"Its All About Oil"-Alan Greenspan
In the late spring of 2001, Vice President Cheney held a series of top secret meetings with the representatives of Exxon-Mobil, Conoco, Shell and BP America for what was later called the Energy Task-force. Their job, ostensibly, was to map out America’s Energy future. Since late 2001 several public interest groups, including the very conservative Judicial Watch, sued to have the proceedings of those meetings opened to public scrutiny. In March 2002, the Commerce Department turned over a few documents from the Task-force meetings to Judicial Watch, among which was the map of Iraq’s Oil Fields, dated March 2001 (above) and a list of the existing “Foreign Suitors” for Iraq Oil. Since that time, Cheney’s office has fought fiercely (and so far, successfully), right up to the Supreme Court, to keep the proceeding secret and to keep any of the private industry officials from disclosing any information about the meetings. Since we all now know the Bush administration’s energy policy, there can be only one explanation for the extraordinary efforts Cheney has taken to keep this secret–he was discussing the potential for a takeover of Iraq’s oil with the companies that might manage the resource, even before 9/11 gave him the excuse to do it.
A little context would be helpful. In early 2001, the Saudi’s were growing impatient that the large American Military presence in their land was causing tension from Muslim clerics who joined Bin Laden’s 1996 call for the “infidel to leave the Holy places of Islam”. In late 2001, the Saudi’s prevented the U.S. from using our Saudi Air Base for attacks on Afghanistan. As the New York Times reported, our departure from Saudi Arabia was abrupt.
The Prince Sultan base, which at the height of the war this spring housed 10,000 American troops and 200 planes, has now been supplanted as the Middle East’s main American military air operations center by Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.
This last phase of the American departure from the base occurred with almost no fanfare, attracting only minor mention in the Saudi press. ”It was as if they were never here,” a senior Saudi official said. ”They left very quietly.”
Most of the senior policy makers in the Bush administration had as early as January 26, 1998 (while they were still out of power) made explicit their Iraq regime change policy in an extraordinary open letter to President Clinton.
In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.
So for Cheney in the spring of 2001, the desired outcome of U.S. control of Iraq was not in doubt. What was of concern as you can see from the “Oil Suitor List” (here and here) was that both China and Russia had signed “production sharing contracts” with the Iraq Oil Ministry to develop most of the major fields. The reason this becomes important now is that with yesterday’s agreement in the Iraqi Parliament over Amnesty and Revenue Sharing, the American Embassy is now pushing hard for an Iraq Oil Law which would open up huge new concessions to the Oil Companies that were part of Cheney’s Task force. This rush for a new law confuses the Iraqis.
And as Tariq Shafiq, one of the three-member team charged with drafting the petroleum law for the Iraq Ministry of Oil suggested at the hearing, because Iraq itself doesn’t need to develop those untapped reserves for another decade, pressure to immediately implement any provision that would open them up for exploration and development “fuels the argument” that the Americans and British “are there for the oil.”
There has been a very informed discussion on these pages recently, about the role of U.S. Hard Power in a world increasingly dominated by economic and cultural Soft Power moves by our commercial rivals around the globe. If we are to have an honest discussion about imperialism, mercantilism and the role of our government in an everchanging landscape, wouldn’t shining a little sunlight on the discussions of the Cheney Energy Task-force be a place to start?
Right on, Cufford. Our hapless marriage to American Big Oil is as ambivalent and mutually self-serving as is our marriage to the Saudis. Or our marriage to Stalin. Definately an affair for mature audiences.
It is interesting that well informed posters are unaware of the history of the Patriot Act, the Project for the New American Century, and the history of the Neo-Conservatives, relative to the attack on Iraq, and all else this group has determined to control. Their plans were made public a long time ago, and had American citizens been more alert and involved in research concerning presidential candidates, they quite likely would have never considered voting for Bush and his people.
A perusal of bills passed and acts made law will reveal much of what has come to pass in the increasing amount of power in the office of president, and the erosion of citizens’ rights.
How many have actually read the Patriot Act, which eliminates the 4th Amendment? How many have read the John Warner Bill, giving the president the total power of martial law and the militarization of space, etc. The changes in the U.S. are there to read and recognize for what they are: a new era of U.S. governing, and citizens could easily be the victims.
