it's not about oil, right?

[Blaine]

from the san fran. chronicle

view the article at
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/03/08/MN242495.DTL



Washington -- A company tied to Vice President Dick Cheney has won a Pentagon contract for advice on rebuilding Iraq's oil fields after a possible war.

The contract was disclosed in the last paragraph of a Defense Department statement on preparations for Saddam Hussein's possible destruction of Iraq's oil fields in the event of a U.S.-led invasion. The statement calls for proposals on how to handle oil well fires and for assessing other damage to oil facilities. The contract went to Kellogg Brown & Root Services, which is owned by Halliburton Co., of which Cheney was chairman until his election in 2000.

The Houston company is a respected name in petroleum industry construction and one of a few companies capable of large-scale oil field reconstruction. But its ties to Cheney arouse suspicions among those who believe that a primary motive for a U.S. war in Iraq is oil.

"I certainly don't think this comes as much of a surprise," said Michael Renner, a researcher at WorldWatch Institute, commenting on the Halliburton contract, "There are lots of business opportunities embedded in this war. It represents the larger oil and energy issues at stake."

The White House wouldn't comment on how the contract might fuel such suspicions. "I deal with the reality of situations," said spokesman Ken Lisaius. "The president has made it abundantly clear about the threat that Saddam Hussein poses to us and our friends. We stand by to help rebuild a liberated Iraq."


NO COMMENT FROM CHENEY
Cheney's office declined comment, but a Halliburton spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal that Kellogg Brown & Root has been doing government contracting since the 1940s. The Pentagon wouldn't discuss the exact size of the contract, nor how it was rewarded, saying the information is classified.

The initial Kellogg Brown & Root contract doesn't mean it has an inside track on later contracts potentially totaling billions of dollars to rehabilitate Iraq's oil fields, explore new ones and pump the increased supply.

Even if they emerge unscathed, Iraq's oil fields will need work performed by companies like Kellogg Brown & Root. Daily production has slumped during the past two decades, worn down by wars and, since 1991, by United Nations sanctions that barred imports of equipment. Daily output capacity is about 2 million barrels, down from 3.5 million barrels before Hussein took power in 1979.

With enough investment, it's thought Iraqi production could surge to 10 million to 12 million barrels a day within a decade.

Iraq's proven oil reserves of 112 billion barrels are the world's second- largest behind only Saudi Arabia. And there might be large untapped fields in Iraq ripe for exploration.

Renner is convinced that U.S. multinational oil industry firms would strike it rich in post-war Iraq. "Regime change in Baghdad would reshuffle the cards and give U.S. (and British) companies a good shot at direct access to Iraqi oil fields for the first time in 30 years -- a windfall worth hundreds of billions of dollars," he said.

Administration supporters say past history refutes claims that a war with Iraq is about oil.

"This bumper sticker mentality about oil was wrong in the 1991 Gulf War, and it's wrong now. We gave the oil back to Kuwait back then, and this war, at root, is about the nature of Saddam Hussein's regime," said James Phillips, foreign policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.


REBUILDING TOOL
Administration officials have said they view Iraq's petroleum wealth as a tool for rebuilding. "Iraq's natural resources belong to all the Iraqi people and -- after decades of being used to build palaces and weapons of mass destruction -- will finally be used for their benefit, not Hussein's," wrote deputy national security adviser Steve Hadley in a recent op-ed article in the Washington Post.

In saying that, the White House is following international law, said David Caron, a professor at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law. Under the 1907 Hague Convention, the United States would be present in Iraq as an occupying power and would hold the country's resources in trust.

It could rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure, but probably would have to recognize contracts that oil companies from France, China and Russia have signed with Hussein's regime, even though their governments oppose a war.

"I don't think the United States would get into breaching contracts, but there would be room for new contracts to be let," Caron said.

Using an open bidding process that wouldn't favor American firms "would be wise politically," he added.


EXPERIENCE IN KUWAIT
In San Francisco, anti-war activists have accused the Bechtel Corp., the engineering firm that rebuilt Kuwait's oil fields after Hussein destroyed them in the 1991 Gulf War, of waiting to profit from a new conflict. Bechtel officials discount that assertion as nonsense.

Spokesman Jonathan Marshall said that while the company is proud of the work it did rebuilding Kuwait's fields, "Bechtel has never lobbied to create a political crisis there. We're not even at war yet, so it's premature to speculate."

