[Peace-discuss] a poem with a long footnote

[C. G. Estabrook]

	Liars--Bush, Blair, Straw
	by SYDNEY BERNARD SMITH

	You lied in word, in deed, & by omission:
	you blamed Saddam for things that you had done
	& failed to do--the Shia insurrection,
	incited, left to founder--sorry son!
	With VX, sarin, stuff for nuclear fission--
	you armed him, supplied anthrax by the ton,
	you egged him on to fight Iran, then ditched him...
	& now you cannot find the smoking gun?
	Too long past their use-by-date. Oh? Fine!
	(Don't bother to say sorry: just resign.)
	
	You lied about "eviction" of inspectors
	whom the UN "withdrew"--you wanna bet?
	Phials, anti-poison-gas injectors,
	antidotes to dangers to be met,
	& posters: how to cope with radiation
	were hailed as "proof of clear & present threat."
	Duty-bound to free a captive nation?
	Ever think of rescuing Tibet?
	Oh. it's unfair to hold you to that line...
	don't bother to say sorry: just resign.
	
	There's some bad bastards, but it's no use fretting -
	ex-Soviets Belarus & Kazakhstan.
	Our hatred of dictators could not threaten
	Suharto, Burma, Saudi, Pakistan.
	Adjust the odds, it makes for safer betting;
	where standards are too high, let down the bar.
	For Chile we strained the rules, left Pinochet in;
	Somoza, Marcos, Franco, Salazar,
	we backed; who claimed their right to rule divine,
	& never did say sorry, nor resign.
	
	Afghanistan: "we'll never walk away!"
	you left them unexploded cluster bombs
	like food parcels--they go off every day! -
	to add to 20 million Russian mines.
	& all the billions that you said you'd pay
	keeps war lords ruling as in former times.
	The bulk of it is mis-spent, gone astray,
	they don't add up, the economic sums.
	Damage limitation? Not this time.
	Don't bother to say sorry: just resign.
	
	You lied about the poison factories;
	lied about nuclear capacity;
	on links to Al Qaida came a freeze--
	Bush yes, Blair no (gulp gulp); it took audacity...
	45 minute standby--there's a wheeze -
	imminent threat! In coping with this facet we
	might have bypassed other forgeries--
	uranium from Niger? Sheer mendacity!
	You've been found out, you've overstayed your time,
	so do what Denis Healy said: resign
	
	You lied. You said it wasn't about oil.
	You bellowed this until your face turned blue.
	& yet, available to any literate child:
	what Goldstein said to Bush's cronies whom
	cringing,--see footnote--we will not imbroil
	after the war the inverse will be true.
	Blatant: the Wall Street Journal--your blood boil?
	Mine does. We all could read it! So could you.
	Maybe you did; it chanced to slip your mind?
	Don't even promise. Do it now. resign.

==============================================

Host of opportunity awaits should war topple Hussein, starting with
restoration

By Thaddeus Herrick

Wall St Journal, Monday 13 January 2003.

With the possibility of a war with Iraq, oil companies are starting to
plan and prepare for the day when they may finally get a chance to work in
one of the world's most oil-rich countries.

... "If we go to war, it's not about oil," says Larry Goldstein, president
of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation in New York. "But the day
the war ends, it has everything to do with oil."

Full article

Oil firms guage potential in Iraq

Host of opportunity awaits should war topple Hussein, starting with
restoration

By Thaddeus Herrick, The Wall St Journal, Monday 13 January 2003.

With the possibility of a war with Iraq, oil companies are starting to
plan and prepare for the day when they may finally get a chance to work in
one of the world's most oil-rich countries.

Executives are conferrring with officials from the Bush administration,
Department of Defense and State Department to figure out how best to
jump-start Iraq's oil industry following a possible war, industry
officials say.

