[A-List] US imperialism: Iraq

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

The West's battle for oil

Five months before September 11, the US advocated using force against Iraq
... to secure control of its oil. Neil Mackay on the document which casts
doubt on the hawks
The Sunday Herald, 6 October 2002

IT is a document that fundamentally questions the motives behind the Bush
administration's desire to take out Saddam Hussein and go to war with Iraq.

Strategic Energy Policy Challenges For The 21st Century describes how
America is facing the biggest energy crisis in its history. It targets
Saddam as a threat to American interests because of his control of Iraqi
oilfields and recommends the use of 'military intervention' as a means to
fix the US energy crisis.

The report is linked to a veritable who's who of US hawks, oilmen and
corporate bigwigs. It was commissioned by James Baker, the former US
Secretary of State under George Bush Snr, and submitted to Vice-President
Dick Cheney in April 2001 -- a full five months before September 11. Yet it
advocates a policy of using military force against an enemy such as Iraq to
secure US access to, and control of, Middle Eastern oil fields.

One of the most telling passages in the document reads: 'Iraq remains a
destabilising influence to ... the flow of oil to international markets from
the Middle East. Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to
threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export programme to
manipulate oil markets.

'This would display his personal power, enhance his image as a pan-Arab
leader ... and pressure others for a lifting of economic sanctions against
his regime. The United States should conduct an immediate policy review
toward Iraq including military, energy, economic and political/diplomatic
assessments.

'The United States should then develop an integrated strategy with key
allies in Europe and Asia, and with key countries in the Middle East, to
restate goals with respect to Iraqi policy and to restore a cohesive
coalition of key allies.'

At the moment, UN sanctions allow Iraq to export some oil. Indeed, the US
imports almost a million barrels of Iraqi oil a day, even though American
firms are forbidden from direct involvement with the regime's oil industry.
In 1999, Iraq was exporting around 2.5 million barrels a day across the
world.

The US document recommends using UN weapons inspectors as a means of
controlling Iraqi oil. On one hand, 'military intervention' is supported;
but the report also backs 'de-fanging' Saddam through weapons inspectors and
then moving in to take control of Iraqi oil.

'Once an arms-control program is in place, the US could consider reducing
restrictions [sanctions] on oil investment inside Iraq,' it reads. The
reason for this is that 'Iraqi [oil] reserves represent a major asset that
can quickly add capacity to world oil markets and inject a more competitive
tenor to oil trade'.

This, however, may not be as effective as simply taking out Saddam. The
report admits that an arms-control policy will be ' quite costly' as it will
'encourage Saddam Hussein to boast of his 'victory' against the United
States, fuel his ambition and potentially strengthen his regime'. It adds:
'Once so encouraged, and if his access to oil revenues was to be increased
by adjustments in oil sanctions, Saddam Hussein could be a greater security
threat to US allies in the region if weapons of mass destruction, sanctions,
weapons regimes and the coalition against him are not strengthened.'

The document also points out that 'the United States remains a prisoner of
its energy dilemma', and that one of the 'consequences' of this is a 'need
for military intervention'.

At the heart of the decision to target Iraq over oil lies dire mismanagement
of the US energy policy over decades by consecutive administrations. The
report refers to the huge power cuts that have affected California in recent
years and warns of 'more Californias' ahead.

It says the 'central dilemma' for the US administration is that 'the
American people continue to demand plentiful and cheap energy without sacrif
ice or inconvenience'. With the 'energy sector in critical condition, a
crisis could erupt at any time [which] could have potentially enormous
impact on the US ... and would affect US national security and foreign
policy in dramatic ways.''

The main cause of a crisis, according to the document's authors, is 'Middle
East tension', which means the 'chances are greater than at any point in the
last two decades of an oil supply disruption'. The report says the US will
never be 'energy independent' and is becoming too reliant on foreign powers
supplying it with oil and gas. The response is to put oil at the heart of
the administration -- 'a reassessment of the role of energy in American
foreign policy'.

The US energy crisis is exacerbated by growing anti-American feeling in the
oil-rich Gulf states. 'Gulf allies are finding their domestic and foreign
policy interests increasingly at odds with US strategic considerations,
especially as Arab-Israeli tensions flare,' says the report. 'They have
become less inclined to lower oil prices ... A trend towards
anti-Americanism could affect regional leaders' ability to co-operate with
the US in the energy area. The resulting tight markets have increased US
vulnerability to disruption and provided adversaries undue political
influence over the price of oil.''

Iraq is described as the world's 'key swing producer ... turning its taps on
and off when it has felt such action was in its strategic interest''. The
report also says there is a 'possibility that Saddam may remove Iraqi oil
from the market for an extended period of time', creating a volatile market.

While the report alone seems to build a compelling case that oil is one of
the central issues fuelling the war against Iraq, there are also other,
circumstantial pieces of the jigsaw that show disturbing connections between
'black gold' and the Bush administration's desire to wage war on Saddam. In
1998 the oil equipment company Halliburton, of which Dick Cheney was chief
executive, sold parts to Iraq so Saddam could repair an infrastructure that
had been terribly damaged during the 1991 Gulf war. Cheney's firm did £15
million of business with Saddam -- a man Cheney now calls a 'murderous
dictator'. Halliburton is one of the firms thought by analysts to be in line
to make a killing in any clean-up operation after another US-led war on
Iraq.

All five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- the UK, France,
China, Russia and the US -- have international oil companies that would
benefit from huge windfalls in the event of regime change in Baghdad. The
best chance for US firms to make billions would come if Bush installed a
pro-US Iraqi opposition member as the head of a new government.

