The fact that most reveals the true obscenity of Bush’s Iraq war is that Saddam’s biggest customers were the US oil companies. 

 

This blog is a rewrite of an article published last year in Texas, my home state.  I can only hope that the central fact in it ultimately reaches a wider audience.  The companies that eagerly consumed Saddam’s oil, after all, are some of Bush’s biggest donors and supporters.

 

On April 3, 2001, the State Department in the new Bush administration sent a letter to about 23 US oil companies.  The letter went out over the signature of Alan Larson, Undersecretary for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs:

 

            "I am writing to you and senior executives of several other US oil companies to urge that you take all necessary steps to ensure that any Iraqi-origin crude you acquire has not been tainted by the payment to Iraq of an illegal surcharge."

 

Note the wording here.  The taint is not dealing with Iraq:  the concern is not that US companies buy Iraqi oil, but that they might be paying too much:  "The United States government is very concerned about persistent reports in the oil trade press and elsewhere that the government of Iraq . . . are soliciting and receiving illegal surcharges from buyers of Iraqi crude oil."

 

The letter continues, "The composition of first-line buyers of Iraqi crude has changed from firms that are well known in the oil business to companies that are virtually unknown.  The first-line buyers resell the Iraqi crude they buy to traders and others.  This raises the possibility that better-known companies with long-standing reputations in the industry may not be fully aware of illegal payments being made in earlier transactions, but are inadvertently supporting such payments with their purchase of Iraqi trade."

 

"The United States is the largest consumer of Iraqi crude.  We have a major responsibility . ."  [Emphasis added]

 

US oil companies, of course, don’t pump and drill as much US oil as they buy and sell foreign oil; the easily accessible oil in this country is used up.  They resumed buying Iraqi oil the moment Bush entered the White House (London Times, January 23, 2001).  ExxonMobil actually made its decision to buy on December 28, 2000 – with the ink barely dry on Mr. Justice Scalia's rulings.

 

By April 2001, the Middle East Economic Survey was reporting that Iraq's March oil sales had rebounded to their level before the surcharge:  "most, if not all, international oil companies (IOCs) have withdrawn their reservations about being secondary buyers of Iraqi crude oil.  There is now more volume going to Europe than in January and February when over 90% of the crude went to the US." [MEES 44:14, 2 April 2001; emphasis added].

 

Iraq was our sixth-largest supplier in 2001 and our fifth-largest supplier in 2002.  US companies bought almost 90% of Iraqi oil in 2001.  Most Americans did not hear that in the drumbeating for war. 

 

Two of the biggest customers were Chevron (Condoleezza Rice’s former company) and Texaco.  Both companies continued buying from Saddam in the weeks after September 11, 2001.  The White House gave no sign of concern, despite its later insinuations that Iraq was somehow connected to 9/11.  Chevron and Texaco merged less than a month after 9/11; Iraq's exports were soaring by mid-November, again with no sign that the White House considered this any security breach.

 

If there were any basis to Bush’s claim that Iraq presented some special threat, then Chevron, with all its commerce with the regime, should have had internal knowledge of it. 

 

Cargoes of Iraqi oil, openly bought in several middleman nations, mostly ended up on the US Gulf Coast and California.  Some cargoes were sold to Chevron, BP, et al before reaching their destination, but many shipments went directly - so to speak - from the middlemen.  All of this commerce went on with the full knowledge and encouragement of the White House.

 

US companies also purchased Iraqi oil from third-party middlemen to deliver to Europe, a factoid that might resonate in the next energy crisis. 

 

The Bush White House, House Republicans, and Big Oil opposed any curtailment of Iraqi oil purchases.  When Saddam cut off supplies in spring 2002, there was plenty of not-at-all-disguised satisfaction when the embargo didn't work, i.e. when purchases could resume without serious "market disruption."  A month later, most of the oil was again going to the US.

 

Iraq transports millions of barrels of oil openly via pipeline through our ally Turkey, and tankers supplying US companies openly uplift huge Iraqi shipments at a Turkish port. 

 

But then, Vice President Cheney's former company Halliburton was the glue on the play for Saddam, for years.  Not much new there:  Halliburton, a huge oil field equipment and supply company, largely kept Iraq's oil sector going after two wars, an essential sector for Saddam since 95% of Iraq’s income came from oil.  Once again, the White House gave no sign of considering any of this a security breach.

 

Had there been any apocalyptic threat posed by Saddam Hussein, the US oil industry, and especially Chevron’s Condoleeza Rice and Halliburton’s Dick Cheney, would be key to investigating it.  But genuine investigation would probe why these companies and other key Bush supporters went along with any pretense that the strangled nation of Iraq, 60% female, over 50% minors, and patrolled by US and British planes in “no-fly zones” over most of it, posed such a threat.

 

The sad truth is that the White House and its strange little cohorts planted in the DoD misled the American public and attempted to mislead the world.  Their propaganda has worn very thin globally.  One can only hope that the American public will be allowed to see what most of the world’s peoples have now seen.  At present, we are seldom allowed to hear even about Iraqi fatalities.

 

The only bright hope I retain is in moments of humaneness still visible in glimpses.  One example is a sign posted on a local highway near here:  “God Bless Our Troops and the Iraqi People.”