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| Axis of Evil |
| US begins secret talks to secure Iraq’s oilfields |
| 2003-01-23 |
| The US military has drawn up detailed plans to secure and protect Iraq's oilfields to prevent a repeat of 1991 when President Saddam set Kuwait's wells ablaze. The US state department and Pentagon disclosed the preparations during a meeting in Washington before Christmas with members of the Iraqi opposition parties. Iraq has the second biggest known oil reserves in the world producing, in their current run-down state, about 1.5m barrels a day. But experts contacted by the Guardian predict this could rise to 6m barrels a day within five years with the right investment and control. At the meeting, on the future of a post-Saddam Iraq - details of which have been disclosed to the Guardian - the state department stressed that protection of the oilfields was "issue number one". One of those at the meeting said the military claimed that a plan to protect the multibillion oil wells was "already in place", hinting that special forces will secure key installations at the start of any ground campaign. As well as immediate concern about the environmental impact of having hundreds of Iraqi wells on fire, US, British, Russian, French and other international oil companies are already taking soundings about Iraq's multibillion pound oil supply. The companies are reluctant to mention oil in public, fearing it will feed Arab suspicion that it is the main factor in the confrontation with Iraq. Yet, with war looming, discussions in private have inevitably begun on the future of the world's second biggest oil reserves. The US and British governments deny that oil is a factor in the confrontation with Iraq |
| Posted by:Bent Pyramid |
| #4 They can claim they supported us all along in private till they are blue in the face. They have already made themselves cheese eating surrender monkeys to a murderous dictator, yet again, in public. Pirvate is just that, private. We don't see it, so it never happened. After we secure the evidence of their perfidity against us and their help for Iraq, that is it. They can kiss our collective asses, and their Iraqi debts, goodbye. Which would wreak their economy, cause internal socail upheaval and possibly revolution, and when they ask us to yet again pull their ass out of the fire of their own construction, we can tell them we can give them all the private support they can use. |
| Posted by: Ben 2003-01-24 04:50:50 |
| #3 Sigh. Fred, you're right, dadgummit! But, at least I can dream. I've been reading too much Den Beste. |
| Posted by: Denny 2003-01-23 22:18:28 |
| #2 Denny, you don't know how these things work. After it's all over, they'll be reminding us of how they supported us all along in private. That's if we win, of course. If we were to lose, they'd pee on our carcass. |
| Posted by: Fred 2003-01-23 18:33:17 |
| #1 If the French keep opposing us in our upcoming war, the French oil companies can kiss goodbye any chances of participating in the Iraqi oil business. |
| Posted by: Denny 2003-01-23 09:22:38 |