“Oil in the next war will occupy the place of coal in
the present war, or at least a parallel place to coal.
The only big potential supply that we can get under
British control is the Persian [now Iran] and
Mesopotamian [now Iraq] supply... Control over these
oil supplies becomes a first class British war aim.”

Sir Maurice Hankey, Britain’s First Secretary of the
War Cabinet, 1918
"Whatever their publicized angst over Saddam Hussein's
'weapons of mass destruction,' American and British
authorities were also concerned about violence in an
area that harbours a resource indispensable for the
functioning of the world economy."

Alan Greenspan, Fed Chairman 1987-2006
[We cannot leave Iraq because] "extremists [may] be in
a position to use oil as a tool to blackmail the
West... and they will do so unless we abandon Israel "

George W. Bush, November 1, 2006
"When there is a regime change in Iraq, you could add
3 million to 5 million barrels of production to world
supply,"

Lawrence Lindsey, former George W. Bush's then-chief
economic adviser, 2002
"Secure supplies of energy are essential to our
prosperity and security. The concentration of 65
percent of the world's known oil reserves in the
Persian Gulf means we must continue to ensure reliable
access to competitively priced oil and a prompt,
adequate response to any major oil supply
disruption.":

U.S. White House, "National Security Strategy of the
United States", March 1990
***
When the Bush-Cheney administration took over in
January 2001, the international price of oil was about
$22 a barrel. Now, nearly eight years later, the price
of oil is hovering around $120 a barrel, a more than
five hundred percent increase. Thus, as far as oil is
concerned, things have not unfolded in Iraq as planned
and expected by the Neocons in the Bush-Cheney
administration. First, they thought that gushing Iraqi
oil would pay for the invasion and occupation of the
country. Instead, the cash outlay for this adventure
is likely to reach one trillion dollars, and [the total
cost to the U.S. economy will likely surpass three
trillion dollars.
->http://www.amazon.com/Three-Trillion-Dollar-War-Conflict/dp/0393067017]
Second, the price of oil is reaching record levels
with no top in sight and this is threatening to tip
the U.S. and the world economies into a protracted
economic recession. [This is partly due to the fact
that Iraqi oil output
->http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/08/news/international/iraq_oil/index.htm?section=money_latest]
has not increased as planned and is rather below where
it was when the United States invaded and occupied
Iraq in 2003. From a macroeconomic point of view, [this
ill-advised and illegal war
->http://www.democrats.com/will-bush-have-to-remove-all-troops-from-iraq-on-january-1]
has been an unmitigated disaster.
Nevertheless, despite sporadic pious declarations
about leaving Iraq when asked, the Bush-Cheney
administration is [planning a 50-Year American military
occupation
->http://www.middle-east-online.com/ENGLISH/?id=20948]
of Iraq. They do not want to set a date
to end the occupation of Iraq, because they see it as
an open-ended military occupation. — This is to be
expected, since the real reasons they invaded Iraq in
the first place was to pursue the long run goal of
controlling Middle East oil and of protecting the
state of Israel from its Muslim neighbors. Indeed,
everybody knows that the military invasion of Iraq by
American forces had nothing to do with "democracy" or
the wishes of the people. It had everything to do with
securing Iraq's oil reserves and with removing one of
Israel's enemies in the person of Saddam Hussein.
Last May 31 (2007), Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
confirmed these long-term plans when he said that the
United States was looking for a "long and enduring
presence" in Iraq. That is the reason the U.S. has
built the largest embassy in the world,
21 buildings on a 100-acre site on the banks of the
Tigris, which will be capable of housing one thousand
employees. That is also why they are consolidating
some 100 plus military bases in that Muslim country
into 14 permanent super-military bases – all geared to
control militarily that part of the world for a very
long time.
This is also why the Bush-Cheney administration is
pushing the Iraqi Parliament hard to adopt a law that
would [privatize the Iraqi oil industry.
->http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2005/crudedesigns.htm
- S1] If the current puppet regime now in place in
Iraq were to refuse passing such a law, the so-called
"Hydrocarbon Act", [it would lose over a billion
dollars in reconstruction funds
->http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17769.htm]
that would be blocked by the Bush-Cheney
administration.
This overt military grab of the oil resources of a
Middle East nation is a sure recipe for feeding
permanent terrorism in the world and permanent war in
the Middle East for as long as one can see. And if
Americans elect a Republican president for a third
term next November, by voting for presumptive
Republican presidential nominee, [Senator John McCain
(R-AZ), ->http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain]
that is what will happen since this politician is
