NationStates Jolt Archive


Why did Dick change his mind?

PsychoticDan
20-08-2007, 19:28
In a widely viewed You Tube clip, taken from a C-Span interview conducted in 1994, Dick Cheney argues persuasively that the United States was right not to topple Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf War.

He cites the potential disintegration of the country and the risk of American casualties as good reasons for the decision not to take Baghdad.

So what was it that changed his mind by the turn of the century?

An acute awareness of impending peak oil.

In a world of looming oil shortage, Iraq represented a unique opportunity. With 115 billion barrels (officially) Iraq had the world’s third biggest reserves, and after years of war and sanctions they were also the most underexploited. In the late 1990s Iraqi oil production averaged about 2 million barrels per day, but with the necessary investment it was thought its reserves could support three times that output. Not only were sanctions stopping Iraqi production from growing, but also actively damaging the country’s petroleum geology by denying the national oil company access to essential chemicals and equipment.

In one of a series of reports to the Security Council, UN specialist inspectors warned in January 2000 that sanctions had already caused irreversible damage to Iraq’s reservoirs, and would continue to lead to “the permanent loss of huge reserves of oil”. But sanctions could not be lifted with Saddam still in place, so if Iraq’s oil was to help defer the onset of global decline, the monster so long supported by the West would have to go.

As I reveal in The Last Oil Shock, the CIA was also well aware of Iraq’s unique value, having secretly paid for new maps of its petroleum geology to be drawn as early as 1998. Cheney also knew, fretting publicly about global oil depletion at a speech in London the following year, where he noted that “the Middle East with two thirds of the world’s oil and lowest cost is still where the prize ultimately lies”. Blair too had reason to be anxious about oil: British North Sea output had peaked in 1999 - and has been falling ever since - while the petrol protests of 2000 had made the importance of maintaining the fuel supply excruciatingly obvious.

Britain and America’s shared energy fears were secretly formalised during the planning for Iraq. It is widely accepted that Blair’s commitment to support the attack dates back to his summit with Bush at Crawford in April 2002. The Times headline was typical that weekend: Iraq Action Is Delayed But ‘Certain’. What is less well known is that at the same summit Blair proposed and Bush agreed to set up the US-UK Energy Dialogue, a permanent diplomatic liason dedicated to “energy security and diversity”. No announcement was made, and the Dialogue’s existence was only later exposed through a US Freedom of Information enquiry by Rob Evans and David Hencke of the Guardian.

Both governments continue to refuse to release minutes of meetings between ministers and officials held under the Dialogue, but among some papers that have been released, one dated February 2003 notes that to meet projected world demand, oil production in the Middle East would have to double by 2030 to over 50 million barrels per day, and proposed “a targeted study to examine the capital and investment requirements of key Gulf countries”. So on the eve of the invasion British and American officials were secretly discussing how to raise oil production from the region and we are invited to believe this is mere coincidence. Iraq was evidently not just about corporate greed but strategic desperation.

The bitterest irony is of course that Dick was right in 1994. The invasion has been a disaster not only for the people of Iraq but also in terms of its hidden agenda - creating conditions that guarantee Iraqi oil production will remain hobbled for years to come.

http://www.energybulletin.net/33635.html
Maineiacs
20-08-2007, 19:33
The answer to this type of question is always $.
Kryozerkia
20-08-2007, 20:07
Money does strange shit to people.
Ballotonia
20-08-2007, 20:34
OP, do you have an own opinion to add?

Ballotonia
PsychoticDan
20-08-2007, 20:37
OP, do you have an own opinion to add?

Ballotonia

Sorry. I post so much on Peak Oil that I figured most people would know what my opinoin is. I don't think there's any question that our primary concern in the Middle East is oil. Whether an overt plan to "steal" Iraq's oil exists doesn't matter, though I doubt it. There's no question that the West has a vital interest in maintaining the supply of Iraqi oil to world markets no matter who does the delivering and who buys it.
Muravyets
21-08-2007, 20:09
Sorry. I post so much on Peak Oil that I figured most people would know what my opinoin is. I don't think there's any question that our primary concern in the Middle East is oil. Whether an overt plan to "steal" Iraq's oil exists doesn't matter, though I doubt it. There's no question that the West has a vital interest in maintaining the supply of Iraqi oil to world markets no matter who does the delivering and who buys it.