But Marshall added that "I'm sure the United States government will consider Bechtel if there is work to be done."

A report by the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, a think tank created by the former secretary of state to the first President George Bush, warns the current administration not to show favoritism for American firms in rebuilding Iraq's oil industry.

"There should be a level playing field for all international players to participate in future repair, development and exploration efforts," the report said. "A heavy-handed American approach will only convince them (the Iraqis) . . . and the rest of the world that the operation against Iraq was undertaken for imperialist, rather than disarmament, reasons."

[B;-p]

No its all about the Beef........you know the cows.......I hear they make good milk.......just add chocolate*shake well before you drink*:rolleyes:

[ChiralTwinz]

right.. it's about the $bling$bling$love$love$monay$monay$

plur! ;)

.CT

[Orphic11]

This war is lame & pointless. Most people don't want it to happen, including other countries like France and Norway. Yet we will continue to go to war, and it will solve nothing. Sadamm and that Bin laden guy have been mad at us for quite some time and they keep coming back terrorizing the U.S.. They may take breaks to head off war, but I know they will be back. Anthrax will be the least of our worries once they get smart enough to make more biological weapons.

I say blow the whole fucking world up and start new. :D

Behold the power of PLUR.

[booboo69]

Behold the power of ignorance.

Originally posted by Orphic11
This war is lame & pointless. Most people don't want it to happen, including other countries like France and Norway. Yet we will continue to go to war, and it will solve nothing. Sadamm and that Bin laden guy have been mad at us for quite some time and they keep coming back terrorizing the U.S.. They may take breaks to head off war, but I know they will be back. Anthrax will be the least of our worries once they get smart enough to make more biological weapons.

I say blow the whole fucking world up and start new. :D

Behold the power of PLUR.

[Orphic11]

Originally posted by booboo69
Behold the power of ignorance.



ignorance is bliss. :D

[dj metro]

hi hippies :D

just wanted to make a smartass comment. oh, and by the way... PLUR :D

[ZupanGOD]

Originally posted by dj metro
hi hippies :D

just wanted to make a smartass comment. oh, and by the way... PLUR :D

Hey Metro nice site layout on yer website. What did you do it in?

-Jason

[186k\sec]

"The build-up to a possible war with Iraq has sent the US dollar to a four-year low against the euro and to multi-year lows against many other currencies. European share markets are hovering near six-year lows and oil prices have peaked near to post-Gulf war highs.

The 75 per cent jump in US oil prices in the past year prompted economists to predict a second recession for the US in three years."....

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1045511486852


*NEAT!!! - Thanks Bush.

[kiG]

It has doesnt have very much to do with oil..

O and war is NOT pointless...war is how we as human got to where we are...WITH OUT WAR WE WOULD STILL BE IN STONE AGE FACT!
WAR GAVE IS METAL...METAL GAVE US TOOLS(better) TOOLS BUILD HOUSES...ALL HTE WAY UP TO COMPUTERS AND SPACE TRAVEL...
TO SAY WAR IS POINTLESS IS IGNORANCE...WAR BRINGS PROGRESS IN HUMAN EVOLUTION.....EVERYTHING CAME FROM WAR

you cant say im wrong cuz if your smart you know im right...
so what if its for oil...were cutting a deal with the soon to be new Iraq and we get something out of it....so what? FRANCE doenst want war cuz they are under investigation of dealing and selling Iraq military goods BANNED from Iraq having...Germans are the same...Iraq owes Russia Billions...THAT WHY THEY ALL DONT WANT WAR

Saddam just got cuaght having missile heads MEANT JUST FOR CHEMICAL AND OR BIOLOGICAL AGAENTS which is also BANNED by the UN YOU WANT THE UN TO DO SOMETHING ?!? ?! HAHAHAH
THE UN IS A FUCKING JOKE....I THINK BLIX IS BEING USED BY SADDAM...ITS TOO FISHY

anyway ....god i hate plur....ya bunch of hippies...JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP...LET THE RIGHT PROTECT AMERICA

[Mike S]

I'm sorry but how does this company being picked to put out the oil fires and rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure point to a war for oil?
Pardon me while I laugh but I have a feeling that when the war is over some time next April - if the government didn't have someone online to put out the well fires and rebuild what Saddam will most likely sabotage some of you nattering fools would be bitching about that. I can just hear it now.. "Bush didn't have anyone set up to put out these oil fires that are eco disasters .. the idiot he just wants to turn the sky black blah blah blahblah.... "


*Yawn*

MS

[186k\sec]

Consider who drew up U.S. goals and objectives in the Persian Gulf, when, and why.

