Bush, NeoCons, Bay Oil, Enron, & Exxon Profit from Saddam Oil-for-Peace Kickbacks *

"From 2000 to 2002, Bayoil (USA), Inc., and its affiliates, operating out of Houston, Texas, became one of the largest importers of Iraqi oil into the United States." The [Democratic Minority] report also states,  . . .Major political contributors and friends of Bush not only paid illegal kickbacks to Saddam Hussein but personally profited from sanctions-busting with Iraq. Those involved in the scheme included individuals who date back to the Reagan/Bush 41 "cluster bombs and biological and chemical weapons-for-oil" scandal of the 1980s. [British MP] Galloway is correct when he stated that there is enough evidence on Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair and their neocon advisers to park them in prison cells in The Hague for an awfully long time. Wayne Madsen, Online Journal , 5/21/05  MORE

Bush Energy Policy v Reality*

The few Americans who are even aware that there is a gathering global-energy predicament usually misunderstand the core of the argument. That argument states that we don't have to run out of oil to start having severe problems with industrial civilization and its dependent systems. We only have to slip over the all-time production peak and begin a slide down the arc of steady depletion. . . In 2004, however, after demand from burgeoning China and India shot up, and revelations that Shell Oil wildly misstated its reserves, and Saudi Arabia proved incapable of goosing up its production despite promises to do so, the most knowledgeable experts revised their predictions and now concur that 2005 is apt to be the year of all-time global peak production.  JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER
3/24/05 MORE

Bush's Neo-Con Iraq Oil Plans *

Two years ago . . .  protesters claimed the US had a secret plan for Iraq's oil once Saddam had been conquered. . . The industry-favoured plan was pushed aside by a secret plan, drafted just before the invasion in 2003, which called for the sell-off of all of Iraq's oil fields. The new plan was crafted by neo-conservatives intent on using Iraq's oil to destroy the Opec cartel through massive increases in production above Opec quotas. . . plans to sell off Iraq's oil, pushed by the US-installed Governing Council in 2003, helped instigate the insurgency and attacks on US and British occupying forces. . . Philip Carroll, the former CEO of Shell Oil USA who took control of Iraq's oil production for the US Government a month after the invasion, stalled the sell-off scheme. Greg Palast, BBC News, 3/17/05 MORE

See Palast's BBC Video HERE.

The Bush/Chaney Energy Bill

Energy Policy Act of 2003: Negative Energy, Center for American Progress, 11/17/03
Link to Full Article
 

Excerpts

• Instead of reducing dependence on foreign oil, the bill actually increases it, creating new loopholes to avoid improving automobile efficiency and lacking any oil savings goal. Tax credits for efficient cars that had long-standing bipartisan support were eroded to the point where hybrid technologies were rejected

• The bill raises the risk of nuclear proliferation by reversing a decades-old ban on reprocessing of spent fuel from commercial reactors.

• The reliability of the electricity grid remains in jeopardy as the bill fails to invest significantly in energy efficient technologies that can curb peak power demand.

• With deficits ballooning and dollars for domestic programs scarce, the bill adds over $50 billion of additional debt. The vast majority of the tax breaks are directed toward mature, polluting oil, coal, and nuclear technologies.

• taxpayers are further shortchanged by new “royalty relief” provisions which rob the federal treasury of money owed by companies making a profit from energy sources on public lands.

• The bill deals a devastating blow to the effort to contain the dangerous effects of global warming. After the United States walked away from the international negotiating table, the bill makes plain the administration’s rejection of any serious domestic investment in carbon reduction technologies and policies.

• The coal industry is given billions in new tax breaks without any requirement to improve air quality.

• Major threats to coasts and beaches were adopted, including a provision that opens the door to drilling offshore in states that are currently under drilling moratoria,

• Manufacturers of MTBE, an additive in gasoline, are granted liability relief for the contamination that has occurred in drinking water wells around the country. 

