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A Crude Case for War?
Steven Mufson, Washington Post
… Five years after the United States invaded Iraq, plenty of people believe that the war was waged chiefly to secure U.S. petroleum supplies and to make Iraq safe — and lucrative — for the U.S. oil industry.
We may not know the real motivations behind the Iraq war for years, but it remains difficult to distill oil from all the possibilities. That’s because our society and economy have been nursed on cheap oil, and the idea that oil security is a right as well as a necessity has become part of our foreign policy DNA, handed down from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Jimmy Carter to George H.W. Bush. And the war and its untidy aftermath have, in fact, swelled the coffers of the world’s biggest oil companies.
But it hasn’t happened in the way anyone might have imagined.
Instead of making Iraq an open economy fueled by a thriving oil sector, the war has failed to boost the flow of oil from Iraq’s giant well-mapped reservoirs, which oil experts say could rival Saudi Arabia’s and produce 6 million barrels a day, if not more. Thanks to insurgents’ sabotage of pipelines and pumping stations, and foreign companies’ fears about safety and contract risks in Iraq, the country is still struggling in vain to raise oil output to its prewar levels of about 2.5 million barrels a day.
As it turns out, that has kept oil off the international market at just the moment when the world desperately needs a cushion of supplies to keep prices down.
… “If we went to war for oil, we did it as clumsily as anyone could do. And we spent more on the war than we could ever conceivably have gotten out of Iraq’s oil fields even if we had particular control over them,” says Anthony Cordesman, an expert on U.S. strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who rejects the idea that the war was designed on behalf of oil companies.
But that doesn’t mean that oil had nothing to do with the invasion.
(16 March 2008)
Iraq’s Insurgency Runs on Stolen Oil Profits
Richard A. Oppel Jr., New York Times
… The sea of oil under Iraq is supposed to rebuild the nation, then make it prosper. But at least one-third, and possibly much more, of the fuel from Iraq’s largest refinery here is diverted to the black market, according to American military officials. Tankers are hijacked, drivers are bribed, papers are forged and meters are manipulated – and some of the earnings go to insurgents who are still killing more than 100 Iraqis a week.
“It’s the money pit of the insurgency,” said Capt. Joe Da Silva, who commands several platoons stationed at the refinery.
Five years after the war in Iraq began, the insurgency remains a lethal force.
(16 March 2008)
Cheney to Mideast with ‘rich agenda’ on oil, peace
Tabassum Zakaria, Reuters
Vice President Dick Cheney left on Sunday for the Middle East to raise concerns about high oil prices, push Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, and seek support for Iraq, where war began five years ago this week.
Cheney, who has strong ties with leaders in the Middle East, will visit Oman, Saudi Arabia, Jerusalem, the Palestinian territories, and Turkey during a nine-day trip to the region.
“Clearly, our ongoing efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan will be discussed,” John Hannah, national security adviser to Cheney, told reporters. “Middle East peace, Iran, the situation in Syria, Lebanon, the violence in Gaza, energy — it’s a very long list and rich agenda.”
(16 March 2008)
