And WHY was a war deemed necessary?
When first assuming office as President in early 2001, George W. Bush’s top foreign policy priority was not to prevent terrorism or to curb the spread of weapons of mass destruction (or any of the other goals he has espoused since 9/11); rather, it was to increase the flow of petroleum from foreign suppliers to markets in the United States. In the year preceding his assumption of office, the United States had experienced severe oil and natural gas shortages in many parts of the country, along with periodic electric-power blackouts in California. In addition, U.S. oil imports had just risen over 50 percent of total U.S. consumption for the first time in American history, provoking great anxiety about the security of America’s long-term energy supply. For these and other reasons, Bush asserted that addressing the nation’s "energy crisis" was his most important task as President.
Addressing the energy crisis was seen by Bush and his advisers as a critical matter for several reasons. To begin with, energy abundance is essential to the health and profitability of many of America’s leading industries, including automobiles, airlines, construction, petrochemicals, trucking, and agriculture, and so any shortages of energy can have severe and pervasive economic repercussions. Petroleum is especially critical to the U.S. economy because it is the source of two-fifths’ of America’s total energy supply – more than any other source – and because it provides most of the nation’s transportation fuel. In addition to this, petroleum is absolutely essential to U.S. national security, in that it powers the vast array of tanks, planes, helicopters, and ships that constitute the backbone of the American war machine.
Given these realities, it is hardly surprising that the incoming Bush Administration viewed the energy turmoil of 2000-2001 as a matter of great concern. "America faces a major energy supply crisis over the next two decades," Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham told a National Energy Summit on March 19, 2001. "The failure to meet this challenge will threaten our nation’s economic prosperity, compromise our national security, and literally alter the way we lead our lives."/1/
To address this challenge, President Bush established a National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG) composed of senior government officials and charged it with the task of developing a long-range plan for the meeting the nation’s energy requirements. To head this group, picked his closest political adviser, Vice President Dick Cheney, a former executive of the Halliburton Company.
As will become evident from the discussion that follows, moreover, implementation of the Cheney energy plan will also have significant implications for U.S. security policy and for the actual deployment and utilization of American military forces. This is so because most of the countries that are expected to supply the United States with increased petroleum in the years ahead are riven by internal conflicts or harbor strong anti-American sentiments, or both. This means that American efforts to procure additional oil from foreign sources are almost certain to encounter violent disorder and resistance in many key producing areas. And while U.S. officials might prefer to avoid the use of force in such situations, they may conclude that the only way to ensure the continued flow of energy is to guard the oil fields and pipelines with American soldiers.
To add to Washington’s dilemma, the very fact of U.S. troop deployments in the oil-producing areas is likely to stir up resentment from inhabitants of these areas who fear the revival of colonialism or who object to particular American policies (such as, for example, U.S. support for Israel). As a result, American efforts to safeguard the flow of oil could well result in the intensification rather than the diminution of local disorder and violence – leading, in turn, to the deployment of additional American troops and a continuing spiral of confrontation and conflict./9/
To fully appreciate the manifold consequences of the Bush Administration’s energy plan for American foreign and military policy, it is useful to examine U.S. interests and behaviors in each of the regions that are seen in Washington as a major source of imported petroleum in the years ahead, notably the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea basin, the West coast of Africa, and Latin America.