Consider oil.

This particular operation — Pentagon working title: "OpPlan 10-03-Victor" — has been on the drawing board for a year, according to defense officials. The immediate goal is disarming Iraq and getting rid of Saddam. It's expected to begin soon, this week or next. Hard to hold back more than 300,000 U.S. and British troops, in place and pumped to go.

But the long-term goal, say big-picture analysts, has been in the works for far more than the 23 years since former U.S. president Jimmy Carter linked American security — "the vital interests of the United States'' — to the Persian Gulf and its oil, and threatened military intervention.

This war, say analysts, is about power and oil. It's about control of the Gulf states by means of strategic Iraq and, by extension, a final post-Cold War shakeout to give the U.S. more economic clout over China and Russia by controlling the oil spigot.

This is the moment, Thomas Barnett, from the U.S. Naval War College, wrote recently in Esquire magazine, "when Washington takes real ownership of strategic security in the age of globalization.''

The Persian Gulf has the world's biggest oil reserves. After Saudi Arabia, Iraq has the second-largest proven reserves.

"The only precedent to what is shaping up now is the Roman Empire,'' says Michael Klare, professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College. "There is only one power. I don't think Britain, France or Spain even came close in other centuries to the United States today.

"If the United States controls Persian Gulf oil fields, it will have a stranglehold on the world economy,'' adds Klare.

Washington is betting, Klare believes, that "controlling Gulf oil, combined with being a decade ahead of everybody else in military technology, will guarantee American supremacy for the next 50 to 100 years.''

These ideas aren't new.

For years, a small and powerful group, with corporate and political links, pushed the idea of controlling Persian Gulf oil. They did it publicly, at think-tanks and in the media. Now, this coterie of like-minded strategists controls both the Pentagon and the strategic aims of President George W. Bush's White House.

"You've got a team in the White House that is unafraid of world public opinion because they know it is unreliable, self-serving and hypocritical,'' says George Friedman, chair of the intelligence organization, Stratfor.

Originally, this was the "Kissinger plan,'' says James Akins, former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia. He lost his state department job for publicly criticizing administration plans to control Arab oil back in 1975 when Henry Kissinger was secretary of state.

"I thought they were crazy then and they're crazy now,'' Akins tells the Star, adding that Congress studied plans to control Persian Gulf oil and concluded the idea was absolute madness.

"I thought this whole thing was dead. But now you've got all these `neo-cons' in power, and here we go again,'' says Akins, a Washington-based consultant. "They figure once they take over Iraq, they don't have to worry about the Saudis.''

Akins adds: "These people with their imperial ideas see themselves as part of the Great American Empire."

The players have moved steadily through the Republican presidencies of Ronald Reagan and Bush's father, George H.W. Bush and Bush himself.

They include: Vice-president Richard Cheney, a former oilman, like Bush, and defense secretary during his father's Persian Gulf War in 1991; Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, once Reagan's personal emissary to the Middle East when Saddam was a U.S. friend and staunch ally; Rumsfeld's deputy Paul Wolfowitz, who began publicly calling for war against Iraq after the 9/11 terror attacks; and Richard Perle, chair of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, nicknamed the "Prince of Darkness'' for his political stick-handling.

http://commondreams.org/headlines03/0309-04.htm

[dj metro]

Originally posted by ZupanGOD


Hey Metro nice site layout on yer website. What did you do it in?

-Jason

photoshop 7, dreamweaver mx, and a bit of love :D

[kiG]

WHY DOES EVERYONE IGNORE MY POSTS????

[186k\sec]

why ?

It has doesnt have very much to do with oil..

#1 - you make little sense.
#2 - USING CAPITAL LETTERS MAKES PEOPLE FEEL AS THOUGH YOUR YELLING AT THEM<<<!!!!
#3

anyway ....god i hate plur....ya bunch of hippies...JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP...LET THE RIGHT PROTECT AMERICA

you're an insulting right winged nut that, *unlike* real righties like Mike & Zupan, can't put a credible argument together to convince us otherwise... .

*goes back to ignoring....*

[Boyd Main]

Originally posted by kiG
WHY DOES EVERYONE IGNORE MY POSTS????
Ssshhhh!!!! Stop shouting. Use correct punctuation. Present your thoughts in a coherent and convincing argument. Maybe then people might stop ignoring you.

