Continuation of blog series on the administration push to war. The spring of 2002 demonstrates, although not publicly, that Iraq is not the only oil-rich country in which the White House would like to intervene.
Early April, 2002:

Apr. 1, 2002 – The CIA issues a Senior Executive Intelligence Brief to alert senior administration officials that Venezuela is considered a “Critical Warning Area” during the next few weeks.

 
The brief warns that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is facing strong opposition from “the private sector, the media, the Catholic Church, and opposition political parties” and that a coup by military officers may be in the offing. An SEIB is circulated among only top administration figures – the President and Vice President, some Cabinet members, and heads of agencies.

 
This brief is followed by other SEIBs containing the same purported warning. Since a coup is indeed attempted against Chavez some days later (see below), but without the widespread popular support indicated by the SEIB, the series of briefs suggests that the administration actually supports the coup.

Apr. 6, 2002 – Another Senior Executive Intelligence Brief is issued by the CIA, saying that conditions are ripening for a coup attempt in Venezuela.

 
Iraq is not the only oil-rich country that the administration has in its sights.

Same day – President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, on a visit to Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, hold a joint press availability. Unsurprisingly, Iraq is on the agenda:

 Q Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: I don't know you well enough, Adam, to be able to sing your praises. (Laughter.)

Q Thank you. Mr. President, you have yet to build an international coalition for military action against Iraq. Has the violence in the Middle East thwarted your efforts? And Prime Minister Blair, has Bush convinced you on the need for a military action against Iraq?

THE PRESIDENT: Adam, the Prime Minister and I, of course, talked about Iraq. We both recognize the danger of a man who's willing to kill his own people harboring and developing weapons of mass destruction. This guy, Saddam Hussein, is a leader who gasses his own people, goes after people in his own neighborhood with weapons of -- chemical weapons. He's a man who obviously has something to hide.

He told the world that he would show us that he would not develop weapons of mass destruction and yet, over the past decade, he has refused to do so. And the Prime Minister and I both agree that he needs to prove that he isn't developing weapons of mass destruction.

I explained to the Prime Minister that the policy of my government is the removal of Saddam and that all options are on the table.

THE PRIME MINISTER: I can say that any sensible person looking at the position of Saddam Hussein and asking the question, would the region, the world, and not least the ordinary Iraqi people be better off without the regime of Saddam Hussein, the only answer anyone could give to that question would be, yes.

Now, how we approach this, this is a matter for discussion. This is a matter for considering all the options. But a situation where he continues to be in breach of all the United Nations resolutions, refusing to allow us to assess, as the international community have demanded, whether and how he is developing these weapons of mass destruction. Doing nothing in those circumstances is not an option, so we consider all the options available.

But the President is right to draw attention to the threat of weapons of mass destruction. That threat is real. How we deal with it, that's a matter we discuss. But that the threat exists and we have to deal with it, that seems to me a matter of plain common sense.

British newspapers later report that at this two-day summit in Crawford, in April 2002, Blair agreed to the invasion of Iraq. For public consumption, Blair continues to insist for the following year that war is not the objective and that all options are open.

As recounted by the Global Americana Institute, a leaked briefing from the British Cabinet makes clear that the decision to go to war is already made:

“2. When the Prime Minister discussed Iraq with President Bush at Crawford in April he said that the UK would support military action to bring about regime change, provided that certain conditions were met: efforts had been made to construct a coalition/shape public opinion, the Israel-Palestine Crisis was quiescent, and the options for action to eliminate Iraq's WMD through the UN weapons inspectors had been exhausted.”

Apr. 8, 2002 -- Iraq announces that it will halt oil exports for 30 days as a gesture of support for the Palestinians. Other OPEC countries do not go along with the halt. According to the Energy Information Administration, Iraqi oil exports average 1.7 million barrels per day in 2002. Most of this Iraqi petroleum is purchased by U.S. companies. At $27 per barrel, the price of crude oil is the highest it has been in six months, and the markets are spooked.

Same day – The CIA issues another Senior Executive Intelligence Brief containing the same information again on a projected coup in Venezuela.

Apr. 11, 2002 – Gen. Franks and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld meet again on Iraq and consider a less obtrusive plan of attack.

Same day – The Government Accountability Office (GAO) files a motion
for summary judgment in its legal quest to get documents from the 
National Energy Policy Development Group, commonly known as the 
Energy Task Force, headed by Vice President Cheney.

Same day – A coup is launched in Venezuela against democratically elected
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The coup succeeds for only a couple 
of days, and Chavez regains control after the weekend.

Administration involvement in this coup against the leftist leader of an 
oil-rich state is widely suspected and is subsequently confirmed. As the 
British Observer newspaper reports the following week, senior 
administration officials including PNAC member Elliot Abrams 
encouraged the coup, assuming it would succeed.