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Seeing the people of Iraq celebrating the end of Saddam's regime was a fantastic sight. Anyone who still, despite this, managed to snort with derision and launch once more into the numerous (and in many cases, well founded) reasons that the US is doing the Arab world a disservice must be hard hearted indeed.
So, no Weapons of Mass Destruction were used. None were found (so far). No Al-Quaida training facilities have been unearthed. Yet the sophistry and spin would have you believe differently. We have been told that "Materials likely to be used for chemical weapons" have been discovered. Would it sound less impressive if it were pointed out that the average public swimming pool, with it's reasonably large stock of chlorine, has materials that could be used in chemical warfare?
This morning also saw the announcement that Abul Abbas, the Palestinian who planned the terrorist hijack of a cruise liner some 16 years ago (during which a paraplegic American hostage was murdered), has been captured in Baghdad. No doubt this will be touted as proof of terrorist links to Saddam's regime. Proof? Erm...well, not really. Abbas had renounced violence, had been allowed by the Israeli government (not noted for it's forgiving attitude toward Palestinian terrorists) to visit Gaza numerous times, and America had dropped the warrant for his arrest. If this is proof that the Iraqi government has links to terrorism, then we in the UK must be guilty of the same thing. More so in fact, as we have Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness (former IRA members) in our Parliament.
The looting in Iraq's major cities seems to be dying down (if only because there is nothing left to steal). Some people have seen fit to blame the coalition forces for the looting. Which is true in that it was they who overthrew the Ba'ath regime. But bearing in mind that there are 25,000 troops in Baghdad who need to control 5 million people, doesn't it strike anyone else as rather petty minded and pathetic of those most fervently anti-war voices to try and lay all the blame for this at the coalitions door? We're talking about a nation that has suffered oppression of the worst sort, so it's not entirely surprising that we are now seeing the most basic expression of newly acquired freedom (i.e. Do What Thou Wilt is the whole of the law). And a few troops are expected to police it? Please; I’m opposed to this ugly little land grab, but if you're going to be anti-war then at least try and keep within spitting distance of reality.
Has anyone, at any point, sat Dubya down and explained the principles of diplomacy to him? He and his administration seem incapable of expressing themselves by any means other than threats. Worried about your allies not supporting your actions? Threaten them with a trade embargo. Worried about countries that border the one you've invaded offering sanctuary to people you want captured? Threaten them with war. Worried about Arab's from elsewhere in the middle-east fighting US troops in Iraq? Threaten each and every nation that the originated from.
America is now condemning (and, naturally, threatening) Syria for sheltering members of the former Iraqi government. Is this the same America that has trained, equipped, and if things go horribly wrong, offered sanctuary to Christ knows how many South and Central American tinpot dictators over the past few decades?
One of the major objections to this war was that the US was being very selective in which dictators it was removing. However, couldn't the bullishness and threatening language emanating from Washington at the moment be interpreted as the US answering that very criticism? If America did turn this oil war into some sort of crusade against dictatorships, wouldn't that be a good thing in principle (if not in practice)?
Speaking of crusades, why is Dubya doing his very best to prove the fears of the Islamic world correct by only bullying Moslem countries? I mean, I hate to bang on about this but North Korea and Israel are not exactly behaving like angels, yet they continue to be left to their own devices. Anyone would think that certain members of the Bush and Blair governments want terrorism to increase in order to limit personal liberties. I'm not entirely sure I believe that myself, but one can certainly see why many other do.
There seems to be some sort of religious tension in Iraq at the moment. A senior Shiite cleric was murdered a few days after he returned to Iraq from the UK. Yet another cleric was given 48 hours to leave Iraq. And the Shiite’s seem to be the most vocal out of all Iraqi groups opposed to US involvement in setting up a new government. I suspect that there is more than meets the eye here.
There would also seem to be a racial war brewing in the north of Iraq. The Kurds have wanted their own country for years (Kurdistan is divided between Iraq and Turkey at the moment). There has already been fighting between Kurds and Arabs in the northern city of Mosul, and the Turks make no secret of the fact that they would regard annexation of Northern Iraq by themselves as preferable to a Kurdish nation. This all adds up to more interesting times.
If you want a blueprint of what will happen in Iraq now that the war is basically over, look no further than Afghanistan. The US promised millions in aid to the fledgling Afghan government. Would you care to guess how much has been set aside for them in Dubya's most recent budget? Approximately....nothing. Zero. Not a sausage. Afghanistan is still in chaos; chances are that Iraq will be just as messed up as a nation this time next year. Add to that the possibility of racially and religiously motivated conflict within the country, and one has cause to worry that this conflict is just the beginning of the bloodshed.
Am I alone in wanting this whole thing to be over so we can have something on the news other than War? After all, we have other things to think about. Things like the global spread of the SARS virus, the faltering Northern Ireland peace process, and the trial of Maxine Carr and Ian Huntley...actually, can we keep the war going as long as possible?! Okay, so soldiers and civilians are dying every day, but it makes for more positive viewing and reading than any other world events...
So, no Weapons of Mass Destruction were used. None were found (so far). No Al-Quaida training facilities have been unearthed. Yet the sophistry and spin would have you believe differently. We have been told that "Materials likely to be used for chemical weapons" have been discovered. Would it sound less impressive if it were pointed out that the average public swimming pool, with it's reasonably large stock of chlorine, has materials that could be used in chemical warfare?
This morning also saw the announcement that Abul Abbas, the Palestinian who planned the terrorist hijack of a cruise liner some 16 years ago (during which a paraplegic American hostage was murdered), has been captured in Baghdad. No doubt this will be touted as proof of terrorist links to Saddam's regime. Proof? Erm...well, not really. Abbas had renounced violence, had been allowed by the Israeli government (not noted for it's forgiving attitude toward Palestinian terrorists) to visit Gaza numerous times, and America had dropped the warrant for his arrest. If this is proof that the Iraqi government has links to terrorism, then we in the UK must be guilty of the same thing. More so in fact, as we have Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness (former IRA members) in our Parliament.
The looting in Iraq's major cities seems to be dying down (if only because there is nothing left to steal). Some people have seen fit to blame the coalition forces for the looting. Which is true in that it was they who overthrew the Ba'ath regime. But bearing in mind that there are 25,000 troops in Baghdad who need to control 5 million people, doesn't it strike anyone else as rather petty minded and pathetic of those most fervently anti-war voices to try and lay all the blame for this at the coalitions door? We're talking about a nation that has suffered oppression of the worst sort, so it's not entirely surprising that we are now seeing the most basic expression of newly acquired freedom (i.e. Do What Thou Wilt is the whole of the law). And a few troops are expected to police it? Please; I’m opposed to this ugly little land grab, but if you're going to be anti-war then at least try and keep within spitting distance of reality.
