The Oil Coup: Bush's Master Oil Plan? (fwd)

["Clement M. Henry" <chenry@mail.la.utexas.edu>]

Here is the sort of speculation about oil that is rampant on the net and
to be taken with a grain of salt - but you should be aware of it!

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Clement M. Henry
Professor of Government
University of Texas at Austin
Austin TX 78712
tel 471-5121, fax 471-1061

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 14:04:05 -0700
From: Joseph Reid <joereid@mymethow.com>
To: chenry@mail.la.utexas.edu
Subject: The Oil Coup: Bush's Master Oil Plan?


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The Oil Coup: Bush's Master Oil Plan?


Introduction

In the July 31 issue of The Christian Science Monitor an article
appeared titled "Iraq: Why Not Do Nothing?

The author, Mark Lynch, offered some not unreasonable reasons why we
might opt to refrain from attacking Iraq. However, in the course of his
argument, he suggested that "Iraq is beneath us" and thus that we might
do well to "ignore it".

Perhaps Mr. Lynch, along with most of his fellow citizens, is
overlooking a very significant aspect of Iraq's geopolitical, strategic
position. Iraq has oil reserves of 112billion barrels, second only to
Saudi Arabia, which has some 265billion barrels. Iraqi reserves are
seven times those of the combined UK and Norwegian sectors of the North
Sea. But the prize for oil companies could be even greater. Iraq
estimates that its eventual reserves could be as high as 220billion
barrels.

On the PBS News Hour the evening of July 31, 2002, James Chace,
professor of government at Bard College, observed that, "Going back to
the Gulf War of President Bush senior, the real reason that the United
States went into that war was to assure the flow of oil at reasonable
prices, and that no country such as Iraq would have large control over
the region. That was not usually given as the the reason, except when
the Secretary of State, James Baker, when asked why we went into Iraq at
that time said the reason was 'Jobs, jobs, jobs'. That was as close as
we came to really speaking openly about the notion that a vital resource
could be denied the United States." And, presidential historian Richard
Norton Smith, director of the Bob Dole Institute at the University of
Kansas, when asked if the US has taken preemptive military intervention
in the past, reminded us that ".....repeatedly in the first half of the
twentieth century American presidents of both parties sent the
marines.......usually for economic interests. It was sometimes hard to
tell if foreign policy was being made at the State Department or the
United Fruit Company."

In the first presidential debate of 1992 Ross Perot made the observation
that the Gulf War was fought solely for control of oil and nothing more.

To what extent ought the same to be said of the coming Second Gulf War?

And, in so far as this ought to be said regarding the Gulf War II, ought
it not to be part of the public discussion prior to military engagement?

Should our national dependence on imported, non-renewable fossil fuels
be an essential element of the public debate regarding the current Bush
administration's proposed renewed war on Iraq?

The June 7, 2002 edition of the PBS show Wall Street Week featured as
it's special guest Charles T. Maxwell, Senior Energy Analyst at Weeden &
Co. Mr. Maxwell expressed a belief that global oil production is likely
to peak sometime within the coming decade. In a report which Maxwell
issued in early September of 2001, he states that "The changes in
assumption about supply and price is likely to be gradual and even
halting at times. But, in the end, it will be perceived as inevitable,
and all-encompassing. How to deal with the disappearance of cheap oil
supplies will be one of the central social and investment debates, as I
see it, of the first half of the 21st Century."

One wonders if the potential significance of fact that Iraq contains 11
per cent of the world’s oil reserves, second only to Saudi Arabia’s 25
per cent, is being sufficiently brought into focus in the public
discussion.

The following compilation of references may help serve to bring this
issue into focus:

http://www.mymethow.com/~joereid/oil_coup.html#outline

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