The Impact of Oil on Bush Policies

As consumers, economists and governments around the world wonder if oil supplies can keep pace with rising demand, production trends at the industry's publicly traded companies are not promising. Collectively, they paint a picture of an industry that has depleted nearly all of the world's easily exploited reserves outside the Middle East and that is now struggling to sustain production, much less increase it. ALEX BERENSON, NY Times, 6/12/04

The Age of Oil is coming to an end, and the future is precarious. So say two very different new books with very similar titles: David Goodstein's Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil and Paul Roberts' The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World. FRED BORTZ, Dallas Morning News, 6/11/04

One of the most important intelligence prizes today - especially after recent stories in major outlets like the New York Times reporting that Saudi oil production has peaked and gone into irreversible decline - would be to know of a certainty whether those reports are correct. The Saudis are denying it  . . .Shortly after the "surprise" Tenet-Pavitt resignations [from the CIA], current and former senior members of the U.S. intelligence community and the Justice Department told journalist Wayne Madsen, a former Naval intelligence officer, that they were directly connected to the criminal investigation of a 2003 White House leak that openly exposed Valerie Plame as an undercover CIA officer. What received less attention was that the leak also destroyed a long-term CIA proprietary intelligence gathering operation which, as we will see, was of immense importance to US strategic interests at a critical moment. . .  The leak was a vindictive retaliation for statements, reports and actions taken by Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, which had deeply embarrassed the Bush administration and exposed it to possible charges for impeachable offenses, including lying to the American people about an alleged (and totally unfounded) nuclear threat posed by Iraq's Saddam Hussein. . . .From the CIA's point of view, at a time when Saudi Arabia is one of the three or four countries of highest interest to the US, the Plame operation was irreplaceable. . .  .It is one of the greatest ironies of the Plame affair that the Bush administration, spawned and nurtured by oil, might have committed suicide by vindictively, cruelly and unthinkingly exacting personal retribution on an intelligence officer who had committed no offense, and who was, quite possibly, providing the administration with critical oil-related intelligence which the President needed to manage our shaky economy and affairs of state for a while longer to squeak through to re-election. Michael C. Ruppert, Wilderness Publications, 6/8/04

The Bush Dream*

the Bush administration’s dreams of remaking the Middle East are intimately connected to fulfilling the goals of its National Energy Strategy (not to mention those of its friends in the oil business) to gain control of more sources of foreign oil. This goal is in turn related to a military strategy requiring new foreign military bases and new interventions to secure those supplies. Beyond this strategy’s poor record thus far in Iraq, it is a loser on many other fronts. Begin with the fact that every year the world uses four times as much oil as it finds—the supply is running out. The world has no other choice but to shift its sights to other energy sources.  Foreign Policy Institute, January 2004

Bush and Free Markets

Terming the bill stupid, Robert McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice, a group with labor backing, questioned the logic of the legislation.

"Don't we believe in markets anymore?" Mr. McIntyre asked. "What are we doing with this bill? Are we cutting prices for energy so we use more of it? Do we need to cut taxes for oil companies because oilmen are inherently lethargic and can't work to pay taxes? No. This bill is just political payoffs to people who make contributions."

Public Citizen, Ralph Nader's consumer advocacy group in Washington, warned that the legislation could result in more Enron-style scandals because it would repeal the Public Utility Holding Company Act, which restricts ownership of utility assets to protect them from being drained by speculators.  DAVID CAY JOHNSTON, NY Times, 11/19/03

Bush Leaves No Lobbyist Behind*

President Bush seems to have been the recipient of poor intelligence again. Last weekend, he claimed that the energy bill approved by Republican leaders would make the country "more secure." Senator John McCain's description of the bill as a "leave no lobbyist behind" barrel of pork for selected industries and campaign contributors was closer to the truth. So was Senator Robert Byrd's unsparing judgment that the bill would "do about as much to improve the nation's energy security as the administration's invasion of Iraq has done to stem the tide of global terrorism."

One can only hope for a similar show of honesty from 39 of their Senate colleagues, 41 being the minimum needed to sustain a filibuster and launch this dreadful bill into the legislative netherworld where it belongs.  NY Times Editorial 11/18/03

Costanzo.org Exclusive:

 A Simple Answer to Why We are in Iraq

Data buried in the April 2004 "International Energy Outlook" from the Energy Information Administration Office of Integrated Analysis and Forecasting U.S. Department of Energy,  (available at  ftp://ftp.eia.doe.gov/pub/pdf/international/0484(2004).pdf), provides some clues about why the NeoCons want to build a global U.S. empire and why we have lost over 800 U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

The answer is that there is a growing projected world oil shortage.  Not only are Americans buying 350 horsepower 2 ton vehicles, but the populations of China and India are beginning to want more energy too.  The result is that the demand for oil is growing rapidly.

