Document Reveals Mr. Bush Took Aim at Iraqi Oil Before the 2000 Election

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http://www.yuricareport.com/Energy/BushWarPlansFoundInEnergyPolicy.html

 

Document Reveals Mr. Bush Took Aim at Iraqi Oil Before

the 2000 Election

 

Answers Why Mr. Cheney Has Fought So Hard to Keep

Secrets

 

August 28, 2004

 

By Katherine Yurica

 

[Editor's note: August 29, 2004. This article should

be compared to the statements made by former Bush

administration Secretary of the Treasury, Paul O'Neil

that the Bush administration began working on war with

Iraq from day one of the administration, and with Neil

McKay's article in the Sunday Herald, in which he

stated Mr. Bush's cabinet voted to go to war with Iraq

in April of 2001. For further details read Fraud

Traced to the White House by Katherine Yurica.]

 

 

In the battle over the release of Dick Cheney’s secret

“energy policy” papers, a Department of Commerce

numbered document (DOC-013-0056—0074), has come to

light. It may explain why Mr. Cheney has fought so

hard to keep his energy group’s records from the

public. The policy paper dated September 29, 2000

begins to reveal the war against Iraq was carefully

developed and planned in increments, including even

the detail of introducing the term “weapons of mass

destruction.” The document takes the reader back to

the campaign of 2000. At stake was the presidency of

the United States. During Mr. Bush’s campaigning, he

and his team prepared a nineteen page position paper

titled, “Comprehensive National Energy Policy.”

 

 

So far, there’s nothing surprising in that. One would

expect a candidate to address the nation’s energy

policies. However, Mr. Bush set a different tone in

the first paragraph of his executive summary: “Over

the past seven and a half years, our international

credibility has been diminished, and Saddam Hussein’s

Iraq is now a major oil supplier to the U.S.”

 

 

Mr. Bush blamed the Clinton administration for

allowing the country to grow dependent upon foreign

oil. He lamented that imports had gone from thirty-six

percent in 1973 to a jump to fifty-six percent, “the

highest percentage ever.” But his own figures show

that under Mr. Clinton’s watch, the rise was only from

fifty percent to fifty-six percent.

 

 

The report keeps shaking the Saddam Hussein tree in an

extremely familiar demonization dance. The document

reflects a fixation on Iraq’s growing oil power, which

in actual fact was really tiny in comparison to the

established world markets. While many Americans would

accept that dependence on foreign oil might not be in

the best interests of the U.S., Mr. Bush blurred and

smudged the statistics here and there, and only later

in his report admitted that of all the oil imports

only seven percent came from “Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.”

 

 

Mr. Bush shows a real talent in his report to hang the

necessity to tear up one of America’s most pristine

wildlife refuge areas by attaching the whole project

to an unrelated evil. He explained that he wanted to

promote the development of U.S. oil and gas resources

to meet the electricity needs of the new economy. In

reaching his goal, Mr. Bush said that he would “open

only eight percent of the Arctic National Wildlife

Refuge” to exploitation, which he indicated was

exactly the amount needed to “replace the oil that the

U.S. now imports from Iraq.”

 

 

Candidate Bush lamented that the Clinton-Gore

administration had “squandered U.S. credibility with

oil-producing nations in the Persian Gulf” and lost

the power to influence OPEC policies. Mr. Bush tied

Mr. Clinton’s “failure” to the “increased Iraqi

leverage over the U.S. and international economies.”

Then once again Mr. Bush turned his attention upon

Saddam Hussein, declaring:

 

 

“When the Clinton-Gore Administration took office

in January of 1993, the Gulf War coalition was intact,

economic sanctions were in place against Iraq, UN

weapons inspectors were operating in Iraq, there was

an active Iraqi opposition, and U.S. influence in the

Gulf was at an all-time high. Almost eight years

later, due to the failed leadership of the

Administration:

 

 

“The international coalition assembled during

the Gulf War has come apart.

 

 

“UN inspectors have not set foot in Iraq for

almost two years, failing to monitor any attempts to

produce weapons of mass destruction.

