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It's About Oil, According to U.S. Officials

The true meaning of "security" - 2 articles
Please get the word out!
From the Sydney Morning Herald.


Defence redefined means securing cheap energy


December 26 2002


Behind George Bush's high-minded rhetoric on why


America may go to war with Iraq is a long history of


weighing the price of securing its oil supplies. Ritt


Goldstein writes. As troops and equipment pour into


the Gulf for a looming war with Iraq, United States


military thinkers admit that "defence" means


protecting the circumstances of "daily life" - and in


the US daily life runs on cheap oil.As far back as


1975, Henry Kissinger, then secretary of state, said


America was prepared to wage war over oil. Separate


plans advocating US conquest of Saudi oilfields were


published in the '70s. So it should come as little


surprise that in May last year - four months before


the terrorist attacks on Washington and New York - a


battle plan for Afghanistan was already being reviewed


by the US Command that would carry it out after


September 11. Military strategists were highlighting


the energy wealth of the Caspian Sea and Central Asia


and its importance to America's "security".The Indian


media and Jane's Intelligence Review reported that the


US was fighting covert battles against the Taliban,


months before the "war on terrorism" was


declared.General William Kernan, commander-in-chief of


the US Joint Forces Command, let the revelation about


the battle plan review casually drop in July while


extolling the success of America's Millennium


Challenge war games to Agence France-Presse.Earlier,


during the northern spring last year, Michael Klare,


an international security expert and author of


Resource Wars, said the military had increasingly come


to "define resource security as their primary


mission". ");document.write("





Over several months beginning in April last year a


series of military and governmental policy documents


was released that sought to legitimise the use of US


military force in the pursuit of oil and gas.


Simultaneously, the energy task force of the


Vice-President, Dick Cheney, was working to tackle a


looming US oil crisis. Reflecting a shifting strategic


policy, the influential Council on Foreign Relations


urged that the Defence Department be included in


Cheney's energy group.


During that spring of 2001, as the US military


examined the all-out battle scenario that would soon


become the operational plan for the war in


Afghanistan, events fatefully spun towards September


11's trigger. But these events did not occur in a


vacuum.


Providing a summary of the US military's coming role,


over the summer of 2000 the Army War College (a


foundry for the US military's strategic thinking)


published a declaration that security "is more than


protecting the country from external threats; security


includes economic security".


The policy statement appeared in an article by


Lieutenant-Colonel P. H. Liotta, professor of national


security affairs at the Naval War College, one of a


handful of present US national security gurus.


His article went on to advocate the use of military


force "for more than simply protecting a nation and


its people from traditional threat-based challenges".


Colonel Liotta argued that defence meant protecting


the US lifestyle, the circumstances of "daily life".


Reflecting the relationship between pronouncements by


such policy gurus and Washington's actual policies, in


the Journal of Homeland Security of August this year,


Colonel Liotta said America "will practise pre-emption


against those who seek to harm our vital interests and


our way of life".


At the end of September President Bush unveiled a


national security strategy of pre-emption.


And so the months preceding September 11 saw a


shifting of the US military's focus. Publications of


the US Army War College and the army General and


Command Staff College argued that, when it came to oil


and gas, "where US business goes, US national


interests follow". They highlighted the energy wealth


of Central Asia and its importance to America's


"security". Oil and gas were on the military's agenda.


Cutting to the crux of present-day issues, a spring


2001 article by Jeffrey Record in the War College's


journal, Parameters, argued the legitimacy of


"shooting in the Persian Gulf on behalf of lower gas


prices".


Mr Record, a former staff member of the Senate armed


services committee (and an apparent favourite of the


Council on Foreign Relations), also advocated the


acceptability of presidential subterfuge in the


promotion of a conflict. Mr Record explicitly urged


painting over the US's actual reasons for warfare with


a nobly high-minded veneer, seeing such as a necessity


for mobilising public support for a conflict.


Amplifying the impact of the military papers, in a


document commissioned early in the Bush presidency,


two key US policy groups, the Council on Foreign


Relations and the James A. Baker III Institute for


Public Policy, explicitly advocated a convergence of


military and energy issues.


Their joint report - Strategic Energy Policy


Challenges for the 21st Century - aproved of "military


intervention" to secure energy supplies. It also urged


Pentagon participation in Mr Cheney's energy task


force. And the report warned that the US was running


out of oil, with a painful end to cheap fuel already


in sight.


