International Action Organization

Deception of the American Public

By Lila Schow

February, 2003

A January 25, 2003 Gallup Poll asked Americans "Would you favor or oppose invading Iraq with U.S. ground troops in an attempt to remove Saddam Hussein from power?"  The reply, 52% in favor, 43% opposed and 5% with no opinion, is indicative of the recent shift in the United States away from war. 

Yet Bush’s January 28th State of the Union Address is filled with pro-war rhetoric and scare tactics. In it he accuses Saddam Hussein of hiding anthrax, VX, botulinin toxin and other terrible weapons, but fails to provide the necessary evidence to back these claims. Bush hypes the immediate threat of a nuclear-capable Iraq, but leaves out the key point that the nuclear inspectors in Iraq have found nothing to support this. His speech also fails to address his administration’s plans to use nuclear weapons in Iraq as mainstream tactical battlefield tools.  The president closes by saying, “In two years, America has gone from a sense of invulnerability to an awareness of peril; from bitter division in small matters to calm unity in great causes. And we go forward with confidence, because this call of history has come to the right country.”

Bush’s remarks are revealing, proving that the administration ignores the legitimate concerns of almost half its population.  In failing to tackle the arguments of those who have not shown ‘calm unity in great causes,’ it becomes a government operating independently of its people.  When this happens, when an elected representative concentrates on their own agenda regardless of the demands of the public, it is time to take a step back and look at the reasons why.

In this era of rekindled McCarthyism it should be remembered that the United States Government is not the country.  It is merely a caretaker of the people.  The country is the 290 million of us who labor and sweat each day to make a living.  It is those of us who build, teach, heal, grow, manufacture, consume, protect and raise families.  We elect a caretaker under certain provisions and place our trust in them.  And when the caretaker fails and begins to lie to us, our duty demands we take action.  In 1776 those who were called ‘patriot’ were those who stood with the people of the nation, not with the corrupted government. 

So let us look deeper at the facts behind the Bush Administration’s drive to wage two large scale wars at one time. 

Afghanistan holds vast riches below its war pocked surface. It has natural gas, petroleum, coal, copper, chromite, talc, barites, sulfur, lead, zinc, iron ore, salt, precious and semi precious stones, and more opium than the Burmese Golden Triangle.

Afghanistan also sits on the proposed route for an oil pipeline which would allow the vast oil reserves sitting under the Caspian Sea to be brought to market. It is no secret that a consortium of American oil companies want to build that pipeline. John J. Maresca, vice president of international relations of Unocal Corporation, flat out told Congress in 1998 that the pipeline would not be built until the Taliban was removed. An uncomfortable position as the United States government had installed the Taliban as part of the anti-Soviet strategy, but one that must be taken considering the size of the Caspian oil fields, estimated at about 500 years' worth at present rates of consumption.

Long before the attacks on the World Trade Towers, the United States government had plans to invade Afghanistan and overthrow the Taliban. While saturating the American media with "All Condit All The Time," the foreign press reported (way back in March 2001) the United State’s plans to invade Afghanistan in October of that year.  

If Afghanistan is valuable because of it’s geographical position in moving oil, then Iraq is even more so for the unknown quantities of untapped petroleum lying beneath its blood soaked sands.  Here you might pause.  Two wars for oil?  Is that really believable?  After all, the notion that a great power needs physically to control sources of a plentiful raw material is simply outdated.  But the quest for money, greed and power have no expiration date, and those riches can be gained from the profit of controlling oil fields worldwide.

For the Americans who are in support of another war on Iraq, it boils down to a single idea.  Hussein is evil, pure and simple.  Black and white.  Like President Bush’s response to September 11, there are only two ways to respond to the threat of Saddam Hussein.  Attack or do nothing.  And as Edmund Burke once said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

We have become so accustomed to having choices fed to us by those in power that sometimes it is hard to remember that there are more options than what’s being offered.  Because war is the most visible and immediate way of ‘doing something’ people forget that violence is not an effective method of ensuring weapons of mass destruction are not used against the United States, her allies and troops. 

The Gulf War did little to secure the world from Hussein.  What it did do was entrench him as the leader of Iraq for another decade.  It created terrorists like Timothy McVeigh and Osama bin Laden.  It fanned the flames of anti-American sentiment in every corner of the globe.  It poisoned our ground troops with a myriad of cancer causing radiation, as well as new mysterious illnesses from our missiles and Hussein’s stockpile of weapons. 

