|
Its the oil { September 23 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/09/22/1032055034013.htmlhttp://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/09/22/1032055034013.html
The word from the CIA: it's the oil, stupid
September 23 2002
Who should be more worried, asks Kenneth Davidson, Saddam; or the French and Russian oil companies presently in Iraq?
France and Russia have oil companies and interests in Iraq. They should be told that if they are of assistance in moving Iraq towards decent government, we'll do the best we can to ensure that the new government and American companies will work with them. If they throw their lot with Saddam, it will be difficult to the point of impossible to persuade the new Iraq government to work with them. Former CIA director James Woolsey, quoted in The Washington Post, September 15, 2002. So there you have it. The Bush administration may be telling the world that the reason the UN Security Council has to approve an allied attack on Iraq is because of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capability, but the real reason France and Russia are being told to get on board the US military bandwagon is Iraq's oil reserves.
According to The Washington Post, all five permanent members of the Security Council - the US, Britain, France, Russia and China - have international oil companies with major stakes in a change of leadership in Baghdad. The Washington Post is one of the major media vehicles through which members of the American establishment talk to each other.
It is clear the real issue here is who controls Iraqi oil.
Neither the US nor Britain - nor Australia for that matter - has produced any credible evidence to back up the ostensible reason for an attack on Iraq, or "regime change" (read assassination of Saddam).
The debate about how the US should go about getting control of Iraqi oil has been blunt and to the point. The new regime that the US intends to impose on Iraq will not honour any of the agreements made between the old regime and oil companies around the world.
As the Post points out, since the Gulf War in 1991, companies from more than a dozen nations have either reached or sought agreements to develop Iraqi oil fields or repair existing facilities.
According to the latest US Department of Energy background paper on Iraq, published in March, the UN had warned in 2000 of a "major breakdown" in Iraq's oil industry if spare parts and equipment were not forthcoming.
The US said any extra money should only be used "for short-term improvements to the Iraqi oil industry and not to make long-term repairs".
The US Department of Energy said: "As of early January, 2002, the head of the UN Iraq program, Benon Sevan, expressed 'grave concern' at the volume of 'holds' put on contracts for oilfield development, and stated the entire program was threatened with paralysis. According to Sevan, these holds amounted to nearly 2000 contracts worth about $5 billion ($A9 billion), about 80 per cent of which were 'held' by the US."
The Iraqi regime-in-waiting, politely known as the Iraqi National Congress (an umbrella group financed by US oil interests), has made plain that it will not be bound by any of these deals.
The INC leader, Ahmed Chalabi, is quoted in the Post as saying he favoured the creation of a US-led consortium to develop Iraq's oil fields. Iraq's oil fields are second only to Saudi Arabia, controlled by the US through the House of Saud, which the US has guaranteed to protect against external or internal threats.
According to the US Department of Energy: "Iraq contains 112 billion barrels of proven reserves along with roughly 220 billion barrels of probable and possible resources. Iraq's true resource potential may be far greater than this, however, as the country is relatively unexplored due to years of war and sanctions."
There is nothing new in the US/British policy in the Middle East and in Iraq in particular.
Iraq was a client state or, in polite terms, an ally. Client states are defined, according to US academic Noam Chomsky, by their obedience, not their values. Saddam was given diplomatic cover for as long as he was obedient to US interests. Now, he is damned as a monster.
A client oil state was first defined by Lord Curzon, who was the British foreign secretary after World War I. He said it was an "Arab facade ruled and administered under British guidance and controlled by a native Mohammedan and, as far as possible, by an Arab staff . . . There should be no actual incorporation of the conquered territory in the dominions of the conqueror, but the absorption may be veiled by such constitutional fictions as a protectorate, a sphere of influence, a buffer state and so on".
The US took over the British imperial prize in the Middle East after WWII. The official US State Department history (1945, volume 8, page 45) noted: "These resources constituted a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history . . . probably the richest economic prize in the world in the field of foreign investment."
The US is not going to give Iraq up without a fight, even if the main cost will be damage to its reputation as a good global citizen.
If Australia follows its present course - a more sophisticated version of "all the way with LBJ" - we will share the cost, but without the minor benefits that might be available to the four members of the Security Council, which the US wants on side to provide a moral fig leaf for its policy in the Middle East.
Kenneth Davidson is a staff columnist.
dissentmagazine@ozemail.com.au
|
|
