[The Veteran, Spring 2006]

Blood For No Oil:

“We Didn’t Go In To Grab The Oil.  Just The Opposite.  We Went In To Control The Oil And Make Sure We Didn’t Get It”

May 15th, 2006 Democracy Now [Excerpts]

Investigative journalist Greg Palast joins us in the Firehouse Studio to discuss the follow-up to his best-selling book “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.”

AMY GOODMAN: Is the war in Iraq a war for oil?

GREG PALAST: Is the war in Iraq for oil?

Yes, it's about the oil, but not for the oil.

In my investigations for Armed Madhouse, I ended up with a story far more fascinating and difficult than I imagined.

We didn't go in to grab the oil.  Just the opposite.  We went in to control the oil and make sure we didn't get it.

It goes back to 1920, when the oil companies sat in a room in Brussels in a hotel room, drew a red line around Iraq and said, “There'll be no oil coming out of that nation.”  They have to suppress oil coming out of Iraq.  Otherwise, the price of oil will collapse, and OPEC and Saudi Arabia will collapse.

And so, what I found, what I discovered that they’re very unhappy about is a 323-page plan, which was written by big oil, which is the secret but official plan of the United States for Iraq's oil, written by the big oil companies out of the James Baker Institute in coordination with a secret committee of the Council on Foreign Relations.

I know it sounds very conspiratorial, but this is exactly how they do it.  It's quite wild.  And it's all about a plan to control Iraq's oil and make sure that Iraq has a system, which, quote, “enhances its relationship with OPEC.”

In other words, the whole idea is to maintain the power of OPEC, which means maintain the power of Saudi Arabia.

And this is one of the reasons they absolutely hate Hugo Chavez.  As you’ll see in next week's Harper's coming out, which is basically an excerpt from the book, Hugo Chavez on June 1st is going to ask OPEC to officially recognize that he has more oil than Saudi Arabia.  This is a geopolitical earthquake.  And the inside documents from the U.S. Department of Energy, which we have in the book and in Harper's, say, yeah, he's got more oil than Saudi Arabia.

Bush does not -- you have to remember, he doesn't like cheap oil.  When we talk about paying $3-a-gallon gasoline, Bush’s benefactors, donors and his own family collects the $3 a gallon.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean?

GREG PALAST: Well, we're paying three bucks a gallon.

ExxonMobil is collecting $3 a gallon.

There's a chapter called “Trillion-Dollar Babies.”

When Bush came in, we had oil as low as $18 a barrel.  It was like water.  

Bush has successfully built up the price of oil from 18 bucks a barrel to over $70 a barrel.  That's the “mission accomplished.”  He didn't make a mistake here.  That's the “mission accomplished.”

ExxonMobil, which after Enron is the biggest lifetime donor to the Bush campaigns, its value of its reserves, of its oil reserves, because of the Bush wars and Bush actions, has gone up by almost exactly $1 trillion in value.

Just one company.

A trillion-dollar windfall to a single company.

That's the Bush benefactors.

And you have to look at where’s Bush make his money.

[He might have mentioned that France and Russia were doing deals with Hussein to bring the Iraqi oil to market.  He might have mentioned how devastating that would be to Exxon and other giant oil companies that have nothing left but reserves with very high production costs, and they would suffer financial disaster if Iraqs oil did flood the market, since a huge amount of their production would no longer be profitable.  T]

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

Graduate From Minturn Dies

Jun 9, 2006 (AP)

MINTURN, Colo. A Battle Mountain High School graduate who was deployed to Iraq last month died in combat in Mosul, Iraq, his family said Thursday.

John Shaw Vaughan, 23, assigned to the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team based at Fort Wainwright, Alaska, died Wednesday, his uncle, Dick Shaw said.

The military didn't release Vaughan's name, but the Alaskan base confirmed a soldier was killed by small-arms fire in Mosul Wednesday while conducting a dismounted patrol.

Vaughn, a second lieutenant and platoon leader, had participated in the ROTC program at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University and had received his officer's commission after graduation last year.

"He was just always an outdoorsman and loved the military," said his mother, Sarah Vaughan.  "From the time he was a boy, it was just his dream."

4 U.S. Occupation Munitions Staff Killed

June 09, 2006 Huntsville Times

Four contractors working for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Engineering and Support Center in Huntsville died Thursday in Iraq when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb.

The Huntsville center operates the Coalition Munitions Clearing Program that is responsible for receiving, transporting, segregating and destroying captured or any other munitions posing a danger in Iraq, according to a Corps of Engineers news release.

REALLY BAD IDEA:

NO MISSION;

HOPELESS WAR:

BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW

U.S. Army 2nd Lt. Matthew Biellik searches an abandoned house for hidden weapons in Tall Afar, Iraq, May 23, 2006.  Biellik is from the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division. (AP Photo/Department of Defense, Jacob N. Bailey)

Three More Fiji Mercenaries Killed

9 June 2006 Radio New Zealand International

Another three Fijian security guards have been killed in an insurgent attack in Iraq.

Radio Legend reports that the three died near Baghdad last night as a bomb was exploded under their convoy which was transporting goods.

They died instantly.

