Global Policy Forum

By James A. Paul

The following is text of a 3-minute radio commentary, taped by National Public Radio's national news show "All Things Considered" on December 2, 2002 but never aired due to opposition from top NPR officials. The text was first commissioned by NPR producer Sara Sarasohn on November 19 and a contract was signed by Jim Paul on November 27. After NPR editing and fact-checking, the piece was finally taped at NPR studios in New York. In accordance with the contract, payment was received not long afterwards. As time passed, repeated email inquiries were not answered by Sarasohn. Finally, on January 2, 2003, Sarasohn called to say apologetically that the piece had been killed. Some of the simplification in the argument was introduced by NRP editing to make the commentary shorter, more direct and more lively for the radio listener.

The Bush administration says it's ready to go to war because of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. But it's very unlikely that disarming Iraq is the real reason for Washington's policy.

After all, during the 1980s, the US provided Saddam Hussein with credit, military advisors, and even arms. Washington was well aware that Iraq was using chemical weapons in its war with Iran, and that it probably had biological and nuclear weapons programs as well.

Later, after Iraq had been driven from Kuwait, UN weapons inspectors began their work, but Washington undermined the inspections by putting covert agents on the teams. The US also launched military attacks on Iraq and pressed for the inspectors' withdrawal in 1998 when they were close to finishing their job.

If the Bush administration is so keen to control these weapons, why did it shut down a recent international conference to strengthen the biological weapons convention? And why does it neglect to promote regional disarmament of mass destruction weapons in the volatile Middle East?

I just can't believe, then, that disarmament is a US motivation for war against Iraq. The real reason, instead, is oil.

Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world, believed to be 200 billion barrels or more of high quality crude, very inexpensive to produce. Iraq's oilfields offer profits of hundreds of billions of dollars if production is turned over to US (and UK) oil giants like ExxonMobil and BP. If Washington can overthrow Saddam Hussein and put in place a military occupation government, these companies could have a goldmine nearly to themselves. US domination of Iraq could also put pressure on other OPEC producers to offer friendlier deals to these same companies.

The Bush administration includes many oil-connected officials, including the President, Vice President Cheney and National Security Advisor Condolezza Rice, a former director of Chevron whose name was given to a company supertanker. But oil company influence transcends this one administration. Rivalry over oil resources has been a key factor in world politics throughout the past hundred years. Historians widely agree that oil has shaped the modern history of the Middle East. Small wonder, then, that Washington and its ally in London want to outmuscle other rivals even if it means a bloody and costly war. It's unconscionable to impose such suffering on innocent Iraqi civilians and to risk global instability mainly to pump up the bottom line of the oil multinationals, already among the richest companies on earth.

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