There is no question in my mind that Cheney changed his tune because, back then, his interests were not served by taking over Iraq, but now they are.

But I do not believe that Cheney's interests are "the West's" interests. I believe he thinks only of himself and, maybe, his personal friends. I further believe that money is at the root of his interests. I agree that his financial interests are primarily tied up with energy and oil at the moment. If that changes, I would predict that his tune will change again as well. How many people will have died in the meantime? I do not believe that factors into Cheney's planning as a topic of concern. Simply, if starting a war will hurt his interests, he will oppose war, and if he has to say things about the value of not killing people to do that, he will say those things. But if circumstances change, and starting a war will advance his interests, then he will see to it that war is launched, and he will kill as many people as necessary to keep it going for as long as his interests require it. And if to keep it going, he has to sugar-coat it with pro-war propaganda, then he will tirelessly spew pro-war propaganda.

He can do this because he is entirely lacking in ethics of any kind.
PsychoticDan
21-08-2007, 20:39
There is no question in my mind that Cheney changed his tune because, back then, his interests were not served by taking over Iraq, but now they are.

But I do not believe that Cheney's interests are "the West's" interests. I believe he thinks only of himself and, maybe, his personal friends. I further believe that money is at the root of his interests. I agree that his financial interests are primarily tied up with energy and oil at the moment. If that changes, I would predict that his tune will change again as well. How many people will have died in the meantime? I do not believe that factors into Cheney's planning as a topic of concern. Simply, if starting a war will hurt his interests, he will oppose war, and if he has to say things about the value of not killing people to do that, he will say those things. But if circumstances change, and starting a war will advance his interests, then he will see to it that war is launched, and he will kill as many people as necessary to keep it going for as long as his interests require it. And if to keep it going, he has to sugar-coat it with pro-war propaganda, then he will tirelessly spew pro-war propaganda.

He can do this because he is entirely lacking in ethics of any kind.

Sure, but in order to maintain the fortune he has amassed he has a vested interest in maintaining the economic status quo fo the west and that requires a steady flow of oil to world markets.
Myrmidonisia
21-08-2007, 20:41
When do we start benefiting from this plan to steal oil? I'm still paying $2.75 per gallon of diesel and the homemade bio stuff is looking better and better.
PsychoticDan
21-08-2007, 20:46
When do we start benefiting from this plan to steal oil? I'm still paying $2.75 per gallon of diesel and the homemade bio stuff is looking better and better.

As soon as there's a stable democracy that allows foreign investment in Iraqi oil infrastructure and as soon as there are Iraqi oil companies that will invest in refining capacity for western markets.


So, never. Or maybe your children will be able to buy gas for $20 or $30 less per gallon in five decades.
Myrmidonisia
21-08-2007, 20:50
As soon as there's a stable democracy that allows foreign investment in Iraqi oil infrastructure and as soon as there are Iraqi oil companies that will invest in refining capacity for western markets.


So, never. Or maybe your children will be able to buy gas for $20 or $30 less per gallon in five decades.

They'll just go back to the French. I'm sure there's a bunch of kickbacks and outright bribery that goes on -- Something we're don't allow our businesses to participate in.
Splintered Yootopia
21-08-2007, 20:55
He got power and found he liked it?
PsychoticDan
21-08-2007, 20:56
They'll just go back to the French. I'm sure there's a bunch of kickbacks and outright bribery that goes on -- Something we're don't allow our businesses to participate in.

Doesn't matter who they decide to sell it to. Our interest is in maintaining the flow of Iraqi oil to world markets. Hell, for that matter we burn not nary a drop of Alaska oil, most of it goes to Japan who then don't compete as much for Mexican oil. Petoleum s notoriously fungible. As long as there's more on the global market it's all cheaper. Even if American companies were to get development contracts they probably wouldn't be selling much of it here. More likely they'd sell to China and other, geographically closer places.
PsychoticDan
21-08-2007, 21:02
He got power and found he liked it?