Given the average production estimates presented in the DOE report and a high-consumption model of demand there will be an increasingly large oil shortage.  The potential for monopoly profits for those controlling the oil supply is huge while the potential for manipulation of other countries and corporations is frightening.

The DOE report is full of data, but it is not easy to find the answer to the simple questions, How much oil is there and how fast are we using it?  Nevertheless, the data are provided to make the situation very clear.  Figure 1 shows the growing shortage of supply between now and 2025.

Figure 1

Figure 2 shows that we will have used up nearly 30% of all proven, "growing" and undiscovered oil reserves in the next 20 years.  Given that the oil easiest to extract, and thereby the cheapest oil is used first, the cost to produce oil will increase and prices and profits will soar.

Figure 2

READ: It's the Oil Stupid!

Here are some interesting facts about oil.

• According to the Department of Energy, the potential for the Caspian Pipeline that ideally would go through Afghanistan has the largest potential (Currently: 565,000-bbl/d; Planned: 1.34-million bbl/d (by 2015)) of any project in the world.

• Proposed pipelines for the Caspian Sea oil and gas had been hindered by the political instability of the region. From Nagorno-Karabakh, the ethnically steaming enclave between Azerbaijan and Arminia, to Mazar Al-Shareef, the capital of the Taliban’s rivals in northern Afganistan, and through the war-ravaged Chechen capital Grozny, conflicts and wars have chattered the hope of every dreaming enterpreneur to find the best, fastest, and safest route on the pipelines checkerboard.

• To increase Baku-Ceyhan’s chances the U.S. opposes any pipeline going through Russia or Iran. That has thrown the two old enemies together—surely an unintended consequence of a U.S. policy driven by Israel.  Report from June 2001.

• Islamabad, August 2, 2001 - Acknowledging that the Taliban "appear to have effectively enforced a ban on poppy cultivation" in the areas under its control, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Christina B. Rocca, announced in response "a $1.5 million U.S. pledge to the United Nations Drug Control Program's Short Term Assistance Project to sustain the ban on poppy cultivation in Nangarhar province in Afghanistan."  In a meeting with a group of senior journalists in Islamabad on Thursday, Ms Rocca said that " the area under cultivation has been reduced dramatically." She welcomed the Taliban's enforcement of the ban, and expressed the hope that it will be sustained, noting that "we provide our assistance to the people of Afghanistan, not to Afghanistan's warring factions."

• Even before September 11th, most Americans were well aware of the hostility that many Middle Eastern nations have for the U.S. Our experiences with Iran, Libya, Iraq, and now Afghanistan have understandably soured many Americans on the entire region. Indeed, the majority of anti-American sentiment in the post-Cold War era originates in the Middle East. What many Americans don't realize, however, is the extent to which their own foreign aid tax dollars are spent funding our current and future enemies in the region.  We should recognize that American tax dollars helped to create the very Taliban government that now wants to destroy us. In the late 1970s and early 80s, the CIA was very involved in the training and funding of various fundamentalist Islamic groups in Afghanistan, some of which later became today's brutal Taliban government. In fact, the U.S. government admits to giving the groups at least 6 billion dollars in military aid and weaponry, a staggering sum that would be even larger in today's dollars.
   

• Bin Laden himself received training and weapons from the CIA, and that agency's military and financial assistance helped the Afghan rebels build a set of encampments around the city of Khost. Tragically, those same camps became terrorist training facilities for Bin Laden, who uses some of the same soldiers our military once trained as lieutenants in his sickening terrorist network. Our heroic pilots are now busy bombing the same camps we paid to build, all the while threatened by the same Stinger missiles originally supplied by our CIA. Once again, the stark result of our foreign aid, however well-intentioned, was the arming and training of forces that later become our enemy.   Our foolish funding of Afghan terrorists hardly ended in the 1980s, however. Millions of your tax dollars continue to pour into Afghanistan even today. Our government publicly supported the Taliban right up until September 11. Already in 2001 the U.S. has provided $125 million in so-called humanitarian aid to the country, making us the world's single largest donor to Afghanistan. Rest assured the money went straight to the Taliban, and not to the impoverished, starving residents that make up most of the population. Do we really expect a government as intolerant and anti-west as the Taliban to use our foreign aid for humane purposes? If so, we are incredibly naive; if not, we foolishly have been seeking to influence a government that regards America as an enemy.

SEE ALSO:  NEWS on Bush, Oil and Electricity