Psychologists Weigh In On 9/11

[Jan Klimkowski]

British Prime Minister Tony Blair refused to allow any public debate over whether oil was part of the rationale for the Iraq War, silencing all discussion by declaring such a view a "conspiracy theory".

MSM took their cue, and refused to discuss the issue.

Wiki's chronology is fairly accurate:

Oil not a factor in the Iraq war
Tony Blair stated the theory the Iraq invasion was "somehow to do with oil" was a "conspiracy theory"; "Let me first deal with the conspiracy theory that this is somehow to do with oil...The very reason why we are taking the action that we are taking is nothing to do with oil or any of the other conspiracy theories put forward."[90]

Then Australian Prime Minister John Howard has dismissed on multiple occasions the role of oil in the Iraq Invasion: "We didn't go there because of oil and we don't remain there because of oil."[91] In early 2003 John Howard stated, "No criticism is more outrageous than the claim that United States behaviour is driven by a wish to take control of Iraq's oil reserves."[92]

2008 Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain was forced to clarify his comments suggesting the Iraq war involved U.S. reliance on foreign oil. "My friends, I will have an energy policy that we will be talking about, which will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East that will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East," McCain said. To clarify his comments, McCain explained that "the word `again' was misconstrued, I want us to remove our dependency on foreign oil for national security reasons, and that's all I mean."[93]


Oil a factor in the Iraq war
In April 2001, President George W. Bush's Cabinet agreed to use military intervention in Iraq because it was considered a destabilizing influence to the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East.[94] Neoconservatives in the U.S. called for the sell-off of all of Iraq's oil fields and planned for a coup d'etat long before the September 11th attacks, hoping a new government would use "Iraq's oil to destroy the OPEC cartel through massive increases in production above OPEC quotas." Those plans were abandoned shortly after the invasion because former Shell Oil Company CEO Philip Carroll, who had been charged with their implementation, refused to be involved with Iraqi oil industry privatization since it could have led to the exclusion of U.S. firms,[95][96] unlike the state-run oil ministry.[97] U.S. oil industry consultant Falah Aljibury alleged that soon after Bush took office in 2001, he took part in secret meetings in Washington, the Middle East, and California involving an overthrow of the Iraq regime. Aljibury told BBC's Newsnight that he "interviewed potential successors to Saddam Hussein on behalf of the Bush administration."[98]

In July 2003, Polish Foreign Minister, Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, said "We have never hidden our desire for Polish oil companies to finally have access to sources of commodities." This remark came after a group of Polish firms had just signed a deal with Kellogg, Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton. Cimoszewicz stated that access to Iraq's oilfields "is our ultimate objective".[99]

In an August 30 2005 speech, Bush stated a role of the occupation of Iraq was to prevent oil fields from falling into hands of terrorists: “If Zarqawi and bin Laden gain control of Iraq, they would create a new training ground for future terrorist attacks. They’d seize oil fields to fund their ambitions.”[100][101]

Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said in an interview that the removal of Saddam Hussein had been "essential" to secure world oil supplies, a point he emphasized to the White House in private conversations before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.[102] Additionally, in his memoir, Mr. Greenspan writes: "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."[103] However, a Bush Administration foreign policy critic Dr. Robert Jervis stated: "Indeed, it is quite likely that failure [in Iraq] will lead the most common explanation to be that the war was fought for oil and Israel. This would be unfortunate." [104] The invasion was initially called Operation Iraqi Liberation[105] until the acronym OIL was noticed and it was changed to Operation Iraqi Freedom.

One report by BBC journalist Gregory Palast citing unnamed "insiders" alleged that the US "called for the sell-off of all of Iraq's oil fields"[106] and planned for a coup d'état in Iraq began long before September 11. [106] It was also alleged by BBC's Greg Palast that the "new plan was crafted by neo-conservatives intent on using Iraq's oil to destroy the OPEC cartel through massive increases in production above OPEC quotas",[106] but in reality Iraq oil production decreased with the neoconservative strategy and had the opposite effect.[107]

Many critics have focused upon administration officials past relationship with energy sector corporations. Both the President and Vice President were formerly CEOs of oil and oil-related companies such as Arbusto, Harken Energy, Spectrum 7, and Halliburton. Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq and even before the War on Terror, the administration had prompted anxiety over whether the private sector ties of cabinet members (including National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, former director of Chevron, and Commerce Secretary Donald Evans, former head of Tom Brown Inc.) would affect their judgment on energy policy.[108] None of these officials however were in a position to benefit from energy policy decisions; all of the relationships had been severed before taking office.

In July 2007, then Australian Defence Minister, Brendan Nelson stated that oil was a major factor in the government's decision to keep troops in Iraq:

"Obviously the Middle East itself, not only Iraq, but the entire region, is an important supplier of energy, oil in particular, to the rest of the world. And Australians and all of us need to think well what would happen if there were a premature withdrawal from Iraq...One of the other priorities for us as we go forward into the future is energy security. It's not only for Australia. I think we derive about 20 per cent of our own oil reserves from the Middle East. But there are many countries, including developing countries, which rely substantially on energy supplies from the Middle East...For those reasons in particular, all of those reasons, one of which is energy security, it's extremely important that Australia take the view that it's in our interests, our security interests, to make sure that we leave the Middle East, and leave Iraq in particular, in a position of sustainable security."[92]

2008 Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin said "We are a nation at war and in many [ways] the reasons for war are fights over energy sources".[109]


Private oil business
Iraq holds the world's second-largest proven oil reserves, with increasing exploration expected to enlarge them beyond 200 billion barrels (3.2×1010 m3) of "high-grade crude, extraordinarily cheap to produce."[110] In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, Iraq contains 112 billion barrels (1.78×1010 m3) of proven oil reserves, along with roughly 220 billion barrels (3.5×1010 m3) of probable and possible resources. For comparison, Saudi Arabia--the largest source of oil in the world--has 260 billion barrels (4.1×1010 m3) of proven oil reserves.[111][112]

Organizations such as the Global Policy Forum (GPF) have asserted that Iraq's oil is "the central feature of the political landscape" there, and that as a result of the 2003 invasion,"'friendly' companies expect to gain most of the lucrative oil deals that will be worth hundreds of billions of dollars in profits in the coming decades." According to GPF, U.S. influence over the 2005 Constitution of Iraq has made sure it "contains language that guarantees a major role for foreign companies."[110][113]

Footnotes here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationale_f...e_Iraq_war