He was SecDef then. He had power. In 1999 he said:

Producing oil is obviously a self-depleting activity. Every year you've got to find and develop reserves equal to your output just to stand still, just to stay even. This is as true for companies as well in the broader economic sense it is for the world. A new merged company like Exxon-Mobil will have to secure over a billion and a half barrels of new oil equivalent reserves every year just to replace existing production. It's like making one hundred per cent interest; discovering another major field of some five hundred million barrels equivalent every four months or finding two Hibernias a year. For the world as a whole, oil companies are expected to keep finding and developing enough oil to offset our seventy one million plus barrel a day of oil depletion, but also to meet new demand. By some estimates there will be an average of two per cent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead along with conservatively a three per cent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and the national oil companies are obviously in control of about ninety per cent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world offer greet oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow.
Cannot think of a name
21-08-2007, 21:56
When do we start benefiting from this plan to steal oil? I'm still paying $2.75 per gallon of diesel and the homemade bio stuff is looking better and better.
First, I'm sure some Europeans here would LOVE to pay $2.75 a gallon. Hell, I'd love to pay that as around here it's almost a dollar more.

And second, you think it was for you? Seriously? No no no no, son-you still get the shaft. Oil companies, on the other hand, mount record profits.

But it's adorable that you thought the 'benefits' were going to trickle down to you.
They'll just go back to the French. I'm sure there's a bunch of kickbacks and outright bribery that goes on -- Something we're don't allow our businesses to participate in.

Oh yeah, that never happens around here...
CanuckHeaven
21-08-2007, 22:12
Sorry. I post so much on Peak Oil that I figured most people would know what my opinoin is. I don't think there's any question that our primary concern in the Middle East is oil. Whether an overt plan to "steal" Iraq's oil exists doesn't matter, though I doubt it. There's no question that the West has a vital interest in maintaining the supply of Iraqi oil to world markets no matter who does the delivering and who buys it.
It is all about oil. Check out the video below......

http://www.animationplayhouse.com/green_arrow_down.gif
CanuckHeaven
21-08-2007, 22:20
And second, you think it was for you? Seriously? No no no no, son-you still get the shaft. Oil companies, on the other hand, mount record profits.
EXACTLY!!

But it's adorable that you thought the 'benefits' were going to trickle down to you.
It is called naivety. :D

Oh wait.......if one buys stock in the giant oil companies, then the "benefits" do trickle down to some people, somewhere along the line.
Myrmidonisia
22-08-2007, 00:23
First, I'm sure some Europeans here would LOVE to pay $2.75 a gallon. Hell, I'd love to pay that as around here it's almost a dollar more.

And second, you think it was for you? Seriously? No no no no, son-you still get the shaft. Oil companies, on the other hand, mount record profits.

But it's adorable that you thought the 'benefits' were going to trickle down to you.


Oh yeah, that never happens around here...
You are still a naive little person, aren't you. If the european governments would stop taxing the shit out of the gas, it WOULD be at a reasonable rate -- Not the $8 per gallon I just paid in Italy.
PsychoticDan
22-08-2007, 00:26
You are still a naive little person, aren't you. If the european governments would stop taxing the shit out of the gas, it WOULD be at a reasonable rate -- Not the $8 per gallon I just paid in Italy.

And if teh US gov't would have taxed gas they way the Europeans did we'd have mass transit, fuel efficient cars and a greater mix of alternatives than we do. In short, we'd be in a much better place with regards to Peak Oil.
Cannot think of a name
22-08-2007, 16:43
You are still a naive little person, aren't you. If the european governments would stop taxing the shit out of the gas, it WOULD be at a reasonable rate -- Not the $8 per gallon I just paid in Italy.

Wow, that has so little to do with what I said and doesn't actually refute anything...I didn't even mention or allude to why European prices where higher...
Nodinia
22-08-2007, 16:47
They'll just go back to the French. I'm sure there's a bunch of kickbacks and outright bribery that goes on -- Something we're don't allow our businesses to participate in.

*snigger
Yaltabaoth
23-08-2007, 15:54
Because he Saw Jane Run?