When I read the Patriot Act, I did so as someone who has studied Constitutional Law widely and deeply, and taught it and written about it. Nothing in the Act nullifies, nor could nullify, the 4th Amendment. That is absurd, conspiracist nonsense.
Moreover, I doubt that glensho could name three neoConservatives in the Bush Administration.
Jon – and your point is well taken as well, though in all due respect, I’m not exactly sure what this point was.
After all, these other oil industry entities you mention, while certainly also benefiting from any upward swing in prices/profits, aren’t as far as any evidence I can see, directly involved in the process of attacking, occupying and, well, lets’ not mince words here, stealing these resources through the use of their military might to effect this result. To the contrary, I would submit that these are mere collateral beneficiaries of the imperialistic, coordinated aggressiveness of Western capitalistic efforts.
Much like — and I think this is an appropriate analogy — many species in nature benefit collaterally from the aggression of another species, feeding off the kill from another aggressor, while not having been a part of that attack aggression itself.
I don’t see these other countries as being more or less directly involved in the planning and execution of this invasion of other sovereign nations, based largely on the quest for more wealth and power in the world, though they obviously also benefit from it in the way you note.
I think that the bigger picture here tends to get pushed aside here in these discussions, when focusing on smaller pieces of the big picture.
Take, for example, the mention of PNAC and other ostensibly ideological forces in all of this. I would submit that in all of these there still remains the fundamental, and indeed inseparable, element of the human quest for wealth and power, and which is manifested in Western capitalism itself. I would argue that none of these so-called neocon ideologies can be separated from the quest for wealth that is inherent in all of these. The Richard Perles and William Kristols love pushing idiologies which insure their own wealth in the process.
Clearly, most of us can agree, I believe, that if the Middle East had no exploitable, lucrative resources, we’d have no interest there. As they say, if their natural resource was lettuce instead of oil (or more accurately hydrocarbons; i.e, oil and natural gas and their byproducts), would we be there.
If your answer to his rhetorical question is “no”, then you can’t logically discount the significance of this fundamental element; that our (Western) interest in the Middle East isn’t, in the largest way, not driven by capitalist interests.
As I attempted to express in my first post to this wonderful Blog topic (thank you, by the way), this is about much more than just Iraq’s oil, it’s about an enormous exploitable economic resource that western capitalism simply can’t resist, and goes well beyond seizing of Iraq’s own oil fields (which in itself, offers immense profit potential simply by not pumping it all for now, let alone owning it down the road).
There’s so many collateral profit channels associated with this all. From the notorious military-industrial complex (billions of U.S. tax dollars flowing wildly into the accounts of U.S. war making corporations alone), all of the ancillary crony capitalism (more billions of tax dollars channeled to Halliburton, Blackwater, et al, and other “privatization” entities — privatization being a euphemism for favored and connected corporations and their owners stuffing their economic appetites at the trough of public tax money, largely unregulated (no bid contracts) — and the fact that the powers behind all of this have been able to take the country of Iraq, and completely rewrite the economic rules from the ground up, all to benefit Western capitalist entities. It’s a frigg’n gold mine over there in so many ways…benefiting so many connected capitalist interest…it’s mind boggling. Iraq’s oil is truly but a small but significant part of it all.
Again…the big picture centers on a decades-long plan to tap the vast hydrocarbon resources of the Caspian Basin, and in order to do that, essentially requiring the taking of all countries in the region due do pipleline/marketing needs. Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan (all have to be in the bag, or might as well be). All these countries who essentially border on that hydrocarbon-rich area and which have land over which pipelines will have to be stretched.
Afghanistan was merely first on the list, Iraq second, and Iran and Syria are clearly next, with the same lying “if we don’t there’ll be a mushroom cloud” propaganda. This is a decades-long plan here, and it is about making money, primarily from hydrocarbons (currently the most lucrative commodity on Earth — until water becomes that someday in the future). But along with that conveniently comes all sorts of profiting, from military-industrial, crony capitalism (no bid contracts for your friends/supporters’ companies) to completely restructuring economies like Iraq’s, bleeding them dry for Western profits at the expense of the human element. Heck, it’s happening right here in the U.S. alone (NAFTA, etc.). It’s going on all around the globe, and has been for years.
