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Tue 30 Mar, 2004 08:15 am
Remarks by Philip Zelikow, who is now the executive director of the body set up to investigate the terrorist attacks on the United States in September 2001 -- the 9/11 Commission -- in which he suggests a prime motive for the Iraq invasion just over one year ago was to eliminate a threat to Israel.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0329-11.htm
Zelikow's casting of the attack on Iraq as one launched to protect Israel appears at odds with the public position of George W. Bush and his administration.
Wrong.
Here is the real reason IMHO: oil and legacy.
If the "threat to Israel" angle were legitimate it would render the inveasion of Iraq more legitimate.
Titus, that's some very strange reasoning.
How has the war been for oil? I mean not for cheap oil, oil prices are higher now than ever. None of the oil money is going in Bush's pocket. American companies havent moved in to permanantly extract oil from Iraq. What am i missing here?
"How has the war been for oil? I mean not for cheap oil, oil prices are higher now than ever." El Diablo
You might wish to familiarize yourself with PNAC: the Project for the New American Century. It will be quite enlightening for you, I'm sure.
A major miscalculation was made by the Bush team regarding the Iraq invasion and gaining control of their vast oil fields.
The main problem was the poor condition of the pumping and processing facilities in and around Tikrit. The 10 year period of international sanctions made it very difficult for Saddam to procure replacement parts.
But not to worry, the US taxpayer will be footing the bill for this as well, and very soon, oil will be making its way to EXXON-Mobile, Chevron, and Sunoco.[/color]
Reasons
A: The neoconservatives pride themselves on having a global vision, a long-term strategic perspective. And there were three reasons why they felt the U.S. needed to topple Saddam, put in a friendly government and occupy Iraq.
One of those reasons is that sanctions and containment were working and everybody pretty much knew it. Many companies around the world were preparing to do business with Iraq in anticipation of a lifting of sanctions. But the U.S. and the U.K. had been bombing northern and southern Iraq since 1991. So it was very unlikely that we would be in any kind of position to gain significant contracts in any post-sanctions Iraq. And those sanctions were going to be lifted soon, Saddam would still be in place, and we would get no financial benefit.
The second reason has to do with our military-basing posture in the region. We had been very dissatisfied with our relations with Saudi Arabia, particularly the restrictions on our basing. And also there was dissatisfaction from the people of Saudi Arabia. So we were looking for alternate strategic locations beyond Kuwait, beyond Qatar, to secure something we had been searching for since the days of Carter to secure the energy lines of communication in the region. Bases in Iraq, then, were very important that is, if you hold that is Americas role in the world. Saddam Hussein was not about to invite us in.
The last reason is the conversion, the switch Saddam Hussein made in the Food for Oil program, from the dollar to the euro. He did this, by the way, long before 9/11, in November 2000 selling his oil for euros. The oil sales permitted in that program arent very much. But when the sanctions would be lifted, the sales from the country with the second largest oil reserves on the planet would have been moving to the euro.
The U.S. dollar is in a sensitive period because we are a debtor nation now. Our currency is still popular, but its not backed up like it used to be. If oil, a very solid commodity, is traded on the euro, that could cause massive, almost glacial, shifts in confidence in trading on the dollar. So one of the first executive orders that Bush signed in May <2003> switched trading on Iraqs oil back to the dollar.
*Has anyone heard of an oil pipeline from Iraq to Israel ?
pistoff:
The neocons "global vision" includes all the oil producing nations and regions and little else.
I wonder if Bush will successfully topple Venuzuela's Chavez before he's defeated in November?
Probably
The CIA has been doing what it can. The CIA's main business is to protect and expand Capitalism, escpecially US Multi-Corps.Any nation that does not comply to USA business demands will be toppled by the CIA, indirectly or directly. Another recent example: Haiti
"None of the oil money is going in Bush's pocket." ~El Diablo
Bush's entire family got its money from oil, it's the entire reason he's rich enough to run for President in the first place (or rather, the reason his father could).
Texas oil is different than Iraqi oil.
The oil money in Iraq genious. Obviously i dint mean Texas.
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