Republican Congressman: War is for the oil

I don’t know whether to believe this or not.

Dan Lungren (R-CA) In writing to defend drilling in ANWR:

[quote=“s.b.”]I don’t know whether to believe this or not.

Dan Lungren (R-CA) In writing to defend drilling in ANWR:

Well, this pretty much knocks a hole into all that BS we’d been hearing about the nonexistent WMDs and how this was about freedom.

1,500+ U.S. troops sacrificed for the miscalculations of a failed oilman. Now even GOP stalwarts are admitting it.

Yup. It’s all about oil. Funny though that the US gets only 16 percent of its oil from the entire Middle East. We buy far more from Mexico, Venezuela, Nigeria, UK and Canada, but don’t let this get in the way of a good conspiracy theory. 16 percent. 16 percent. 16 percent. Yup. 16 percent.

Fred, you know that’s not fair.

No more facts ok? :wink:

Fred, are you saying that Dan Lungren is lying about his own party’s actions? What on earth is his motivation for that? He seems to be speaking out of his own conscience here, and good for him for doing so.

heh :bravo: :laughing:

A mass mailing written by a congressional staffer from Sacramento can, I suppose, be taken as an indication of the sentiments of that congressional staffer, and even perhaps of the Representative himself (if you believe that he really read this thing word-for-word when they handed it to him to OK on the plane). Certainly a little silly to suggest that the congressional staffer’s letter is a better indicator of the motivations of the Bush administration than the statements of the Bush administration though isn’t it? :slight_smile:

What, by the way, is the view of this California Representative? What is in “his own conscience”?

[quote=“Sacramento New & Review”]Asked if Lungren really feels that U.S. forces are over in Iraq fighting for oil, Wiseman denied that the letter actually says that. While admitting that the paragraph could be taken that way, Wiseman said [b][color=red]Lungren

He’s not speaking out of his own conscience. He’s speaking out of his ass. :sunglasses:

Other congressmen set the tone and themes for their communications even if they don’t write everything themselves. And just because on an after-the-fact basis there’s a staffer running about trying to do damage control, it seems a bit silly to suggest that the letter’s words shouldn’t mean what we can tell they mean or to suggest that he didn’t review the letter carefully.

Thinking back to Congressman Bereuter, perhaps he had the guts to stick by his uncharacteristically candid letter to constituents because he was leaving the Congress.

And, no, the statements of the Bush administration, as false, manipulative and opportunistic as they are, are not a good window into their actual motivations.

Regarding the “clarification” of the congressman’s position, it seems a bit dumb that the best they can come up with is: We didn’t invade for oil. We invaded so that we could oust Saddam and then get the oil. What order did they think the whole oil grab might come in. (First seize the oil, then oust Saddam?? :loco: )

That’s fair enough, MFGR. Buck stops with the guy signing the letter. I have no problem with that. Still seems a little silly to suggest that somehow this Rep from California was somehow speaking on behalf of the Republican party (and even more silly to think he speaks for the Bush Administration). But I’m happy to agree with you that he should be responsible for what his staffers write.

In this case, of course, it doesn’t really matter since (contrary to s.b.'s creative title to this thread) the staffer did not write that we invaded Iraq for oil. Rather, the staffer wrote (and Lungren signed off on) a letter saying that, in current post-liberation Iraq, there are US soldiers risking their lives protecting oil pipelines etc. (just as their are other US soldiers risking their lives to guard water wells, government offices, and any number of other facilities). This, of course, is not a very controversial statement.

Well you know that I am basically on board with you on this as well. From your perspective, I guess this is behavior exclusive to the “bad guys” (Republicans), and the “good guys” (Democrats) tell the truth. From my perspective we should just replace make a small edit, and we would come closer to a realistic picture: [color=green]the statements of[/color] [color=blue]any[/color] [color=green]administration, as false, manipulative and opportunistic as they are, are not a good window into their actual motivations.[/color] This is why effects of policy are a more important piece of the puzzle to look at than motivations. :thumbsup:

:laughing: :bravo:

Riiiight!

OK, mofangongren,

How many times have I posted the words of President Bush in his various speeches? The words should mean what we can tell they mean, right?