Has anyone, at any point, sat Dubya down and explained the principles of diplomacy to him? He and his administration seem incapable of expressing themselves by any means other than threats. Worried about your allies not supporting your actions? Threaten them with a trade embargo. Worried about countries that border the one you've invaded offering sanctuary to people you want captured? Threaten them with war. Worried about Arab's from elsewhere in the middle-east fighting US troops in Iraq? Threaten each and every nation that the originated from.
America is now condemning (and, naturally, threatening) Syria for sheltering members of the former Iraqi government. Is this the same America that has trained, equipped, and if things go horribly wrong, offered sanctuary to Christ knows how many South and Central American tinpot dictators over the past few decades?
One of the major objections to this war was that the US was being very selective in which dictators it was removing. However, couldn't the bullishness and threatening language emanating from Washington at the moment be interpreted as the US answering that very criticism? If America did turn this oil war into some sort of crusade against dictatorships, wouldn't that be a good thing in principle (if not in practice)?
Speaking of crusades, why is Dubya doing his very best to prove the fears of the Islamic world correct by only bullying Moslem countries? I mean, I hate to bang on about this but North Korea and Israel are not exactly behaving like angels, yet they continue to be left to their own devices. Anyone would think that certain members of the Bush and Blair governments want terrorism to increase in order to limit personal liberties. I'm not entirely sure I believe that myself, but one can certainly see why many other do.
There seems to be some sort of religious tension in Iraq at the moment. A senior Shiite cleric was murdered a few days after he returned to Iraq from the UK. Yet another cleric was given 48 hours to leave Iraq. And the Shiite’s seem to be the most vocal out of all Iraqi groups opposed to US involvement in setting up a new government. I suspect that there is more than meets the eye here.
There would also seem to be a racial war brewing in the north of Iraq. The Kurds have wanted their own country for years (Kurdistan is divided between Iraq and Turkey at the moment). There has already been fighting between Kurds and Arabs in the northern city of Mosul, and the Turks make no secret of the fact that they would regard annexation of Northern Iraq by themselves as preferable to a Kurdish nation. This all adds up to more interesting times.
If you want a blueprint of what will happen in Iraq now that the war is basically over, look no further than Afghanistan. The US promised millions in aid to the fledgling Afghan government. Would you care to guess how much has been set aside for them in Dubya's most recent budget? Approximately....nothing. Zero. Not a sausage. Afghanistan is still in chaos; chances are that Iraq will be just as messed up as a nation this time next year. Add to that the possibility of racially and religiously motivated conflict within the country, and one has cause to worry that this conflict is just the beginning of the bloodshed.
Am I alone in wanting this whole thing to be over so we can have something on the news other than War? After all, we have other things to think about. Things like the global spread of the SARS virus, the faltering Northern Ireland peace process, and the trial of Maxine Carr and Ian Huntley...actually, can we keep the war going as long as possible?! Okay, so soldiers and civilians are dying every day, but it makes for more positive viewing and reading than any other world events...
Just thought I'd pop this for Goatboy/Bell to read...
It's been an interesting month in my new job which restricts my posting to mere snippets of random thoughts at odd hours of the day...
It's been an interesting month in my new job which restricts my posting to mere snippets of random thoughts at odd hours of the day...
Wait, the war's over?
Shows how much I know...
Shows how much I know...
Fantastic! Thanks for that Unbeliever.
I beg to differ, Protoss.
I have friends who work for US oil/petrochemical companies and they sent me this interesting piece. Read it and weep. As per usual this is a flying visit to the forums and I apologise for the spamming involved - I can't get a link to a url for it as it was sent to me in a document:
CounterPunch Special Report
Secret Bechtel Documents Reveal: Yes, It Is About Oil
By DAVID LINDORFF
Is the war against Iraq all about oil? Not to hear Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld tell it. Back on Nov. 15, he called the notion that oil was the
real reason behind the Bush administration's drive against Saddam Hussein
"nonsense," saying, "It has nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do
with oil."
But a new study released by the Institute for Policy Studies, based upon
secret diplomatic cables just declassified by the National Archives, and
internal communications of the Bechtel Corporation, suggests just the
opposite - that oil is the underlying cause of this war.
The study, which discloses the intimate links between the Bechtel
Corporation and Bechtel executives and U.S. policy towards Iraq, also shows
that some key players in the push for America's war against Iraq, including
Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, and other former Reagan administration
officials Roger Robinson, Judge William B. Clark and Robert McFarlane, have
been intimately involved in issues relating to Iraqi oil as far back as
the1980s.
Titled "Crude Vision: How Oil Interests Obscured US Government Focus on
Chemical Weapons Use by Saddam Hussein," this report traces an intense
effort by Reagan officials in the mid-1980s to win Hussein's approval for a
$2-billion oil pipeline to be built by Bechtel, running from the Euphrates
oilfields in southern Iraq westward to Jordan and the Gulf of Aqaba.
A key player in that effort was Rumsfeld, then the CEO of Searle drugs, the
giant phramaceutical company.
One particularly revealing 1983 memo, declassified for the first time in
February by the National Archives, concerns a trip by Rumsfeld to Iraq.
Acting as a special White House "peace envoy" allegedly to discuss with
Hussein and then foreign minister Tarik Aziz the bloody war between Iran and
Iraq, Rumsfeld turns out according to this memo to have been talking not
about that war, but about Bechtel's proposed Aqaba pipeline.
In his memo to Secretary of State George Schultz reporting on the meeting
with Hussein, Rumsfeld talks at length about the pipeline discussion, but
makes no mention of having discussed either the war or charges that
Hussein's army was using chemical weapons against the Iranians.
The intense focus of Rumsfeld, Schultz (a former president of Bechtel),
Cheney and other Reagan officials, in concert with Bechtel, on the pipeline,
reads like an abbreviated, or mini "Pentagon Papers," laying the groundwork
for a collapse in relations between the U.S. and Iraq, and eventually to
war. The documents also cast Bechtel's current position as one of two top
candidates for the lucrative contract to "rebuild Iraq" in a troubling
light.
As American troops press into Baghdad, and Iraqi casualties run into the
thousands, Counterpunch speaks with Jim Valette, director of research at the
Sustainable Energy and Economy Network, and one of the three authors of
"Crude Vision."
Q: What prompted this study?