Virtually concurrent with the report's release on


April 10 last year, Tommy Franks, commander of US


forces responsible for the Persian Gulf/South Asia


area, added his voice.


An April 13 report on his congressional testimony


defined General Franks's command's key mission as


"access to [the region's] energy resources". That May


it was his command that reviewed the soon-to-be-used


details for the coming war in Afghanistan.


Also early last year, the security expert Michael


Klare warned that US military action to secure oil


"could emerge as the favoured response to future [oil]


crises". In the months preceding September 11, US


governmental and military policymakers increasingly


built military frameworks around energy questions.


Iraq has 10 per cent of the world's proven oil


reserves, with The New York Times reporting in October


that the Bush White House is planning for the


installation of a US military government there in the


event of a war leading to the overthrow of Saddam


Hussein. In a parallel with Afghanistan, US covert


action has reportedly already begun.











From the London Observer:


Focus: Iraq





Carve-up of oil riches begins





US plans to ditch industry rivals and force end of


Opec, write Peter Beaumont and Faisal Islam





Sunday November 3, 2002


The Observer





The leader of the London-based Iraqi National


Congress, Ahmed Chalabi, has met executives of three


US oil multinationals to negotiate the carve-up of


Iraq's massive oil reserves post-Saddam.


Disclosure of the meetings in October in Washington -


confirmed by an INC spokesman - comes as Lord Browne,


the head of BP, has warned that British oil companies


have been squeezed out of post-war Iraq even before


the first shot has been fired in any US-led land


invasion.


Confirming the meetings to US journalists, INC


spokesman Zaab Sethna said: 'The oil people are


naturally nervous. We've had discussions with them,


but they're not in the habit of going around talking


about them.'


Next month oil executives will gather at a country


retreat near Sandringham to discuss Iraq and the


future of the oil market. The conference, hosted by


Sheikh Yamani, the former Oil Minister of Saudi


Arabia, will feature a former Iraqi head of military


intelligence, an ex-Minister and City financiers.


Topics for discussion include the country's oil


potential, whether it can become as big a supplier as


Saudi Arabia, and whether a post-Saddam Iraq might


destroy the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting


Countries.


Disclosure of talks between the oil executives and the


INC - which enjoys the support of Bush administration


officials - is bound to exacerbate friction on the UN


Security Council between permanent members and


veto-holders Russia, France and China, who fear they


will be squeezed out of a post-Saddam oil industry in


Iraq.


Although Russia, France and China have existing deals


with Iraq, Chalabi has made clear that he would reward


the US for removing Saddam with lucrative oil


contracts, telling the Washington Post recently:


'American companies will have a big shot at Iraqi


oil.'


Indeed, the issue of who gets their hands on the


world's second largest oil reserves has been a major


factor driving splits in the Security Council over a


new resolution on Iraq.


If true, it is hardly surprising, given the size of


the potential deals. As of last month, Iraq had


reportedly signed several multi-billion-dollar deals


with foreign oil companies, mainly from China, France


and Russia.


Among these Russia, which is owed billions of dollars


by Iraq for past arms deliveries, has the strongest


interest in Iraqi oil development, including a $3.5


billion, 23-year deal to rehabilitate oilfields,


particularly the 11-15 billion-barrel West Qurna


field, located west of Basra near the Rumaila field.


Since the agreement was signed in March 1997, Russia's


Lukoil has prepared a plan to install equipment with


capacity to produce 100,000 barrels per day from West


Qurna's Mishrif formation.


French interest is also intense. TotalFinaElf has been


in negotiations with Iraq on development of the Nahr


Umar field.


Planning for Iraq's post-Saddam oil industry is being


driven by a coalition of neo-conservatives in


Washington think-tanks with close links to the Bush


administration, and with INC officials who have long


enjoyed their support. Those hawks have long argued


that US control of Iraq's oil would help deliver a


second objective. That is the destruction of Opec, the


oil producers' cartel, which they argue is 'evil' -


that is, incompatible with American interests.


Larry Lindsey, President Bush's economic adviser,


recently said that a successful war on Iraq would be


good for business.








=====


"Is there any man here... who does not know that the seed of war in the


modern world is industrial and commercial rivalry?" - President Woodrow


Wilson, St. Louis, 1919
 
 

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