Bottom line, this is about rapacious capitalism as much as anything else.
I have no problem with capitalism in theory, if it’s well regulated and ethical. But unfortunately, it never stays that way. It’s the so-called “golden rule”. Those who own the gold, make the rules. And those rules are naturally designed to get them more gold. It’s class warfare, and it’s been the source of the rise and fall of every empire in history, and it’s merely happening again.
Rather than say that Iraq is “all about the oil”. It would be more accurate to say that it’s “all about the money to be made”.
That’s what the Middle East is to Western interests. It’s about an incredible amount of wealth to be made, and with no regard for what stands in the way of making it, including the human element.
That’s my opinion anyway.
As a PS to my previous posts, I feel that I have failed to provide attribution for my contention that this is all largely about the Caspian Basin resources.
I did mention the “The U.S. Azerbaijan Chamber Of Commerce” (http://www.usacc.org/) in passing, but I would suggest people take a look at the website and in particular that “member list” I mentioned.
There you’ll see familiar Western corporate interests including: Halliburton, Chevron, ConocoPhilips, Exxon Mobile, and BP (British Petroleum). Also, not to be missed: Baker Botts, LLP, firm of James Baker, former Secretary of State, senior council for The Carlye Group, as well as council to the Saudis in defensive of American 911 family victims suing the Saudis for their role, etc.
The U.S. Azerbaijan Chamber Of Commerce is all about the exploitation of the enormous money making potential of the greater Caspian region, and Western capitalist interests, including those listed as members above, are all over it. Not surprisingly, these same interest exert enormous influence in U.S. foreign policy. As the article which apparently spawned this blog thread notes, Cheney’s Energy Task Force was largely made up of these same entities, planning the U.S Energy Policy purely for selfish profit potential.
The business relationships building in the Caspian Basin aren’t something most people know about, but is top priority for Western capital interests.
Dick Cheney famous stated to an audience of oil industry industrialists in 1998:
“I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian… Securing the world’s remaining energy reserves are the central concern of U.S. geopolitical strategy, and controlling access to Central Asian hydrocarbons is one of main factors influencing recent U.S. policy in the Middle East, the invasion in the late 1970s of Afghanistan by both Russia and the U.S., and the “war on terrorism”.
In other words…it’s all about the money folks.
Furthermore, from another industry publication:
“It has been estimated that the basin of the land-locked Caspian Sea has 170- 463 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves, the largest single natural gas resource in the world. The U.S. Department of Energy gives a probability of 50% that the Caspian basin contains reserves of 243 billion barrels of oil, on a par with the 260 billion barrels of proven reserves claimed by the Arabian peninsula. The Kashagan oil field, off the Kasakh coast, was discovered in 2000 and is believed to be among the world’s 5 largest oil fields. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan also have vast gas reserves but exports are limited by pipeline infrastructure.”
There is tons of documentation on the Caspian region and it’s significance to Western capitalist interests, and it’s logical relationship to our military policy in the region, as well as the extent to which these interests, including U.S. government officials have publicly stated their organizational plans, business and political relationships for the region.
Connecting the dots with Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, et al isn’t rocket science.
We are in the Middle East to make money. Well, not you and I, but the powers that are behind what our country does abroad in the name of the so-called “War on Terrorism”.
Surprisingly, or perhaps not, practically nobody other than those in the industry have heard about the Caspian Basin and it’s enormous hydrocarbon resources.
Frankly, I’m sure that the powers that be are happy to have us all think that Iraq is all about stealing it’s oil fields, because that distracts everyone from what’s really at play here. The much bigger picture indeed. The complete dominance of Middle East hydrocarbon resources, of which Iraq is a very small part indeed.
They’re in this for the long haul. Talk of troop withdrawal and democracy in Iraq is nothing more than short term propaganda to keep the masses happy and distracted between elections.
But we’ve really only just begun this invasion and eventual takeover of all the relevant countries of the region who aren’t willing partners in this scheme.