A: We were examing the interconnections between private corporations and the
U.S. government in the pursuit of oil worldwide since 1995--principally the
U.S. financing --through the World Bank and US agencies like the
Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC),
etc.of that pursuit. But what has clearly occurred in recent months has been
clearly an even more serious expression of this pursuit of fossil fuels for
the benefit of Big Oil, which is an extention of this relation into the
military role. And so we're looking at the deployment of troops and
paramilitaries financed by the U.S. government worldwide, and of course the
most serious conflict of interest is in Iraq. In the course of that research
we saw the beginning and end of the story of American efforts to gain
control of Iraq's oilfields, the beginning being Rumsfeld's meeting with
Saddam Hussein in Deecemer 1983 to the end, which was the Independent
Counsel's investigation of the Attorney General, at the time, Edwin Meese,
and his relationship with one of the brokers of the pipeline, E Robert
Wallachs. Before this nobody had connected the dots between Rumsfeld and the
Meese investigation and nobody had examined exactly how dominant this
pipeline project was in the diplomacy and the burgeoning relationship
between the Reagan administration and Saddam Hussein. It was in that context
that we came across corporate records and government memoranda related to
the Aqaba pipeline project. It was a real eye-opener to us to see how
interwoven Bechtel's interests were with the Reagan Administration.
Q. We're talking about stuff that happened almost 20 years ago. How is this
relevant to what's happening in Iraq now?
A: This story, I think, is timely even though it's 20 years old because
Bechtel is back now, as the likely winner of the contract to rebuild Iraq's
infrastructure, and many of those Reagan administration officials are back,
and they are poised to get their hands on Iraq's oil again.
Q: So what is new here?
A: The release in February by the National Archives of cables back and forth
between Washington and U.S. diplomats in the Middle East around the time of
1983 and 1984 disclose for the first time what really transpired in
Rumsfeld's meetings with Saddam and other Iraqi officials. What had
previously been reported was that Rumsfeld had a cozy meeting with Saddam in
Baghdad in December 1983. In the past, the focus was on whether or not he
had raised the issue of Saddam's use of chemical arms against Iran. But what
the actual memoranda show is that a big part of Rumsfeld's discussion with
Saddam Hussein was this new proposal from Bechtel to build a pipeline form
Iraq to Jordan. I mean Rumsfeld was executing the marching orders of George
Schultz, who was the Secretary of State, but who came directly from the
presidency of Bechtel to the Reagan administration. The documents released
by the National Security Archive suggest that what was going on then had
quite a bit to do with oil--certainly more than had been known before.
Q: Before the release of those documents we didn't know that Rumsfeld was
talking about a pipeline?
A: Right. Right. I mean it was reported that when he was there he didn't
raise an issue with Saddam about the use of chemical weapons, even though
there were reports coming out of Iran that Saddam was dropping chemical
bombs on Iranian troops.
Q: So we knew before what he didn't talk about, but not what he was talking
about? And that was the pipeline?
A: Right, he was there sort of as a bagman for Bechtel. And then there were
documents I found in the government's National Archives that showed the
extensive involvement of Reagan officials and the very close relationship
they had with Bechtel officials, in pursuing this pipeline over the next two
years. We sort of connected the dots between what was in these National
Security Archives and what was known in the general coverage over the last
15 years.
Q: How important was this pipeline in terms of relations?
A: It was the focus of U.S. relations with Iraq for several years, right
through the period that Iraq was locked in a bitter war with Iran. In one
1984 internal company memo, Bechtel executive H. B. Scott exhorts his
colleagues at Bechtel, after it appeared that all this diplomacy by Rumsfeld
seemed to be paying off, "I cannot emphasise enough the need for maximum
Bechtel management effort at all levels of the U.S. government and industry
to support this project. It has significant political overtones. The time
may be ripe for this project to move promptly with very significant rewards
to Bechtel for having made it possible." And in these documents we see how
tightly interwoven this management effort is with their former colleagues
such as George Schultz in the State Department in implementing this
initiative. It shows how corporations take advantage of U.S. geopolitics in
the region and how they try to profit from those geopolitical developments.
Another important memo was in July of 1985, after Bechtel had run into some
difficulties in assuaging Saddam's fears about potential Israeli threats to
the pipeline. Bechtel and the State Department were having trouble getting
the right degree of assurance from the Isreaeli Labor Party [then the ruling
party in Israel] that the pipeline would be off limits to attack. Bechtel
and the Reagan administration officials were trying to get absolute
assurance from the Labor Party that the pipeline would absolutely not be
attacked. There were some frustrations to that approach in 1985, and so
Bechtel hired a couple of very close friends of the Reagan administration to
sort out the deal. In July of 1985, pipeline promoters hired Judge Jim
Clark, who was considered Reagan's right hand man. He had just left
government to go into private business. There's a memo from Judge Clark
saying that he's "on board" and laying out the terms of his involvement,
which were $500 an hour, and saying he'd be flying to Baghdad, not as a
private consultant, but representing himself as a White House
representative. That memorandum, which is avialable on our website
(www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82), shows how blurry that revolving
door had become. He's working for the government while he's simultaneously
getting paid as an agent for Bechtel.
Q: Okay, so we have the evidence that there was this big concern about
getting this big pipeline for Bechtel, and the interest in getting oil out
without it having to go through the Persian Gulf. But wasn't that a
legitimate national security concern for the U.S., given Iran's political
situation and its hostility towards America?
A: Well, it has been long-standing US national security policy on paper that
threats to the free flow of oil are threats to national security, and this
is what we're getting at here. Is this pursuit of oil or the pursuit of
empire? Some folks define what's going on in Iraq as U.S. pursuit of empire,
but right now it's really two sides of the same coin. And this policy of
pursuing oil and empire is coming up against all sorts of realities now that
weren't well understood back in the 1980s. On the National security side,
this pursuit of oil wealth at all costs has huge costs to democracy and
human rights. It's creating a backlash in the Middle East and elsewhere that
has had some horrible expressions recently.
Q: The pipeline never got built though. What happened?
A: In the end, Saddam decided that Bechtel was trying to charge too much for
the project, and so he killed the project and instead went with a pipeline
connecting into pipelines in Turkey and into Saudi Arabia, but avoiding the
Straits of Hormuz.
Q: Do you expect to see the Aqaba pipeline revived?
A: Maybe, maybe not. I've seen reports now of Israel looking to build a
pipeline from Iraq to the Golan Heights. It's not the same project as
Bechtel's Aqaba pipeline idea. Bechtel asked the Commerce Department to keep
the Aqaba pipeline registered as an active project for years, but it's
probably less necessary now for the U.S. and Bechtel. The pipelines to Saudi
Arabia and Turkey give an alternative route for oil to the Persian Gulf, and
Bechtel gets into Iraq as a contractor to rebuild Iraq after the war. Right
now, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal, Bechtel is one of
the two finalists for the Iraq reconstruction job, along with Parson's
group, which has Halliburton as a secondary contractor. Halliburton is Vice
President Cheney's former company [Note: Cheney is still receiving payments
from Halliburton]. That was reported in the Wall Street Journal today (April
2). They're both on the short list. Halliburton sort of stepped back for
obvious reasons but they're still in there with Parsons.
A: Aside from the unseemly picture of two well connected companies getting
an inside track for all that post-war business in Iraq, why do you find the
Bechtel involvement in this situation so troubling?
