Post by linsi on Mar 20, 2013 1:29:16 GMT 10
CNN Exclusive: Antonia Juhasz, author of "The Bush Agenda," says Big Oil were the winners of the Iraq War -- and that the plans to open up Iraq's oil fields were designed years before the invasion. IRAQ WAR AT 10
Why the war in Iraq was fought for Big OilBy Antonia Juhasz, Special to CNN
March 19, 2013 -- Updated 1305 GMT (2105 HKT)
Editor's note: Ten years ago the war in Iraq began. This week we focus on the people involved in the war, and the lives that changed forever. Antonia Juhasz, an oil industry analyst, is author of several books, including "The Bush Agenda" and "The Tyranny of Oil."
(CNN) -- Yes, the Iraq War was a war for oil, and it was a war with winners: Big Oil.
It has been 10 years since Operation Iraqi Freedom's bombs first landed in Baghdad. And while most of the U.S.-led coalition forces have long since gone, Western oil companies are only getting started.
Before the 2003 invasion, Iraq's domestic oil industry was fully nationalized and closed to Western oil companies. A decade of war later, it is largely privatized and utterly dominated by foreign firms.
From ExxonMobil and Chevron to BP and Shell, the West's largest oil companies have set up shop in Iraq. So have a slew of American oil service companies, including Halliburton, the Texas-based firm thingy Cheney ran before becoming George W. Bush's running mate in 2000.
The war is the one and only reason for this long sought and newly acquired access.
FULL COVERAGE: The Iraq War, 10 years on
Oil was not the only goal of the Iraq War, but it was certainly the central one, as top U.S. military and political figures have attested to in the years following the invasion.
"Of course it's about oil, we can't really deny that," said General John Abizaid in 2007, former head of U.S. Central Command and Military Operations in Iraq. Former Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan agreed, writing in his memoir: "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." Then-Senator and now Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the same in 2007: "People say we're not fighting for oil. Of course we are."
For the first time in about 30 years, Western oil companies are exploring for and producing oil in Iraq from some of the world's largest oil fields and reaping enormous profit. And while the U.S. has also maintained a fairly consistent level of Iraq oil imports since the invasion, the benefits are not finding their way through Iraq's economy or society.
These outcomes were by design, the result of a decade of U.S. government and oil company pressure. In 1998, Kenneth Derr, then CEO of Chevron, said, "Iraq possesses huge reserves of oil and gas-reserves I'd love Chevron to have access to." Today it does.
EXCLUSIVE: Hans Blix on 'terrible mistake' in Iraq
In 2000, Big Oil, including Exxon, Chevron, BP, and Shell, spent more money to get fellow oilmen George W. Bush and thingy Cheney into office than they had spent on any previous election. Just over a week into Bush's first term, their efforts paid off when the National Energy Policy Development Group, chaired by thingy Cheney, was formed, bringing the administration and the oil companies together to plot our collective energy future. In March, the task force reviewed lists and maps outlining Iraq's entire oil productive capacity.
Planning for a military invasion was soon underway. Bush's first Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, said in 2004: "Already by February [2001], the talk was mostly about logistics. Not the why [to invade Iraq], but the how and how quickly."
In its final report in May 2001, the task force argued that Middle Eastern countries should be urged "to open up areas of their energy sectors to foreign investment." This is precisely what has been achieved in Iraq.
Here's how they did it.
The State Department Future of Iraq Project's Oil and Energy Working Group met from February 2002 to April 2003 and agreed that Iraq "should be opened to international oil companies as quickly as possible after the war."
ARWA DAMON: Iraq suffocates in cloak of sorrow
The list of the group's members was not made public, but Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum -- who was appointed Iraq's oil minister by the U.S. occupation government in September 2003 -- was part of the group, according to Greg Muttitt, the journalist and author of "Fuel on the Fire: Oil and Politics in Occupied Iraq". Bahr al-Uloum promptly set about trying to implement the group's objectives.
At the same time, representatives from ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Halliburton, among others, met with Cheney's staff in January 2003, to discuss plans for Iraq's postwar industry. For the next decade, former and current executives of western oil companies acted first as administrators of Iraq's oil ministry, and then as "advisers" to the Iraqi government.
Before the invasion, there were just two things standing in the way of western oil companies operating in Iraq: Saddam Hussein and the nation's legal system. The invasion dealt handily with Hussein. To address the latter problem, some both in and outside of the Bush administration argued that it should simply change Iraq's oil laws through the U.S.-led coalition government of Iraq which ran the country from April 2003 to June 2004. Instead the White House waited, choosing to pressure the newly-elected Iraqi government to pass new oil legislation itself.
MORE: Did Iraq give birth to the Arab Spring?
This Iraq Hydrocarbons Law, partially drafted by the western oil industry, would lock the nation into private foreign investment under the most corporate-friendly terms. The Bush administration pushed the Iraqi government both publicly and privately to pass the law. And in January 2007, as the ''surge" of 20,000 additional American troops was being finalized, the president set specific benchmarks for the Iraqi government, including the passage of new oil legislation to "promote investment, national unity, and reconciliation."
But due to enormous public opposition and a recalcitrant parliament, the central Iraqi government has failed to pass the Hydrocarbons Law. Usama al-Nujeyfi, a member of the parliamentary energy committee, even quit in protest over the law, saying it would cede too much control to global companies and "ruin the country's future."