Here, have another look:

[quote=“President Bush on 20 September 2001”]Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them

What do they mean? Frankly, a lot of it seems like a great big load of rubbish. None of it provides a justification for the invasion of Iraq and the loss of 1,500 U.S. lives.

Now, will you admit and acknowledge that President Bush’s statements (above) are the ravings of a person who misled the United States into a worthless war? Or will you be a hypocrite and assert that his words actually have any relevance.

More information:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/content/?ci=16162

[quote]The latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, conducted April 29 - May 1, shows that only 41% of Americans say it was worth going to war in Iraq, while a majority of Americans, 57%, say it was not worth it. This is the lowest level of support that Gallup has found on this question since the war started in March 2003.


A majority of Americans, 56%, say things are currently going badly for the United States in Iraq, while just 42% say things are going well. These results show a shift in opinion during the past several months, although views were more negative at the start of the year.[/quote]

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000894970

[quote]Half of all Americans, exactly 50%, now say the Bush administration deliberately misled Americans about whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the Gallup Organization reported this morning.

“This is the highest percentage that Gallup has found on this measure since the question was first asked in late May 2003,” the pollsters observed. “At that time, 31% said the administration deliberately misled Americans. This sentiment has gradually increased over time, to 39% in July 2003, 43% in January/February 2004, and 47% in October 2004.”

Also, according to the latest poll, more than half of Americans, 54%, disapprove of the way President Bush is handling the situation in Iraq, while 43% approve. In early February, Americans were more evenly divided on the way Bush was handling the situation in Iraq, with 50% approving and 48% disapproving. [/quote]

Strange MFGR that someone who refers to the death of 1,500 troops as “peanuts” is suddenly concerned about those deaths. It does not ring as being very sincere to me.

No, you may disagree with what he says… however, it is indeed a justification for invading Iraq.

And the point is, you have been going on and on like a broken record that Bush ONLY talked about WMD as the reason for ousting Saddam.

Now, you ought to at least acknowledge that your assertions are incorrect, even if you disagree with Bush’s justifications.

:smiley:

Looks like the American people’s BS detector is on and working fine now.

No, you may disagree with what he says… however, it is indeed a justification for invading Iraq.

And the point is, you have been going on and on like a broken record that Bush ONLY talked about WMD as the reason for ousting Saddam.

Now, you ought to at least acknowledge that your assertions are incorrect, even if you disagree with Bush’s justifications.

:smiley:[/quote]

[color=blue]There seems to be a slight discrepancy here:[/color]

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”

[color=blue]Maybe the head of MI6 was lying to Tony Blair about what President Bush was telling him in July, 2002. That would explain the gap.[/color]

No, you may disagree with what he says… however, it is indeed a justification for invading Iraq.

And the point is, you have been going on and on like a broken record that Bush ONLY talked about WMD as the reason for ousting Saddam.

Now, you ought to at least acknowledge that your assertions are incorrect, even if you disagree with Bush’s justifications.

:smiley:[/quote]

[color=blue]There seems to be a slight discrepancy here:[/color]

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”

[color=blue]Maybe the head of MI6 was lying to Tony Blair about what President Bush was telling him in July, 2002. That would explain the gap.[/color][/quote]

I don’t see the discrepancy.

What I am saying is that whether or not there were WMD in Iraq, there were/are adequate justifications for ousting Saddam from Iraq and such justifications were/are intimately connected to the strategy of dealing with the problem of terrorism coming from the ME.

IMO, the issue of WMD was simply the justification for going into Iraq sooner than later.

Its possible that the administrations of Bush and Blair made a mess of presenting this justification (re WMD) for going in earlier…

However, IMO, I am very happy that we went in and that efforts at reform, regardless of how bumbling they may appear to the legions of critics, are moving forward and that as a result, the region has a chance of actually reforming. As a result, I can be hopeful that in my lifetime there may actually be established a Palestinian state.

I can be hopeful of all of this.

Before Bush began moving on his policy to reform the region, IMO, there was NO such hope.

Really, that’s what my support for Bush boils down to and what my objection to the criticisms of his every act boil down to as well.