Q: Schultz worked at Bechtel. So did (Reagan Defense Secretary) Caspar
Weinberger. There were a lot of Bechtel people in the government in the '80s
at the same time that the Iraqi's were gassing the Iranians. The same people
are now formulating the plans for a coming U.S. occupation of Iraq, and in
turn, the same people will be given the spoils of war--whether it's Parsons
and Halliburton or Bechtel. It's all kind of circular back to the 1980s, you
know -- completing unfinished business--getting American companies back in
there after their being shut out since 1991 and the first Gulf War. Bechtel
was also listed by Iraq in its report to the U.N. weapons inspectors as one
of the companies that helped supply Saddam with equipment and knowledge for
making chemical weapons. Bechtel in the 1980s was prime contractor on PC 1
and 2, two petrochemical plants constructed in Iraq which had dual-use
capacity. So I guess the bottom line is that the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld squad
are now holding Saddam Hussein accountable for chemical weapons of mass
destruction--the same weapons which these same officials ignored in pursuit
of the Aqaba pipeline project. And now we are going to reward the pipeline
promoter with massive contracts for reconstruction resulting from this
policy. There is just such hypocricy in all this.
Q: This all seems like a kind of mini-Pentagon Papers, laying out the early
roots of this war.
A: It's not as much of a blue-print as was the Pentagon Papers, but these
memos and documents do show how business gets done in Washington, how it was
conducted in the 1980s and how it's probably being conducted now behind
closed doors under secret bidding processes. And it shows how the origins of
American conflict with Iraq involve control of and access to oil.
Q: Can you see any signs that the current war is linked directly to oil? I
mean the administration has given so many reasons for going to war I'm
surprised they haven't gotten to oil. I remember in 1991, the first Bush
said it was about jobs, which equates pretty quickly to oil. But they didn't
say that this time around.
A: Yeah, they've retracted any reference to oil from their language. Maybe
that's the best evidence that that's what it's really about, because it's
logical. I mean Bush the first in his national security papers defined the
free flow of oil as a national security priority, as did President Clinton
in his final months in office. He released a national security paper that
said that the free flow of oil is a national security priority that must be
enforced with military might if necessary. The current Bush came out with
the national security strategy that retracted this long-standing text dating
back to the Carter administration, but at the same time you had this Cheney
energy policy that continues this idea of the necessity of a "diverse and
free supply of oil" without the military language. And actually you had
Cheney kind of kick off the whole war fever last August in a speech to the
Veterans of Foreign Wars. He cited the specter of Saddam Hussein with his
weapons of mass destruction threatening the flow of oil from the region.
Then immediately afterwards, any kind of reference like that vanished from
the Bush administration's rhetoric, to the point that Secretary of Defense
Rumsfeld called any kind of association of the current conflict with oil to
be an "absurdity." So there is no document or strategy paper now that says
"we must invade Iraq because our US oil companies have been shut out of this
second largest reservoir of oil for the last 20 years," but who knows what
we'll find in the National Archives 20 years from now? It's a circumstantial
case, but that's as good as we can do now. And logic certainly has its place
as well. I mean, the question is why are the weapons of mass destruction
today a cause for war when these very same weapons were ignored by the same
officials 20 years ago when they were being used. What has changed is that
other national oil companies--French, Russian and Chinese--have gotten into
Iraq, while U.S. companies were being frozen out. I'm sure there are other
factors. Certainly the Kuwait invasion didn't help U.S relations with
Saddam, and since Kuwait, Saddam signed very lucrative oil contracts with
the French, Russians, Chinese and others.
Q: You made the point in your paper that US relations started to tank with
Iraq after the rejection of the oil pipeline.
A: That's true. There was a shift away from Iraq to Iran right at that time,
but I should say that Reagan and Bush the First both played both sides of
the fence for a while, even after the pipeline project collapsed. You had
the Iran Contra deal, but at the same time the U.S. was providing Iraq with
intelligence about Iranian troop movements. And the U.S. did extend
commodity credits through the Agriculture Department that Saddam then
parlayed into arms. And there were the chemical plants that Bechtel helped
build. So it's been quirkier than that. But certainly the end of the
pipeline destroyed oil relations.
Q: What do you think led to the current war. What's the oil link?
A: Look at what's in Iraq and what's undeveloped. Iraq represents a major
insurance package against any kind of political overhaul in Saudi Arabia or
problems elsewhere in the Middle East. Look at the policy that people like
Rumsfeld and others were recommending in the 1990s leading up to this war
and they certainly cited the threat of Saddam Hussein to regional oil
supplies as a cause for war. Certainly if the Bechtel pipeline had been
built, the course of Iraqi-U.S. relations would have been much different.
The failure of that pipeline set into motion a much different course for
those relations.
A: So having control of Iraqi oil is still a key issue?
Q: It's the sole reason why the Persian Gulf region and Iraq have been a
United States national security concern for so long. It's not geography.
Q: So what would you say is the lesson of all this?
A: The lesson is that when it comes to oil, a dictator is friendly to the
U.S. when he's willing to do business and he's a mortal enemy when he's not.
That has been the driving force behind national security policy, especially
since the fall of the Soviet Union. Oil and national security policy were
all submerged in the context of the Cold War. But once that Cold War
collapsed, now it's a no-holds-barred battle for oil globally, and the U.S.
has seen itself cut out of the world's second largest reserve of oil--and
oil that is very inexpensive to extract. So with the U.S. shut out of Iraq,
certainly it makes the trigger fingers of U.S. policy-makers itchy. And
whether it's a blood feud or a war for oil, it's just a tragedy that the
people of Iraq and our own sons and daughters and brothers and sisters are
paying the price.
I have friends who work for US oil/petrochemical companies and they sent me this interesting piece. Read it and weep. As per usual this is a flying visit to the forums and I apologise for the spamming involved - I can't get a link to a url for it as it was sent to me in a document:
CounterPunch Special Report
Secret Bechtel Documents Reveal: Yes, It Is About Oil
By DAVID LINDORFF
Is the war against Iraq all about oil? Not to hear Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld tell it. Back on Nov. 15, he called the notion that oil was the
real reason behind the Bush administration's drive against Saddam Hussein
"nonsense," saying, "It has nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do
with oil."
But a new study released by the Institute for Policy Studies, based upon
secret diplomatic cables just declassified by the National Archives, and
internal communications of the Bechtel Corporation, suggests just the
opposite - that oil is the underlying cause of this war.
The study, which discloses the intimate links between the Bechtel
Corporation and Bechtel executives and U.S. policy towards Iraq, also shows
that some key players in the push for America's war against Iraq, including
Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, and other former Reagan administration
officials Roger Robinson, Judge William B. Clark and Robert McFarlane, have
been intimately involved in issues relating to Iraqi oil as far back as
the1980s.
