Bush Didn't Bungle Iraq, You Fools

[no_to_war_economy]

THE MISSION WAS INDEED ACCCOMPLISHED by Greg Palast



And what did the USA want Iraq to do with Iraq's oil? The answer will surprise many of you: and it is uglier, more twisted, devilish and devious than anything imagined by the most conspiracy-addicted blogger. The answer can be found in a 323-page plan for Iraq's oil secretly drafted by the State Department. Our team got a hold of a copy; how, doesn't matter. The key thing is what's inside this thick Bush diktat: a directive to Iraqis to maintain a state oil company that will "enhance its relationship with OPEC."

Enhance its relationship with OPEC??? How strange: the government of the United States ordering Iraq to support the very OPEC oil cartel which is strangling our nation with outrageously high prices for crude.

Specifically, the system ordered up by the Bush cabal would keep a lid on Iraq's oil production -- limiting Iraq's oil pumping to the tight quota set by Saudi Arabia and the OPEC cartel.

There you have it. Yes, Bush went in for the oil -- not to get more of Iraq's oil, but to prevent Iraq producing too much of it.

http://gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=483&row=0

[Lerkfish]

1. If true, that's jives with what I've always said, its SCARCITY of oil

not oil.

[PassingFair]

8. IF? .... ... n/t

[Lerkfish]

10. good point. nt

I was being overly cautious in my post

[PassingFair]

14. O-I-L? Who said anything about OIL, *itch!

My favorite Dave Chappelle sketch.
Black Bush

http://politicalhumor.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=politicalhumor&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.comedycentral.com%2Fsitewide%2Fmedia_player%2Fplay.jhtml%3FitemId%3D11923

[bryant69]

2. Oy. If that's true that's pretty horrible.

This merits attention.

Bryant
check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Flubadubya]

3. I'm shocked... shocked I tell you...

NOT! :argh:

This makes all the sense in the world. Why hasn't anybody figured this out before? :shrug:

[stepnw1f]

4. Thanks to his Balless Supporters

My future child will have a debt tied around his/her neck like some indentured servant. Fuck the rich and their GOP!

[KharmaTrain]

5. And Now There's "New Reserves In Afghanistan?"

I've long heard this theory as the cause for both Gulf Oil Wars. The first being that Saddam was ready to flood the market with cheap oil to help rebuild his country quickly. Kuwaiit and Saudi Arabia were slant drilling into Iraqi reserves with the intention of drawing down the ability for Iraq to pump oil and to make some extra bucks themselves...this pissed Saddam and led to the Kuwait invasion.

Then because Saddam was bypassing so much of the sanctions (or Halliburton wasn't getting enough of a payoff) and to further drive up the depressed price of oil, booosh jr. launched this war to not only put a lid on Iraqi production, but also to drive up the prices on all the other new sources of oil (Russian & Capsian Sea) that was coming onto the market.

Just think about what you were paying for a gallon of gas 5 years ago today and what you're paying now. I can remember in early 2000 paying under $1 for a gallon in metropolitan Chicago. Last scan, that price was closing in on 2.60 again.

I think the silence of the Saudis and Kuwait about what's going on in Iraq speaks volumes about their own self intersts in this manner. Keeping Iraqi oil off the market makes them richer...and with it Badr booosh.

[formercia]

6. I've been arguing this point for years.

Before the war started, I got into an argument with someone who was for going into Iraq because it "would reduce the price of oil." I argued that Iraq was dumping oil on the market and that the Saudis were upset because their balance of payments was in the red as a result. They were thanking 'GOD' that the prices went up after the invasion.


Fearless Leader and his gang want stable HIGH prices. Maximize profit.

[BlueEyedSon]

21. Control of the flow. Crush Saddams euro/petro trade. Bases to replace S.A.

[formercia]

23. Yup! n/t

[elehhhhna]

7. ...so when he bombs Iran and they close the Straits of Hormuz...

we'll really be screwed. Oil will cost ten bucks a gallon.

[Toots]

9. And people think Big Oil had it's largest 4th 1/4 profit in history

by accident. :shrug: Cheney and his SECRET Energy Meetings were no accident.

[glitch]

17. What a remarkable coincidence! Such lucky duckies! nt

:eyes:

[EstimatedProphet]

11. Why should it be a surprise that it's all about oil for some people?

What was the first thing they took over and guarded so heavily in Baghdad? The Ministry of oil-and they did that at the expense of guarding ammo dumps that were robbed and are being used against us at this moment.

