This is an update to our post of July 13 titled "Blame the Dems says faux prezident Bush."The info below comes from an article by Geoffrey Lean, writing for The Independent. Lean's article is titled "Iraq War May Have Increased Energy Costs Worldwide by a Staggering $6 Trillion."
Hmmm. Doesn't sound like it's the Dems' fault, after all!
You'll recall that Bush said it was those damn Democrats in Congress that were to blame, because they failed to fall in line with his order to drill, drill, drill for more oil. Drill in the ocean, drill in the mountains, drill in the pristine Alaskan wilderness!
Wrong again, Mr. Faux Prezident!
"The invasion of Iraq by Britain and the US has trebled the price of oil..." So says the "oil economist Dr. Mamdouh Salameh, who advises both the World Bank and the UN Industrial Development Organisation (Unido.) Salameh "told The Independent on Sunday that the price of oil would now be no more than $40 a barrel, less than a third of the record $135 a barrel reached last week, if it had not been for the Iraq war."
(Note that this article was written back on May 27. Obviously, prices have escalated since then!)
Dr. Salameh indicated that three years before Bush invaded, Iraq "offered the United States a deal .... that would have opened up 10 new giant oil fields on 'generous' terms in return for lifting of sanctions."
"This would have certainly have prevented the steep rise of the oil price," said Salameh, "[b]ut the US had a different idea. It planned to occupy Iraq and annex its oil."
Many of us claimed that to be the case from the beginning. It wasn't that we were prescient, it was obvious. And, that's exactly why Bush invaded Iraq. The preemptive war this miserable excuse for a president led us into had nothing to do with WMD's or democracy - it had to do with regime change so we could grab the bountiful supply of Iraqi oil!
Although things didn't work out quite the way Bush/Cheney and the rest of the energy industry had hoped they would, the global oil monopolies are currently engaged in landing no-bid contracts with the Iraqi government to corner the Iraqi oil fields.
There is much more to this story, and you can read the entire article here.
1 comment:
The past is the past. The current debate in both Houses will be re new areas for drilling. I wonder why both Houses cannot demand that the oil companies immediately start drilling in all the areas they have been given permission to drill in NOW before any new areas are even considered. That would move up the timetable considerably on getting new oil for domestic consumption. They should also add a caveat that if the areas are not used now, the right to use them in future be taken away.
Once the government gets control of all domestic potential oil it could nationalize them as a security measure and control the drilling if that will help.
The truth is that a lot of Alaska oil is not used to lower prices for American consumers and the new proposals will not be used in the near future. If it is in our best interest to take care of America first, then make it mandatory and make it happen NOW.
If that is not practical, let us have an open debate with the oil industry as to how to handle oil now to benefit American interests. If, foreign oil will still be needed and I think it will, let us see if it is possible to get a better deal in some manner. Apparently the President thinks it is in our national interest to get more drilling rights. I agree, so let us make it a national priority. I do not think our oil industry sees it that way, but I could be mistaken.
Bob Poris
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