I tried to get to this topic a couple of times, each time my questions spawned very interesting topics, but were a bit wide of the mark. So I will narrow things down a bit.

Was a desire for control over Iraqi oil a major motivating factor for the administration to go to war?

How would this control be achieved?

Is an "oil war" in Iraq plausible?

with special attention for the supposed PNAC plan for such a war.

A special plea to refrain from "process of elimination" arguments as they are frankly a waste of space.

Edited to add a couple of links (courtesy of Abs Like Jesus) that have been used to support the "blood for oil" argument.
The 30-year Itch

turnea, do you have any links for us to peruse from the Feds or even the neo-con groups that claim that we needed to take over one or any Middle Eastern state in order to secure a future supply of oil at favorable prices?

Pending that, the math of the Iraqi oil never matched the conspiracy theorists' view. Figure it this way:

Oil costs (round numbers) $30 per barrel on the open market. Iraq at its peak -- without significant increases in pipeline infrastructure, etc. -- could pump 4,000,000 barrels per day. That's $120,000,000 per day that our economy could save if we kept all that oil. In a week, that's $840,000,000; a month is $3.6 billion. And that's if Iraq keeps not one drop of their primary economic commodity in order to restore their economic viability.

And our costs of war so far have exceeded that number, such that we'd have to pump that amount for 30 to 40 months just to pay for what we've shelled out in Iraq SO FAR (and we're still spending about $1 billion per week, last I heard, so the number goes up by a month every three to four weeks).

The only way the equation made sense was for the war to cost less than it has AND for our continuing costs to not occur AND for Iraq to be able to get by with ZERO oil dollars. It's not a reasonable scenario.

I'm thinking that the war really WAS about experimenting with democracy in the middle east and no one planned well for the possibility that things wouldn't go as poorly as they have. And they couldn't tell us the truth ahead of time, because the people and Congress would have balked at the "nation building" ideas.

Was this war about oil? Yes. But only in a certain context.

Iraq posed a unique situation on many fronts.

1. It has one of the largest oil reserves in the world, currently not in use.

2. It has a central location to other "hotspots" in the middle east, sharing borders with Iran, Turkey, Syria and Arabia.

3. It is the most repressed of any nation in that area.

4. It was/is the most secular nation of any in that area, with Islam not enforced as it is by the Wahabbists in Arabia.

By creating a democracy in Iraq, and removing Saddam from power, we initiated the following changes:

1. Iraq would be friendly to the US, partly by exporting oil and allowing oil contracts for American/Western Civ. firms.

2. Allow Iraq to show there can be democracy in the ME (bit of a longshot, and it won't be western democracy), and that freedom can be had by all. This promotes rebellion towards more autocratic/despotic regimes (risky, to say the least)

3. Gives us a future staging point if needed for excursions into Arabia, Iran, or Syria.

4. Reduces the effect of terrorists by removing billions of dollars from circulation by Saddam and his baathist party sympathizers.

5. Eventually decreased dependence on Saudi Oil, decreasing their power both in Washington and the world. I can see that in a perfect scenario, the destabilization of Arabia would take place 5-10 years into the future, once Iraq has become stable, and we do not have such a significant presence within that nation.

Yes it was partially about oil, but on many different levels.

No way. Now did they go into this war realising that, in the future, it would be a perk to trade oil with a friendly Iraq? Duh. I won't pee on your leg and tell you it's raining and that we did not consider that fact before going in, but to start a war over oil would be a hundred times more damning than any claim that any anti-war protester could make. I would be completely against a war based on such goals.




Oh you bet. But if we went to war over such aims, the public reaction would be worse that what we saw in the 1960' during Vietnam.

The war wasn't "about oil" directly, but indirectly.

