In the last month, whole forests have been felled to produce endless reportage on, speculation over, war plans for an Iraqi invasion. Yet more forests have been needed for presidential denunciations of Saddam, on endless inspection trips around Iraq looking for weapons of mass destruction, on stories about Iraq’s hidden WMD capacity, on Al Qaeda linkages, UN disagreements, military mobilizations of every sort, and even modest accounts of demonstrations against a future war and opposition in Europe to US policy. What’s wrong with this picture — as they used to say in my childhood of those drawings in which five-legged cows floated through the clouds? How about oil for a starter. Has anybody noticed how little coverage there has been of the issue of oil (other than, from time to time, denials that the war had much or anything to do with the liquid gold on which Iraq more or less floats, the thing that makes our civilization hum? The odd minor piece maybe, but little more. This would make sense if we were planning to invade Nepal, or strike a blow at North Korea. But Iraq? I simply want to indicate below that this is not normal. This is not journalism. You have to be blind not to cover oil when it’s Iraq that’s being invaded. And the truth is, if you look elsewhere in the world, oil stories — balanced, reasonable, newsworthy oil stories — are a perfectly normal part of the larger Iraqi tale.
This weekend, for instance, the British Sunday Observer had three significant oil stories: Faisal Islam, their economics correspondent, wrote a short but striking piece, “War ‘would mean biggest oil shock ever'” that began, “The world will suffer a bigger oil crisis than that during the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1973 if the US declares war on Iraq, according to leading US investment bank Goldman Sachs.” To read Islam’s piece click here; In a second piece, “The economic consequences of war,” Liberal Democrat member of Parliament,” trade spokesman and former Shell Chief Economist Vincent Cable warns that an attack on Saddam could play havoc with oil prices and create global recession.” Cable suggests, in part, in a long, fascinating piece:
“Any strategy based on the hope of Iraq opening up an era of cheap and abundant long term supplies of oil, insulated from the House of Al Saud, is simply an illusion. If a war is successful in making new supplies available and driving down the price, this will, in the long term, make the oil consuming world even more dependent on low cost Gulf supplies.” He argues that we are already in a “fourth oil shock” and that “regime change” in Iraq could mean the subsequent fall of the neighboring House of Saud with disastrous consequences in the oil markets. “There is a plausible scenario in which a successful war, and the prospect of very low oil prices in the wake of rapidly expanding Iraqi production, brings about a weakening or even collapse of the Saudi regime and a threat to its production. This would then bring us back to something like the conditions in 1979-80, with the consequence of a world recession. Even if Saddam is defeated, he may still have a nasty – economic – sting in his tail.” To read Cable’s piece click here Lastly, two members of Friends of the Earth wrote a piece on “What will happen to Iraq’s oil,” included below. Where are the former oil economists writing here?
Finally, the same weekend, Asia Times had a fine piece on a hidden oil story in any future Iraqi war: who will control Kirkuk’s oil, the Turks, the Kurds, or a new regime in Baghdad? Take a look, but also remember that oil is simply not a part of the mix in American reporting of the Iraq story. It’s as if our cars, trucks, and SUVs ran on magic. Tom
Kirkuk: Mad race for a 10bn-barrel prize
By Ian Urbina
Asia Times
February 1, 2003There has been a lot of speculation about the potential for bloody house-to-house fighting that could ensue in Baghdad in the event of an American invasion. Over the past several weeks, many within Washington’s military circles have argued over whether the best approach would be to blitz the city with overwhelming force prefaced by heavy aerial bombing, or whether instead to encircle the city and strangle it into submission by way of tank-patrolled quarantine. Either scenario would likely entail severe civilian loss and dire humanitarian consequences, and both run the risk of a rash response from the most loyal of the Iraqi forces as they are backed into a corner.
However, in the short and long run Baghdad may not be the city of greatest unpredictability in any US campaign. One of the potentially hottest spots could be the northern oil-rich and historically controversial city of Kirkuk.
There has been a lot of speculation about the potential for bloody house-to-house fighting that could ensue in Baghdad in the event of an American invasion. Over the past several weeks, many within Washington’s military circles have argued over whether the best approach would be to blitz the city with overwhelming force prefaced by heavy aerial bombing, or whether instead to encircle the city and strangle it into submission by way of tank-patrolled quarantine. Either scenario would likely entail severe civilian loss and dire humanitarian consequences, and both run the risk of a rash response from the most loyal of the Iraqi forces as they are backed into a corner.
However, in the short and long run Baghdad may not be the city of greatest unpredictability in any US campaign. One of the potentially hottest spots could be the northern oil-rich and historically controversial city of Kirkuk.
To read more of this Asia Times piece click here
What will happen to Iraq’s oil?
By Duncan McLaren and Ian Willmore
February 2, 2003
The ObserverThe US and Britain are now on the verge of war with Iraq. The pretext for war is to prevent Iraq making ‘weapons of mass destruction’ and to destroy any stocks of such weapons it already possesses. But many commentators allege that another US aim is to open up Iraq’s vast oil reserves for exploitation. What happens next in this crisis may determine what happens to Iraq’s oil, where it goes and who makes the resulting profits.
Iraq has the second largest proven oil reserves of any nation – at least 112 billion barrels, along with 220 billion barrels of probable and possible resources, and large remaining unexplored areas.
Duncan McLaren and Ian Willmore work for Friends of the Earth.
To read more of McLaren and Willmore click here