[Mike S]

Here Read ..

War for oil? Only in the anti war camps dreams.


http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/13/opinion/13BOOT.html?
ex=1046175821&ei=1&en=bf9bf5637ff35425

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8531-2003Feb26.html

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/322bsxwo.asp

[booboo69]

Your posts are being ignored because you come off as an idiot. See below for example:

Originally posted by kiG
war is how we as human got to where we are...WITH OUT WAR WE WOULD STILL BE IN STONE AGE FACT!
WAR GAVE IS METAL...METAL GAVE US TOOLS(better) TOOLS BUILD HOUSES...ALL HTE WAY UP TO COMPUTERS AND SPACE TRAVEL...
TO SAY WAR IS POINTLESS IS IGNORANCE...WAR BRINGS PROGRESS IN HUMAN EVOLUTION.....EVERYTHING CAME FROM WAR


Please, enlighten me as to your reasoning in how war helps progress evolution? Perhaps because all the stupid people will get killed? Possible. See, I always thought war was a deterrant to evolution. Let see...Hiroshima - bomb blows up practically the entire city, lots of people dead, lots of people exposed to radiation. People who didn't die develop cancer, deformities, etc, which can potentially be passed to offspring. People who do die can't have offspring to evolve further. Gulf War - http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=gulf09m&date=20030309
But maybe I'm just ignorant.

[moonpuppy]

Originally posted by kiG
WHY DOES EVERYONE IGNORE MY POSTS????

Thank you 186, very well done.

[kiG]

HAHAHAHA booboo69 I dont get you guys...where would the world be without the gun ?!? ?!
Answer it? using sword? how about without swords????
Answer it? No gun no rocket no rocket no space.
Conflict bring necesity Force you to be better items...

Lets dive into your Fantasy Land....Lets say there has never been a war...you tell me...whould we make better spears for hunting deer?
better axes? Still made of STONE ? why evolve to metal? theres no need..there would be no need for a anytrhing better...Stone worked just fine...WHY LEARN WHEN YOUR DOING JUST FINE?

answer these and prove me wrong and ill never post again.

It is all facts...you just dont want to accept the truth..

i still hate plur...its an impossible concept
Religion is the root of ALL evil...prove me wrong Booboo69

[kiG]

I just read what you said about dead people cant have offspring...NO but the people that were fighting with him can stop and SAY "GEE, MAYBE....JUST MAYBE....if we hold piece of wood we can block the hit?''

Then someone says ''HEY...MAYBE...this shiny rock stuff might work better...Hey...its kinda soft and flaky...ill try pounding it together...HEY it works better hot...WOW I have Iron, if i heat it and pound on it alot it gets really strong...and if i put ash on it when i pound on it it get harder...WOW...COOL...I now have steel !''

Granted this too many years...But answer this:::Where would the world be without Steel? Without Iron? Where? STONE AGE buddy!

A STEEL SHIELD...isnt that better than your arm? Do you not call that a technological advance or not?

Talking to you is like telling the pope god doesnt exist...

[bungle bliss]

And I'll keep saying it forever...the war in Iraq is about the project for the New American Century.

http://www.newamericancentury.org


http://truthout.org/docs_02/022203A.htm

Of Gods and Mortals and Empire
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Friday 21 February 2003

<snip>Vice President Dick Cheney is a founding member of PNAC, along with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz is the ideological father of the group. Bruce Jackson, a PNAC director, served as a Pentagon official for Ronald Reagan before leaving government service to take a leading position with the weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin.

PNAC is staffed by men who previously served with groups like Friends of the Democratic Center in Central America, which supported America's bloody gamesmanship in Nicaragua and El Salvador, and with groups like The Committee for the Present Danger, which spent years advocating that a nuclear war with the Soviet Union was "winnable."

PNAC has recently given birth to a new group, The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which met with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice in order to formulate a plan to "educate" the American populace about the need for war in Iraq. CLI has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to support the Iraqi National Congress and the Iraqi heir presumptive, Ahmed Chalabi. Chalabi was sentenced in absentia by a Jordanian court in 1992 to 22 years in prison for bank fraud after the collapse of Petra Bank, which he founded in 1977. Chalabi has not set foot in Iraq since 1956, but his Enron-like business credentials apparently make him a good match for the Bush administration's plans.