We need some stability in the Middle East because our economy depends on it. Let's remember the first Gulf war, which WAS (overtly) mostly about oil. Saddam was facing hundreds of billions in reconstruction costs after the war with Iran. The annual revenues generated around 13 billion. Every dollar drop in oil price cost his country a lot of money. More oil (from Kuwait) would place him in a position to use his leverage and 'persuade' (he did have WMD back then) Saudi and the smaller countries to cut production and increase price. He would have also roughly doubled his oil supply, increasing his ability to buy those WMD to further his influence throughout the Middle East.

Saddam was in no such position of strength for the second Gulf War. He was very willing to sell oil to anyone who would buy it...both legally and illegally. The caps on Iraqi oil exports had recently been removed. Legitimate oil exports in 2002 totaled $17.8 billion, which funds were filtered into U.N. accounts for disbursement for U.N.-approved humanitarian programs (aka food-for-oil)...of which 60 percent of the Iraqi population was living. Our imports of oil from Iraq were roughly equal (percentage-wise) to our imports before the first Gulf war (3 percent).

We removed Saddam because he was a violent wild card, and there was no one better in the immediate future who was going to usurp the throne. We removed him because having a base, and stability (favorable, benevolent, non-WMD weilding government) in that area could work out well for us longterm...because of (ultimately) the oil.

I'd like to point out that the arguments that the war was for control over the oil ignore one basic fact. The US doesn't and will not have control over the oil, particularly after they have been restored. By then we will be well into an independent Iraqi government and the US indeed backs the state-owned plan for the oil. No privatization plots either.

I wasn't really getting at whether the war was about stability in the oil-rich reason, but to debate the theories contending it was about American control of Iraqi oil, world domination, privatization, globalization, all that good stuff.

This war is definitely about profiteering, short term profiteering for the reconstruction (Cheney's firm! Oh wait, it's not his it's in "blind trust") and long-term for the oil. No we're not just taking it for ourselves but you can bet we'll expect a good price for it once an "independent" Iraq is up and running. A few people are getting rich from this war, and that's why we're in it.

Oh, yeah. We're just gonna waltz right in, oust the dictator, and usurp and manipulate one of the largest, untapped oil reserves on Earth? Gimme a break. Now I won't be naive and tell you that we won't benefit in some way, but as for the US getting rid of Saddam to save a dollar on gas? Come on.

There has indeed been a thread about the short term profiteering you speak of, needless to say evidence of impropriety in connection to Cheney was found... wanting.

Speaking of the oil, this is indeed exactly the type of thing I wanted to discuss an actual hypothesis on how the war was for oil.

Now to oil prices, why assume we would get a better prices than we would have by lowering sanctions? Iraq is after all a member of OPEC, and I'm pretty sure that organization has the most say in setting prices (or rather output levels which might as well be them same thing) for it's members correct?

*Note: I say output levels might as well be the same thing because other OPEC members aren't likely to stand for being undercut so the members could make it very difficult for a dissenting country if they chose to do so...

Halliburton Thread

Was a desire for control over Iraqi oil a major motivating factor for the administration to go to war?

In the original thread on whether or not oil was a major motivation behind the invasion of Iraq, I made only a few contributions early on. This was because I have felt all along that the invasion of Iraq was about much more than oil (like establishing permanent military bases in Iraq as part of the Middle East strategy toward global hegemony as Turnea mentions) - and that covert control of its oil fields was mostly a sort of bonus.

My feelings there were summed up as follows:
The reasons which Jaime cited (from an editorial in a Pakistani newspaper) were essentially these:
If everyone here behaved a bit better, Jaime might have more time to make such contributions. Moving right along...

Recently, I came across something which may have proved me wrong to an extent - and I'm always the first to admit when I'm proved wrong about something. In the current New Yorker, there is a brilliant piece about Dick Cheney and Halliburton called "Contract Sport". The article, of itself, could generate another couple of threads on its own. But about two-thirds of the way through, we find the following paragraphs:
If melding "the review of operational policies towards rogue states [and] actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields" is anything to go by, they clearly were. And, uh, exactly how many "rogue states" with "oil and gas fields", mentioned in early 2001, might we be involved in the "capture of" these days? Let's see... would Iraq, maybe, count?

