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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Petrol who wrote (23499)	9/22/2002 11:59:08 AM
From: mishedlo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Beyond the tough talk. afr.com Oil and politics. FOLLOW THE MONEY! Here is the money trail laid out for everyone to see. The picture should be quite clear now if it was not before. I find it odd if not downright disheartening that I agree with Iraq's Foreign Minister quote below. Favorite snips: Is oil the main reason that the US is pressing hard for Saddam's forcible removal? Jim Steinberg, who served as Bill Clinton's deputy national security adviser, says: "Oil is not the primary reason for the administration's actions. I think it's secondary, but it is yet another plus." For the same reasons the US generally keeps quiet about the oil question, the Iraqis like to talk it up. On Thursday, Iraq's Foreign Minister, Naji Sabri, told the United Nations: "The US Administration wants to destroy Iraq in order to control the Middle East oil, and consequently control the politics as well as the oil and economic policies of the whole world." Which brings us to the question of why the Bush Administration doesn't often talk about the oil effect of a successful ursurping of Saddam. The countries with the most to lose economically from a falling oil price are the same ones that the Bush Administration is pressing for help militarily. One official puts it this way: "Oh, and by the way, after you've helped us invade Iraq, we're going to destroy your economies." Apart from oil supplies and the oil price, there is another big US oil interest in Iraq. And that is the interest of US oil companies. American oil firms are shut out of doing business in Saddam's Iraq, a consequence of US sanctions as well as Iraqi politics. But the big oil firms from Russia, France and Italy already have deals to explore major new oilfields in Iraq the moment UN sanctions against Baghdad end. In other words, they are positioned to profit in a post-Saddam Iraq, while the American oil industry is not. But if Saddam is driven from power by a US-led campaign, the US could reasonably expect to wield power in a post-Saddam regime. A Washington-friendly government in Baghdad would no doubt be keen to open the field to US oil firms on very favourable terms. The Russians, the French and others could well lose their edge. Again, these potential economic losers are the very allies the US is now trying to win over in the Security Council in support of armed action against Iraq - another reason why it is very awkward for the US to talk openly about the oil issue. And the interests of big US oil are never far from the minds of the Bush Administration. Bush himself once owned an oil company. His Vice-President, Dick Cheney, once ran one, and so did his Commerce Secretary, Don Evans. His National Security Adviser, Condoleeza Rice, had a Chevron oil tanker named after her in gratitude for her time as a director of the company.