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.
who would've thunk it?
more below fold...
An Iraqi-born oil industry consultant, Falah Aljibury, says he took part in the secret meetings in California, Washington and the Middle East. He described a State Department plan for a forced coup d'etat.
Mr Aljibury himself told Newsnight that he interviewed potential successors to Saddam Hussein on behalf of the Bush administration.
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.
The sell-off was given the green light in a secret meeting in London headed by Ahmed Chalabi shortly after the US entered Baghdad, according to Robert Ebel.
Mr Ebel, a former Energy and CIA oil analyst, now a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told Newsnight he flew to the London meeting at the request of the State Department.
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I've mentioned previously, with seeming no response: CIA's Iran coup overthrowing Mossadeq was the template for this stuff. It was so admitted by Kermit Roosevelt, a prime architect of that crime. This should be hammered home again, and again, and again.
For people who care about this stuff, and are not familiar with that episode, do yourselves a a favor and bone up. There's an entire archive on
Cryptome, taken from a series done by NYT in late '90s. It can be found here:
CIA REPORT ON MOSSADEQ OVERTHROW
The coup was planned and executed with heavy propoganda both in US and Iran. There were atrocities comitted by Shah, and the entire event is what led to Khomeni and the blossoming of ME Islamic fundamentalism.