PNAC's "Rebuilding America's Defenses" report is the institutionalization of plans and ideologies that have been formulated for decades by the men currently running American government. The PNAC Statement of Principles is signed by Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, as well as by Eliot Abrams, Jeb Bush, Bush's special envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, and many others. William Kristol, famed conservative writer for the Weekly Standard, is also a co-founder of the group. The Weekly Standard is owned by Ruppert Murdoch, who also owns international media giant Fox News

The desire for these freshly empowered PNAC men to extend American hegemony by force of arms across the globe has been there since day one of the Bush administration, and is in no small part a central reason for the Florida electoral battle in 2000. Note that while many have said that Gore and Bush are ideologically identical, Mr. Gore had no ties whatsoever to the fellows at PNAC. George W. Bush had to win that election by any means necessary, and PNAC signatory Jeb Bush was in the perfect position to ensure the rise to prominence of his fellow imperialists. Desire for such action, however, is by no means translatable into workable policy. Americans enjoy their comforts, but don't cotton to the idea of being some sort of Neo-Rome.

On September 11th, the fellows from PNAC saw a door of opportunity open wide before them, and stormed right through it. </snip>


http://truthout.org/docs_03/022803A.shtml

Blood Money
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Thursday 27 February 2003

"In the counsels of Government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the Military Industrial Complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes."
- President Dwight Eisenhower, January 1961.

George W. Bush gave a speech Wednesday night before the Godfather of conservative Washington think tanks, the American Enterprise Institute. In his speech, Bush quantified his coming war with Iraq as part of a larger struggle to bring pro-western governments into power in the Middle East. Couched in hopeful language describing peace and freedom for all, the speech was in fact the closest articulation of the actual plan for Iraq that has yet been heard from the administration.

In a previous truthout article from February 21, the ideological connections between an extremist right-wing Washington think tank and the foreign policy aspirations of the Bush administration were detailed.

The Project for a New American Century, or PNAC, is a group founded in 1997 that has been agitating since its inception for a war with Iraq. PNAC was the driving force behind the drafting and passage of the Iraqi Liberation Act, a bill that painted a veneer of legality over the ultimate designs behind such a conflict. The names of every prominent PNAC member were on a letter delivered to President Clinton in 1998 which castigated him for not implementing the Act by driving troops into Baghdad. <more at link>


http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,905990,00.html

Could Tony Blair look at the internet now, please?

Why is the British Prime Minister the only person who seems to be unaware of the US hawks' agenda.

Terry Jones
Sunday March 2, 2003

<snip>They don't split hairs at the PNAC. George W. Bush and his advisers' stated aim is to ensure that America and American interests dominate the entire world for the foreseeable future. And what's more they make no bones of the fact that they intend to achieve this without diplomacy - that's old hat. What PNAC intend to do is enforce the Pax Americana through military might.

Does Tony Blair know that? Has Tony Blair read the PNAC Report called "Rebuilding Americas Defenses 2000"? It refers to the new technologies of warfare and goes on: "Potential rivals such as China are anxious to exploit these transformational technologies broadly, while adversaries like Iran, Iraq and North Korea are rushing to develop ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons as a deterrent to American intervention in regions they seek to dominate."

So when George Bush and his colleagues talk about Saddam Hussein posing a "threat" to America - they don't mean he's going to drop bombs on Washington (how on earth could he without committing national suicide?) - what they mean is that he poses a threat to American military dominance in the Middle East.

Does Tony Blair know that's what they mean?

In fact, does Tony Blair know that President Bush's advisers regard Saddam Hussein as merely an excuse for military action in the area? The PNAC Report of 2000 states: "the United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."</snip>

[Mike S]

Yeah and don't forget the bilderburgers and the council on foreign relations, the masons and the illuminate too bungle.

:rolleyes:

Freakin leftist wackos and their right wing conspiracies.....

MS

[Effendi]

.
He thinks he's so Intelligently cute with his snide comments discrediting anything anyone says who speaks about subjects he has no personal knowledge of.

Mike, I wouldn't for a minute try to suggest that all things written about those organizations are true, BUT.....your dismissing them as "Right wing Conspiracies" definetly defines the edge of your knowledge.....

There are things in this world even Mikey doesn't know about, and they are REAL.....

Scott!!

[bungle bliss]

I'm not stressin'. The ignore feature works great. :D

[Mike S]

Scott finds a conspiracy he agrees with....

Nuff said.

MS