Iraqi oil may be taken as 'spoil of war'
[Blast from the past and the worst case financial example and length of the war can be looked at with great longing. Geez Loueeze, Iraq is pumping around half of pre war oil quantities?]
By Knut Royce in Washington
January 11 2003
On patrol ... a Czech soldier stands guard while his unit visits the site of a bombed satellite ground station in the Kuwaiti desert this week. Photo: Reuters/Chris Helgern
The White House may tap Iraq's oil to help pay the cost of a military occupation if it decides to take military action against President Saddam Hussein.
The move, which could turn much of the Middle-East against the United States, is being seriously considered by officials in the Bush Administration.
Officially, the White House agrees that oil revenue will play an important role during any occupation, but only for the benefit of Iraqis.
However, according to a source briefed on the option, there are strong advocates for taking the oil funds as "spoils of war".
The source said that under the plan the US would "take all the oil money until there is a new democratic government" in Iraq.
The source said the Justice Department had urged caution and that its lawyers were unsure "whether any of it [Iraqi oil funds] can be used or has to all be held in trust for the people of Iraq".
Another source who has worked closely with the Vice-President's office said a number of officials there wanted to use the oil funds to defray the cost of occupation.
However, Halim Barakat, a former lecturer of Arab studies at Georgetown University, said the move would reinforce the prevalent belief in the Middle-East that a conflict would be about oil control, not rooting out
weapons of mass destruction.
"It would mean that the real ... objective of the war is not the democratisation of Iraq, not getting rid of Saddam, not to liberate the Iraqi people, but a return to colonialism," he said.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that an occupation may cost between $US12billion ($21 billion) and $US48billion a year and last 18 months or more.
[WOW! It costs us $1B/week and its been 2 years with no end in sight and $300B allocated --- what rot!]
Iraq's proven oil reserves
are second in the world only to Saudi Arabia's but it is unclear how much revenue could be generated.
The budget office estimates Iraq is now producing nearly
2.8 million barrels a day, with 80 per cent of the revenues going to the United Nations oil-for-food program or being used domestically.
The remaining 20 per cent, worth about $US3 billion a year, is generated by oil smuggling, and much of it goes to supporting Saddam's military. This is the money the White House is most probablytargeting.
Fresh drilling and new equipment could result in Iraq producing much more, but some oil experts estimate it would take 10 years to restore the country's oil industry.
There are fears that Saddam would torch his oil fields, as he did in Kuwait during the 1991 Gulf War. If this happened it would take a year or more to resume even a modest flow.
===========
Those dang Middle Easterners understood about WMds and democratization being absolute shams. Obviously, they were smarter and more realistic than Republicans. |
