He goes on to assert that since Iraqi production declined as an immediate result of the war, the entire affair therefore had little to do with energy resources. The obvious and immediate fallacy in this argument is that it assumes that greater access to oil, and hence increased production, is the primary goal of the industry rather than control over it. Increasing the global oil supply would result in lower prices and therefore lower profits. Tightly dictating production and keeping most of the profits out of Iraqi hands provides a much more advantageous result for the Western companies negotiating the terms of contract.
Investigative journalist Greg Palast has reported on this aspect of the Iraq strategy extensively over the last few years. After reviewing the British and American strategy since 1925 to limit Iraqi oil production, Palast writes in his 2006 book Armed Madhouse:
The decision to expand production has, for now, been kept out of Iraqi’s hands by the latest method of suppressing Iraq’s oil flow – the 2003 invasion and resistance to invasion. And it has been darn effective. Iraq’s output in 2003, 2004 and 2005 was less than produced under the restrictive Oil-for-Food Program. Whether by design or happenstance, this decline in output has resulted in tripling the profits of the five U.S. oil majors to $89 billion for a single year, 2005, compared to pre-invasion 2002. That suggests an interesting arithmetic equation. Big Oil’s profits are up $89 billion a year in the same period the oil industry boosted contributions to Mr. Bush’s reelection campaign to roughly $40 million.
And remember, these points were made back in the good old days when oil was at a minuscule price of about $60 per barrel rather than today’s $140. So contrary to Mr. Alkadiri’s point, decreased production is anything but proof the war never was about oil and in fact shows it most likely was.
As an advisor to the energy industries on issues of Iraq, it is not surprising Mr. Alkadiri also paints negotiations between oil and gas companies and the Iraqi government as a fair process initiated by a sovereign government, claiming Iraqi oil “ministry officials reached out directly to nine companies” (including the five majors of Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, Total and Chevron) that are now poised to claim the prize. But should we assume a nation occupied by a foreign power can truly act independently in these types of negotiations? A recent New York Times report contradicts this assessment by revealing:
A group of American advisers led by a small State Department team played an integral part in drawing up contracts between the Iraqi government and five major Western oil companies to develop some of the largest fields in Iraq, American officials say.
Of course the administration denies these claims and prefers to argue Iraqis are free to establish any agreements they see as being in their own best interest. Yet if that were the case, it is an interesting coincidence these new no-bid contracts reverse agreements established under Saddam Hussein which opened development of reserves to, among others, Chinese, Russian and Indian firms. It just so happens this is completely in line with US strategic and military interests.
I won’t rehash it here but we now know the Bush administration and the oil industry was interested in dividing Iraq’s oil wealth before 9/11. Documents dated March 2001 from Cheney’s infamous Energy Task Force released as a result of a successful lawsuit filed under the Freedom of Information Act include a detailed map of Iraq’s oilfields, pipelines and oil related capacities. There are also charts and a list of international oil companies titled “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts.” As is well known, the Task Force was a who’s who of industry insiders. SourceWatch has a comprehensive overview of the group, including its participants and what is known of documents and reports it produced.
So it seems odd to hear members of the political elite still arguing with a straight face that oil had nothing to do with the invasion and occupation of Iraq. In his wit and insight, Noam Chomsky as usual states it most plainly:
Doctrinal managers would like us to believe that the US and UK would have “liberated” Iraq even if its major exports were lettuce and pickles and the major energy resources of the world were in the South Pacific. It takes really impressive discipline “not to see” the obvious.
