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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (192357)	7/20/2006 8:56:58 PM
From: geode00	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

"Secret US plans for Iraq's oil... 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. Secret sell-off plan The industry-favoured plan was pushed aside by a 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 was crafted by neo-conservatives intent on using Iraq's oil to destroy the Opec cartel through massive increases in production above Opec quotas... Privatisation 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 privatisation of Iraqi oil resources or facilities while I was involved." Ariel Cohen, of the neo-conservative Heritage Foundation, told Newsnight that an opportunity had been missed to privatise 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." ... news.bbc.co.uk Care to tell me why you are always so ignorant on these issues yet have such set-in-concrete opinions? Actually, your mortgage payment is used to keep others from claiming your property as their own. It's the 'rent' you pay to the rest of us. You need to think with your mind instead of just buying what you've been told. Look at the earth. Where are the lines that show your property? It's just all a fictional divvying up of land that could, poof, disappear tomorrow. You wish to use violence and killing and paying for such instead of negotiating and paying for things that help other people live better lives. That's what makes you a rightwing regressive. The idea is to become more CIVILIZED, not go backwards. Follow the argument because your comment clearly shows that you haven't been able to: 1. Dubyette says we'll stand down when they stand up. Dubyette claims (different times, different claims) that some 100,000 or maybe it's 200,000 Iraqis are 'trained.' So, take out an equal number of our troops or at least some % of our troops. In other words, keep your word. 2. I say that there were never enough troops in the country. We can take territory but we can't hold territory. We have a limited number of troops and a limited amount of money. I say that it's too late to start from scratch after 3 years of this. So, keep your word and get the heck out. 3. Dubyette has ZERO intention of leaving. 4. You may have whatever intentions you wish. My point is, I don't think WE CAN DO IT. I wish we could do it tomorrow but we're not going to do it tomorrow and I think that things are much, much worse there than we are told by the corporate media. washingtonpost.com "GOP Lawmakers Edge Away From Optimism on Iraq By Jonathan Weisman and Anushka Asthana Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, July 20, 2006; Page A01 Faced with almost daily reports of sectarian carnage in Iraq, congressional Republicans are shifting their message on the war from speaking optimistically of progress to acknowledging the difficulty of the mission and pointing up mistakes in planning and execution.... The shift is subtle, but Republican lawmakers acknowledge that it is no longer tenable to say the news media are ignoring the good news in Iraq and painting an unfair picture of the war. In the first half of this year, 4,338 Iraqi civilians died violent deaths, according to a new report by the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq. Last month alone, 3,149 civilians were killed -- an average of more than 100 a day.... During a debate last month, Gutknecht intoned, "Members, now is not the time to go wobbly." This week, he conceded "I guess I didn't understand the situation," saying that a partial troop withdrawal now would "send a clear message to the Iraqis that the next step is up to you." "If we don't take the training wheels off, we will be in the same place in six months that we're in today," he said...."