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OIL THE CAUSE FOR THE IRAQ WAR--Greg Palast
The reason for the war: Oil. US planned to privatized oil and
other government assets.
Only the oil industry didn't go along with the plan which would have
resulted in lower oil prices and thus lower profits. The original
plan was to weaken with the cooperation of Venezuela the OPEC cartel.
HARPER'S: BAGHDAD COUP D'ETAT FOR BIG OIL
From the April Issue of Harper's Magazine
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Harper's Magazine investigation reveals how Big Oil vanquished the
neo-cons - and OPEC is the winner.
"…For months, the State Department officially denied the existence
of this 323-page plan for Iraq's oil …."
Some conspiracy nuts believe the Bush Administration had a secret
plan to control Iraq's oil. In fact, there were TWO plans. In a
joint investigation with BBC Television Newsnight, Harper's Magazine
has uncovered a hidden battle over Iraq's oil. It began right after
Mr. Bush took office - with a previously unreported plot to invade
Iraq.
From the exclusive Harper's report by Greg Palast:
Within weeks of the first inaugural, prominent Iraqi expatriates --
many with ties to U.S. industry -- were invited to secret
discussions directed by Pamela Quanrud, National Security Council,
now at the State Department. "It quickly became an oil group," one
participant, Falah Aljibury. Aljibury is an advisor to Amerada Hess'
oil trading arm and Goldman Sachs.
"The petroleum industry, the chemical industry, the banking
industry -- they'd hoped that Iraq would go for a revolution like in
the past and government was shut down for two or three days,"
Aljibury told me. On this plan, Hussein would simply have been
replaced by some former Baathist general.
However, by February 2003, a hundred-page blue-print for the
occupied nation, favored by neo-cons, had been enshrined as official
policy. "Moving the Iraqi Economy from Recovery to Sustainable
Growth" generally embodied the principles for postwar Iraq favored
by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and the Iran-Contra
figure, now Deputy National Security Advisor, Elliott Abrams. The
blue-print mapped out a radical makeover of Iraq as a free-market
Xanadu including, on page 73, the sell-off of the nation's crown
jewels: "privatization… [of] the oil and supporting industries."
It was reasoned that if Iraq's fields were broken up and sold off,
competing operators would crank up production. This extra crude
would flood world petroleum markets, OPEC would devolve into mass
cheating and overproduction, oil prices would fall over a cliff, and
Saudi Arabia, both economically and politically, would fall to its
knees.
However, in plotting the destruction of OPEC, the neocons failed to
predict the virulent resistance of insurgent forces: the U.S. oil
industry itself. Rob McKee, a former executive vice-president of
ConocoPhillips, designated by the Bush Administration to advise the
Iraqi oil ministry, had little tolerance for the neocons' threat to
privatize the oil fields nor their obsession on ways to undermine
OPEC. (In 2004, with oil approaching the $50 a barrel mark all year,
the major U.S. oil companies posted record or near-record profits.
ConocoPhillips this February reported a doubling of its quarterly
profits.)
In November 2003, McKee quietly ordered up a new plan for Iraq's
oil. For months, the State Department officially denied the
existence of this 323-page plan, but when I threatened legal action,
I was able to obtain the multi-volume document describing seven
possible models of oil production for Iraq, each one merely a
different flavor of a single option: a state-owned oil company under
which the state maintains official title to the reserves but
operation and control are given to foreign oil companies.
According to Ed Morse, another Hess Oil advisor, the switch to an
OPEC-friendly policy for Iraq was driven by Dick Cheney. "The VP's
office [has] not pursued a policy in Iraq that would lead to a rapid
opening of the Iraqi energy sector… that would put us on a track to
say, "We're going to put a squeeze on OPEC."
Cheney, far from "putting the squeeze on OPEC," has taken a defacto
seat there, allowing the cartel to maintain its suffocating grip on
the U.S. economy.
*****
Read the full story in the April edition of Harper's Magazine, out
this week: "OPEC ON THE MARCH: Why Iraq Still Sells Its Oil à la
Cartel," by Greg Palast.
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, "The
Best Democracy Money Can Buy." View his writings at
www.GregPalast.com.