That war failed to destroy Hussein’s supplies of weapons, it failed to topple his regime, it failed to gain the US allies in the Arab world, it failed to liberate the Iraqis, it failed to rebuild the country into a moderate Islamic democracy and feed its population, it failed to protect US freedoms and values at home and abroad, and it failed to deter terrorism.  It failed on every goal it was supposed to accomplish and it hurt us more than any type of appeasement would have.

We currently bomb Iraq every two days on average and have been since a US bombing run forced UN inspection teams to leave in 1998.   If the United States has such iron clad proof that weapons of mass destruction are being built, why are we not destroying them with our bombing runs?  Why are ground troops needed?  Perhaps to secure the vast oil reserves in Iraq and to control the Kirkuk pipeline which runs to Ceyhan Turkey.  Because it is in Ceyhan Turkey, the sight of the groundbreaking for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline on September 18^th, 2002.

Timeline of Events

1996

August-U.S. Government’s Overseas Private Investment Corp (OPIC) agrees to provide $400 million in financing for a joint venture of Uzbekneftegaz and Enron oil and Gas Co (Houston) to develop gas fields in Uzbekistan. It is understood that Afghanistan is the best rout to transport the oil to the lucrative new markets in Asia

August 13-Unocal reaches an agreement with state companies in Turkmenistan and Russia (known as CentGas) to build a natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan

1997

            Project for the New American Century, a lobby group demanding "regime change" in Iraq is created.  It’s members include Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz(now Rumsfeld's Pentagon deputy), John Bolton(now under-secretary of state for arms control), Richard Armitage(Colin Powell's under-secretary at the State Department), and Richard Perle,(currently chairman of the defence science board), Zalmay Khalilzad(former Unocal Corporation oil industry consultant who became US special envoy to Afghanistan and now has been appointed a special Bush official for Iraq)

October-Halliburton wins the $30 million contract to provide drilling services in Turkmenistan related to the Unocal pipeline

            December- Taliban officials, arrive in Sugarland Texas to talk to Unocal about building the pipeline

1998

            February 12-Unocal Vice President John J. Maresca - later to become a Special Ambassador to Afghanistan - testifies before the House of Representatives that until a single, unified, friendly government is in place in Afghanistan the trans-Afghani pipeline will not be built. He suggests that with a pipeline through Afghanistan, the Caspian basin could produce 20 percent of all the non-OPEC oil in the world by 2010.

June-Enron's agreement to develop natural gas with the government of Uzbekistan is not renewed. Enron closes its office there. The reason for the "failure of Enron's flagship project" is an inability to get the natural gas out of the region. Uzbekistan's production is "well below capacity" and only 10% of its production is being exported, all to other countries in the region. The hope was to use a pipeline through Afghanistan, but "Uzbekistan is extremely concerned at the growing strength of the Taliban and its potential impact on stability in Uzbekistan, making any future cooperation on a pipeline project which benefits the Taliban unlikely."

June 23- Future Vice President Cheney, working for the Halliburton energy company, states: "I can't think of a time when we've had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian. It's almost as if the opportunities have arisen overnight."

August 6- Abdulillah al-Tikriti, director-general of the economy department at Iraq's Foreign Ministry, reports that Iraq has discovered a new oil field and a new natural gas field. The oil field is located in the northern part of Iraq, with estimated reserves of 500 million barrels. The natural gas field, located in the desert west of Baghdad, contains estimated reserves of 21.2 trillion cubic feet

August 7-Terrorists bomb the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The bomb in Nairobi, Kenya kills 213 people, including 12 US nationals, and injures more than 4,500. The bomb in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, kills 11 and injures 85. The attacks are blamed on al-Qaeda

            December 5- In the wake of the al-Qaeda US embassy attacks, the US gives up on putting a pipeline through Afghanistan. Unocal announces it's withdrawawl from the CentGas pipeline consortium, and closes three of its four offices in Central Asia. A concern that Clinton will lose support among women voters for upholding the Taliban also plays a role in the cancellation.

1999

February-Enron conducts a feasibility study for a $2.5 billion trans-Caspian gas pipeline to be built by Turkmenistan, Bechtel (plants in Iraq manufactured ethylene oxide, a key ingredient in mustard gas) and General Electric (Owners of NBC, Dateline and the History Channel)

July 4- President Clinton signs Executive Order 13129, which freezes Taliban assets in the U.S. and prohibits trade between the Afghan fundamentalist regime and U.S. entities

December- the United Nations Security Council removes the limits on the amount of oil Iraq can export under the Oil for Food mandate

2000

Enron becomes the biggest contributor to the Bush-Cheney Presidential election campaign

