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lynbrown | 10:35 Wed 03rd Jan 2007 | News
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If Bush is really in Iraq for oil, how is he getting the oil out? Surely the refinery is affected by all the troubles and the oil has ceased??
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It is common for the US/UK bashers to put around the myth that oil is somehow being stolen by the US/UK. They'd have you believe that Bush.Blair are driving tankers out and flogging it themselves. The truth is that the US/UK are not stealing it but they do have some level of control over it, it is still being sold via the world market and Iraq get's the money. Iraq may well choose, with some encouragement, to spend some of their money on western services of course and indeed control of oil is important to the west but lets get this in perspective.
Myth is it? LOL! You veh' funny man.

http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/wolfowitz .html

"Wolfowitz, as Deputy Secretary of Defense, shaped and directed U.S. reconstruction efforts in Iraq. The U.S. government, through Ambassador Paul Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), had direct control over the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI) - the account where Iraq's ongoing oil export revenues were deposited under the occupation. Until the CPA ceded authority, Bremer and the CPA were solely responsible for the disbursement of these funds, along with the Pentagon, particularly Wolfowitz. In December 2003, for example, Wolfowitz ordered that reconstruction money from the DFI be released only to coalition countries' corporations."

There is an absolute wealth of news stories from press of *every possible* political flavour that will support the fact that the US allowed corporations such as Halliburton (Dick Cheney's company) to take the oil contracts.
Oil production is roughly half of what it was when Saddam was running the country under highly restrictive UN sanctions.

If Bush did go for the oil, then halfing production can only be classed as failure.
If he went to end terrorism, then creating a new base for al-qeda can only be classed as failure.
If he went to end civilian deaths, then the 37,000 toll and counting can only be classed as failure.
If he went to contain Iran and fundamental Islam, then handing a third of the country to Shia (Iranian control) can only be classed as failure.
If he went to bring democracy to the region, then hold election without Sunni participation, then that can only be classed as failure.
If he went to bring Justice (for women) to Iraq, then watching as a third of the country adopts Sharia Law, can only be classed as failure.
If he went to bring stability to Iraq, then allow it to splinter into three, that can only be classed as failure.

It is difficult to see what exactly the policy (if there was one) was, but quite clearly it has failed. The US is in worse position in the Middle East (and the World) than it was before this war.
The 37,000 figure above is the last official figure (from 2004) and the real death toll is greatly above that though they are unofficial estimates. I doubt we will ever know the true figure. One credible estimate puts the figure at 650,000

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/a rticle/2006/10/10/AR2006101001442.html
Put simply

There was a plan for Iraq's reconstruction to be done by American and a few token UK companies and paid for with Iraqi oil revenues.

Most of these contracts were won at wildly exhorbitant bids.

This somewhat fell apart when things got rough and nobody actually could do the work anyway.

It is unclear at exactly what stage this plan was devised whether it was before the war started or not.

Personally I believe the Iraqii war was purely personal, Bush is reputed to have directed people to find the evidence to link Saddam to 9/11 shortly after the attack. I think the attempt to use Iraqi oil to bolster the US economy was a retrospective attempt to salvage some of the cost
jake-the-peg

Department of State spent an entire year (before the war) creating a blueprint for securing the peace in Iraq, but the Department of Defense, which insisted on controlling "diplomacy" in Iraq, did not tell Bremer (who was given the job of running Iraq) the detailed plan existed until a year after he arrived on the job. Bremer was responsible for imposing the disbanding to the police and army in the early days of the war. Many Iraqis consider this as the point when the US cease to be liberators of Iraq and became its occupiers.
Loosehead...waiting for your response!!!
And in answer to your question...

There is a network of pipelines in Iraq, and though they are prone to attack, a lot of oil is getting out. The oilfields at Kirkuk in the north are safe and a pipeline goes through the Kurdistan region which is relatively untroubled by the insurgency. Some new wells came on stream there this year.
The plan to use Iraqi oil revenues to rebuild the country is not that unreasonable.


The issue is that these contracts were awarded in a number of cases without proper competition and in a manner that did not ensure that post-war Iraq got proper value for money.

It's not unreasonable to appoint someone right of attorney over your affairs if you're incapacitated but if they use your money to buy you ham sandwiches at �100 a time from their friends - that's rather different.

To show that Bush is "In Iraq for oil" I'd suggest you'd have to show that the plan for non-competetive awarding of these lucrative contracts existed before the war
Response to what Dom? I can't see a post from you above!
excellent point about wolfowitz , WaldoMcfroog.
you might like to read this jake? http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/oil- d05.shtml or http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/oil- d08.shtml or even http://www.wsws.org/articles/testdir/jul2004/i raq-j21.shtml there are more articles about cheney's manuverings at the bottom of each article, i haven't as yet read all of them myself.
And let's not forget that the oil companies were negotiating with the Taliban to build an oil pipeline through Afghanistan. 9/11 occurred shortly after neotiations had broken down.

Here is an interesting bit of net archaelogy from that subversive rag the Daily Telegraph from 1997...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml?h tml=%2Farchive%2F1997%2F12%2F14%2Fwtal14.html
don't think for a minute they have abandoned the notion, Gromit. Unocal, karzai's old employer may or may not be building it but, it will eventually be built.
waiting for you to get things in perspective loosehead.....as your last line says in post no 1, ofcourse i have the temerity to presume that you have read the posts that follow......ha ha
well i'm done for now, that's funny dom! here's a little food for thought. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context =viewArticle&code=NAZ20061116&articleId=3882
USA has completely blown it if they expect to get future supplies from the Middle East. If Saudi Arabia is attacked next they will have to rely on supplies from their old enemies, Libya and Russia.
I have read them Dom, has your contribution been removed? Still can't see anything.

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