NP? nothing to do with oil, no sir!

[Doug Millison]

"Oil is emerging as the key factor in US attempts to
secure the support of Russia and France for military
action against Iraq, according to an Observer
investigation. 

The Bush administration, intimately entwined with the
global oil industry, is keen to pounce on Iraq's
massive untapped reserves, the second biggest in the
world after Saudi Arabia's. But France and Russia, who
hold a power of veto on the UN Security Council, have
billion-dollar contracts with Baghdad, which they fear
will disappear in 'an oil grab by Washington', if
America installs a successor to Saddam. [...]

Washington's predatory interest in Iraqi oil is clear,
whatever its political protestations about its motives
for war. The US National Energy Policy Report of 2001
- known as the 'Cheney Report' after its author Vice
President Dick Cheney, formerly one of America's
richest and most powerful oil industry magnates -
demanded a priority on easing US access to Persian
Gulf supplies. [...]

Russia recognises potential benefits of reaching a
deal with the US: Saddam's regime is difficult to work
with. Lukoil's billion-dollar concessions are frozen
and profitless to Moscow and Baghdad under UN
sanctions, leading to fears that Saddam might have
declared the agreement null and void out of spite.
Iraqi diplomats say Zarubezhneft won its $90bn
contract only after Baghdad took it away from
TotalFinaElf because of French support for sanctions. 

Russia stands to profit if intervention in the Gulf
triggers a hike in Middle East oil prices, as its
firms are lobbying to sell millions of barrels a day
to the US, at two-thirds of the current market price.
[...] 

read it all at
http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,805530,00.html


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