            March-Unocal once again holds talks with the Taliban regarding the pipeline

            May-Since 1998, U.S. imports of Iraqi crude oil have doubled. American refiners prefer Iraqi oil varieties because of their low sulfur content. When they can remove the sulfur more easily, refiners can make higher profits.  America's refiners get most of their Iraqi oil from Ceyhan(Turkey)the final destination of a pipeline between Kirkuk(Iraq) and Ceyhan, as it cuts out the need for supertankers to steam around the Arabian Peninsula

            July 30- Dick Cheney is interviewed on ABC-TV's "This Week," and denies that Halliburton or its subsidiaries traded with Baghdad, "I had a firm policy that we wouldn't do anything in Iraq, even arrangements that were supposedly legal," he said. "We've not done any business in Iraq since U.N. sanctions were imposed on Iraq in 1990, and I had a standing policy that I wouldn't do that."

            August-Cheney resiengs as chairman of Halliburton with stock options valuing $8 million

            August- on ABC-TV's "This Week," Cheney modifies his response after he’s informed that a Halliburton spokesman had acknowledged that Dresser Rand and Ingersoll Dresser Pump traded with Iraq. Halliburton held stakes in the two firms that signed contracts to sell more than $73 million in oil production equipment and spare parts to Iraq while Cheney was chairman and chief executive officer of the Dallas-based company. The subsidiaries, Dresser-Rand and Ingersoll Dresser Pump Co., sold water and sewage treatment pumps, spare parts for oil facilities and pipeline equipment to Baghdad through French affiliates from the first half of 1997 to the summer of 2000. Cheney says he was unaware that the subsidiaries were doing business with the Iraqi regime when Halliburton purchased Dresser Industries in September 1998, "We inherited two joint ventures with Ingersoll-Rand that were selling some parts into Iraq, but we divested ourselves of those interests."

September- the Project for the New American Century releases "Strengthening America's Defenses." The plans in this report called for the ability to ‘deploy and win multiple simultaneous large-scale wars,’ unprecedented hikes in military spending, locating American military bases in Central Asia and the Middle East, the toppling of recalcitrant regimes, the violation of international treaties, control of the world's energy resources, and the willingness to use nuclear weapons to achieve American goals

            October 12-the USS Cole is attacked in Yemen, 17 US servicepeople are killed, Osama bin Laden is blamed

2001

            January 10-Condoleeza Rice is shown recent footage of Osama bin Laden from an unarmed Predator drone

            January 21- George W Bush Jr. is inaugurated as the 43rd US President, replacing Clinton.  Over 50 of Bush's new staff are later shown to have worked for Enron

May 17-President Bush issues the administration's new energy policy. Among the plan's 105 specific recommendations are calls for reduced regulations to encourage more oil, gas, and nuclear production and tax incentives to boost coal output

June-in the Nevada desert the US military runs repeat practices to kill Osama bin-Laden using the Predator drone

June 26- Indiareacts.com states that "India and Iran will 'facilitate' U.S. and Russian plans for 'limited military action' against the Taliban." The story indicates that the fighting will be done by U.S. and Russian troops with the help of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan

July-Pakastani Foreign Secretary Niaz Naik meets with US officials who tell him military action in Afghanistan will begin in the middle of October

July-90% of Iraq's estimated 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) go to U.S. Gulf coast refineries

July 4-14- Osama bin Laden receives treatment for kidney disease at the American hospital in Dubai (United Arab Emirates) and meets with a CIA official, who returns to CIA headquarters on July 15

July 15- Members of the G8, meeting in Genoa, Italy, discuss the Taliban, pipelines, and the handing over of Osama bin Laden

July  - Immediately after the G8 Summit three American officials -- Tom Simmons (former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan), Karl Inderfurth (former assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs) and Lee Coldren (former State Department expert on South Asia) -- meet with Pakistani and Russian intelligence officers in Berlin and tell them that the U.S. is planning military strikes against Afghanistan in October. A French book released in November, 2002 "Bin Laden - La Verite Interdite," discloses that Taliban representatives often sat in on the meetings. British papers confirm that the Pakistani ISI relayed the threats to the Taliban

August- According to a detailed 13-page memo written by Minneapolis FBI legal officer Colleen Rowley, FBI headquarters ignores urgent, direct warnings from French intelligence services about pending attacks. In addition, a single Supervisory Special Agent (SSA) in Washington expends extra effort to thwart the field office's investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui, in one case rewriting Rowley's affidavit for a search warrant to search Moussaoui's laptop. Rowley's memo uses terms like "deliberately sabotage," "block," "integrity," "omitted," "downplayed," "glossed over," "mis-characterize," "improper political reasons, "deliberately thwarting," "deliberately further undercut," "suppressed," and "not completely honest." These are not terms describing negligent acts but rather deliberate acts. FBI field agents desperately attempt to get action, but to no avail. One agent speculates that bin Laden might be planning to crash airliners into the WTC, while Rowley ironically noted that the SSA who had committed these deliberate actions had actually been promoted after Sept. 11

