GI Special 4F19: Blood For No Oil (2) - June 21, 2006

Thomas F. Barton

Did the U.S. invade Iraq to tap its oil reserves or to make sure they stayed under the sand?
World oil production today stands at more than twice the 15-billion a-year maximum projected by Shell Oil in 1956 -- and reserves are climbing at a faster clip yet. That leaves the question,

Why this war?

Did Dick Cheney send us in to seize the last dwindling supplies? Unlikely. Our world's petroleum reserves have doubled in just twenty-five years -- and it is in Shell's and the rest of the industry's interest that this doubling doesn't happen again.

The neo-cons were hell-bent on raising Iraq's oil production.

Big Oil's interest was in suppressing production, that is, keeping Iraq to its OPEC quota or less.
This raises the question, did the petroleum industry, which had a direct, if hidden, hand, in promoting invasion, cheerlead for a takeover of Iraq to prevent overproduction?

It wouldn't be the first time.

continua / continued