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Instead the FCM agreed that the "preemptive war" was needed to protect Americans from Iraq's WMD and stop Saddam Hussein's collaboration with Osama bin Laden -- even if there were no WMD stockpiles and there was no collaboration.
The war's defenders also sprinkled in some noble sentiments about advancing human rights and spreading democracy. If the "no blood for oil" argument was mentioned, it was put on a tee so it could be easily swatted away by the Bush administration.
For instance, on Dec. 15, 2002, "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Croft asked then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, "What do you say to people who think this [the coming invasion of Iraq] is about oil?" Rumsfeld replied:
"Nonsense. It just isn't. There -- there -- are certain ... things like that, myths that are floating around. I'm glad you asked it. I -- it has nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil."
Gee, what kind of person would suggest that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney might take the country to war with so much as a thought in their heads about locking down control of Iraq's vast oil reserves?
Cheney, of course, understood the geopolitical importance of oil before he joined Bush in running for the White House. As CEO of Halliburton in autumn 1999, Cheney had observed that:
"Oil companies are expected to keep developing enough oil to offset oil depletion and also to meet new demand. So where is the oil going to come from?"Governments and the national oil companies are obviously in control of 90 percent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies."
Since the Iraq invasion, several Washington insiders have blurted out the suppressed Realpolitik about the strategic value of oil.
As early as May 2003 (in the heady days of "Mission Accomplished"), then Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz nonchalantly responded to a question about why Bush attacked Iraq, but not North Korea, by noting that Iraq "floats on a sea of oil."
At that early stage, Wolfowitz apparently still thought the Iraq war would be the "cakewalk" predicted by his neoconservative colleague Kenneth Adelman. With the war supposedly won -- and with Americans famously tolerant of the behavior of winners -- Wolfowitz might have thought some candor wouldn't raise many eyebrows.
At that point, the Bush team still harbored hope that convicted felon/conman extraordinaire Ahmed Chalabi could be put in power in Baghdad, open the door to Western oil companies, and -- not incidentally -- recognize Israel.
Wolfowitz, Adelman, and the neoconservative crowd would have been wiser to temper their hubris with a smidgeon of common sense. The notion that Chalabi had, or could garner, a significant following in Iraq was a pipe dream.
The State Department conducted a poll of Iraqis in 2003, finding Chalabi to be the only listed political leader whose unfavorable ratings exceeded his favorable ones. And small wonder. Chalabi and his wealthy family had left Iraq in 1956.
(As a benchmark for those who might remember, 1956 was two years before the New York Giants baseball team broke my heart by leaving the Polo Grounds and moving to San Francisco.)
Despite Chalabi's lack of Iraqi roots, the neoconservative movers and shakers in Washington and Baghdad still helped get him appointed in 2005 as Deputy Prime Minister and Chair of the Iraq Energy Council, which directed Iraqi oil policy. Chalabi was also in and out as acting Oil Minister.
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