With reserves second only to Saudi Arabia, Iraq would offer the
international oil industry enormous opportunity should a war topple Saddam
Hussein. But the early spoils would probably go to companies needed to
keep Iraq's already run-down oil operations running, especially if they
were further damaged in a war. Oil-service firms such as Halliburton Co,
where Vice President Dick Cheney formerly served as chief executive, and
Schlumberger Ltd are favourites for what could be as much as $1.5 billion
in contracts to upgrade wells and pipes around production facilities,
according to a Deutsche Bank report.

The major oil and gas producers won't be far behind. "Iraq is rich in
potential," said Fadhil Chalabi, formerly an acting secretary-general for
the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and Iraqi oil official
who is now executive director of the Centre for Global Energy Studies in
London. "There will be room for everybody."

While the Bush administration is loath to be seen as waging war for oil,
industry officials say Washington is leaning heavily on the expertise of
the nation's oil industry so that it is prepared to address its top
postwar priority: funding a new regime with oil revenue.

"If we go to war, it's not about oil," says Larry Goldstein, president of
the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation in New York. "But the day the
war ends, it has everything to do with oil."

Iraq produces 2.8 million barrels of oil a day, though its infrastructure
has seen little investment since the Iran-Iraq conflict and the 1990 Gulf
War. What's more, Iraq is thought to have done considerable damage to its
three large fields in recent years with on-again, off-again production;
reports say its pipelines, ports and pumping stations are in a state of
disrepair.

With some attention, such as modernizing the injection systems of
water-logged wells, industry experts say Iraq could be producing an
additional million barrels of oil a day during the course of two years.
With serious investment, they say the country could be producing six
million barrels a day within five years.

Industry officials say the Bush administration is keen on securing Iraq's
oil fields and rehabilitating them. Oil-industry officials say Mr Cheney's
staff hosted an informational meeting with industry executives in October,
with Exxon Mobil Corp, ChevronTexaco Corp, ConocoPhilipps and Halliburton
among the companies represented. Both the Bush administration and the
companies say such a meeting never took place.

Since then, industry officials say, the Department of Defense, the State
Department and the Bush administration have sought input, formally and
informally, from executives and industry experts on how best to overhaul
Iraq's oil industry.

One scenario has Iraq's oil fields emerging from a war unscathed. But
should Mr Hussein torch his fields in defiance, as some have suggested,
industry experts say construction firms as Bechtel Group would likely play
a role in rebuilding. Such companies played a large role in rebuilding
Kuwait's oil industry after Mr Hussein destroyed it during the Gulf War.

Other possible oil-services winners, according to the Deutsche bank
report: Baker Hughes Inc, BJ Services Do and Weatherford International
Ltd.

The industry could face costs, too, especially if any military action
affects other businesses in the region. Hailliburton says it suffered
large losses in Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates
before and during the Gulf War and restoring fields didn't make up for all
it lost.

Short of a war, Deutsche bank predicts that an end to United Nations
sanctions would lead to an opening up of Iraq's oil sector, though perhaps
not to US companies. While UN sanctions have prevented large-scale foreign
investment, Mr Hussein has signed $38 billion in production agreements,
including contracts with China National Petroleum Co, and a Russian
consortium led by LUKoil (it has since cancelled the Russian contract).
Iraq has also signed less-binding memos of understanding with France's
Total Fina Elf SA and Italy's ENI SPA, among others.

Such companies are expected to prosper if Mr Hussein were to stay in
power, while a US-led victory is expected to give US companies such as
ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco an inside track. And while denying that they
are meeting with administration officials, industry executives acknowledge
that the oil industry and the government have a history of sharing
information, such as during the Gulf War when Mr Hussein was destroying
oil fields.

Copyright: The Wall St Journal

  ==============================================================
  C. G. Estabrook
  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [MC-190]
  109 Observatory, 901 South Mathews Avenue, Urbana IL 61801 USA
  office: 217.244.4105 mobile: 217.369.5471 home: 217.359.9466
  <www.carlforcongress.org>
  ===============================================================