September 6-11- Put Options (a speculation that the stock will go down) totaling 4,744 are purchased on United Air Lines stock, as opposed to only 396 Call Options (speculation that the stock will go up). This is a dramatic and abnormal increase in sales of put options. Many of the United puts are purchased through Deutschebank/A.B. Brown, a firm managed until 1998 by the current executive director of the CIA, A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard. Put options totaling 4,516 are purchased on American Airlines as compared to 748 call options. No other airlines show any similar trading patterns to those experienced by United and American. The put option purchases on both airlines were 600 percent above normal. This at a time when Reuters (Sept. 10) issues a business report stating, "Airline stocks may be poised to take off."

September 9- President George W. Bush is presented with detailed war plans to overthrow Al Qaeda

September 11-terrorists hijack 4 planes, crashing two into the World Trade Towers, one into the Pentagon and the last into a field in Pennsylvania

            October 7-The United States, with the backing of the UN and the international community, begins its war in Afghanistan

            October 10- Pakistani newspaper The Frontier Post reports that U.S. Ambassador Wendy Chamberlain has paid a call on the Pakistani oil minister. The previously abandoned Unocal gas pipeline project from Turkmenistan, across Afghanistan, to Pakistan is now back on the table "in view of recent geopolitical developments." In a July 8, 2002 interview, Barry Lane, Unocal's manager for public relations, denies this

December 2-Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy

December 25- Newly appointed Afghani Prime Minister Hamid Karzai is revealed as being a former paid consultant for Unocal.  In a July 8, 2002 interview, Barry Lane, Unocal’s manager for public relations, denies this as well

2002

            January 3- President Bush appoints Zalmy Khalilzad a former employee of Unocal as a special envoy to Afghanistan

January 30-Enron admits to shredding documents but insists the documents are unrelated to their financial collapse

            Same Day-Cheney asks Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle Tuesday to limit the congressional investigation into the events of September 11.  One week later President Bush makes the same request

            February-Cheney refuses to hand over energy task force documents to the GAO regarding his meetings with Enron

            April 8- President Saddam Hussein announces Iraq will suspend oil exports for 30 days or until Israel withdraws from Palestinian territories causing crude futures prices to spike $1.44 a barrel, or 6%

            August 1- after eight years of bitter political intrigue, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline Company (BTC Co.) is founded. The objectives of the pipeline, according to US officials, is to reduce dependence on OPEC oil producers in the Middle East, create a secure supply of oil to Israel, and begin to end dependence on Russian and Iranian oil transportation networks from the Caspian region. In Georgia the pipeline will pass through the Pankisi Gorge, home to Chechen forces. The Turkish section passes through its southeastern region, where the Kurdish minority live

            September 15- Former CIA Director Jim Woolsey tells the Washington Post "France and Russia have oil companies and interests in Iraq. They should be told that if they are of assistance in moving Iraq toward decent government, we'll do the best we can to ensure that the new government and American companies work closely with them." Woolsey also said, "If they throw their lot with Saddam, it will be difficult to the point of impossible to persuade the new Iraqi government to work with them."

            September 18- Ground breaking for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. President Bush hails it as "a central component of a new East-West energy corridor that will provide far-reaching benefits. These include attracting new investment to the region, enhancing global energy security, strengthening the sovereignty and independence of countries in the Caspian Basin, and bolstering these states' economic cooperation and integration into the global economy." Upon its completion in 2005, the 1760-kilometer pipeline will be able to carry more than one million barrels of oil per day

            October-Although U.N. Resolution 986 mandates that at least half of the "Oil-for-Food" exports must transit through Turkey, in recent months more Iraqi oil (close to three-quarters) has been exported via Mina al-Bakr rather than via Ceyhan, in part due to a shift in oil exports away from Europe and the United States and towards Asia

2003

            January-"In America, we say everybody is precious, everybody counts, everybody is equal in the eyes of the Almighty," Bush tells American troops at Fort Hood, Texas, "That's not what the enemy [Iraq] thinks. They don't value innocent life. They're nothing but a bunch of cold-blooded killers, and that's the way we're going to treat them."

Additional Sources

 http://www.odssa.com/Eagle/eagle14.htm

http://more.abcnews.go.com/sections/world/caspianoil_afghan103/index.html

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MAD201A.html

Send mail to InterAct's Webmaster with questions or comments about this web site. Last modified: 02/08/06