The radio says the men worked for ArmourGroup, the same security company which employed the three Fijian security guards killed early last month.

Military Supply Trucks For Ramadi Attacked, Destroyed

6.9.06 Reuters

Guerrillas attacked two civilian trucks carrying construction materials for the U.S. base in Ramadi and captured the drivers.  The trucks were destroyed in the attack, he added.

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

IED Wounds Four Occupation Troops:

Nationality Not Announced

June 8, 2006 AP

Roadside bombings killed three Afghan soldiers and wounded four coalition troops.

A roadside bomb slightly wounded four coalition soldiers when it blew up near their vehicle in southern Zabul province Wednesday, said coalition spokesman Maj. Quentin Innis.  The four were treated at a base and released, Innis said, but he declined to specify their nationalities.

Soldier Wounded In Afghanistan Now In Walter Reed Hospital

Jun. 09, 2006 Associated Press, BISMARCK, N.D.

A North Dakota National Guard soldier injured in an Afghanistan bomb attack that killed two colleagues has returned to the United States.

Sgt. 1st Class Timothy Wicks, 39, was in stable condition Friday at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., said his wife, Angela, who planned to travel there to see him.

Timothy Wicks suffered two broken legs, a broken pelvis and internal bleeding, and doctors removed his spleen, his wife and Guard officials said.  He was sedated and on a respirator after being flown from a hospital in Germany, his wife said.

Military officials said Timothy Wicks was on a reconnaissance mission with other soldiers from the North Dakota National Guard's 188th Air Defense Artillery when a roadside bomb went off near their vehicle early this week.  The blast killed Spc. Curtis Mehrer and Sgt. Travis Van Zoest, both 21, of Bismarck.

Timothy and Angela Wicks have two sons, Christopher, 18, and Andrew, 16. Both are students at Bismarck High School.

Mehrer and Van Zoest graduated in 2003, Mehrer from Bismarck High and Van Zoest from Bismarck Century.

Angela Wicks said she visited both families Thursday, and considers both men heroes. She was awaiting clearance to visit her husband.

"Just to touch him, to know he's there and that he's OK is going to be amazing," she said.

Wicks' father, James, said in a statement released through the Guard that his son had joined the Army right out of high school and had met his wife in Germany.  After he left the active duty Army, Wicks moved back to Bismarck and joined the National Guard in February 1993, the Guard statement said.

"He couldn't wait to be a soldier," his father said.

“This Foreigner Was Driving Like A Crazy Man”

U.S. Military Vehicle Hits Afghan Minibus Outside Kabul, Injures 3 Civilians:

June 8, 2006 By Jason Straziuso, ASSOCIATED PRESS

KABUL, Afghanistan:  A U.S. military vehicle hit a minibus on a road outside the Afghan capital on Thursday and injured at least three civilians, more than a week after another crash involving U.S. forces sparked deadly riots.

The driver of the minibus expressed anger at the Americans.

“I was driving on my side, but this foreigner was driving like a crazy man,” he said. “I pulled to the side of the road, but he hit me and pushed my bus off the road.  How can this happen so soon after last week's crash?”

Resistance Attacks, Collaborator Troops Run Away

9 June 2006 BBC

British troops have recently begun setting up bases in Helmand. They are part of an expanded NATO deployment in southern Afghanistan.

The BBC's Paul Wood in Helmand says the soldiers were jumping off helicopters when they came under fire.  No British soldier was injured in the fighting.

British commanders say it is significant that the Taleban stood and fought and that they earned the grudging respect of the parachute regiment soldiers.

According to British sources, the Afghan police fired indiscriminately putting civilians at risk and when confronted by the Taleban they broke and ran.

Assorted Resistance Action

June 07, 2006 (AP) & 08 June 2006 By VOA News & By Sayed Salahuddin (Reuters) & AFP & By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer

In western Herat province bordering Iran, three border policemen were shot dead late Thursday while on patrol in their vehicle, provincial police chief Mohammad Ayob Salangi said.

Militants armed with assault rifles killed a police commander and three bodyguards.

Officials said resistance fighters also killed the security chief of western Farah province Thursday.  He was shot dead in a bazaar.

The heaviest clash was reported near Tirin Kot in southern Uruzgan province, where suspected Taliban fighters attacked an army convoy late Thursday, sparking three hours of fighting, Gen. Rehmatullah Raufi said.  He said the army suffered no casualties.

A roadside bomb hit a convoy of Afghan troops in the eastern Afghan mountains, killing three and wounding four, the Defense Ministry said today.

The roadside bomb that killed the three Afghan soldiers went off Tuesday in Kunar province, about 120 miles east of the capital of Kabul, the Defense Ministry said in a statement.

The wounded were rushed to a hospital. Their convoy was carrying equipment to an army base when it was attacked, the ministry said.

Afghan officials say suspected Taleban militants have killed five Afghan security men in separate attacks in the south of the country.

In one incident, in Ghazni province, a roadside bomb killed three Afghan soldiers and wounded one when it blew up under their vehicle, said Mohammed Nasir Ibayat, an army commander. Three suspects were arrested.

In the other attack, officials say Taleban rebels shot dead two Afghan policemen in Kandahar province late Wednesday.

