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   From: oO@oO.com   
      
   Bush Didn't Bungle Iraq, You Fools   
   THE MISSION WAS INDEED ACCCOMPLISHED   
   The Guardian   
   Monday, March 20, 2006   
   by Greg Palast   
      
   Get off it. All the carping, belly-aching and complaining about George   
   Bush's incompetence in Iraq, from both the Left and now the Right, is just   
   dead wrong.   
      
   On the third anniversary of the tanks rolling over Iraq's border, most of   
   the 59 million Homer Simpsons who voted for Bush are beginning to doubt if   
   his mission was accomplished.   
      
   But don't kid yourself -- Bush and his co-conspirator, Dick Cheney,   
   accomplished exactly what they set out to do. In case you've forgotten what   
   their real mission was, let me remind you of White House spokesman Ari   
   Fleisher's original announcement, three years ago, launching of what he   
   called,   
      
   "Operation   
      
   Iraqi   
      
   Liberation."   
      
   O.I.L. How droll of them, how cute. Then, Karl Rove made the giggling boys   
   in the White House change it to "OIF" -- Operation Iraqi Freedom. But the   
   101st Airborne wasn't sent to Basra to get its hands on Iraq's OIF.   
      
   "It's about oil," Robert Ebel told me. Who is Ebel? Formerly the CIA's top   
   oil analyst, he was sent by the Pentagon, about a month before the invasion,   
   to a secret confab in London with Saddam's former oil minister to finalize   
   the plans for "liberating" Iraq's oil industry. In London, Bush's emissary   
   Ebel also instructed Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, the man the Pentagon would choose   
   as post-OIF oil minister for Iraq, on the correct method of disposing Iraq's   
   crude.   
      
   And what did the USA want Iraq to do with Iraq's oil? The answer will   
   surprise many of you: and it is uglier, more twisted, devilish and devious   
   than anything imagined by the most conspiracy-addicted blogger. The answer   
   can be found in a 323-page plan for Iraq's oil secretly drafted by the State   
   Department. Our team got a hold of a copy; how, doesn't matter. The key   
   thing is what's inside this thick Bush diktat: a directive to Iraqis to   
   maintain a state oil company that will "enhance its relationship with OPEC."   
      
   Enhance its relationship with OPEC??? How strange: the government of the   
   United States ordering Iraq to support the very OPEC oil cartel which is   
   strangling our nation with outrageously high prices for crude.   
      
   Specifically, the system ordered up by the Bush cabal would keep a lid on   
   Iraq's oil production -- limiting Iraq's oil pumping to the tight quota set   
   by Saudi Arabia and the OPEC cartel.   
      
   There you have it. Yes, Bush went in for the oil -- not to get more of   
   Iraq's oil, but to prevent Iraq producing too much of it.   
      
   You must keep in mind who paid for George's ranch and Dick's bunker: Big   
   Oil. And Big Oil -- and their buck-buddies, the Saudis -- don't make money   
   from pumping more oil, but from pumping less of it. The lower the supply,   
   the higher the price.   
      
   It's Economics 101. The oil industry is run by a cartel, OPEC, and what   
   economists call an "oligopoly" -- a tiny handful of operators who make more   
   money when there's less oil, not more of it. So, every time the "insurgents"   
   blow up a pipeline in Basra, every time Mad Mahmoud in Tehran threatens to   
   cut supply, the price of oil leaps. And Dick and George just love it.   
      
   Dick and George didn't want more oil from Iraq, they wanted less. I know   
   some of you, no matter what I write, insist that our President and his Veep   
   are on the hunt for more crude so you can cheaply fill your family Hummer;   
   that somehow, these two oil-patch babies are concerned that the price of gas   
   in the USA is bumping up to $3 a gallon.   
      
   Not so, gentle souls. Three bucks a gallon in the States (and a quid a litre   
   in Britain) means colossal profits for Big Oil, and that makes Dick's ticker   
   go pitty-pat with joy. The top oily-gopolists, the five largest oil   
   companies, pulled in $113 billion in profit in 2005 -- compared to a piddly   
   $34 billion in 2002 before Operation Iraqi Liberation. In other words, it's   
   been a good war for Big Oil.   
      
   As per Plan Bush, Bahr Al-Ulum became Iraq's occupation oil minister; the   
   conquered nation "enhanced its relationship with OPEC;" and the price of   
   oil, from Clinton peace-time to Bush war-time, shot up 317%.   
      
   In other words, on the third anniversary of invasion, we can say the attack   
   and occupation is, indeed, a Mission Accomplished. However, it wasn't   
   America's mission, nor the Iraqis'. It was a Mission Accomplished for OPEC   
   and Big Oil.   
      
   **********   
   On June 6, Penguin Dutton will release Greg Palast's new book, Armed   
   Madhouse: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War. Order it here   
   today. View his investigative reports for Harper's Magazine and BBC   
   television's Newsnight at www.GregPalast.com.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)