Leading to Iraq: High crimes and misdemeanors. First week of May, 2002.
Contination
of blog series on the lead-up to invading Iraq. As spring progresses into May,
Saddam lifts his embargo on exporting Iraqi oil – and U.S. companies promptly show themselves
to be his earliest and most eager returning customers. No large media outlets
at this juncture point out any incongruity in the fact that the biggest
industry supporters of the Bush administration are immersed in commerce with
the Iraqi dictator designated a ‘Hitler’ by the administration. White House
jawboning of foreign heads of state continues.
May 1-7, 2002:
May 2, 2002 – An astute article by the Gulf
editor of the Middle East Economic Survey
reports that war on Iraq is basically a done deal:
“US
plans to prepare the ground for governing Iraq after the removal of President
Saddam Hussein have been put on hold because of the continuing
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, growing anti-US feelings in the Arab world and
disagreement among opposition groups, MEES learns from diplomatic sources in
London and Washington.
2003 Invasion Of Iraq Seems Likely . . . The difficulties in
coordinating the efforts of exiled Iraqis to prepare for a post-Saddam Iraq do
not appear to have weakened the determination of the Bush administration to
develop plans to remove the Iraqi leader from power.
Changing the regime in Baghdad is the top Middle East policy objective of Mr Bush.
However,
it is not clear yet how and when it will happen. MEES soundings indicate that Iraqi
opposition groups would prefer to see the US carry out precision air strikes,
backed by the limited deployment of Special Forces, with the objective of
demoralizing the armed forces and encouraging an anti-Saddam coup. Any
suggestion of the Kurds or any other group in Iraq fulfilling the role played by
the Northern
Alliance
in Afghanistan is ruled out by Iraqi exiles.
The US administration also seems to
have rejected this last option. But neither does it favor the use of air
strikes alone . . .” (M.E.E.S, May
6, 2002)
May 2, 2002 – A Wall Street
Journal article criticizes Iraqi efforts to get extra money, surcharges,
through the U.N. Oil-for-Food program, but the backdrop is U.S. consumption of oil purchased
from Iraq:
“Giant
U.S. oil companies, led by ChevronTexaco Corp.,
ExxonMobile Corp., and Valero Energy Corp., have devoured nearly half of the
oil exported from Iraq, which has the world’s
second-largest oil reserves, after Saudi Arabia.”(“Secret Pipeline,” front page)
May 2, 2002 – President Bush meets at
the White House with Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission,
and Spanish Prime Minister Aznar. In order to enlist support for the Iraq war, Bush has some bargaining to
do:
“Today,
I informed President Aznar and President Prodi that I will work with our
Congress to fully comply with the WTO decision on our tax rules for
international corporations. This will require both time, and it will require
legislation. I hope and expect that we can all act in the same spirit of
understanding as we work through other problems.”
Early May, 2002 – A U.S. Senate report finds
that consolidation of large oil companies is responsible for higher gasoline
prices in the U.S. The Senate Permanent
Subcommittee on Investigations issues a report, titled Gas Prices: How Are They Set?, finding that the U.S. retail gasoline market is
manipulated by large vertically-integrated oil companies whose refineries and
distribution networks control large percentages of the market. The report finds
that major oil companies have manipulated the U.S. products market and are largely responsible
for extraordinary spikes in the price of gasoline during the past three years.
“The
report pointed out that spikes in the price of gasoline are harmful to
consumers and the economy, but good for oil company profit margins.” (M.E.E.S., May 13, 2002)
http://www.senate.gov/~gov_affairs/psi.htm
The
report also points out that “when demand for products fell after the events of 11
September 2001, refiners cut back on production in order to obtain higher profit
margins. ‘Along with the increase in the price of crude oil and market
speculation, these reductions in production were a significant factor in
contributing to the run-up in price in the late winter and continuing into the
early Spring of this year [2002].’”
One
member of the Subcommittee at this time is Senator Max Cleland, the wounded
Vietnam War hero who loses his bid for reelection in fall 2002 when the GOP
runs ads coupling his photograph with a photograph of Osama bin Laden.
May 6, 2002 -- The administration
notifies the United Nations that the U.S. will
not cooperate with the new International Criminal Court (ICC). Effectively the
Bush White House, bolstered by the noise machine, repudiates the treaty signed
by former president Bill Clinton, although the treaty was not ratified.
Distancing itself from the ICC is
later thought to give some cover to the White House in the invasion and
occupation of Iraq, the indefinite incarceration of detainees, and the prisoner abuses
later revealed at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.
It is not only foreign heads of
state who must be induced to acquiesce in war against Iraq.
Bush’s highly touted education reform, passed as the ‘No Child Left Behind’ Act,
is a bonanza for the standardized testing industry. Among primary beneficiaries
is Kaplan, owned by the Washington Post Co. In 2007, revenues from the
education sector become so huge that the company rebrands itself as an “education
and media company.” Revenues from Kaplan account for 50 cents of every
dollar the company takes in, with annual revenues from Kaplan projected to
exceed $2 billion in 2007.
George Bush, as governor of Texas, and Jeb
Bush, as governor of Florida, had already benefited Kaplan and the Post Co. by instituting standardized
testing in their respective states, a fact not reported by the Post newspaper in 2000 but indirectly
reflected in Post coverage of the
2000 election.
Thousands of helpless Iraqis pay for those revenues with their lives.
May 7, 2002 – President Bush meets
with Israeli Prime Minister Sharon at the White House, as the campaign to
consolidate support for war against Iraq continues. The White House needs
to prevail upon Sharon to support a Palestinian state,
in order to bring Arab nations on board, but it is not clear that negotiations
on this point are effective.
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