Titled "Crude Vision: How Oil Interests Obscured US Government Focus on
Chemical Weapons Use by Saddam Hussein," this report traces an intense
effort by Reagan officials in the mid-1980s to win Hussein's approval for a
$2-billion oil pipeline to be built by Bechtel, running from the Euphrates
oilfields in southern Iraq westward to Jordan and the Gulf of Aqaba.
A key player in that effort was Rumsfeld, then the CEO of Searle drugs, the
giant phramaceutical company.
One particularly revealing 1983 memo, declassified for the first time in
February by the National Archives, concerns a trip by Rumsfeld to Iraq.
Acting as a special White House "peace envoy" allegedly to discuss with
Hussein and then foreign minister Tarik Aziz the bloody war between Iran and
Iraq, Rumsfeld turns out according to this memo to have been talking not
about that war, but about Bechtel's proposed Aqaba pipeline.
In his memo to Secretary of State George Schultz reporting on the meeting
with Hussein, Rumsfeld talks at length about the pipeline discussion, but
makes no mention of having discussed either the war or charges that
Hussein's army was using chemical weapons against the Iranians.
The intense focus of Rumsfeld, Schultz (a former president of Bechtel),
Cheney and other Reagan officials, in concert with Bechtel, on the pipeline,
reads like an abbreviated, or mini "Pentagon Papers," laying the groundwork
for a collapse in relations between the U.S. and Iraq, and eventually to
war. The documents also cast Bechtel's current position as one of two top
candidates for the lucrative contract to "rebuild Iraq" in a troubling
light.
As American troops press into Baghdad, and Iraqi casualties run into the
thousands, Counterpunch speaks with Jim Valette, director of research at the
Sustainable Energy and Economy Network, and one of the three authors of
"Crude Vision."
Q: What prompted this study?
A: We were examing the interconnections between private corporations and the
U.S. government in the pursuit of oil worldwide since 1995--principally the
U.S. financing --through the World Bank and US agencies like the
Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC),
etc.of that pursuit. But what has clearly occurred in recent months has been
clearly an even more serious expression of this pursuit of fossil fuels for
the benefit of Big Oil, which is an extention of this relation into the
military role. And so we're looking at the deployment of troops and
paramilitaries financed by the U.S. government worldwide, and of course the
most serious conflict of interest is in Iraq. In the course of that research
we saw the beginning and end of the story of American efforts to gain
control of Iraq's oilfields, the beginning being Rumsfeld's meeting with
Saddam Hussein in Deecemer 1983 to the end, which was the Independent
Counsel's investigation of the Attorney General, at the time, Edwin Meese,
and his relationship with one of the brokers of the pipeline, E Robert
Wallachs. Before this nobody had connected the dots between Rumsfeld and the
Meese investigation and nobody had examined exactly how dominant this
pipeline project was in the diplomacy and the burgeoning relationship
between the Reagan administration and Saddam Hussein. It was in that context
that we came across corporate records and government memoranda related to
the Aqaba pipeline project. It was a real eye-opener to us to see how
interwoven Bechtel's interests were with the Reagan Administration.
Q. We're talking about stuff that happened almost 20 years ago. How is this
relevant to what's happening in Iraq now?
A: This story, I think, is timely even though it's 20 years old because
Bechtel is back now, as the likely winner of the contract to rebuild Iraq's
infrastructure, and many of those Reagan administration officials are back,
and they are poised to get their hands on Iraq's oil again.
Q: So what is new here?
A: The release in February by the National Archives of cables back and forth
between Washington and U.S. diplomats in the Middle East around the time of
1983 and 1984 disclose for the first time what really transpired in
Rumsfeld's meetings with Saddam and other Iraqi officials. What had
previously been reported was that Rumsfeld had a cozy meeting with Saddam in
Baghdad in December 1983. In the past, the focus was on whether or not he
had raised the issue of Saddam's use of chemical arms against Iran. But what
the actual memoranda show is that a big part of Rumsfeld's discussion with
Saddam Hussein was this new proposal from Bechtel to build a pipeline form
Iraq to Jordan. I mean Rumsfeld was executing the marching orders of George
Schultz, who was the Secretary of State, but who came directly from the
presidency of Bechtel to the Reagan administration. The documents released
by the National Security Archive suggest that what was going on then had
quite a bit to do with oil--certainly more than had been known before.
Q: Before the release of those documents we didn't know that Rumsfeld was
talking about a pipeline?
A: Right. Right. I mean it was reported that when he was there he didn't
raise an issue with Saddam about the use of chemical weapons, even though
there were reports coming out of Iran that Saddam was dropping chemical
bombs on Iranian troops.
Q: So we knew before what he didn't talk about, but not what he was talking
about? And that was the pipeline?
A: Right, he was there sort of as a bagman for Bechtel. And then there were
documents I found in the government's National Archives that showed the
extensive involvement of Reagan officials and the very close relationship
they had with Bechtel officials, in pursuing this pipeline over the next two
years. We sort of connected the dots between what was in these National
Security Archives and what was known in the general coverage over the last
15 years.
Q: How important was this pipeline in terms of
A: It was the focus of U.S. relations with Iraq for several years, right
through the period that Iraq was locked in a bitter war with Iran. In one
1984 internal company memo, Bechtel executive H. B. Scott exhorts his
colleagues at Bechtel, after it appeared that all this diplomacy by Rumsfeld
seemed to be paying off, "I cannot emphasise enough the need for maximum
Bechtel management effort at all levels of the U.S. government and industry
to support this project. It has significant political overtones. The time
may be ripe for this project to move promptly with very significant rewards
to Bechtel for having made it possible." And in these documents we see how
tightly interwoven this management effort is with their former colleagues
such as George Schultz in the State Department in implementing this
initiative. It shows how corporations take advantage of U.S. geopolitics in
the region and how they try to profit from those geopolitical developments.
Another important memo was in July of 1985, after Bechtel had run into some
difficulties in assuaging Saddam's fears about potential Israeli threats to
the pipeline. Bechtel and the State Department were having trouble getting
the right degree of assurance from the Isreaeli Labor Party [then the ruling
party in Israel] that the pipeline would be off limits to attack. Bechtel
and the Reagan administration officials were trying to get absolute
assurance from the Labor Party that the pipeline would absolutely not be
attacked. There were some frustrations to that approach in 1985, and so
Bechtel hired a couple of very close friends of the Reagan administration to
sort out the deal. In July of 1985, pipeline promoters hired Judge Jim
Clark, who was considered Reagan's right hand man. He had just left
government to go into private business. There's a memo from Judge Clark
saying that he's "on board" and laying out the terms of his involvement,
which were $500 an hour, and saying he'd be flying to Baghdad, not as a
private consultant, but representing himself as a White House
representative. That memorandum, which is avialable on our website
(www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82), shows how blurry that revolving
door had become. He's working for the government while he's simultaneously
getting paid as an agent for Bechtel.