As we should all realize all too well, Iran is most certainly going to be the next Iraq. There’s no question about it. Just the next step along the way in this decades-long plan to control and profit from this entire region.
Any country who isn’t on board with Western interests, will fall victim to this imperialist march for wealth and power from Middle East resources.
The facts are out there folks, and the conclusions aren’t difficult to reach. It’s just common sense.
Or, perhaps, something along the lines of Ockham’s Razor, which I understand goes something like: all things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be the right one.
Well, the quest for wealth and power just happens to fit neatly into everything that’s happening over there. Some might say it’s just coincidental that all the players are making enormous amounts of money and that it’s really about ideology. I don’t think so. I think it’s as simple as going after the wealth that’s there to be made, and that’s what this is truly all about.
Rapacious capitalism…greed without a conscience.
Cufford-This is really good stuff. I’ve combined some of our discussion here with some other line of thought on a new thread.
http://jtaplin.wordpress.com/2008/02/23/fascism-and-democracy/
Take care, Cufford, please. You too, Jon. You might consider broadening your strokes.
Jon, ask Starr about Doheny sometime.
Soon.
Cufford, interesting quote from Cheney. Most interesting is that it features him making references to the US invasion of Afghanistan and the terrorism war a full three years before either had come to pass.
?
Mayer Arar
Bill Maher
to name two whose views were suppressed. To posit that this administration isn’t steamrolling the Constitution is laughable right-wing apologia.
Which Constitutional liberties of Mayer Ayer’s were abridged, given that he’s a Canadian citizen?
Again, which of Bill Mayer’s civil liberties?
Saying that “this administration” is “steamrolling the Constitution” is laughable left-wing propaganda.
Been missing any of your civil rights lately?
I wonder why anyone would take Greenspan’s comments at face value. Of course the Bush administration wanted to appropriate Iraqi oil, but as has been pointed out, the value of this is much smaller than the cost of the war.
Greenspan is merely diverting attention from the neocons who were the architects of the war.
bad bad … what will these guys do when oil is out?
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la vie est belle
The Iraqi oil is but a side issue. There is a lot more money for these companies to make in the trans-Afganistan pipeline. With this in mind, I believe that Iraq was a conquest of opportunity used to divert the attention of the American public away from Afganistan and toward Iraq. And it has worked. Think of how much news coverage Afganistan recieves compaired to Iraq. The Presidential campaign is all about the failed policies of Iraq and a plan to get out. What about Afganistan? No one is talking about it and the troops, based on numerous testimonies from the troops themselves, are based in Afganistan acting as guards for the pipeline workers. Can you believe that? US military is a private security force for forign oil companies.
U.S. foreign policy in the middle and far east is being executed as a two pronged approach, the main goal of which is to garrison the Iraqi oil fields for American development while simultaneously exploiting the vast labor resources of the far east. This policy, at least for the short run should be brilliantly successful because these two components feed off of each other. The export of the U.S. economy to China and the rest of the far east has had the effect of fueling among other things a ravenous and voracious appetite for fossil fuels AND expanded competition for U.S. oil companies who are using both soft and hard power to make sure that India and China get the resources they will need for the future; but only if U.S. oil companies can profit from the venture. So I agree with Dan in that our troops are no more than a huge private mercenary force of luckless pawns.
The wariness of American oil companies toward China is born out in the massive investments in the copper,tin,oil and other resources of that country in Africa. When are we as a people going to wake up to the fact these people are not friends but friendly opponents who are just as ruthlessly opportunistic toward us as we are toward our own people.
I hasten to add that this is not about money, at least not solely. This is about control and gamesmanship. I believe that corporate America decided a long time ago that they would rather sell out their own people to make a buck(even if it meant the eventual dissolution of their own country) rather than share any profits with them because to do so would mean surrendering some measure of control. Welcome one and all to what will go down in history and the Guinness Book of World Records as the Worlds Biggest Pissing Match.
Now don’t get me wrong. I still hold out the hope that these people (and we) will wake up when we all realize that they have surrendered their control and the futures of us all to foreigners. However, by that time, whenever that is, the only result of that realization will quite possibly be WWIII.
Well, Well, Well, look like having some patience paid off for SHELL…
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/ArticleID/11331