Go to Canada for the Truth - O.I.L.

[TomClash]

There's something almost obscene about a map that was studied by senior Bush administration officials and a select group of oil company executives meeting in secret in the spring of 2001. It doesn't show the kind of detail normally shown on maps — cities, towns, regions. Rather its detail is all about Iraq's oil.

The southwest is neatly divided, for instance, into nine "Exploration Blocks." Stripped of political trappings, this map shows a naked Iraq, with only its ample natural assets in view. It's like a supermarket meat chart, which identifies the various parts of a slab of beef so customers can see the most desirable cuts .... Block 1 might be the striploin, Block 2 and Block 3 are perhaps some juicy tenderloin, but Block 8 — ahh, that could be the filet mignon.

The map might seem crass, but it was never meant for public consumption. It was one of the documents studied by the ultra-secretive task force on energy, headed by U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney, and it was only released under court order after a long legal battle waged by the public interest group Judicial Watch.

Another interesting task force document, also released under court order over the opposition of the Bush administration, was a two-page chart titled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfields." It identifies 63 oil companies from 30 countries and specifies which Iraqi oil fields each company is interested in and the status of the company's negotiations with Saddam Hussein's regime. Among the companies are Royal Dutch/Shell of the Netherlands, Russia's Lukoil and France's Total Elf Aquitaine, which was identified as being interested in the fabulous, 25-billion-barrrel Majnoon oil field. Baghdad had "agreed in principle" to the French company's plans to develop this succulent slab of Iraq. There goes the filet mignon into the mouths of the French!

The documents have attracted surprisingly little attention, despite their possible relevance to the question of Washington's motives for its invasion of Iraq — in many ways the defining event of the post-9/11 world but one whose purpose remains shrouded in mystery. Even after the supposed motives for the invasion — weapons of mass destruction and links to Al Qaeda — have been thoroughly discredited, talk of oil as a motive is still greeted with derision. Certainly any suggestion that private oil interests were in any way involved is hooted down with charges of conspiracy theory.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1095545411401&call_pageid=968332188854&col=9683500607

[dumpster_baby]

1. WOW! If only the supine media would treat this as the scandal it is....n/t

[htuttle]

2. Oh yes, I remember this

I downloaded copies of all the maps and documents at the time.

This is a great line about them:
"It's like a supermarket meat chart, which identifies the various parts of a slab of beef so customers can see the most desirable cuts ...."

[ILeft]

3. I suspect many Americans understand this, but don't admit it

Of course there are the idiots who say, "kill'm all and take the damn oil," but I think Bush-Cheney, Inc. have scared many American people into a shameful, unspoken complicity in all this ugliness.

People know it's not about saving Iraqis or bringing Democracy to Iraq (we're killing them and pillaging their country, as any fool can see). They just don't want to hear it said out loud.