Q: Okay, so we have the evidence that there was this big concern about
getting this big pipeline for Bechtel, and the interest in getting oil out
without it having to go through the Persian Gulf. But wasn't that a
legitimate national security concern for the U.S., given Iran's political
situation and its hostility towards America?
A: Well, it has been long-standing US national security policy on paper that
threats to the free flow of oil are threats to national security, and this
is what we're getting at here. Is this pursuit of oil or the pursuit of
empire? Some folks define what's going on in Iraq as U.S. pursuit of empire,
but right now it's really two sides of the same coin. And this policy of
pursuing oil and empire is coming up against all sorts of realities now that
weren't well understood back in the 1980s. On the National security side,
this pursuit of oil wealth at all costs has huge costs to democracy and
human rights. It's creating a backlash in the Middle East and elsewhere that
has had some horrible expressions recently.
Q: The pipeline never got built though. What happened?
A: In the end, Saddam decided that Bechtel was trying to charge too much for
the project, and so he killed the project and instead went with a pipeline
connecting into pipelines in Turkey and into Saudi Arabia, but avoiding the
Straits of Hormuz.
Q: Do you expect to see the Aqaba pipeline revived?
A: Maybe, maybe not. I've seen reports now of Israel looking to build a
pipeline from Iraq to the Golan Heights. It's not the same project as
Bechtel's Aqaba pipeline idea. Bechtel asked the Commerce Department to keep
the Aqaba pipeline registered as an active project for years, but it's
probably less necessary now for the U.S. and Bechtel. The pipelines to Saudi
Arabia and Turkey give an alternative route for oil to the Persian Gulf, and
Bechtel gets into Iraq as a contractor to rebuild Iraq after the war. Right
now, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal, Bechtel is one of
the two finalists for the Iraq reconstruction job, along with Parson's
group, which has Halliburton as a secondary contractor. Halliburton is Vice
President Cheney's former company [Note: Cheney is still receiving payments
from Halliburton]. That was reported in the Wall Street Journal today (April
2). They're both on the short list. Halliburton sort of stepped back for
obvious reasons but they're still in there with Parsons.
A: Aside from the unseemly picture of two well connected companies getting
an inside track for all that post-war business in Iraq, why do you find the
Bechtel involvement in this situation so troubling?
Q: Schultz worked at Bechtel. So did (Reagan Defense Secretary) Caspar
Weinberger. There were a lot of Bechtel people in the government in the '80s
at the same time that the Iraqi's were gassing the Iranians. The same people
are now formulating the plans for a coming U.S. occupation of Iraq, and in
turn, the same people will be given the spoils of war--whether it's Parsons
and Halliburton or Bechtel. It's all kind of circular back to the 1980s, you
know -- completing unfinished business--getting American companies back in
there after their being shut out since 1991 and the first Gulf War. Bechtel
was also listed by Iraq in its report to the U.N. weapons inspectors as one
of the companies that helped supply Saddam with equipment and knowledge for
making chemical weapons. Bechtel in the 1980s was prime contractor on PC 1
and 2, two petrochemical plants constructed in Iraq which had dual-use
capacity. So I guess the bottom line is that the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld squad
are now holding Saddam Hussein accountable for chemical weapons of mass
destruction--the same weapons which these same officials ignored in pursuit
of the Aqaba pipeline project. And now we are going to reward the pipeline
promoter with massive contracts for reconstruction resulting from this
policy. There is just such hypocricy in all this.
Q: This all seems like a kind of mini-Pentagon Papers, laying out the early
roots of this war.
A: It's not as much of a blue-print as was the Pentagon Papers, but these
memos and documents do show how business gets done in Washington, how it was
conducted in the 1980s and how it's probably being conducted now behind
closed doors under secret bidding processes. And it shows how the origins of
American conflict with Iraq involve control of and access to oil.
Q: Can you see any signs that the current war is linked directly to oil? I
mean the administration has given so many reasons for going to war I'm
surprised they haven't gotten to oil. I remember in 1991, the first Bush
said it was about jobs, which equates pretty quickly to oil. But they didn't
say that this time around.
A: Yeah, they've retracted any reference to oil from their language. Maybe
that's the best evidence that that's what it's really about, because it's
logical. I mean Bush the first in his national security papers defined the
free flow of oil as a national security priority, as did President Clinton
in his final months in office. He released a national security paper that
said that the free flow of oil is a national security priority that must be
enforced with military might if necessary. The current Bush came out with
the national security strategy that retracted this long-standing text dating
back to the Carter administration, but at the same time you had this Cheney
energy policy that continues this idea of the necessity of a "diverse and
free supply of oil" without the military language. And actually you had
Cheney kind of kick off the whole war fever last August in a speech to the
Veterans of Foreign Wars. He cited the specter of Saddam Hussein with his
weapons of mass destruction threatening the flow of oil from the region.
Then immediately afterwards, any kind of reference like that vanished from
the Bush administration's rhetoric, to the point that Secretary of Defense
Rumsfeld called any kind of association of the current conflict with oil to
be an "absurdity." So there is no document or strategy paper now that says
"we must invade Iraq because our US oil companies have been shut out of this
second largest reservoir of oil for the last 20 years," but who knows what
we'll find in the National Archives 20 years from now? It's a circumstantial
case, but that's as good as we can do now. And logic certainly has its place
as well. I mean, the question is why are the weapons of mass destruction
today a cause for war when these very same weapons were ignored by the same
officials 20 years ago when they were being used. What has changed is that
other national oil companies--French, Russian and Chinese--have gotten into
Iraq, while U.S. companies were being frozen out. I'm sure there are other
factors. Certainly the Kuwait invasion didn't help U.S relations with
Saddam, and since Kuwait, Saddam signed very lucrative oil contracts with
the French, Russians, Chinese and others.
Q: You made the point in your paper that US relations started to tank with
Iraq after the rejection of the oil pipeline.
A: That's true. There was a shift away from Iraq to Iran right at that time,
but I should say that Reagan and Bush the First both played both sides of
the fence for a while, even after the pipeline project collapsed. You had
the Iran Contra deal, but at the same time the U.S. was providing Iraq with
intelligence about Iranian troop movements. And the U.S. did extend
commodity credits through the Agriculture Department that Saddam then
parlayed into arms. And there were the chemical plants that Bechtel helped
build. So it's been quirkier than that. But certainly the end of the
pipeline destroyed oil relations.
Q: What do you think led to the current war. What's the oil link?
