[Mb-civic] Bush Squeaks, and Oil's Well

[Jim Burns]

I usually hate this conspiracy crap, but a fascinating nugget-- 

According to this article, the five top oil companies have seen their
profits rise from $32 billion, in 2002-- 

To $113 billion in 2005... 
______

Bush Didn't Bungle Iraq, You Fools
THE MISSION WAS INDEED ACCCOMPLISHED

by Greg Palast
for The Guardian 
20 March 2006 

Get off it. All the carping, belly-aching and complaining about George
Bush's incompetence in Iraq, from both the Left and now the Right, is
just dead wrong. 
On the third anniversary of the tanks rolling over Iraq's border, most
of the 59 million Homer Simpsons who voted for Bush are beginning to
doubt if his mission was accomplished. 
But don't kid yourself -- Bush and his co-conspirator, Dick Cheney,
accomplished exactly what they set out to do. In case you've forgotten
what their real mission was, let me remind you of White House spokesman
Ari Fleisher's original announcement, three years ago, launching of what
he called, 
                  "Operation
          Iraqi
          Liberation." 
O.I.L. How droll of them, how cute. Then, Karl Rove made the giggling
boys in the White House change it to "OIF" -- Operation Iraqi Freedom.
But the 101st Airborne wasn't sent to Basra to get its hands on Iraq's
OIF. 
"It's about oil," Robert Ebel told me. Who is Ebel? Formerly the CIA's
top oil analyst, he was sent by the Pentagon, about a month before the
invasion, to a secret confab in London with Saddam's former oil minister
to finalize the plans for "liberating" Iraq's oil industry. In London,
Bush's emissary Ebel also instructed Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, the man the
Pentagon would choose as post-OIF oil minister for Iraq, on the correct
method of disposing Iraq's crude. 
And what did the USA want Iraq to do with Iraq's oil? The answer will
surprise many of you: and it is uglier, more twisted, devilish and
devious than anything imagined by the most conspiracy-addicted blogger.
The answer can be found in a 323-page plan for Iraq's oil secretly
drafted by the State Department. Our team got a hold of a copy; how,
doesn't matter. The key thing is what's inside this thick Bush diktat: a
directive to Iraqis to maintain a state oil company that will "enhance
its relationship with OPEC." 
Enhance its relationship with OPEC??? How strange: the government of the
United States ordering Iraq to support the very OPEC oil cartel which is
strangling our nation with outrageously high prices for crude. 
Specifically, the system ordered up by the Bush cabal would keep a lid
on Iraq's oil production -- limiting Iraq's oil pumping to the tight
quota set by Saudi Arabia and the OPEC cartel. 
There you have it. Yes, Bush went in for the oil -- not to get MORE of
Iraq's oil, but to prevent Iraq producing TOO MUCH of it. 
You must keep in mind who paid for George's ranch and Dick's bunker: Big
Oil. And Big Oil -- and their buck-buddies, the Saudis -- don't make
money from pumping more oil, but from pumping LESS of it. The lower the
supply, the higher the price. 
It's Economics 101. The oil industry is run by a cartel, OPEC, and what
economists call an "oligopoly" -- a tiny handful of operators who make
more money when there's less oil, not more of it. So, every time the
"insurgents" blow up a pipeline in Basra, every time Mad Mahmoud in
Tehran threatens to cut supply, the price of oil leaps. And Dick and
George just LOVE it. 
Dick and George didn't want more oil from Iraq, they wanted less. I know
some of you, no matter what I write, insist that our President and his
Veep are on the hunt for more crude so you can cheaply fill your family
Hummer; that somehow, these two oil-patch babies are concerned that the
price of gas in the USA is bumping up to $3 a gallon. 
No so, gentle souls. Three bucks a gallon in the States (and a quid a
litre in Britain) means colossal profits for Big Oil, and that makes
Dick's ticker go pitty-pat with joy. The top oily-gopolists, the five
largest oil companies, pulled in $113 billion in profit in 2005 --
compared to a piddly $34 billion in 2002 before Operation Iraqi
Liberation. In other words, it's been a good war for Big Oil. 
As per Plan Bush, Bahr Al-Ulum became Iraq's occupation oil minister;
the conquered nation "enhanced its relationship with OPEC;" and the
price of oil, from Clinton peace-time to Bush war-time, shot up 317%. 
In other words, on the third anniversary of invasion, we can say the
attack and occupation is, indeed, a Mission Accomplished. However, it
wasn't America's mission, nor the Iraqis'. It was an Mission
Accomplished for OPEC and Big Oil. 
********** 
On June 6, Penguin Dutton will release GREG PALAST'S NEW BOOK, "ARMED
MADHOUSE: DISPATCHES FROM THE FRONT LINES OF THE CLASS WAR." Order it
today -- and view his investigative reports for Harper's Magazine and
BBC television's Newsnight -- at www.GregPalast.com. 
Palast returns to the pages of the Guardian today with this column.
Catch his commentaries weekly.