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COLUMN
EIGHTY, DECEMBER 1, 2002
(Copyright © 2002 The Blacklisted Journalist)
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OIL, OIL, OIL
Subject:
Official: US Oil at the Heart of Iraq Crisis
Date: Sun, 6 Oct 2002 17:38:58 -0700 (PDT)
From: portsideMod <portsidemod@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: portside@yahoogroups.com
To: ps <portside@yahoogroups.com>
Official:
US Oil at the Heart of Iraq Crisis
By
Neil Mackay
October
6, 2002; The Sunday Herald (Scotland)
President
Bush's Cabinet agreed in April 2001 that 'Iraq remains a destabilizing influence
to the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East' and because
this is an unacceptable risk to the US 'military intervention' is necessary.
Vice-president
Dick Cheney, who chairs the White House Energy Policy Development Group,
commissioned a report on 'energy security' from the Baker Institute for Public
Policy, a think-tank set up by James Baker, the former US secretary of state
under George Bush Sr.
The
report, Strategic Energy Policy Challenges For The 21st Century,
concludes: 'The United States remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma. Iraq
remains a de- stabilizing 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 program to
manipulate oil markets. Therefore the US 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.'
Baker
who delivered the recommendations to Cheney, the former chief executive of Texas
oil firm Halliburton, was advised by Kenneth Lay, the disgraced former chief
executive of Enron, the US energy giant which went bankrupt after carrying out
massive accountancy fraud.
The
other advisers to Baker were: Luis Giusti, a Shell non-executive director; John
Manzoni, regional president of BP and David O'Reilly, chief executive of
ChevronTexaco. Another name linked to the document is Sheikh Saud Al Nasser Al
Sabah, the former Kuwaiti oil minister and a fellow of the Baker Institute.
President
Bush also has strong connections to the US oil industry and once owned the oil
company Spectrum 7.
The
Baker report highlights massive shortages in world oil supplies which now leave
the US facing 'unprecedented energy price volatility' and has led to recurring
electricity black-outs in areas such as California.
The
report refers to the impact of fuel shortages on voters. It recommends a 'new
and viable US energy policy central to America's domestic economy and to [the]
nation's security and foreign policy'.
Iraq,
the report says, 'turns its taps on and off when it has felt such action was in
its strategic interest to do so', adding that there is a 'possibility that
Saddam Hussein may remove Iraqi oil from the market for an extended period of
time' in order to damage prices.
The
report also says that Cheney should integrate energy and security to stop
'manipulations of markets by any state', and suggests that Cheney's Energy
Policy Group includes 'representation from the Department of Defense'.
'Unless
the United States assumes a leadership role in the formation of new rules of the
game,' the report says, 'US firms, US consumers and the US government [will be
left] in a weaker position.'
"2002
smg sunday newspapers ltd ##
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