Palast: Rumsfeld troubles due to differences in oil strategy with Baker

Palast was interviewed on the KPFT show 'Sunday Monitor' tonight. He suggested that Rumsfeld was being 'hung out there' right now in part because Baker (and Cheney?) were angry that Rummy had been pursuing an alternate plan for Iraqi oil. Rummy planned on opening the spigot in Iraq full-force, splitting with OPEC; Baker/Cheney in collaboration with Saudi Arabia planned on privatizing Iraqi oil but keeping it under the tight control (& limits) of OPEC.

I'll post a link when and if it becomes available.

On edit: Sorry this isn't more detailed, perhaps not worthy of a thread without backup, but just putting it out there for anyone who's interested. It's encouraging to hear of splits in the White House for any reason..

but the implication that the "only" reason Rumsfeld is in trouble is due to a disagreement with his mob pals is disgusting.

What about the torture, guys? Could that possibly be the reason that Rumsfeld is "being hung out there" right now?

Post the link when you've got one.

what? did Baker and Cheny plant the pics?

It makes sense that these weasels all secretly hate
each other, but what is going on now is not good for
any of them, and there is no issue about how much oil
they are going to pump unless they can retain control
of Iraq, so that would be the primary focus now.

Actually this is harmonious with pre 9/11 intimations(they have been pretty good guides despite the vagueness) that oldster Rumsfeld was not part of the inner inner circle. At the time the Cheney mob was still sparring with all others whether they were doing their job for the oil agenda or not. Rumsfeld is an authoritarian maniac too. If he got blown away with the Pentagon it might not have been such a great loss to the true team.

But after his success in Afghanistan he achieved star status and everything was go for Iraq. None of those schmoes had a good plan for robbing Iraq after the war, but Rummy was still the entrenched war god.

He was always expendable. The better his built up legitimacy, the bigger the wall he could be to hide behind, but they do not intend to give him up easily.

The other use for Rummy is the 'transformation" of the military. That is more for the second term and he has been too much the bad cop. Probably get someone more congenial to build the rest of the Frankenstein Wehrmacht push button privatized virtual armies wielding nukes. And not make an issue of himself in the promulgation of more war.

... more evidence that the DoD is running the show in Iraq, and the State Department doesn't like that situation one bit. And, this would also prove that the invasion was about oil, after all. The general Iraqi populace won't like having their suspicions confirmed.

But, from the reports, "opening up the spigot" in Iraq is not going to have much of an effect on the world oil market--the amount of oil leaving Iraq, under the best of circumstances, is pitifully low and as long as Iraqis keep blowing up pipelines, Iraqi oil will not have much effect on spot market prices.

Am I surprised that there's some collusion with SA and other Gulf OPEC nations? Not a bit--the oil companies' profits are at record levels--they're loving all this chaos and confusion.

That also means that many Saudi Arabian princes can continue to live as opulently as they have in the past--there have been periodic reports that many of the Saudi royal family have been living beyond their means, and their fortunes have been dwindling. High oil prices not only offset and delay those effects, it also gives them some incentive to invest in American debt, which Baker has, no doubt, been coercing them to do.

There's a very good reason apart from principle for Cheney not wanting the energy task force papers released. This might be part of that reason.

Funny how much this government seems more like the Mafia than it does the beacon of democracy it claims to be.

I can see differences between PNACers and Powell and PNACers and Tenet, but not between PNACers which includes Cheney and Rumsfeld, the way I see it.

If there is some kind of temporary retreat or face saving strategy, I could see the they might have some differences of opinion, but their goals and objectives are not going to go away, ever. Younger imperial strategists will take the places of the gray-haired ones if they experience too much delay.