A: Look at what's in Iraq and what's undeveloped. Iraq represents a major
insurance package against any kind of political overhaul in Saudi Arabia or
problems elsewhere in the Middle East. Look at the policy that people like
Rumsfeld and others were recommending in the 1990s leading up to this war
and they certainly cited the threat of Saddam Hussein to regional oil
supplies as a cause for war. Certainly if the Bechtel pipeline had been
built, the course of Iraqi-U.S. relations would have been much different.
The failure of that pipeline set into motion a much different course for
those relations.
A: So having control of Iraqi oil is still a key issue?
Q: It's the sole reason why the Persian Gulf region and Iraq have been a
United States national security concern for so long. It's not geography.
Q: So what would you say is the lesson of all this?
A: The lesson is that when it comes to oil, a dictator is friendly to the
U.S. when he's willing to do business and he's a mortal enemy when he's not.
That has been the driving force behind national security policy, especially
since the fall of the Soviet Union. Oil and national security policy were
all submerged in the context of the Cold War. But once that Cold War
collapsed, now it's a no-holds-barred battle for oil globally, and the U.S.
has seen itself cut out of the world's second largest reserve of oil--and
oil that is very inexpensive to extract. So with the U.S. shut out of Iraq,
certainly it makes the trigger fingers of U.S. policy-makers itchy. And
whether it's a blood feud or a war for oil, it's just a tragedy that the
people of Iraq and our own sons and daughters and brothers and sisters are
paying the price.
Light wrote:
> So...because we have the right to free speech, we shouldn't use it to
> criticise the government? Erm...have you sat and thought about how
> contradictory that is?
Absolutely true. Take advantage of the right to criticize the Government et al. And if you don't see the point in voting then at least spoil your ballot card.
>Yet the only one that has not is the oil (unless you count
> "No, it's not about oil. Prove it." as a rebuttal). If you
> can come up with another reason then I'm all ears.
Yes but surely saying it is about oil is just as lame.
Its not about oil.
It is about oil.
No one on this forum can really prove either to mocking one view or the other is surely a bit contradictory.
> So...because we have the right to free speech, we shouldn't use it to
> criticise the government? Erm...have you sat and thought about how
> contradictory that is?
Absolutely true. Take advantage of the right to criticize the Government et al. And if you don't see the point in voting then at least spoil your ballot card.
>Yet the only one that has not is the oil (unless you count
> "No, it's not about oil. Prove it." as a rebuttal). If you
> can come up with another reason then I'm all ears.
Yes but surely saying it is about oil is just as lame.
Its not about oil.
It is about oil.
No one on this forum can really prove either to mocking one view or the other is surely a bit contradictory.
So...because we have the right to free speech, we shouldn't use it to criticise the government? Erm...have you sat and thought about how contradictory that is?
As to evidence...well, what we have is called Balance of Probabilities. Every one of the other excuses for this war has been rebutted. Yet the only one that has not is the oil (unless you count "No, it's not about oil. Prove it." as a rebuttal). If you can come up with another reason then I'm all ears.
As to evidence...well, what we have is called Balance of Probabilities. Every one of the other excuses for this war has been rebutted. Yet the only one that has not is the oil (unless you count "No, it's not about oil. Prove it." as a rebuttal). If you can come up with another reason then I'm all ears.
I can't be ar$ed to answer this. All of you who say this war is about oil, if you show me hard evidence, i'll belive it! Until then, stop saying what you think this war is about and stop moaning. Just remember, if you were living under a dictatorship, you wouldn't be able to moan. How many of you remember that???
I agree with you on most of that. It's true about Afghanistan - it's the UK who are doing work over there, and it seems Bush and co just move on to the next target without cleaning up after themselves. If Iraq is ever sorted out it'll probably be due to the UN or UK (uh, I mean, "the rest of the coalition"). If the US can't run the whole show they want nothing to do with it.
We'll probably stay in Iraq until we find the chemical weapons/ingredients for chemical weapons, and we will find it - whether it's there or not.
We'll probably stay in Iraq until we find the chemical weapons/ingredients for chemical weapons, and we will find it - whether it's there or not.
Seeing the people of Iraq celebrating the end of Saddam's regime was a fantastic sight. Anyone who still, despite this, managed to snort with derision and launch once more into the numerous (and in many cases, well founded) reasons that the US is doing the Arab world a disservice must be hard hearted indeed.
So, no Weapons of Mass Destruction were used. None were found (so far). No Al-Quaida training facilities have been unearthed. Yet the sophistry and spin would have you believe differently. We have been told that "Materials likely to be used for chemical weapons" have been discovered. Would it sound less impressive if it were pointed out that the average public swimming pool, with it's reasonably large stock of chlorine, has materials that could be used in chemical warfare?
This morning also saw the announcement that Abul Abbas, the Palestinian who planned the terrorist hijack of a cruise liner some 16 years ago (during which a paraplegic American hostage was murdered), has been captured in Baghdad. No doubt this will be touted as proof of terrorist links to Saddam's regime. Proof? Erm...well, not really. Abbas had renounced violence, had been allowed by the Israeli government (not noted for it's forgiving attitude toward Palestinian terrorists) to visit Gaza numerous times, and America had dropped the warrant for his arrest. If this is proof that the Iraqi government has links to terrorism, then we in the UK must be guilty of the same thing. More so in fact, as we have Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness (former IRA members) in our Parliament.
The looting in Iraq's major cities seems to be dying down (if only because there is nothing left to steal). Some people have seen fit to blame the coalition forces for the looting. Which is true in that it was they who overthrew the Ba'ath regime. But bearing in mind that there are 25,000 troops in Baghdad who need to control 5 million people, doesn't it strike anyone else as rather petty minded and pathetic of those most fervently anti-war voices to try and lay all the blame for this at the coalitions door? We're talking about a nation that has suffered oppression of the worst sort, so it's not entirely surprising that we are now seeing the most basic expression of newly acquired freedom (i.e. Do What Thou Wilt is the whole of the law). And a few troops are expected to police it? Please; I’m opposed to this ugly little land grab, but if you're going to be anti-war then at least try and keep within spitting distance of reality.
Has anyone, at any point, sat Dubya down and explained the principles of diplomacy to him? He and his administration seem incapable of expressing themselves by any means other than threats. Worried about your allies not supporting your actions? Threaten them with a trade embargo. Worried about countries that border the one you've invaded offering sanctuary to people you want captured? Threaten them with war. Worried about Arab's from elsewhere in the middle-east fighting US troops in Iraq? Threaten each and every nation that the originated from.
America is now condemning (and, naturally, threatening) Syria for sheltering members of the former Iraqi government. Is this the same America that has trained, equipped, and if things go horribly wrong, offered sanctuary to Christ knows how many South and Central American tinpot dictators over the past few decades?
One of the major objections to this war was that the US was being very selective in which dictators it was removing. However, couldn't the bullishness and threatening language emanating from Washington at the moment be interpreted as the US answering that very criticism? If America did turn this oil war into some sort of crusade against dictatorships, wouldn't that be a good thing in principle (if not in practice)?