SECRET U.S. PLANS FOR IRAQ'S OIL
BBC News World Edition
Thursday, March 17, 2005
By Greg Palast
Reporting for BBC Newsnight (London)
Why was Paul Wolfowitz pushed out of the Pentagon onto the World
Bank? The answer lies in a 323-page document, secret until now,
indicating that the allies of Big Oil in the Bush Administration
have defeated neo-conservatives and their chief Wolfowitz. BBC
Television Newsnight tells the true story of the fall of the neo-
cons. An investigation conducted by BBC with Harper's magazine will
also reveal that the US State Department made detailed plans for war
in Iraq -- and for Iraq's oil -- within weeks of Bush's first
inauguration in 2001.
The Bush administration made plans for war and for Iraq's oil before
the 9/11 attacks sparking a policy battle between neo-cons and Big
Oil, BBC's Newsnight has revealed.
Two years ago today - when President George Bush announced US,
British and Allied forces would begin to bomb Baghdad - protestors
claimed the US had a secret plan for Iraq's oil once Saddam had been
conquered.
In fact there were two conflicting plans, setting off a hidden
policy war between neo-conservatives at the Pentagon, on one side,
versus a combination of "Big Oil" executives and US State
Department "pragmatists."
"Big Oil" appears to have won. The latest plan, obtained by
Newsnight from the US State Department was, we learned, drafted with
the help of American oil industry consultants.
View Segments of Iraq oil plans
Insiders told Newsnight that planning began "within weeks" of Bush's
first taking office in 2001, long before the September 11th attack
on the US.
An Iraqi-born oil industry consultant, Falah Aljibury, says he took
part in the secret meetings in California, Washington and the Middle
East. He described a State Department plan for a forced coup d'etat.
Mr Aljibury himself told Newsnight that he interviewed potential
successors to Saddam Hussein on behalf of the Bush administration.
Secret sell-off plan
The industry-favoured plan was pushed aside by yet another secret
plan, drafted just before the invasion in 2003, which called for the
sell-off of all of Iraq's oil fields. The new plan, crafted by neo-
conservatives intent on using Iraq's oil to destroy the Opec cartel
through massive increases in production above Opec quotas.
The sell-off was given the green light in a secret meeting in London
headed by Fadhil Chalabi shortly after the US entered Baghdad,
according to Robert Ebel. Mr. Ebel, a former Energy and CIA oil
analyst, now a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies in Washington, flew to the London meeting, he told
Newsnight, at the request of the State Department.
Mr Aljibury, once Ronald Reagan's "back-channel" to Saddam, claims
that plans to sell off Iraq's oil, pushed by the US-installed
Governing Council in 2003, helped instigate the insurgency and
attacks on US and British occupying forces.
"Insurgents used this, saying, 'Look, you're losing your country,
your losing your resources to a bunch of wealthy billionaires who
want to take you over and make your life miserable," said Mr
Aljibury from his home near San Francisco.
"We saw an increase in the bombing of oil facilities, pipelines,
built on the premise that privatization is coming."
Privatization blocked by industry
Philip Carroll, the former CEO of Shell Oil USA who took control of
Iraq's oil production for the US Government a month after the
invasion, stalled the sell-off scheme.
Mr Carroll told us he made it clear to Paul Bremer, the US
occupation chief who arrived in Iraq in May 2003, that: "There was
to be no privatization of Iraqi oil resources or facilities while I
was involved."
The chosen successor to Mr Carroll, a Conoco Oil executive, ordered
up a new plan for a state oil company preferred by the industry.
Ari Cohen, of the neo-conservative Heritage Foundation, told
Newsnight that an opportunity had been missed to privatise Iraq's
oil fields. He advocated the plan as a means to help the US defeat
Opec, and said America should have gone ahead with what he called
a "no-brainer" decision.
Mr Carroll hit back, telling Newsnight, "I would agree with that
statement. To privatize would be a no-brainer. It would only be
thought about by someone with no brain."
New plans, obtained from the State Department by Newsnight and
Harper's Magazine under the US Freedom of Information Act, called
for creation of a state-owned oil company favored by the US oil
industry. It was completed in January 2004, Harper's discovered,
under the guidance of Amy Jaffe of the James Baker Institute in
Texas. Former US Secretary of State Baker is now an attorney. His
law firm, Baker Botts, is representing ExxonMobil and the Saudi
Arabian government.
Read the story in greater detail in the April issue of Harper's
magazine.
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, "The
Best Democracy Money Can Buy." View his writings at
www.GregPalast.com.
BEST DEMOCRACRY OIL CARTEL CAN BUY--and a tax break for buying an
SUV.