Representatives of foreign oil firms have already met with leaders of the
Iraqi opposition. Ahmed Chalabi, the London-based leader of the Iraqi
National Congress, said: 'American companies will have a big shot at Iraqi
oil.'

-----

If Gulf war is coming, when will it start -- or indeed, did it ever end?

By David Pratt, Foreign Editor
The Sunday Herald, 6 October 2002

TWO memories of my time covering the 1991 Gulf war stick in my head. The
first is the chilling reply of an Israeli military spokesman when I asked
him what his country's response might be if one of the Iraqi Scud missiles
then raining down on Tel Aviv happened to contain chemical or biological
weapons.

'We would turn Baghdad into a sheet of glass,' he replied, without batting
an eyelid at the prospect of a nuclear strike on Iraq.

The second memory is of tens of thousands of Iraqi Kurds gathered at the
Harbur border crossing with Turkey, pleading not to be left at the mercy of
Saddam's Republican Guard as US and British troops began their withdrawal
from the so-called 'safe haven' they had promised to create in northern
Iraq.

In a week of diplomatic wrangling over United Nations weapons inspection
resolutions, the question on everyone's lips is, 'if the war is coming, when
will it start?' Any timescale envisaged by Washington and London is one
thing, but for the Israelis queuing for gas masks, or Kurdish peshmerga
guerrillas digging trenches across their mountain frontlines, the sense of
impending conflict is far more palpable.

Like the Iraqis and Kuwaitis, the Kurds and Israelis know from the last Gulf
war what it's like to be on the receiving end. For both peoples,
anticipating the timing of any outbreak of hostilities has as much to do
with self-preservation as it does power politicking, oil interests or
'regime change'. In that respect they are wild cards in the current crisis,
their role and response crucial to the pursuit and outcome of any war
against Saddam.

Some observers might argue that the war against Iraq has already started, or
indeed never stopped after 1991. Last Thursday, just around the time the US
and UN were seriously locking horns over weapons inspection resolutions,
American and British warplanes launched a strike on an Iraqi air defence
command centre south-east of Baghdad. Nothing new in that, bringing as it
did the number of 'strike days' reported this year to 46 -- an official
figure, which many military analysts think a gross underestimate.

Since Thursday, though, opposition to the US line on Iraq has hardened at
the UN. The US and Britain don't want inspectors in Iraq until a new UN
mandate has been agreed. They want the Security Council to pass a draft
resolution demanding that Iraq allows inspectors anywhere on its territory
and carrying a clear threat of military action if it fails to comply.

Head weapons inspector Dr Hans Blix, after a meeting on Friday with US
Secretary of State Colin Powell, shifted his stance and agreed a tough new
resolution was needed. Russia and France -- both permanent members of the
Security Council -- could block such a resolution. China, the fifth
permanent member, also opposes the US-UK line. Russia's President Putin said
on Friday that UN weapons inspectors had to return to Iraq 'as soon as
possible'. A spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry later said there was
'no legal precondition for a new resolution' on weapons inspections. A
compromise, however, could come in the shape of a French proposal for two
resolutions -- one defining the inspectors' mission and a second, if needed,
detailing the action to be taken if Iraq fails to comply.

To top it all, Turkey, a key US military ally bordering on Iraq, said any US
attack on Iraq must have international backing.

As the bickering and trading continues in order to gain international
support for military action, those near the firing line daren't risk waiting
on a breakthrough. In northern Iraq on Friday there was a more local attempt
at unity, as feuding Kurdish groups reopened a long-dormant regional
parliament, largely outside Saddam's control for a decade. A move sure to
cause neighbouring Turkey concern regarding its own separatist Kurdish
population.

At the end of the last Gulf war, amid exhortations from the then President
Bush to seize the moment and rebel, Iraqi Kurds put aside their differences,
took up arms and tried to topple Saddam's government.

They very nearly succeeded. But at the critical moment, the US stood by
while Saddam's helicopter gunships crushed the rebellion. Were US military
strikes to happen now, Kurdish villages could again expect no mercy from
Iraqi retaliation.

'Saddam has tortured us for too long and we have suffered so much. If
America attacks and we know even in advance that we are going to die, still
we would support that decision,' insisted one Iraqi Kurdish spokesman in the
last few days.

Israel, too, is bracing itself. Soldiers in chemical suits walked arm-in-arm
down streets in Herzliya last week, washing every inch of pavement with
high-powered water hoses. Men in gas masks went door-to-door to distribute
medication.

'The object of the exercise,' said the operation's commander, 'is to show
the Israeli people they have the best tools to defend themselves.'

Eight hundred Israeli soldiers and 200 civilians took part in the
preparations for what planners called a worst-case scenario, but what many
Israelis now believe is inevitable -- that if the US attacks Iraq, Iraq will
strike back at Israel, possibly with Scud missiles armed with biological,
chemical, even radiological weapons.

None of the Scuds fired 11 years ago carried such weapons, but as today's
war drumbeat grows louder, Israeli preparations are becoming more urgent.

This month, fearing that Saddam could use smallpox , the Israeli government
decided to immunise medics, firefighters and police. The government is also
planning to add iodine capsules to gas-mask kits as an antidote to
radioactive fallout in the event of a nuclear attack. While there is no
evidence Iraq has smallpox or a nuclear capability, any attack that provoked
an Israeli response would hurtle the region into terrifyingly uncharted
military waters.

In a message of support to the Kurdish parliament that convened on Friday in
war readiness, Colin Powell warned that the 'road ahead is difficult' and
that 'peace requires sacrifices and compromise'.

For the time being at least, there seem few signs of compromise, either
military or diplomatic. As for sacrifices? The potential hardly bears
thinking about.