cheney's "pipe dream" to loot Iraqi oil came true! Dick Cheney Has Long Planned
To Loot Iraqi Oil
by Scott Thompson
As this week's Feature highlights, Vice President Dick Cheney has been plotting the conquest of Iraq since he was Secretary of Defense in President George H.W. Bush's Administration—a plan then considered insane aggression. Moreover, on July 17, 2003, Judicial Watch announced that Cheney's Energy Task Force had developed a map of Iraq dated March 2001, as well as maps of the neighboring United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) and Saudi Arabia, which show that Cheney knew precisely how much the conquest of Iraq would be worth.
The map, which shows oilfields, pipelines, tanker terminals, and refineries, includes eight "blocks" for exploration near the border with Saudi Arabia. Iraq has been proven to have the second-highest amount of oil reserves of any nation in the world, next to Saudi Arabia. And, this is without exploration of the eight blocks near the Saudi border—a vast area that is at least one-third of the country—which could make Iraq number one in terms of proven reserves. Alphabetically, from Japan to Vietnam, there is attached to the map a list of "Foreign Suitors" for oil deals with Saddam Hussein's Iraq—deals that the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) has indicated are now off.
A Pipe Dream?
Before returning to the significance of the maps for lining Vice President Cheney's pockets: EIR has learned that the the U.S. Export-Import Bank is circulating a plan that calls for securitizing future oil revenues from Iraq in order to pay for reconstruction contracts. What is known about this from the Ex-Im Bank plan, and from a July 13 article in the Observer of London, entitled "Outrage at U.S. Plan To Mortgage Iraqi Oil," is that the Ex-Im Bank is proposing to raise loans from private banks to pay for reconstruction contracts, to be repaid by revenues from future Iraqi oil sales. It is argued that this would take pressure off the deficit-ridden U.S. budget to pay reconstruction costs.
The Ex-Im Bank has been working on behalf of the corporate lobbying group known as the Coalition for Employment Through Exports, among whose most important participants are Halliburton Oil Co. and Bechtel.
Halliburton, Cheney's company, is actively promoting the "securitization" of Iraq's oil. The stakes are enormous. A spokesman for Platt's Energy news service told EIR that Iraq's oil output, within a few years, could be 5 million barrels per day, at a significantly lower cost than oil from other sources. This would give great wealth to companies involved in developing the industry, and would perhaps give those controlling Iraq, the ability to dictate terms to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
The Ex-Im Bank plan proposes 1) securitizing future oil revenues, either through the UN-created Development Fund for Iraq, or another financial institution; 2) establishing a trade finance facility (a Trade Bank was just established the week of July 21 in Iraq); and, 3) the restructuring of Iraq's debt and reparations obligations.
But look who benefits from this. As EIR has previously reported, the Bechtel Corp. has an estimated $500 million contract, which it obtained through a non-competitive, classified deal for general reconstruction—a program that could grow exponentially under the Ex-Im Bank plan. On the Board of Bechtel sits former Secretary of State George Shultz, who was the "Godfather" who ran G.W. Bush's Presidential Exploratory Committee and hand-picked many of the leading neo-conservative "chicken-hawks" (see EIR, Oct. 4, 2002). These are the same people who, after the 9/11 policy coup d'état, urged war against Iraq, with Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld leading the pack.
And Halliburton Oil Co., where Cheney served as chairman and CEO from 1995 until his nomination as a Vice Presidential candidate, has been given control of Iraq's South Oil Co., which is the largest potential oil producer to date in Iraq. Moreover, Cheney, who received $20 million from Halliburton when he became Vice President, knows that he will receive deferred payments of a size to be determined by Halliburton's Board of Directors, based upon how well he performs in office.
The Ex-Im Bank plan, which is also being pushed by the occupation CPA, headed by former Kissinger Associates executive L. Paul Bremer, is to restructure Iraq's debt and reparation obligations. Presently, Iraq has an outstanding debt of $120 billion, and under the old UN "oil-for-food" program, some 20% from sales of Iraq's oil went to war reparations for oil-rich Kuwait. Under this latest plan, nations like Russia, which is owed over $20 billion for current and future contracts, might get nothing, or at best 10¢ on the dollar.
The Observer added in its July 13 issue: "American plans to mortgage Iraq's future oil supplies to pay for expensive postwar reconstruction work risk a repeat of mistakes made with Germany after the First World War, debt relief campaigners said this weekend.... Anne Pettifor, head of Jubilee Plus debt relief campaign, ... warned against the coalition 'using the instrument of debt to control Iraq,' after it leaves. Such a motive was behind the way Germany was treated after 1918...." In short, the plan may crush the average Iraqi citizen's standard of living, with dire political consequences.
Even a senior official of the World Bank, who asked to remain anonymous, told EIR that this plan "would seriously complicate Iraq's debt repayment." Another World Bank official told Faisal Islam, who authored the Observer article of July 13, "The World Bank has said such a commitment should only be made by a sovereign Iraqi government." Presently, there is no sovereign government in Iraq, only "Proconsul" Bremer and his appointed Governing Council. So, due to World Bank and probable UN opposition, it is likely that this Ex-Im Bank plan will prove to be "a pipe dream."
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