Speaking of crusades, why is Dubya doing his very best to prove the fears of the Islamic world correct by only bullying Moslem countries? I mean, I hate to bang on about this but North Korea and Israel are not exactly behaving like angels, yet they continue to be left to their own devices. Anyone would think that certain members of the Bush and Blair governments want terrorism to increase in order to limit personal liberties. I'm not entirely sure I believe that myself, but one can certainly see why many other do.
There seems to be some sort of religious tension in Iraq at the moment. A senior Shiite cleric was murdered a few days after he returned to Iraq from the UK. Yet another cleric was given 48 hours to leave Iraq. And the Shiite’s seem to be the most vocal out of all Iraqi groups opposed to US involvement in setting up a new government. I suspect that there is more than meets the eye here.
There would also seem to be a racial war brewing in the north of Iraq. The Kurds have wanted their own country for years (Kurdistan is divided between Iraq and Turkey at the moment). There has already been fighting between Kurds and Arabs in the northern city of Mosul, and the Turks make no secret of the fact that they would regard annexation of Northern Iraq by themselves as preferable to a Kurdish nation. This all adds up to more interesting times.
If you want a blueprint of what will happen in Iraq now that the war is basically over, look no further than Afghanistan. The US promised millions in aid to the fledgling Afghan government. Would you care to guess how much has been set aside for them in Dubya's most recent budget? Approximately....nothing. Zero. Not a sausage. Afghanistan is still in chaos; chances are that Iraq will be just as messed up as a nation this time next year. Add to that the possibility of racially and religiously motivated conflict within the country, and one has cause to worry that this conflict is just the beginning of the bloodshed.
Am I alone in wanting this whole thing to be over so we can have something on the news other than War? After all, we have other things to think about. Things like the global spread of the SARS virus, the faltering Northern Ireland peace process, and the trial of Maxine Carr and Ian Huntley...actually, can we keep the war going as long as possible?! Okay, so soldiers and civilians are dying every day, but it makes for more positive viewing and reading than any other world events...
So, no Weapons of Mass Destruction were used. None were found (so far). No Al-Quaida training facilities have been unearthed. Yet the sophistry and spin would have you believe differently. We have been told that "Materials likely to be used for chemical weapons" have been discovered. Would it sound less impressive if it were pointed out that the average public swimming pool, with it's reasonably large stock of chlorine, has materials that could be used in chemical warfare?
This morning also saw the announcement that Abul Abbas, the Palestinian who planned the terrorist hijack of a cruise liner some 16 years ago (during which a paraplegic American hostage was murdered), has been captured in Baghdad. No doubt this will be touted as proof of terrorist links to Saddam's regime. Proof? Erm...well, not really. Abbas had renounced violence, had been allowed by the Israeli government (not noted for it's forgiving attitude toward Palestinian terrorists) to visit Gaza numerous times, and America had dropped the warrant for his arrest. If this is proof that the Iraqi government has links to terrorism, then we in the UK must be guilty of the same thing. More so in fact, as we have Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness (former IRA members) in our Parliament.
The looting in Iraq's major cities seems to be dying down (if only because there is nothing left to steal). Some people have seen fit to blame the coalition forces for the looting. Which is true in that it was they who overthrew the Ba'ath regime. But bearing in mind that there are 25,000 troops in Baghdad who need to control 5 million people, doesn't it strike anyone else as rather petty minded and pathetic of those most fervently anti-war voices to try and lay all the blame for this at the coalitions door? We're talking about a nation that has suffered oppression of the worst sort, so it's not entirely surprising that we are now seeing the most basic expression of newly acquired freedom (i.e. Do What Thou Wilt is the whole of the law). And a few troops are expected to police it? Please; I’m opposed to this ugly little land grab, but if you're going to be anti-war then at least try and keep within spitting distance of reality.
Has anyone, at any point, sat Dubya down and explained the principles of diplomacy to him? He and his administration seem incapable of expressing themselves by any means other than threats. Worried about your allies not supporting your actions? Threaten them with a trade embargo. Worried about countries that border the one you've invaded offering sanctuary to people you want captured? Threaten them with war. Worried about Arab's from elsewhere in the middle-east fighting US troops in Iraq? Threaten each and every nation that the originated from.
America is now condemning (and, naturally, threatening) Syria for sheltering members of the former Iraqi government. Is this the same America that has trained, equipped, and if things go horribly wrong, offered sanctuary to Christ knows how many South and Central American tinpot dictators over the past few decades?
One of the major objections to this war was that the US was being very selective in which dictators it was removing. However, couldn't the bullishness and threatening language emanating from Washington at the moment be interpreted as the US answering that very criticism? If America did turn this oil war into some sort of crusade against dictatorships, wouldn't that be a good thing in principle (if not in practice)?
Speaking of crusades, why is Dubya doing his very best to prove the fears of the Islamic world correct by only bullying Moslem countries? I mean, I hate to bang on about this but North Korea and Israel are not exactly behaving like angels, yet they continue to be left to their own devices. Anyone would think that certain members of the Bush and Blair governments want terrorism to increase in order to limit personal liberties. I'm not entirely sure I believe that myself, but one can certainly see why many other do.
There seems to be some sort of religious tension in Iraq at the moment. A senior Shiite cleric was murdered a few days after he returned to Iraq from the UK. Yet another cleric was given 48 hours to leave Iraq. And the Shiite’s seem to be the most vocal out of all Iraqi groups opposed to US involvement in setting up a new government. I suspect that there is more than meets the eye here.
There would also seem to be a racial war brewing in the north of Iraq. The Kurds have wanted their own country for years (Kurdistan is divided between Iraq and Turkey at the moment). There has already been fighting between Kurds and Arabs in the northern city of Mosul, and the Turks make no secret of the fact that they would regard annexation of Northern Iraq by themselves as preferable to a Kurdish nation. This all adds up to more interesting times.
If you want a blueprint of what will happen in Iraq now that the war is basically over, look no further than Afghanistan. The US promised millions in aid to the fledgling Afghan government. Would you care to guess how much has been set aside for them in Dubya's most recent budget? Approximately....nothing. Zero. Not a sausage. Afghanistan is still in chaos; chances are that Iraq will be just as messed up as a nation this time next year. Add to that the possibility of racially and religiously motivated conflict within the country, and one has cause to worry that this conflict is just the beginning of the bloodshed.
Am I alone in wanting this whole thing to be over so we can have something on the news other than War? After all, we have other things to think about. Things like the global spread of the SARS virus, the faltering Northern Ireland peace process, and the trial of Maxine Carr and Ian Huntley...actually, can we keep the war going as long as possible?! Okay, so soldiers and civilians are dying every day, but it makes for more positive viewing and reading than any other world events...