already committed to a one hundred year war in that
part of the world.
According to polls,
a vast majority of Iraqis is opposed to the
privatization of their oil industry. Nevertheless,
privatization of Iraqi oil is [one of the main
"benchmarks"
->http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17769.htm]
that the Bush-Cheney administration is imposing on the
Iraqi government.
It has installed in occupied Iraq a puppet government
of its own that is delivering the merchandise, even
though some arm-twisting pressure has
been necessary. Last July 3 (2007), for instance, the
U.S.-controlled al-Maliki's Cabinet approved, with no
Sunni ministers present, a US-backed draft oil law
that will share Iraqi oil wealth
between the three main Iraqi groups, but which will,
above all, let American and foreign oil companies into
the Iraqi oil sector and enact privatization under [so
called production sharing agreements.
->http://priceofoil.org/2007/05/09/iraqi-union-set-to-strike-over-oil-law]
This has been a key political target and even a
"benchmark" set by the Bush-Cheney White House, but so
far the Iraqi Parliament has balked in approving [the
required controversial legislation,
->http://www.upi.com/International_Security/Energy/Analysis/2008/03/17/analysis_iraq_oil_law_holdup_political/2837/]
because there have been many protests,
many Iraqis being very reluctant to adopt a policy of
sharing oil production and revenues with foreign oil
companies, especially [when they have been taken away
from them "at gunpoint".
->http://liberalpro.blogspot.com/2007/07/iraq-oil-laws-give-us-their-oilat.html]
The Iraqi oil industry has been nationalized since
1975, some thirty-three years ago. Indeed, before the
American-led military invasion and occupation of Iraq,
the Iraqi oil fields were controlled by the Iraqi
government through a state-owned corporation. This was
the foundation for a relatively high standard of
living in Iraq, which had one of the best health care
systems in the region and was producing more Ph.D.s
per capita than the U.S. It is this prosperity and
this wealth that are being destroyed by the
Bush-Cheney administration. Under their military
occupation of Iraq and the contemplated oil
arrangements, much of Iraqi oil production and oil
revenues would fall under the control of foreign oil
companies, mainly American and British [Exxon/Mobil,
Chevron/Texaco, BP/Amoco, and Royal Dutch/Shell].
One of the two main rationales for launching the
illegal invasion of Iraq would have been accomplished,
i.e. to keep the flow of oil
going, under the surveillance of American troops, the
other rationale being the destruction of one of
Israel's strategic enemies. — Many knowledgeable
observers, such as [Australian Defense Minister Brendan
Nelson, have confirmed that Oil Supply Security
->http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070705/wl_asia_afp/australiairaqwaroil_070705032943]
was a paramount reason for the Iraq invasion and
occupation when he said that maintaining "resource
security" in the Middle East was a priority. That is
the reason why, when the American armies arrived in
Baghdad, in early April 2003, their orders were to
secure only one kind of public buildings, those of the
Iraqi Oil Ministry. All the rest did not matter.
Finally, let us remember that on October 11, 2002, the
U.S. Senate voted 77-23 to give George W. Bush and
Dick Cheney a blank check authorization to launch a
war of aggression against Iraq. Two current
presidential candidates, John McCain and Hillary
Clinton voted for the resolution. Let us remind
ourselves also that ten days earlier, the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) had issued a [confidential
90-page classified version of the National
Intelligence Estimate,
->http://www.antiwar.com/orig/reiland.php?articleid=11121]
which contained a long list of dire consequences to
follow if the USA were to invade Iraq. The report was
made available to all 100 senators, but only six of
them bothered to avail themselves of the opportunity
to read it. Thanks to that knowledge, people have a
glimpse now about how decisions were made in
Washington D.C. before the onset of this war. Even on
questions of life and death, improvisation prevailed
on a high scale. And now, the seeds have been sown for
permanent military occupations, permanent wars and
permanent terrorism in the Middle East and in the
world.
The price for such a misguided policy will be high and
will linger on for years to come. Indeed, many
Americans are beginning to see that there is a link
between Iraq war spending and deficit, and the ongoing
recession and accelerating inflation. Such waste and
spending on wars reduce the amount of financial
resources available to finance other essential
government programs at home, from education to
infrastructure. They increase the balance of payments
deficit and force the U.S. to borrow abroad. And when
the Fed lowers interest rates to mitigate the banking
crisis, the dollar plummets, which feeds inflation
further when oil prices and all other prices connected
with transportation and world-traded commodities go
up. The current stagflation is a direct consequence of
excessive U.S. military spending abroad. The sooner a
majority of Americans see that, the better.