600,000 civilians, and America's
credibility. But, it is surely worth it, because the Secretary of Defense has
said it is so.
Will
we ever be able to tally just how valuable a man was Saddam Hussein? Probably
not. Probably it will be a point of argument forever, a point where friends
agree to disagree, but we can state with certainty that in order to put this
man on our mantle, we've gladly spent our moral authority. Once the world
leader in human rights, we didn't think twice about snuffing out the light that
guided the world, we just did it. We discarded our respect for human rights and
the rule of law, and we embraced kidnapping and torture. To get a guy that
valuable, it was all worth it. The Attorney General has said it is so.
Human
rights, America's credibility, 600,000 civilians, and 3,000 troops. And one
more thing, a trifling consideration really, and the least of the costs, but
just to be accurate it must be added into the total. Two trillion dollars, to
be paid in the form of stumbling blocks handed out at birth to future
generations of Americans. Add it all up, and it's hard to understand with your
brain how the world could be a better place, but when the President speaks, I
don't go with my brain, I go with my gut. Don't you? 3,000 soldiers dead, and
the world is a better place.