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"In a recently released investigative report from the Institute for Policy Studies entitled Crude Vision: How Oil Interests Obscured U.S. Government Focus On Chemical Weapons Use by Saddam Hussein
, researchers Jim Vallette, Steve Kretzmann, and Daphne Wysham detail the real reason Donald Rumsfeld was sent to Baghdad: Rumsfeld, under direct instructions from the White House, was there to convince Saddam Hussein to approve a highly lucrative, and highly secret, oil pipeline project from Iraq to Jordan.
Examining recently released government and corporate sources, the researchers document how a close-knit group of high-ranking U.S. officials worked in secrecy for two years attempting to secure the billion dollar pipeline scheme for the Bechtel corporation. The Bush/Cheney administration now eyes Bechtel as a primary contractor for the rebuilding of Iraq’s infrastructure.
Bechtel’s pipeline would have carried a million barrels of Iraqi crude oil a day through Jordan to the Red Sea port of Aqaba.
What happened to the pipeline deal? What trade-offs were made? Who were the players? How did Israel fit into the scheme? What impact did it have on current U.S. policy?".....
It gets better...