In conjunction with this, we should consider the statement made by PNAC strategist Robert Kagan to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution shortly before the invasion last year (I trust I needn't remind anyone that the PNAC is a policy planning body whose members include such luminaries as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, member and former chairman of the Defense Policy Board Richard Perle, Iran-Contra veteran and Special Assistant to the President on the NSC Elliott Abrams, US Envoy for Islamic Terror Zalmay Khalilzad, and Florida Governor and Presidential Brother, Jeb Bush):
This leads me to believe, contrary to my initial feelings, that in the Iraqi invasion, oil played a much bigger role than I'd suspected - especially in terms of selling the war to those bankrolling the Bush administration (like all those guys who participated in Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force).

For those still doubting that profiteering had anything to do with this "war", the abuse of Executive Order 13303 (outlined here) might prove of interest. I still feel that control of Iraqi oil and war-profiteering were secondary to the PNAC goal of establishing American hegemony in the Middle East as part of their global strategy. But I now feel that it was a much closer - and more immediate - second.


Turnea has since modified his question to ask how this was a war for oil and added the following questions:

Now to oil prices, why assume we would get a better prices than we would have by lowering sanctions? Iraq is after all a member of OPEC, and I'm pretty sure that organization has the most say in setting prices (or rather output levels which might as well be them same thing) for it's members correct?

The mention of OPEC here is significant. As a result of secret arrangements between the US and Saudi Arabia in the Seventies, all OPEC oil purchases are denominated in US dollars, recycling petrodollars back into the US economy. This means that countries throughout the world need dollars for oil purchases. It also requires them to maintain dollar reserves to protect their own currencies - and these reserves maintain the current high levels of the US securities markets. As Henry Liu wrote last year in Asia Times:
Were OPEC to switch from the dollar to the euro, the consequences for the US economy would be devastating. The dollar would plummet in world currency markets, inflation would go through the roof, and interest rates would skyrocket: the Great Depression would look like a picnic. While there have been mutterings over the past few years about such a transfer, only one country - so far - has had the temerity to actually switch from dollars to euros: Iraq.

When Saddam Hussein requested (in November, 2000) that the "food-for-oil" program be transacted in euros - and the UN agreed - the European currency began the steady rise which is ongoing. Should the rest of OPEC follow suit, the effect on a country which has no energy independence and which relies more on the export of currency than commodities would be catastrophic.

By invading Iraq and ousting Hussein, the Bush administration was not only ensuring that the dollar would be restored as the denomination for oil purchases, it was also attempting to send a signal to the rest of the OPEC states not to mess around with the greenback.

Similarly, when Hugo Chavez took Venezuelan oil out of the petrodollar economy by bartering oil directly for commodities from thirteen other third world countries, the Bush administration responded by supporting the attempted coup of his presidency. Granted, Venezuela didn't pose as much of a threat as Iraq (they were only transferring to commodities rather than another currency - and only with a handful of smaller clients), but the message was nonetheless clear.


How would this control be achieved?

In many ways. For some - the more realistic militarists in the administration (if there are any) - simply maintaining the recycling of petrodollars back into our economy should be enough. As we have seen, though, there has already been shameless corporate profiteering from this "war" - even if only in the number of American companies contracted to rebuild Iraq's oil industry (some of which, like Halliburton, were in place to do so at least as long ago as 2001) - which wouldn't have needed rebuilding if we hadn't destroyed it in the first place. And there's doubtless more to come. Even if the Iraqi oil industry is not privatized (and there's not yet any assurance that it won't be), it will be very interesting to see which international companies get contracts to help produce that oil - and whether they will be service contracts (unlikely) or based on "shares of production", where the contracted companies split the profits (very likely).

