War Crimes Charges Anyone?: New Exposé of Big Oil’s Role in the Iraq War

By James Ridgeway

   When it was  suggested the war in Iraq was about oil, Tony Blair,then the British prime minister, had this to say on February 6,2003:

     “Let me just deal with the oil thing because… the oil conspiracy theory is honestly one of the most absurd when you analyse it. The fact is that, if the oil that Iraq has were our concern, I mean we could probably cut a deal with Saddam tomorrow in relation to the oil. It’s not the oil that is the issue, it is the weapons…”

  In fact, as I and numerous others, have reported on many occasions before,during and after the war, oil was a principal if not the principal reason, for going to war. The reason for thinking this comes from any reading of oil history in the Middle East. The  modern industry began in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), which today probably boasts the largest reserves in the world. Current knowledge of oil and the war in large part comes from  the work of a  researcher in the UK named Greg Muttitt. Among other things, Muttitt has had close contacts with the Iraq oil workers union. Now Muttitt has written a book–released in Britain and India this week, called Fuel on the Fire–that makes crystal clear  the role of big oil. His research had turned up hundreds of pages of heretofore secret documents and is further backed up by interviews with executives of the international oil companies.

    This book ought to rekindle interest in the secret meetings held on Bush energy policy by Dick Cheney, and its revelations about the British fears of France,may well provide clues to underlying factors in today’s fighting in Libya.More about that later...

For the rest of this article by JAMES RIDGEWAY in ThisCantBeHappening!, the new independent alternative online newspaper, please go to: ThisCantBeHappening!