The reason for the war: Oil. US planned to privatized oil and
other government assets.
Only the oil industry didn't go along with the plan which would have
resulted in lower oil prices and thus lower profits. The original
plan was to weaken with the cooperation of Venezuela the OPEC cartel.
HARPER'S: BAGHDAD COUP D'ETAT FOR BIG OIL
From the April Issue of Harper's Magazine
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Harper's Magazine investigation reveals how Big Oil vanquished the
neo-cons - and OPEC is the winner.
"…For months, the State Department officially denied the existence
of this 323-page plan for Iraq's oil …."
Some conspiracy nuts believe the Bush Administration had a secret
plan to control Iraq's oil. In fact, there were TWO plans. In a
joint investigation with BBC Television Newsnight, Harper's Magazine
has uncovered a hidden battle over Iraq's oil. It began right after
Mr. Bush took office - with a previously unreported plot to invade
Iraq.
From the exclusive Harper's report by Greg Palast:
Within weeks of the first inaugural, prominent Iraqi expatriates --
many with ties to U.S. industry -- were invited to secret
discussions directed by Pamela Quanrud, National Security Council,
now at the State Department. "It quickly became an oil group," one
participant, Falah Aljibury. Aljibury is an advisor to Amerada Hess'
oil trading arm and Goldman Sachs.
"The petroleum industry, the chemical industry, the banking
industry -- they'd hoped that Iraq would go for a revolution like in
the past and government was shut down for two or three days,"
Aljibury told me. On this plan, Hussein would simply have been
replaced by some former Baathist general.
However, by February 2003, a hundred-page blue-print for the
occupied nation, favored by neo-cons, had been enshrined as official
policy. "Moving the Iraqi Economy from Recovery to Sustainable
Growth" generally embodied the principles for postwar Iraq favored
by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and the Iran-Contra
figure, now Deputy National Security Advisor, Elliott Abrams. The
blue-print mapped out a radical makeover of Iraq as a free-market
Xanadu including, on page 73, the sell-off of the nation's crown
jewels: "privatization… [of] the oil and supporting industries."
It was reasoned that if Iraq's fields were broken up and sold off,
competing operators would crank up production. This extra crude
would flood world petroleum markets, OPEC would devolve into mass
cheating and overproduction, oil prices would fall over a cliff, and
Saudi Arabia, both economically and politically, would fall to its
knees.
However, in plotting the destruction of OPEC, the neocons failed to
predict the virulent resistance of insurgent forces: the U.S. oil
industry itself. Rob McKee, a former executive vice-president of
ConocoPhillips, designated by the Bush Administration to advise the
Iraqi oil ministry, had little tolerance for the neocons' threat to
privatize the oil fields nor their obsession on ways to undermine
OPEC. (In 2004, with oil approaching the $50 a barrel mark all year,
the major U.S. oil companies posted record or near-record profits.
ConocoPhillips this February reported a doubling of its quarterly
profits.)
In November 2003, McKee quietly ordered up a new plan for Iraq's
oil. For months, the State Department officially denied the
existence of this 323-page plan, but when I threatened legal action,
I was able to obtain the multi-volume document describing seven
possible models of oil production for Iraq, each one merely a
different flavor of a single option: a state-owned oil company under
which the state maintains official title to the reserves but
operation and control are given to foreign oil companies.
According to Ed Morse, another Hess Oil advisor, the switch to an
OPEC-friendly policy for Iraq was driven by Dick Cheney. "The VP's
office [has] not pursued a policy in Iraq that would lead to a rapid
opening of the Iraqi energy sector… that would put us on a track to
say, "We're going to put a squeeze on OPEC."
Cheney, far from "putting the squeeze on OPEC," has taken a defacto
seat there, allowing the cartel to maintain its suffocating grip on
the U.S. economy.
*****
Read the full story in the April edition of Harper's Magazine, out
this week: "OPEC ON THE MARCH: Why Iraq Still Sells Its Oil à la
Cartel," by Greg Palast.
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, "The
Best Democracy Money Can Buy." View his writings at
www.GregPalast.com.