If nothing else, we have now established permanent military installations in Iraq to replace those lost in Iran and Saudi Arabia. In addition to maintaining a military presence in the Middle East, we will be able to ensure that whatever shape the Iraqi government may one day take, they won't get out of hand and start doing foolish things like trading with people (or in currencies) that we don't like. Or, as Robert Kagan put it, "If we have a force in Iraq, there will be no disruption in oil supplies."


Is an "oil war" in Iraq plausible?

Um, I think we're seeing that right now. In terms of the cost to the American people - financial and human - it is not "plausible" in the least. Our deficit is out of control, our economy is in the toilet, and the body count mounts daily. In terms of the short-term profits garnered by certain US corporations, it is very plausible - and will be even more plausible should it ever safe enough in that beleaguered country to start transacting practical business.

However, regarding the administration's longer term goals, it is difficult to say. Some members of OPEC and some members of the EU are seeing this as an opportunity to oppose US hegemony - and the Iraqi invasion may, in fact, be hastening the shift from dollar to euro. The Bush administration, in its effort to secure oil fields, oil contracts, and oil dollars in order to maintain our economic superiority and establish a foothold in the Middle East toward a global hegemony, may in fact be driving us into the worst economic crisis of our history.

While I sincerely hope that the PNAC agenda fails, this is the sort of failure which could bring us all down with them.

Ah, where to start. How about with the reasons Jaime gave (especially a particular quote) that Wertz agreed with on why the US really went to war.



OK, folks. How can we be allies with the Saudis (which is how the anti-war folks refute our 'We took out Saddam because he was a bad guy' reasoning for war by pointing out how we're alligned with bad guys a.k.a the Saudis) and at the same time, have this ulterior motive against them. Why destroy the 'secret agreements' (which I'll go into later) we have with the Saudis by attacking them, all the while drawing the condemnation of every Arab nation. Even moderates like Jordan would react strongly against us. That theory holds no water at all.

As for Executive Order 13303, the Development Fund for Iraq, Haliburton and four billion dollars that has vanished from said fund... that report can only identify $600 million as to have gone to Haliburton. Does this mean that Haliburton or some other beneficiary of this administration ran off with it? No. Is it possible? Yes. But until there is a definitive source that confirms that Haliburton or the like has that money, speculation should be left at a minimum. But where else could a little under three and a half billion dollars of gone, you might ask. Well, I would like to know as well. This money was intended for the rebuilding of Iraq and should be accounted for. If this means that current administration officials (even the president himself) must take responsibility if their responsible, so be it. But let's spend more time looking for the money than blaming by speculation.

Now, about the argument (of which I spent some time looking over) of our invading Iraq to send a message to OPEC and an economic apocalypse in the US.

Now our 'secret arrangements' with the Saudis, I'd imagine, have no legal binding attached to them. So why would we invade a founding member of OPEC to 'send a message', when Saudi Arabia could easily null that arrangement and say, we vote Euro too. Everyone votes Euro, we're in a little bit of trouble (not the economic apocalypse Wertz would have you believe.) The point is, why would we bite the hand that feeds us? As for the uber-depression Wertz described... well, the whole of Europe before the EU was in not too bad of shape when oil was barted in US dollars. So flip the situation and what's the worst that could happen? We have to develop more energy efficient standards for vehicles while paying an extra dollar or *gasp* two? I suppose the sky won't fall after all.




In other words, establish a puppet government. The key to establishing a colonial power is a puppet government. Which we don't have a great track record of establishing. Example, South Vietnam. We help get Ngo Dinh Diem to power, he ends up persecuting Buddhists, going some things contrary to our benefit, we help overthrow and eventually assassinating him. Not exactly the most stable one we've had. Add the fact that Iraqis want us the hell out fast and you have the reasons why our presence (militarily, at the very least) will be non-existantby the end of the decade.