THE PERSIAN GULF
Although the United States currently obtains only about 18 percent of its imported petroleum from the Persian Gulf area, Washington perceives a significant strategic interest in the stability of Gulf energy production because its major allies, including Japan and the Western European countries, rely on imports from the region, and because the Gulf’s high export volume has helped to keep world oil prices relatively low, thus benefitting the petroleum-dependent U.S. economy. With domestic production in decline, moreover, the United States will become ever more dependent on imports from the Gulf. For this reason, the NEP observes, the Persian Gulf "will remain vital to U.S. interests."/10/
American policy with regard to the protection of Persian Gulf energy supplies is unambiguous: when a threat arises, the United States will use whatever means are necessary, including military force, to ensure the continued flow of oil. This principle was first articulated by President Jimmy Carter in January 1980, following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the fall of the Shah, and has remained American policy ever since./11/ In accordance with this principle – known since 1980 as the "Carter Doctrine" – the United States has used force on several occasions: first, in 1987-88, to protect Kuwaiti oil tankers from Iranian missile and gunboat attacks, and then in 1990-91, to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. /12/
In explaining the need to use force on these occasions, U.S. officials have repeatedly stressed the importance of Persian Gulf oil to American economic stability and prosperity. "Our strategic interests in the Persian Gulf region, I think, are well known, but bear repeating," then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney told the Senate Armed Services Committee on September 11, 1990, five weeks after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. In addition to our security ties to Saudi Arabia and other states in the area, "We obviously also have a significant interest because of the energy that is at stake in the Gulf." Iraq already possesses 10 percent of the world’s oil reserves, he explained, and, by seizing Kuwait, it acquired another 10 percent; the occupation of Kuwait also placed Iraqi forces within a few hundred miles of another 25 percent, in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. "Once [Hussein] acquired Kuwait and deployed an army as large as the one he possesses, he was clearly in a position to be able to dictate the future of worldwide energy policy, and that gave him a stranglehold on our economy and on that of most of the other nations of the world as well." It is for this reason, Cheney insisted, that the United States had no choice but to employ military force in the defense of Saudi Arabia and other friendly states in the area./13/
Once Iraqi forces were driven from Kuwait, the United States adopted a policy of "containment" of Iraq, employing severe economic sanctions and the enforcement of a "no-fly zone" over northern and Southern Iraq to weaken the Hussein regime and to prevent any new attacks on Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. At the same time, Washington substantially expanded its military presence and basing structure in the Persian Gulf area in order to facilitate future U.S. military operations in the region. Most importantly, the Department of Defense "pre-positioned" vast quantities of arms and ammunition in Kuwait and Qatar so that American troops could be sent to the region and rushed into combat without having to wait weeks or months for the delivery of their heavy equipment from the United States. /14/
By the early spring of 2002, the Bush Administration had concluded that the policy of containment was not sufficient to eliminate the threat posed to American interests in the Gulf by Saddam Hussein, and that more aggressive action was required. Although Iraq’s alleged possessed of weapons of Mass destruction (WMD) was cited as the main reason for acting in this manner, it is instructive to note that Dick Cheney gave equal importance to U.S. energy security in his much-quoted speech of August 26, 2002. "Should [Hussein’s] ambitions [to acquire WMD] be realized, the implications would be enormous for the Middle East and the United States," he told the annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. "Armed with an arsenal of these weapons of terror and a seat at the top of ten percent of the world’s oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of a great portion of world’s energy supplies, [and] directly threaten America’s friends throughout the region."/15/
Of course, oil had nothing to do with Washington’s motives for America’s March 2003 invasion of Iraq – or so we were told. "The only interest the United States has in the region is furthering the cause of peace and stability, not in [Iraq’s] ability to generate oil," said Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesperson, in late 2002./16/ But a close look at the Administration’s planning for the war reveals a very different picture. In a January briefing by an unnamed "senior Defense official" on U.S. plans for protecting Iraqi oil fields in the event of war, the Pentagon leadership revealed that General Tommy Franks and his staff "have crafted strategies that will allow us to secure and protect those fields as rapidly as possible in order to preserve those prior to destruction."/17/
As indicated by the "senior official" (presumably Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz), the Bush Administration sought to capture Iraq’s oilfields intact in order to quickly resume Iraqi oil exports and thereby obtain a source of revenue for the occupation and reconstruction of the country. But this is just the beginning of America’s interests in Iraqi petroleum. According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), Iraq possesses proven reserves of 112.5 billion barrels – more than any other country except Saudi Arabia – and is thought to possess another 200 billion barrels in as-yet-undeveloped fields./18/ If these assumptions prove accurate, and if the new regime in Baghdad opens its territory to exploitation by U.S. firms, Iraq could become one of America’s leading oil suppliers in the decades ahead.
To get the ball rolling...9/11 |