I am ecstatic that someone is forcing change in the region, however inept or incompetent those efforts at forcing change may appear… I am not concerned with comparing or contrasting Bush’s policy or its implementation with/against what the critics think might be a better policy… I am content to compare/contrast Bush’s policy of attempting to reform the ME with/against our previous policies of maintaining the status quo in the ME.

I hope and expect President Bush means what he says.

It should be noted that there are 11 million stateless people in the world today – persons without their own country, passport.

4 million of those are Palestinian people. If we really want to impress the people of the Middle East and the world with our sincerity we’d help them achieve a sovereign homeland of their own without further delay.

I’m surprised that anyone is surprised by Republican Congressman Lungren’s admission that the invasion of Iraq was all about oil. Hasn’t that long been public knowledge?


[quote]In July 2003, after two years of legal action through the Freedom of Information Act (and after the end of the war), Judicial Watch was finally able to obtain some documents from the Cheney-led National Energy Policy Development Group.

They included maps of Middle East and Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, two charts detailing various Iraqi oil and gas projects, and a March 2001 list of "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts," detailing the status of their efforts. The documents are available at www.judicialwatch.org.

These documents are significant because during the 1990s, U.S. policy- makers were alarmed about oil deals potentially worth billions of dollars being signed between the Iraqi government and foreign competitors of the United States including France’s Total and Russia’s LukOil.

The New York Times reported the LukOil contracts alone could amount to more than 70 billion barrels of oil, more than half of Iraq’s reserves. One oil executive said the volume of these deals was huge – a “colossal amount.”

As early as April 17, 1995, the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. petroleum giants realized that “Iraq is the biggie” in terms of future oil production, that the U.S. oil companies were “worried about being left out” of Iraq’s oil dealings due to the antagonism between Washington and Baghdad, and that they feared that “the companies that win the rights to develop Iraqi fields could be on the road to becoming the most powerful multinationals of the next century.”

U.N. sanctions against Iraq, maintained at the insistence of the United States and Britain, prevented these deals from being consummated.

Saddam Hussein’s removal in 2003 has left the deals in a state of limbo, but the Bush administration’s insistence that only countries supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom are eligible for postwar reconstruction does not bode well for French and Russian concerns.

An April 2001 report by the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations and the Baker Institute for Public Policy – commissioned by Cheney to help shape the new energy policy – also devoted serious attention to Iraq.

The report, “Strategic Energy Policy Challenges for the 21st Century,” complained about Hussein’s oil leverage:

"Tight markets have increased U.S. and global vulnerability to disruption and provided adversaries undue potential influence over the price of oil. Iraq has become a key ‘swing’ producer, posing a difficult situation for the U.S. government. … Iraq remains a destabilizing influence to … the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East.

Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export programme to manipulate oil markets.

Significantly, the report concluded that the United States should immediately review its Iraq policy, including its military options.

There are many other indications that, despite the Bush administration’s repeated and insistent denials, petroleum politics may have played a crucial role in the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

For instance, both the State Department and the Pentagon had pre-war planning groups that included a focus on Iraq’s oil industry; protecting the industry was an early U.S. objective in the war.

In October 2002, Oil and Gas International reported that U.S. planning was already under way to reorganize Iraq’s oil and business relationships.

In January 2003, the Wall Street Journal reported that representatives from Exxon Mobil Corp., ChevronTexaco Corp., ConocoPhillips and Halliburton, among others, were meeting with Vice President Cheney’s staff to plan the post- war revival of Iraq’s oil industry.

Cheney is said to have once remarked that the country that controls Middle East oil can exercise a “stranglehold” over the global economy.

. . . Further records from Cheney’s Energy Task Force could shed more light on the inner workings of the Bush administration’s march to war in Iraq. The first question, though, is whether the Supreme Court will lift the Bush-Cheney veil of secrecy[/quote]

sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f … 5LTDA1.DTL

Here’s the actual report that Cheney commissioned, in which the use of military force was recommended in order to seize control of Iraq’s oil:

informationclearinghouse.inf … le3535.htm

And here’s an assessment from Ramsey Clark, former US Attorney General (from an article that contains his good summary of US involvement in and dependence on the region):

coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/i … 1_iraq.htm

And here’s a good article from the Global Policy Forum that explains how:

globalpolicy.org/security/oi … 2heart.htm