[Peace-discuss] Secret U.S. Plans For Iraq's Oil from gregpalast.com

[Paul Mueth]

The oiligarchy is still at it,    so is Palast .. .

the newsnight programm(e) is available for 24 hours
starting 6pm our time 

I don't have capacity to capture realvideo, it would
be great if someone who can, would .. . 

cheers
 
 
 Greg Palast's film - the result of a joint
 investigation by BBC Newsnight and Harper's Magazine
 - will broadcast on Thursday, 17 March, 2005.
 
 You can watch the program online  - available
 Thursday, March 17 after 7pm EST for 24hrs - from
 the Newsnight website: 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/default.stm
 
 You can also read the story in greater detail in the
 latest issue of Harper's magazine - now available at
 your local newsstand.
 

 SECRET U.S. PLANS FOR IRAQ'S OIL
 By Greg Palast 
 Reporting for BBC Newsnight
 17 March 2005
 	 The Bush administration made plans for war and for
 Iraq's oil before the 9/11 attacks sparking a policy
 battle between neo-cons and Big Oil, BBC's Newsnight
 has revealed. 
 	 Two years ago today - when President George Bush
 announced US, British and Allied forces would begin
 to bomb Baghdad - protestors claimed the US had a
 secret plan for Iraq's oil once Saddam had been
 conquered.
 	 In fact there were two conflicting plans, setting
 off a hidden policy war between neo-conservatives at
 the Pentagon, on one side, versus a combination of
 "Big Oil" executives and US State Department
 "pragmatists."
 	 "Big Oil" appears to have won. The latest plan,
 obtained by Newsnight from the US State Department
 was, we learned, drafted with the help of American
 oil industry consultants.
 	 Insiders told Newsnight that planning began "within
 weeks" of Bush's first taking office in 2001, long
 before the September 11th attack on the US.
 	 An Iraqi-born oil industry consultant Falah
Aljibury
 says he took part in the secret meetings in
 California, Washington and the Middle East. He
 described a State Department plan for a forced coup
 d'etat.
 	 Mr Aljibury himself told Newsnight that he
 interviewed potential successors to Saddam Hussein
 on behalf of the Bush administration.

 	 Secret sell-off plan
 	 The industry-favored plan was pushed aside by yet
 another secret plan, drafted just before the
 invasion in 2003, which called for the sell-off of
 all of Iraq's oil fields. The new plan, crafted by
 neo-conservatives intent on using Iraq's oil to
 destroy the Opec cartel through massive increases in
 production above Opec quotas.
 	 The sell-off was given the green light in a secret
 meeting in London headed by Ahmed Chalabi shortly
 after the US entered Baghdad, according to Robert
 Ebel.  Mr. Ebel, a former Energy and CIA oil
 analyst, now a fellow at the Center for Strategic
 and International Studies in Washington, flew to the
 London meeting, he told Newsnight, at the request of
 the State Department.
 	 Mr Aljibury, once Ronald Reagan's  "back-channel"
to
 Saddam, claims that plans to sell off Iraq's oil,
 pushed by the US-installed Governing Council in
 2003, helped instigate the insurgency and attacks on
 US and British occupying forces.
 	 "Insurgents used this, saying, 'Look, you're losing
 your country, your losing your resources to a bunch
 of wealthy billionaires who want to take you over
 and make your life miserable," said Mr Aljibury from
 his home near San Francisco.
 	 "We saw an increase in the bombing of oil
 facilities, pipelines, built on the premise that
 privatization is coming."
 
 Privatization blocked by industry
 	 Philip Carroll, the former CEO of Shell Oil USA who
 took control of Iraq's oil production for the US
 Government a month after the invasion, stalled the
 sell-off scheme.
 	 Mr Carroll told us he made it clear to Paul Bremer,
 the US occupation chief who arrived in Iraq in May
 2003, that: "There was to be no privatization of
 Iraqi oil resources or facilities while I was
 involved."
 	 The chosen successor to Mr Carroll, a Conoco Oil
 executive, ordered up a new plan for a state oil
 company preferred by the industry.
 	 Ari Cohen, of the neo-conservative Heritage
 Foundation, told Newsnight that an opportunity had
 been missed to privatize Iraq's oil fields.  He
 advocated the plan as a means to help the US defeat
 Opec, and said America should have gone ahead with
 what he called a  "no-brainer" decision.
 	 Mr Carroll hit back, telling Newsnight, "I would
 agree with that statement. To privatize would be a
 no-brainer.  It would only be thought about by
 someone with no brain."
 	 New plans, obtained from the State Department by
 Newsnight and Harper's Magazine under the US Freedom
 of Information Act, called for creation of a
 state-owned oil company favored by the US oil
 industry.  It was completed in January 2004,
 Harper's discovered, under the guidance of Amy Jaffe
 of the James Baker Institute in Texas. Former US
 Secretary of State Baker is now an attorney.  His
 law firm, Baker Botts, is representing ExxonMobil
 and the Saudi Arabian government.
 
 View segments of Iraq oil plans at 
 www.GregPalast.com/opeconthemarch.html
 
 	Questioned by Newsnight, Ms Jaffe said the oil
 industry prefers state control of Iraq's oil over a
 sell-off because it fears a repeat of Russia's
 energy privatization. In the wake of the collapse of
 the Soviet Union, US oil companies were barred from
 bidding for the reserves.
 	 Jaffe said "There is no question that an American
 oil company ... would not be enthusiastic about a
 plan that would privatize all the assets with Iraq
 companies and they (US companies) might be left out
 of the transaction."
 	 In addition, Ms. Jaffe says US oil companies are
not
 warm to any plan that would undermine Opec, "They
 [oil companies] have to worry about the price of
 oil.”
 	 "I'm not sure that if I'm the chair of an American
 company, and you put me on a lie detector test, I
 would say high oil prices are bad for me or my
 company."
 	 The former Shell oil boss agrees.  In Houston, he
 told Newsnight, "Many neo-conservatives are people
 who have certain ideological beliefs about markets,
 about democracy, about this that and the other. 
 International oil companies without exception are
 very pragmatic commercial organizations.   They
 don't have a theology."