| PEOPLE |
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dick cheney |
More a nationalist than an imperialist, [Cheney] cannot be
accused of dragging America into Iraq this time for oil. There
is plenty of evidence to suggest weapons of mass destruction
are his primary concern. However, Mr Cheney's
America First policy may well ensure US companies will exploit
Iraqi oil for the "benefit"
of its liberated people. Randeep
Ramesh, Guardian March 13, 2003 |
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Richard Perle |
" We went to great lengths to secure oil fields. This
was done with one interest in mind, and that is the future of
the Iraqi people and the capacity of the Iraqi nation to rebuild
itself under a new and decent regime. We could have been indifferent
that. We were not. We risked American lives to secure those
oil fields. We have secured them for the people of Iraq, and
that argument about our motives with respect to oil will be
settled when this war is over and it is clear to everyone that
that oil belongs to the people of Iraq and will be produced
for the people of Iraq." Richard
Perle, AEI seminar March 25, 2003 |
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James Woolsey |
" ...We're not going to seize the Iraqi oil fields for
the benefit of American consumers. If we wanted to have cheap
oil, it would have been very easy. You just relax the sanctions
on Saddam and let him pump it." James
Woolsey, AEI seminar March 25, 2003 |
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James Woolsey |
MS. PLETKA: ... I wanted to mention that no lesser authority
than Le Monde yesterday in its editorial announced that this
war was not about petroleum and that anybody who thought so
was incorrect. So now we have it. We know it must be true.
MR. WOOLSEY: We've [won]. AEI
seminar March 25, 2003 |
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| ISSUES |
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Israeli Energy Supply |
" Plans to build a pipeline to siphon oil from newly
conquered Iraq to Israel are being discussed between Washington,
Tel Aviv and potential future government figures in Baghdad...The
plan envisages the reconstruction of an old pipeline, inactive
since the end of the British mandate in Palestine in 1948, when
the flow from Iraq's northern oilfields to Palestine was re-directed
to Syria...Now, its resurrection would transform economic power
in the region, bringing revenue to the new US-dominated Iraq,
cutting out Syria and solving Israel's energy crisis at a stroke."
Guardian,
April 20, 2003 |
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Oil for Food |
" Iraq played its oil card. It announced it would
cut off oil exports entirely. The price to resume exports,
said the Saddam Hussein spokesmen, was a 50-cent surcharge on
every barrel of Iraqi oil, to be paid directly to the Baghdad
regime. The demand... is a direct violation of a number of UN
agreements signed by Iraq since 1991...All of this unsettling
behaviour by Iraq would be bad enough by itself. When a major
oil producer encourages unstable supplies and high prices, it
constitutes a major shock to many countries. In Thailand, where
we import virtually all our oil, the rising prices of
the past year have already harmed our economy." Bangkok
Post December 5, 2000 |
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US energy supply |
" The second inescapable reality of the post-twentieth-century
world is that the security of the world's oil and gas supplies
will remain a vital national interest of the United States and
of the other industrial powers. The Persian Gulf . . . is still
a region of many uncertainties. . . . In this 'new energy order'
many of the most important geopolitical decisions--ones on which
a nation's sovereignty can depend--will deal with the location
and routes for oil and gas pipelines. In response, our strategy,
our diplomacy, and our forward military presence need readjusting."
Robert
Dole, then Senate Majority Leader, in Atlantic Monthly, April
1996 |
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US energy supply |
" Facing its most chronic shortage in oil stocks for
27 years, the US has this month turned to an unlikely source
of help - Iraq.
Weeks before a prospective invasion of Iraq, the oil-rich state
has doubled its exports of oil to America, helping US refineries
cope with a debilitating strike in Venezuela." UK
Observer January 26, 2003 |
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oil industry |
" Iraqi oil is comparatively simple to extract
- less than $1 per barrel, compared with $6 a barrel in Russia.
Soon, US and British forces could be securing the source of
that oil as a priority in the war strategy. The Iraqi fields
south of Basra produce prized 'sweet crudes' that are simpler
to refine." UK
Observer January 26, 2003 |
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oil industry |
"The American oil industry is very interested in trying
to enter Iraq," said J. Robinson West, chairman of Petroleum
Finance Co., a consulting firm. "But I think that they
are quite respectful of U.S. policy towards Saddam Hussein.
There is a very strong feeling that in fact he is the greatest
threat to oil production in the Middle East." Washington
Post March 2001 |
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weapons of mass destruction |
" The US military says this is a security issue rather
than a grab for oil, after a 'variety of intelligence sources'
indicated that Saddam planned to damage or destroy his oil fields
- which would inflict up to $30bn damage on the US economy and
cause irreparable environmental damage." UK
Observer January 26, 2003 |
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oil industry |
"Post the Iraq war there will be a lot of countries going
into Iraq, if an opportunity came along then, like anywhere
else, we'd think about it." BHP
Billiton petroleum president Philip Aiken March 25, 2003 |
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US energy demand |
"Steve Cassiani, president of Exxon Mobil Upstream Research
Company, said that global oil demand through to 2010 was expected
to rise at two percent per year, and gas demand was expected
to rise three percent each year. "The difficulty is that
while global demand increases, existing production declines,"
he said... We expect by 2010 about half the daily volume needed
to meet projected demand will come from fields not on production
today." Yahoo
Finance March 25, 2003 |
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US economy |
" To the extent that the Gulf's recapture of the
dominant share of the global oil market will make price increases
more likely, the U.S. economy is at risk. Although oil imports
as a percent of gross domestic product have decreased significantly
in the past decade, our economic vulnerability to rapid increases
in the price of oil persists. Since 1970 sharp increases in
the price of oil have always been followed by economic recessions
in the United States." Atlantic
Monthly, April 1996 |
Iraqi
oil 
iraqi
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