In the western province of Farah, a district chief was shot dead in a bazaar.

In western Herat province bordering Iran, three border policemen were shot dead late Thursday while on patrol in their vehicle, provincial police chief Mohammad Ayob Salangi said.

Unidentified gunmen killed two Afghan aid workers with Coordination for Humanitarian Assistance, and wounded another in the same vehicle in the northern province of Balkh, an official with the western-funded relief agency said. 

MORE:

“Aid” Workers Job:

Recruiting Informers To Betray Resistance Fighters;

Civilian Operatives For The Occupation Killed Whenever Possible

3.11.06 Socialist Worker (Canada) [Excerpts]

We hear that Canada is reconstructing Afghanistan.

This is a lie.

Reconstruction in Afghanistan is at a halt.

The money earmarked for rebuilding is being used as bribes for local commanders and to ensure support for Hamid Karzai.

After the invasion there were numerous reports from aid workers that the US military was offering reconstruction money to local groups if they would hand over information that lead to the capture of Taliban and Al Qaeda suspects.

This is why the aid agencies are leaving.  They were made pawns in a very dangerous game and more than 150 of them have paid with their lives since the invasion.

Aid must be impartial or the reconstruction money will be nothing more than another way to buy political favours. 

This ensures that the only way you will receive a new hospital or school is if you support the government.

Most Imbecilic Comment By A Bush Stooge In 2006, So Far

June 9 2006 By Rachel Morarjee in Kabul [Excerpt]

Jawed Ludin, chief of staff in the government of Hamid Karzai, said:  “The government wants to take measures to strengthen the security situation in the south.

“It is not so much that the terrorists are strong, but that we are weak.”

Bush Regime Dropping More Bombs On Afghanistan Than Iraq

06/08/2006 By Jim Krane, Associated Press

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates:  The U.S. Air Force increased its bombing of Taliban and other insurgent targets in Afghanistan this spring, making about 750 airstrikes in May alone, Air Force officials said.

The intensified bombing in Afghanistan has overshadowed the smaller number of U.S. airstrikes on Iraq, said Air Force Lt. Gen. Gary L. North, who commands U.S. and coalition air operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Incompetent Bush Stooges Can’t Get Their Stories Straight

June 8, 2006 By Carlotta Gall The New York Times

KABUL More than a week after the worst riots in the Afghan capital in years, officials raised the death toll from 12 to 17 Wednesday, and said that 140 people remained in detention, accused of involvement in the rioting.

At a rare news conference, the chief of the National Security Directorate, Amrullah Saleh, said that the riots May 29 were a spontaneous reaction to a traffic accident caused by an American military truck, and that there was no proof of any political motivation or planning behind the violence, though some of those detained belonged to criminal gangs or political groups.

"We cannot reject the possibility of anything yet," Saleh said. "There were some instigators, people from small bands or groups in Kabul, but so far we have not reached the final conclusion to be able to say a certain political organization was orchestrating the riot."

A Ministry of Interior official, Abdul Jabar Sabit, seemed to contradict Saleh's assessment.  In a separate news briefing, he said the riots appeared to have been organized.

"We think it was very coordinated, and it spread all over the city very quickly," Sabit said. People carried banners that bore political slogans, and some men were arrested with leaflets encouraging people to protest on the day of the riots, he said.

TROOP NEWS

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

Oh Shit!

As Idiot Collaborator Boasts That Killing Zarqawi Will Help Oil Production,

Resistance Captures His Top Oil Executive

6.9.06 ANS CBN

Resistance fighters captured a senior official of Iraq's oil ministry after he left work in Baghdad on Thursday, police and ministry sources said on Friday.

The incident happened the same day US troops killed Iraq's al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose demise the Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said would help improve the country's oil production, particularly in the north.

The sources said Muthana al-Badri, Director General of Iraq's State Company for Oil Projects (SCOP), was on his way home in the Sunni district of Adhamiya when guerrillas in four cars stopped his car and captured him but set his driver free.

"The death of Zarqawi will lead to the reduction in the level of violence and terrorist attacks and this will definitely help to improve our production, particularly from the northern fields and exports," Shahristani told Reuters in an interview in Istanbul on Thursday.

Badri, who the sources said is in his 60's, has always worked for SCOP.  He became head of the company after Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003.  Oil Ministry sources described him as a "professional and energetic."

"We call him the son of SCOP because he spent his life there," said an oil industry official.

SCOP is in charge of the oil projects for the ministry such as building new refineries and pipelines.

ASSORTED RESISTANCE ACTION

6.9.06 By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer & Brian Whitaker in Baghdad, The Guardian & AFP

An attack on a police patrol in the New Baghdad area of eastern Baghdad, killed two policemen and four civilians and wounded 11 other people, including three policemen, Lieutenant Ali Abbas said.

Guerrillas opened fire on Friday's funeral procession for the brother of the governor of the northern city of Mosul.  Zuhair Kashmola was killed on Thursday.

Insurgents killed three oil engineers.

Two police commandos were wounded in separate Baghdad roadside bombings.

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

Vietnam: The Soldier's Revolt

       
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