In 2008, with the likelihood of the law's passage and the prospect of continued foreign military occupation dimming as elections loomed in the U.S. and Iraq, the oil companies settled on a different track.
Why the war in Iraq was fought for Big OilBy Antonia Juhasz, Special to CNN
March 19, 2013 -- Updated 1305 GMT (2105 HKT)
Editor's note: Ten years ago the war in Iraq began. This week we focus on the people involved in the war, and the lives that changed forever. Antonia Juhasz, an oil industry analyst, is author of several books, including "The Bush Agenda" and "The Tyranny of Oil."
(CNN) -- Yes, the Iraq War was a war for oil, and it was a war with winners: Big Oil.
It has been 10 years since Operation Iraqi Freedom's bombs first landed in Baghdad. And while most of the U.S.-led coalition forces have long since gone, Western oil companies are only getting started.
Before the 2003 invasion, Iraq's domestic oil industry was fully nationalized and closed to Western oil companies. A decade of war later, it is largely privatized and utterly dominated by foreign firms.
From ExxonMobil and Chevron to BP and Shell, the West's largest oil companies have set up shop in Iraq. So have a slew of American oil service companies, including Halliburton, the Texas-based firm thingy Cheney ran before becoming George W. Bush's running mate in 2000.
The war is the one and only reason for this long sought and newly acquired access.
FULL COVERAGE: The Iraq War, 10 years on
Oil was not the only goal of the Iraq War, but it was certainly the central one, as top U.S. military and political figures have attested to in the years following the invasion.
"Of course it's about oil, we can't really deny that," said General John Abizaid in 2007, former head of U.S. Central Command and Military Operations in Iraq. Former Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan agreed, writing in his memoir: "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." Then-Senator and now Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the same in 2007: "People say we're not fighting for oil. Of course we are."
For the first time in about 30 years, Western oil companies are exploring for and producing oil in Iraq from some of the world's largest oil fields and reaping enormous profit. And while the U.S. has also maintained a fairly consistent level of Iraq oil imports since the invasion, the benefits are not finding their way through Iraq's economy or society.
These outcomes were by design, the result of a decade of U.S. government and oil company pressure. In 1998, Kenneth Derr, then CEO of Chevron, said, "Iraq possesses huge reserves of oil and gas-reserves I'd love Chevron to have access to." Today it does.
EXCLUSIVE: Hans Blix on 'terrible mistake' in Iraq
In 2000, Big Oil, including Exxon, Chevron, BP, and Shell, spent more money to get fellow oilmen George W. Bush and thingy Cheney into office than they had spent on any previous election. Just over a week into Bush's first term, their efforts paid off when the National Energy Policy Development Group, chaired by thingy Cheney, was formed, bringing the administration and the oil companies together to plot our collective energy future. In March, the task force reviewed lists and maps outlining Iraq's entire oil productive capacity.
Planning for a military invasion was soon underway. Bush's first Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, said in 2004: "Already by February [2001], the talk was mostly about logistics. Not the why [to invade Iraq], but the how and how quickly."
In its final report in May 2001, the task force argued that Middle Eastern countries should be urged "to open up areas of their energy sectors to foreign investment." This is precisely what has been achieved in Iraq.
Here's how they did it.
The State Department Future of Iraq Project's Oil and Energy Working Group met from February 2002 to April 2003 and agreed that Iraq "should be opened to international oil companies as quickly as possible after the war."
ARWA DAMON: Iraq suffocates in cloak of sorrow
The list of the group's members was not made public, but Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum -- who was appointed Iraq's oil minister by the U.S. occupation government in September 2003 -- was part of the group, according to Greg Muttitt, the journalist and author of "Fuel on the Fire: Oil and Politics in Occupied Iraq". Bahr al-Uloum promptly set about trying to implement the group's objectives.
At the same time, representatives from ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Halliburton, among others, met with Cheney's staff in January 2003, to discuss plans for Iraq's postwar industry. For the next decade, former and current executives of western oil companies acted first as administrators of Iraq's oil ministry, and then as "advisers" to the Iraqi government.
Before the invasion, there were just two things standing in the way of western oil companies operating in Iraq: Saddam Hussein and the nation's legal system. The invasion dealt handily with Hussein. To address the latter problem, some both in and outside of the Bush administration argued that it should simply change Iraq's oil laws through the U.S.-led coalition government of Iraq which ran the country from April 2003 to June 2004. Instead the White House waited, choosing to pressure the newly-elected Iraqi government to pass new oil legislation itself.
MORE: Did Iraq give birth to the Arab Spring?
This Iraq Hydrocarbons Law, partially drafted by the western oil industry, would lock the nation into private foreign investment under the most corporate-friendly terms. The Bush administration pushed the Iraqi government both publicly and privately to pass the law. And in January 2007, as the ''surge" of 20,000 additional American troops was being finalized, the president set specific benchmarks for the Iraqi government, including the passage of new oil legislation to "promote investment, national unity, and reconciliation."
But due to enormous public opposition and a recalcitrant parliament, the central Iraqi government has failed to pass the Hydrocarbons Law. Usama al-Nujeyfi, a member of the parliamentary energy committee, even quit in protest over the law, saying it would cede too much control to global companies and "ruin the country's future."
In 2008, with the likelihood of the law's passage and the prospect of continued foreign military occupation dimming as elections loomed in the U.S. and Iraq, the oil companies settled on a different track.