 

 

“The Administration has spent only a

negligible amount of the $97 million appropriated by

Congress under the Iraq Liberation Act to support the

Iraqi resistance.

 

“U.S. credibility in the Gulf is so low that

the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain—once critical

members of the Gulf War coalition—recently restored

full diplomatic relations with Iraq.

 

 

“As U.S. influence in the Gulf has waned, Iraq’s

relative influence as an oil supplier to U.S. and

world markets has increased:

 

 

“Iraq is now the fastest growing oil supplier

to the United States, selling 850,000 barrels of crude

oil a day to the United States...

 

 

“As spare production capacity becomes tighter,

Iraq is moving into a position to become an important

“swing producer,” with an ability to single handedly

impact and manipulate global markets.

 

“Perhaps most ominously, Saddam Hussein is

threatening to cut back production and is again

claiming that Kuwait is stealing Iraq’s oil—the same

claim Iraq made in 1990.”

 

In actual fact, Mr. Bush’s words will miraculously

reappear in the Baker Institute Report delivered to

Mr. Cheney in April of 2001 by James Baker, III (the

former Secretary of State and Bush family friend). Mr.

Baker’s energy report is discussed in detail in my

article, “Fraud Traced to the White House,” which was

published at the Yurica Report web site in April of

2003. As one reads Mr. Bush’s report and then compares

it to Mr. Baker’s, one soon finds identical phrases

appearing in both documents. For instance, notice this

sentence from Mr. Bush’s policy paper:

 

“Iraq is moving into a position to become an

important ‘swing producer,’ with an ability to single

handedly impact and manipulate global markets.”

 

Now compare that to this sentence from the later

Baker Report:

 

“Iraq has become a key ‘swing’ producer, posing a

difficult situation for the U.S. government.”

 

 

Or this sentence also from the Baker Report:

 

“Over the past year, Iraq has effectively become

a swing producer, turning its taps on and off when it

has felt such action was in its strategic interest to

do so.”

 

Both documents focus on “weapons of mass

destruction.” The Baker Report puts it this way in one

of its references:

 

 

“Sanctions that are not effective should be phased

out and replaced with highly focused and enforced

sanctions that target the regime’s ability to maintain

and acquire weapons of mass destruction.”

 

And the Baker Report advises: “The United States

should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq,

including military, energy, economic, and

political/diplomatic assessments.”

 

I think it’s safe to conclude that Mr. Bush’s policy

paper is undoubtedly the precursor to the Baker

Institute Report.

 

There is another major discovery I noted from Mr.

Bush’s energy policy paper. Here’s evidence that

Governor Bush knew he was going to dump the Kyoto

treaty while campaigning but managed to keep it a

secret from American voters! In his policy paper he

wrote:

 

“Excessive regulation is not the answer. A recent

study by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)

determined that the combined effect of Administration

policies and implementation of the Kyoto global

climate treaty would reduce electricity derived from

coal in the U.S. from over fifty percent today to less

than ten percent by 2020. As a result, electricity

prices would increase fifty percent in real terms and

a massive investment in natural gas infrastructure

would be required to replace the lost coal capacity.

EPRI found that substantial emission reductions could

be more readily achieved by scheduling emission

reductions to coincide with technological advances,

but the [Clinton] administration is instead insisting

upon substantial reductions before these advances can

be reasonably deployed.”

 

 

After a man has said that, why need we tend to

anything else he should say ever again?

 

 

Katherine Yurica was educated at East Los Angeles

College, the University of Southern California and the

USC school of law. She worked as a consultant for Los

Angeles County and as a news correspondent for

Christianity Today plus as a freelance investigative

reporter. She is the author of three books. She is

also the publisher of the Yurica Report.

 

 

 

 

 

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Documents:

 

The Baker Report

 

 

The Baker Institute Press Release on the Report

 

 

 

Bush's Energy Policy

 

 

 

GAO Report to Congress On Energy Task Force

 

 

 

GAO Chronology Energy

 

 

 

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