by Enver Masud
WASHINGTON, DC--Iraq may be next in line for a U.S. attack. Business Week
writers reveal the role that oil may play in a U.S.-Russia deal for a U.S.
attack on Iraq.
Paul Strobin based in Moscow, and Stan Crock based in Washington, write:
"Putin could try to exact a steep price for allowing a decisive U.S. strike
against the oil-rich Iraqi state. Russian oil majors have curried favor with
Saddam's regime with an eye on future contracts. But if Bush quietly guarantees
that Russian oil companies will get a prime slice of the Iraqi oil, Putin might
go along. 'There is a good case for a behind-the-scenes bargain,' says Dmitri
Trenin, analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center. For now, Putin has called for the
renewal of international inspections in Iraq. If Saddam refuses, Putin can save
face if the U.S. goes after Iraq by citing Saddam's intransigence to his own
proposal." ["U.S.-Russia: Just How Far Will the Love-in Go?," Business Week,
November 26, 2001]
In an October 1999 interview, former United Nations Special Commission chief
inspector Scott Ritter said, "Iraq has been disarmed. Iraq today possesses no
meaningful weapons of mass destruction." Ritter also said that Iraq does not
currently possess the capability to produce or deploy chemical, biological, or
nuclear weapons. Iraq's neighbor, Israel, is known to possess such weapons.
Despite this, the U.S. has used the bogey of Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction to embargo Iraq. "The most difficult issue is UN control of Iraqi
oil revenues. President Bush will certainly be lobbied by American oil
companies,which want their share of the business of refitting the Iraqi oil
industry." [Barnaby Mason, "Bush Faces Iraq Dilemma," BBC News Online, January
1, 2001]
The embargo "has been compared with a medieval siege. The word 'genocide' has
been used by experts on international law and other cautious voices, such as
Denis Halliday, the former assistant secretary general of the United Nations,
who resigned as the UN's senior humanitarian official in Iraq, and Hans von
Sponeck, his successor, who also resigned in protest. Each had 34 years at the
UN and were acclaimed in their field; their resignations, along with the head of
the World Food Programme in Baghdad, were unprecedented." [John Pilger, "Iraq:
The Great Cover-Up," New Statesman, January 22, 2001]
"Ten years of sanctions have left an estimated 300,000 to 1.5 million Iraqis
dead. CBS' Lesley Stahl used the figure of 500,000 dead when she interviewed
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in 1996. Was such collateral damage worth
it? Albright replied, 'I think this is a very hard choice, but the price - we
think the price is worth it.'"--[Editorial, "End the Iraq War," Seattle Times,
May 14, 2001]
Under false claims of a UN mandate--"no-fly zones" were imposed
unilaterally by the U.S. and Britain--U.S. bombing of Iraq has become routine.
Denver Post Columnist, Reggie Rivers, writes: "The stories hit the paper and
we flip through them as if nothing is happening. The headlines read: 'Coalition
planes fire at Iraqi air defense sites.' 'Air Force drone missing over Iraq.'
'U.S. launches major air attack on Iraq.' 'Allied jets hit Iraqi targets.'"
And this would not be the first time that the
U.S. has provoked a confrontation with Iraq.
"The United States urged United Nations weapons inspectors in 1998 to
deliberately provoke a confrontation with Baghdad to provide political cover for
a U.S. bombing campaign, a former inspector claims in a new film documentary."
[Ronni Berke, "Ex-U.N. Inspector in Iraq: U.S. Set Up Air raids," CNN New York
Bureau, July 19, 2001]
The president's advisors have been pushing for an attack on Iraq,
and Mr. Bush is no stranger to the politics of oil.
Mr. Charles Lewis, founder of the Center for Public Integrity, writes in "The
Buying of the President": George W. Bush was a director and shareholder of
Harken
Energy when in January 1990 it was granted "exclusive rights to carry out
exploration, development, production, transportation, and marketing of petroleum
throughout most of Bahrain's Gulf offshore areas." The company drilled two dry
holes, but "Bush had sold off two-thirds of his holdings in Harken for nearly a
million dollars, and bought a small share of the Texas Rangers, a deal that
ultimately netted him--with a helping hand from Texas taxpayers--some $15
million."
"Israeli intelligence agencies have not detected any link between Iraq and
the September 11 terrorist attacks." [Anton La Guardia, "Iraq 'not linked to
September 11'," Telegraph, November 21, 2001]
[Enver Masud is founder of The Wisdom Fund,
and author of The War on Islam]
["The United States supported Iraq in the 1980s and continued to aid it during
the Iran-Iraq war, when Saddam Hussein was gassing Iranians on the battlefield
and Kurds in Iraq, and when Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction and
the missile systems to deliver them."--Tod Fineberg, "Mr. Rumsfeld's Role in
Supporting Iraq?," Washington Post, January 19, 2003]
["There is no evidence Saddam used anthrax or any other chemical weapons against
the Iraqi Kurds. There have been allegations, but Iraq has always insisted it
did not use such weapons in the two 1989 incidents alleged. There were estimates
that 1,400 to 4,000 Kurds died of chemical weapons in an Iraqi offensive. The
Iraq Defense Minister insisted it did not use gas and that it was neither
logical or feasible to use gas against small groups of Kurds in areas through
which government forces had to pass. The sole "evidence" seems to be the finding
of a British laboratory that soil samples in the Kurdish region contained
mustard gas (not anthrax)."--Jude Wanniski, "Did Saddam
Hussein Gas His Own People?," Supply Side Investor, October 17, 2001]
["No sooner had I filed a series of reports to London on this new and terrible
war crime of Saddam Hussein than a British diplomat, lunching with one of my
editors in London, remarked that "Bob doesn't seem to understand the situation."
True, he said, gas was a terrible weapon. But Saddam was fighting the West's war
against Iranian fundamentalism . . .
The French had sold Saddam Mirage jets. The Germans had provided him with the
gas that had me almost wretching on the train from Ahwaz. The Americans had sold
him helicopters for spraying crops with pesticide (the "crops", of course, being
human beings). The British gave Saddam bailey bridges. And I later met the
Cologne arms dealer who flew from the Pentagon to Baghdad with US satellite
photos of the Iranian front lines - to help Saddam kill more
Iranians."--Robert Fisk, "What Madness is Seizing
Messrs Clinton and Blair Today?," The Independent, February 13, 1998]
["The oft repeated accusation that Saddam gassed his own people neglects an
important fact. Halabaja, the town where it took place, was at the time
occupied by invading Iranian forces."--Ali Abunimah,
IraqWar.Org]
White House
confirms: Bush ordered up Iraq plan in November 2001, Associated Press, April 16, 2004
[The U.S. government may be considering military action in response to chemical strikes
near Damascus. But a generation ago, America's military and intelligence communities
knew about and did nothing to stop a series of nerve gas attacks far more devastating
than anything Syria has seen, . . .
"The Iraqis never told us that they intended to use nerve gas. They didn't have to. We already
knew," he told Foreign Policy.--Shane Harris and Matthew M Aid, CIA Files Prove America
Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran, foreignpolicy.com, August 26, 2013]