SECRET U.S. PLANS FOR IRAQ'S OIL
BBC News World Edition
Thursday, March 17, 2005
By Greg Palast
Reporting for BBC Newsnight (London)
Why was Paul Wolfowitz pushed out of the Pentagon onto the World
Bank? The answer lies in a 323-page document, secret until now,
indicating that the allies of Big Oil in the Bush Administration
have defeated neo-conservatives and their chief Wolfowitz. BBC
Television Newsnight tells the true story of the fall of the neo-
cons. An investigation conducted by BBC with Harper's magazine will
also reveal that the US State Department made detailed plans for war
in Iraq -- and for Iraq's oil -- within weeks of Bush's first
inauguration in 2001.
The Bush administration made plans for war and for Iraq's oil before
the 9/11 attacks sparking a policy battle between neo-cons and Big
Oil, BBC's Newsnight has revealed.
Two years ago today - when President George Bush announced US,
British and Allied forces would begin to bomb Baghdad - protestors
claimed the US had a secret plan for Iraq's oil once Saddam had been
conquered.
In fact there were two conflicting plans, setting off a hidden
policy war between neo-conservatives at the Pentagon, on one side,
versus a combination of "Big Oil" executives and US State
Department "pragmatists."
"Big Oil" appears to have won. The latest plan, obtained by
Newsnight from the US State Department was, we learned, drafted with
the help of American oil industry consultants.
View Segments of Iraq oil plans
Insiders told Newsnight that planning began "within weeks" of Bush's
first taking office in 2001, long before the September 11th attack
on the US.
An Iraqi-born oil industry consultant, Falah Aljibury, says he took
part in the secret meetings in California, Washington and the Middle
East. He described a State Department plan for a forced coup d'etat.
Mr Aljibury himself told Newsnight that he interviewed potential
successors to Saddam Hussein on behalf of the Bush administration.
Secret sell-off plan
The industry-favoured plan was pushed aside by yet another secret
plan, drafted just before the invasion in 2003, which called for the
sell-off of all of Iraq's oil fields. The new plan, crafted by neo-
conservatives intent on using Iraq's oil to destroy the Opec cartel
through massive increases in production above Opec quotas.
The sell-off was given the green light in a secret meeting in London
headed by Fadhil Chalabi shortly after the US entered Baghdad,
according to Robert Ebel. Mr. Ebel, a former Energy and CIA oil
analyst, now a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies in Washington, flew to the London meeting, he told
Newsnight, at the request of the State Department.
Mr Aljibury, once Ronald Reagan's "back-channel" to Saddam, claims
that plans to sell off Iraq's oil, pushed by the US-installed
Governing Council in 2003, helped instigate the insurgency and
attacks on US and British occupying forces.
"Insurgents used this, saying, 'Look, you're losing your country,
your losing your resources to a bunch of wealthy billionaires who
want to take you over and make your life miserable," said Mr
Aljibury from his home near San Francisco.
"We saw an increase in the bombing of oil facilities, pipelines,
built on the premise that privatization is coming."
Privatization blocked by industry
Philip Carroll, the former CEO of Shell Oil USA who took control of
Iraq's oil production for the US Government a month after the
invasion, stalled the sell-off scheme.
Mr Carroll told us he made it clear to Paul Bremer, the US
occupation chief who arrived in Iraq in May 2003, that: "There was
to be no privatization of Iraqi oil resources or facilities while I
was involved."
The chosen successor to Mr Carroll, a Conoco Oil executive, ordered
up a new plan for a state oil company preferred by the industry.
Ari Cohen, of the neo-conservative Heritage Foundation, told
Newsnight that an opportunity had been missed to privatise Iraq's
oil fields. He advocated the plan as a means to help the US defeat
Opec, and said America should have gone ahead with what he called
a "no-brainer" decision.
Mr Carroll hit back, telling Newsnight, "I would agree with that
statement. To privatize would be a no-brainer. It would only be
thought about by someone with no brain."
New plans, obtained from the State Department by Newsnight and
Harper's Magazine under the US Freedom of Information Act, called
for creation of a state-owned oil company favored by the US oil
industry. It was completed in January 2004, Harper's discovered,
under the guidance of Amy Jaffe of the James Baker Institute in
Texas. Former US Secretary of State Baker is now an attorney. His
law firm, Baker Botts, is representing ExxonMobil and the Saudi
Arabian government.
Read the story in greater detail in the April issue of Harper's
magazine.
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, "The
Best Democracy Money Can Buy." View his writings at
www.GregPalast.com.
BEST DEMOCRACRY OIL CARTEL CAN BUY--and a tax break for buying an
SUV.
