Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Iraq: It Was Oil, All Along

Saturday 28 June 2008

by: Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Oh, no, they told us, Iraq isn't a war about oil. That's cynical and simplistic, they said. It's about terror and al-Qaeda and toppling a dictator and spreading democracy and protecting ourselves from weapons of mass destruction. But one by one, these concocted rationales went up in smoke, fire and ashes. And now the bottom line turns out to be ... the bottom line. It is about oil.

Alan Greenspan said so last fall. The former chairman of the Federal Reserve, safely out of office, confessed in his memoir, "Everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." He elaborated in an interview with The Washington Post's Bob Woodward, "If Saddam Hussein had been head of Iraq and there was no oil under those sands, our response to him would not have been as strong as it was in the first Gulf War."

Remember, also, that soon after the invasion, Donald Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, told the press that war was our only strategic choice. "We had virtually no economic options with Iraq," he explained, "because the country floats on a sea of oil."

Shades of Daniel Plainview, the monstrous petroleum tycoon in the movie, "There Will Be Blood." Half-mad, he exclaims, "There's a whole ocean of oil under our feet!" then adds, "No one can get at it except for me!"

No wonder American troops only guarded the Ministries of Oil and the Interior in Baghdad, even as looters pillaged museums of their priceless antiquities. They were making sure no one could get at the oil except ... guess who?

Here's a recent headline in The New York Times: "Deals With Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back." Read on: "Four western companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power."

There you have it. After a long exile, Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP are back in Iraq. And on the wings of no-bid contracts - that's right, sweetheart deals like those given Halliburton, KBR and Blackwater. The kind of deals you get only if you have friends in high places. And these war profiteers have friends in very high places.

Let's go back a few years to the 1990's, when private citizen **** Cheney was running Halliburton, the big energy supplier. That's when he told the oil industry that, "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? While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies."

Fast forward to Cheney's first heady days in the White House. The oil industry and other energy conglomerates were handed backdoor keys to the White House, and their CEO's and lobbyists were trooping in and out for meetings with their old pal, now Vice President Cheney. The meetings were secret, conducted under tight security, but as we reported five years ago, among the documents that turned up from some of those meetings were maps of oil fields in Iraq - and a list of companies who wanted access to them. The conservative group Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club filed suit to try to find out who attended the meetings and what was discussed, but the White House fought all the way to the Supreme Court to keep the press and public from learning the whole truth.

Think about it. These secret meetings took place six months before 9/11, two years before Bush and Cheney invaded Iraq. We still don't know what they were about. What we know is that this is the oil industry that's enjoying swollen profits these days. It would be laughable if it weren't so painful to remember that their erstwhile cheerleader for invading Iraq - the press mogul Rupert Murdoch - once said that a successful war there would bring us $20-a-barrel oil. The last time we looked, it was more than $140 a barrel. Where are you, Rupert, when the facts need checking and the predictions are revisited?

At a Congressional hearing this week, James Hansen, the NASA climate scientist who exactly twenty years ago alerted Congress and the world to the dangers of global warming, compared the chief executives of Big Oil to the tobacco moguls who denied that nicotine is addictive or that there's a link between smoking and cancer. Hansen, whom the administration has tried again and again to silence, said these barons of black gold should be tried for committing crimes against humanity and nature in opposing efforts to deal with global warming.

Perhaps those sweetheart deals in Iraq should be added to his proposed indictments. They have been purchased at a very high price. Four thousand American soldiers dead, tens of thousands permanently wounded, hundreds of thousands of dead and crippled Iraqis plus five million displaced, and a cost that will mount into trillions of dollars. The political analyst Kevin Phillips says America has become little more than an "energy protection force," doing anything to gain access to expensive fuel without regard to the lives of others or the earth itself. One thinks again of Daniel Plainview in "There Will Be Blood." His lust for oil came at the price of his son and his soul.

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Bill Moyers is managing editor and Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday nights on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers.

if no one knew it was about oil there stupid but still our prices rise????

wow, there's a shocker.

They worst part is, the architects of this Iraq War will never be held accountable for their actions.

Instead, they will leave office, get million dollars paying jobs.

Whilst many more thousands if not millions will be paying for their actions in decades to come.

and i was thinking it was all mickey mouse fault ,............ bummer

Those same people who said it was not about OIL

Are now profiteering from it. WAKE UP.

GWB is only doinig what his Good Ole Grand Pappy did in the 2nd World War.

REALLY? Holy cow thanks for the info!

The day after al-Qaeda's devastating attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, Richard A. Clark says "he walked into a series of discussions about "Iraq" in the White House, which were not about "getting al Qaeda" Instead, " i realized with almost a sharp physical pain that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were going try to take advantage of this national tragedy.

From, "Intelligence Wars", Thomas Powers

Wow....Whio knew?

No i not believe the war was about oil, really its cheaper to buy the oil then to go to war over it.plus you look that the u.s. has not exploited the oil fields of Iraq since the war started. At worst is a war based on flawed intel that not need to be fought. Only now is the government of Iraq asking for outside help to build its oil production capability. The united states could have taken over the oil fields of Saudi Arabia a long time ago,if it was just about oil. A very good book book to read is a book by Robert Baer a former CIA operator called " Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude " it was made into the movie " syriana'' it will make you shake your head at how deep the oil deals go. The U.S.A has never imported a large amount of oil from Iraq anyway.

I hope I can live long enough to see the day when cars no longer rely on oil .

Yes it was about oil - maybe the whole thing was stage managed to give the US Admin a reason to sell to the public the idea of a war...lets say we make the war based on terrorism...no...hang on - that will not be enough - there's a handy dictator in there - and a bit of a religious sh*tfight going on - we can use that - and Saddam can be accused of WMD as well...thats gonna fly - ok...off we go! As you see - planning started before 9/11...hmm...

No matter what the reason - the profiteering is simply criminal - no other word for it. GWB is not bothered by the cost of oil - the higher the price the more the oil companies make - they are on a percentage deal dont forget.

Hells Bells, margaret.

well there's a shocker .... who'd a thought it ???

American hating left wing crackerjacks still getting off vomiting the same bile. Sh*t I'd get bored listening to the same broken record year after year after year. Monotony becomes you all I guess. Only 10 more hours to "happy hour."

Posted by PeterH61 [ 6 July 2008 | 8:24PM ]

"...so what else could George W Bu(ll)sh(it) and ****(head) Cheney have been up to when they invaded one of the biggest oil producers in the world? They never gave a s**t about how much oil costs the consumer as long as they pocket a tidy profit - however obscenely it is obtained. God speed the day next February when they are consigned to history."

You know.........it's funny how your own political leaders don't buy into your self-delusional, moronic, twisted dust trip you appear to be on. A man your age with a pathetic mouth like you have.....you're a disgrace. Grow up Peter Pan. Tinkerbell has left the building.

Posted by luckyphil247 [ 6 July 2008 | 8:29PM ]

"I hope I can live long enough to see the day when cars no longer rely on oil ."

Maybe. But doubtful you'll live to see oil entirely replaced by another energy alternative. Unless something totally different is discovered on another planet or extraterrestrial. Don't forget oil's byproducts are used in most chemicals and plastics. In other words, it has uses far beyond its designation as the number one energy source.

trying to do my shocked and stunned face but it won't work!!