Now I won't argue that the spoils system is not alive and thriving, but these arguments contradict eachother, as well as common sense. An 'oil war' is very much possible but the American people are much more smarter than a lot would have you believe. Don't think that if a war was waged to expand is energy assets, that everyone would call the government on it. You know what Americans hate the most...behind losing? Being lied to when the truth is in their hands. So I don't think I can see any plot to steal the world's largest oil reserve out from under the Iraqi people. Not with the logic I see.

How on earth could anyone imagine that the war in Iraq had anything to do with “stealing their oil”? How could any country have pulled this off even if they wanted to?

I cannot see this country “going to war for oil” unless we were embargoed and it we felt that the embargo was an act of war meant to destroy our economy. Iraq had no potential to do that.

IMO we went to war because Iraq had not complied with any UN resolutions, had WMD and WMD programs AND was a threat to the world oil supply in that a war in the region would have precipitated a sharp increase in the price of oil.

Assuming your final reason is correct, are you suggesting that we started a war "in that region" ourselves in order to precipitate a sharp increase in the price of oil? An interesting (and possibly valid) slant, Ted - but that still makes the war ultimately about oil, doesn't it? Such a spike as you suggest we are precipitating by starting a Middle Eastern war is certainly being reflected in the prices (and profits) of Bush sponsors - or, excuse me, oil companies - here in the US. It's still war profiteering, though, in your scenario, it's a bit more round-about...

First off, when the UN lacks the backbone to enforce it's on rules, it is our business. Everytime some catastrophy hit someplace, where do people look to? Us. When people need military help, who do they look to? Us. So why is everyone susprised that we handled the 'UN's business' when they became too impotent to enforce it?

Secondly, when did you become a member of the weapons inspector team in Iraq? Cause I'd like to compliment you on how fast you work! It's one thing to speculate, but I want to see the proof you have about the regime not having any WMD's. And as far as their weapons programs, Tenet even said, at his Georgetown speech, that Iraq was reconstituting their Nuke program and aggressively pursuing the creation of such weapons. Did you manage to read the part about Saddam being able to possess nukes by 2007? Maybe not, but who knows, maybe we should have waited until he did have them and used them on us or an ally of ours.

Lastly, before you endorsed to the theories of us going to war to either get ready to take on Saudi Arabia or to scare OPEC, which is absurd. Now it's war-time profiteering? I will admit it sounds more logical than those other theories, but I don't think that was their intent going into this war. Are we naive to believe that oil companies here wouldn't benefit by the US's actions in Iraq? Of course not. But some how I don't picture Bush as a Snidely Whiplash type character, playing with his moustache, thinking "How can I make more money for my buddies in the oil business?" going into this.

Maybe I'm an optimist, but somehow, I really believe that the administration went into Iraq based on the info they recieved and on which they made a tough decision. Not so Bush could provide his business contacts with tons of cash, all the while making us pay more money for gas. If Bush was a profiteer, wouldn't the American people benefit just a little by either a boost in the economy, or by paying only $1 for a gallon of gas at the pump? Is the spoils system alive and well? Perhaps. But I doubt if Bush could orchestrate a profiteering scheme without it being noticed.

[quote=Wertz,Feb 24 2004, 03:01 AM] [QUOTE=Ted,Feb 23 2004, 05:56 PM]IMO we went to war because Iraq had not complied with any UN resolutions [the UN's business, not ours], had WMD [which they didn't] and WMD programs [/quote]
No Wentz that is NOT what I am saying. I am saying that to allow Iraq to keep it’s WMD would have greatly increased the risk of their future use in the region and this would lead to a jump in the price of oil and a crisis in our economy.

And who ever said Iraq didn’t have WMD???? Not Kay if that is what you are referring to. Try reading what the man SAID rather than what the biased press reported.

And why was WMD just UN business? They were a threat to us and the region. It is clear that the UN could not enforce the resolutions. We fought and lost lives to secure those resolutions – signed by the government of Iraq. I expected our government to demand they be complied with. The fact that Bill Clinton failed to do this does not mean it was the right thing to do.