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Edited on Sat Dec-09-06 03:21 PM by DaveT
most people forget that the history of the oil business is one long tale of clever oil men trying to limit production to keep the price up. The oil in the ground in Iraq is not going anywhere and the notion of fighting a war to get "control" of it is a grotesque oversimplification.
There is a global cartel (or, if you are fastidious about terms, a global oligopoly) that controls the refining, distribution and marketing of oil. Neither Hugo Chavez nor any other local political leader can evade this reality -- all that can be done is to shave a few percentage points off the margin that goes to everybody else on the Gravy Train. I'm sure that there are plenty of guys who would kill or start a war for those few points, but the problem with that line of thinking is that it explains a theoretical war against Venezuela, but it explains nothing about what has happened in Iraq.
There was never any major beef with Saddam Hussein over the split on oil profits. If you will recall that picture of Rummy kissing up to him cerca 1983 (or so), it is clear that he was a favored local potentate who took his share of the profit and made war against Iran with it -- a doubly happy result for the oil cartel, helping restrict production and thereby supporting the global price for oil.
I have read one plausible conspiracy theory that he was threatening to sell Iraqi oil in Euros or some other currency, and that supposedly is why the Bush Family Business got so steamed up for Regime Change. The problem with this, however, is that Saddam was on the Hit List all during the Clinton Interregnum, and the Shrub Government seriously debated invading Iraq before Afghanistan.
I submit that the Oil Angle on this criminal enterprise is mainly to keep Iraqi oil in the ground for as long as possible. If a Bremer Plan or a Baker Plan can "open up" the state owned Iraqi Oil Industry for "private" investment, so much the better. But I don't think that the war was arranged for that purpose.
The profits already banked by the Halliburton/war contractors ring far exceeds the money that "owning" the oil in the ground in Iraq would generate. Remember, the oil profit equation is not how much all that Iraqi oil will fetch at the retail level -- it is how much more owning the wells adds to the profit already guaranteed at every other level of the distribution system. And the opportunity cost of security in Iraq has so far exceeded any possible benefit to come from "owning" the wells. And is likely to remain a prohibitive burden on further development of Iraqi oil for the forseeable future.
No, the petrocrooks are taking advantage of the situation nicely, as the global price for oil has climbed during the war.
But it is Dick Cheney and his war contracting sponsors who created this disaster. And the longer the disaster goes on, the more money they make.
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