Eventually the American people will wake up fully. There will be no holding back the angry mob that comes for them.

[Julius Civitatus]

12. I knew it!

This is a theory that was circulating for a while, and it does make a lot of sense.

Oil can only be this expensive if there is a limited reserve of it. Iraq posed a huge problem for 'Big Oil': a rogue like Saddam Hussein didn't play by their rules, and threatened to pump lots of cheap oil into the market, thus decreasing overall prices and reducing the astronomic profits that oil companies get. Iraq wasn't playing the rules set up by 'Big Oil' and OPEC; too much of a risk to their bottom line.

Notice that since we invaded Iraq, oil production and export from that country has dramatically decreased, unlike what people expected. Rummy told us the Iraqi oil itself would pay for this war. That has not happened.

The Iraqi invasion was waged, ultimately, to close the tap.

[Pacifist Patriot]

13. And how many of us having been saying this for years.

Or similar variations thereof.

[Roland99]

15. Palast would be a much better read w/o the snide comments.

Might even be taken more seriously by others.

[glitch]

18. True - he definitely knows what he's talking about. His background is in

forensic accounting and fraud investigation, I think. But his humor doesn't enhance his speeches or his writing, IMO, and gives people an excuse to take him less seriously.

[BrklynLiberal]

16. Sah-prahz! Sah-prahz! Sah-prahz!

Too sophisticated for *, but it sure was his handlers' plan!!!

[leftofthedial]

19. the saudis and emirs

are bushboy's bosses

they own his ass, his allegiance and his services

[DaveT]

20. True -- but not the whole story

Palast is correct -- the Bush Administration is a creature of the oil industry and the entire history of that industry has been one long effort to control production levels to prevent price flattening gluts. For many decades in my home state of Texas, it was called "prorationing" and it was enforced by the Texas Railroad Commission. Fancy that -- government interference in the market to keep prices up. Since 1973, the oil industry and its whores in American politics have perpetrated the fraud that the OPEC cartel is some sort of evil aberration from the pristine beauty of a free market. Look at oil profits since the hoked up "boycott" supposedly triggered by the Yom Kippur War to see how OPEC became a global version of the Texas Railroad Commission.

But depressing oil output to raise prices is not the only way to make money off of this war.

The defense contractors obviously make money; this phenomenon has reached new and absurd lows under the Cheney/Halliburton system of boodle -- large parts of the war have been privatized. Then, you have "The Mouse That Roared" twist: in the words of Colin Powell, "You broke it, you bought it." In the Bush Era of geopolitics, once America invades and occupies a country, then we have to spend tens of billions of dollars more to undo the damage done by our shock and awe weaponry. This, in turn, sets up the bizarre situation in Iraq where bags of cash were literally tossed around from hand to hand until they disappeared without a bureaucratic trace.

Finally, the financial community gets a taste -- this entire war has been conducted on credit. The Russian Roulette genius of Cheney and Company has been to deal the Chinese into the war profits by borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars from them to make them part owners of the whole shebang.

This is the most treasonous aspect of the whole Mafia program -- because the Chinese are no fools and they know that the USA will never be able to climb out of the debt hole that Bush has dug for us. Eventually, the Chinese will foreclose.


The "intellectuals" at PNAC who now staff this 21st Century globalized version of Tamany Hall are the junior partners in this Ten Figure Boondoggle -- ultimately silly eggheads who write the scripts for phony wars of conquest, drawing as much fire from the "left" as possible while selling the American People the pipe dream of infinite power.



Somebody recently posted an analysis of the Bush Administration that compared it to The Sopranos story line about David Scutino, the sporting goods store owner with the gambling habit who had to turn his store over to Tony and the boys. Soprano's doctrine of "maximum value" dictated that the real asset of the store was its credit, and Tony milked every last cent of it before forcing poor David to take bankruptcy. This was also a brief story line within Goodfellas as Paul Cicero became the partner of a poor sad sack restaurantuer who needed protection from Joe Pesci. In the end they burned the joint down and collected on the insurance to cap off the bust out.

This method of looting a business has been applied to countries before -- just never to America.

[bklyncowgirl]

22. Now that makes sense

Greg Palast, hats off too you.