Official British documents have revealed that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was about oil after all, writes Salah Nasrawi In the eight years since the United States invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein, oil has been a taboo issue even though nearly half the country's proven reserves has been awarded to Western firms and joint consortiums, bringing in profits of millions of dollars a year. However, a shocking account contained in a new book on Iraqi oil after the US occupation of the country and published this week reveals that oil indeed lay at the heart of the US and British-led invasion, despite denials by both governments that oil was the motivation behind the war. According to an account of some 1,000 documents published in the book Fuel on Fire by oil campaigner Greg Muttitt, some of them reproduced by London's Independent newspaper last week, British government ministers discussed plans to exploit Iraq's oil reserves in the months before Britain took a leading role in invading the country. The secret discussions started after British oil companies learned that the administration of US president George W Bush was quietly approaching US oil corporations and trying to strike deals with the French and Russian governments and energy companies regarding the Iraqi oil fields in the autumn of 2002. The disclosures show that under pressure from the British oil giant BP, which was afraid of being "locked out" of the Iraqi fields after the war, the then British trade minister, Elizabeth Symons, lobbied Bush on behalf of the British energy company to secure a share of the Iraqi reserves, the second largest in the world. The disclosed official documents consist of the minutes of meetings held between senior oil executives and then British government ministers obtained under British freedom of information legislation. They highlight for the first time the lies behind the public denials of self-interest in the decision to invade Iraq. British and US officials always resisted giving oil any place among the motives behind the "pre-emptive war" the Bush administration launched on Iraq in 2003. According to their version of events, the invasion was needed to protect Americans against Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and the Al-Qaeda terrorist group. In another development, in his memoir of the period, also published last week, the former chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed El-Baradei, accused US leaders of deliberately distorting the truth when they claimed that Iraq possessed stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, despite the contrary evidence collected by arms inspectors inside the country at the time. In his 321-page memoir, El-Baradei, a Nobel Prize winner, condemns the deception by the Bush White House and suggests that the International Court of Justice should be asked to rule on whether the war was in fact illegal and "determine who is accountable." It is now an established fact that there is no evidence to link the regime of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein with Al-Qaeda, the terrorist network run by Osama bin Laden. Following the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, US, British and other foreign oil firms rushed to take stakes in Iraq's huge oil reserves, with 20-year contracts being signed that are described as the biggest in the history of the oil industry and representing about 60 billion barrels of oil, or half of Iraq's reserves. ExxonMobil Iraq is the lead contractor in Iraq's southern fields, with a 60 per cent stake. Its contract covers work in 15 wells at the 8.6 billion-barrel West Qurna Phase I oil field, one of the country's largest. Halliburton, the company ran by one of the war's original architects, former US vice- president Dick Cheney, coordinated huge government contracts in Iraq during the US occupation and is a main subcontractor for Exxon Mobil in Iraq. On Monday, Halliburton said it had been contracted by Exxon Mobil to set up three drilling rigs to provide oil-drilling services at a large field under development in southern Iraq. The other major US oil company that has won concessions in Iraq is Occidental Petroleum. Last year, this corporation joined the Italian energy conglomerate Eni and the South Korea Gas Corporation in signing a technical service contract to develop the massive four- billion-barrel Zubair oil field in southern Iraq. Also on Monday, Iraqi Petroleum Minister Abdel-Karim Luaibi announced details of the next licensing round for oil and natural-gas exploration concessions in the country, concerning blocks containing a total of 29 billion cubic metres of gas and 10 billion barrels of crude oil. These concessions are expected to go to US, British and other foreign companies. Iraq's confirmed reserves rank the country as the third largest in the world, at approximately 143 billion barrels. However, the Iraqi government has stated that new explorations have shown that Iraq in fact has the world's largest proven oil reserves, with more than 350 billion barrels. US interests in Iraqi oil go back to the early 20th century, when oil was first discovered in the country. Since then, Iraq has been the scene of rivalry for the control of its vast oil wealth. After World War I, and with Germany's defeat in the war, the German stake in the Turkish Petroleum Company, which had previously had the concession for the whole of Iraq, went to Britain and France, the two new colonial powers in the Middle East. However, these two powers' dominance was not unchallenged. Under pressure from the United States, the emerging new superpower, two American oil companies, Jersey Standard and Socony, were awarded a 23.75 per cent share in the newly formed Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), with the rest of the shares being held by the British, French and Royal Dutch-Shell oil companies. The foreign monopoly on Iraq's oil only ended with the country's nationalisation of the petroleum industry in 1972. Oil industry experts say that all of the Iraqi fields are now producing oil and together account for more than 90 per cent of Iraq's current production. As such, their investment and technology needs are relatively minor. In addition, production costs in Iraq are relatively low, since the country's oil fields are located in relatively accessible regions. Iraqi crude, known as light sweet, is of high quality and is suitable for US refineries. With petrol prices climbing and little relief in sight, US oil companies are not expected to let other giant oil companies take hold of Iraq's huge reserves, even as the American army faces the prospect of leaving the country soon. This could explain why top US military officials have recently increased the pressure on the Iraqi government to agree to extending the presence of the US military in Iraq beyond the previously agreed deadline, despite US President Barack Obama's earlier pledge to withdraw all the troops by the end of December. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki has now to decide whether to ask US troops to stay in the country beyond the scheduled pull- out, or to comply with the 2008 security agreement that states that most US troops should leave by the end of this year. Al-Maliki's main political rival, the radical Iran-backed Shia cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr, has warned that his supporters will resume their armed opposition if American troops stay beyond the end of this year. Al-Sadr's mentor, Grand Ayatollah Kazim Al-Haeri, has also issued a religious ruling from his base in Iran forbidding any extension of the US military presence in Iraq beyond the previously agreed schedule. These developments might be partial expressions of Iraqi internal politics and Iran's ambitions to play an increasing role in Iraq after the US withdrawal. However, there is also a dramatic oil aspect attached to them. Iran has been counting on a shortage of Iraqi oil in order to retain its position as OPEC's second-largest producer, thereby countering US-led sanctions. Iran is worried that any resurgence in Iraq's oil production will affect its own standing in the international market. The motivations behind the American oil companies' attempts to increase their investments in Iraq might not be to curtail Iranian oil exports, but from the Iranian point of view this will likely be their effect. It remains true that 75 per cent of the world's oil is found in the Gulf region and whoever controls it controls the world economy. This in itself could explain the lies and deception about the real motives behind the costly foreign occupation of Iraq.
