By JJ Bowman
News Editor
So we’re fighting a war.
Had we been going to peace, I would be preparing a column on how oil affected France and Russia’s decision to block military action. After all, both nations stood to gain barrels full of cash had sanctions been lifted in a peaceful way. Companies such as France’s oil giant Totalfinaelf and in January, Russia’s Stroitransgaz had signed a development deal with Iraq worth more than $3 billion, according to CNN.
But despite those countries objections, United States got its way, so let’s examine whether U.S. motives are to turn Iraq into a nation of 24 million gas station attendants.
Only Saudi Arabia, with a reserve of 261.7 billion barrels of crude oil, has more than Iraq, which has 112.5 billion barrels, according to the Energy Information Administration.
As of 1999, however, Iraq was only 10th in daily crude oil production, according to the Bureau of Census. Iraq had been the third most prominent producer of crude oil in 1980, but the 1991 Gulf War sanctions all but halted the nation’s production. Production resumed in 1996 after the United Nations permitted the nation to produce monitored amounts in an effort to ease the suffering of the Iraqi people.
Iraq currently provides the United States with 6.8 percent of its total crude oil imports, according to the Bureau of Census, behind Saudi Arabia (16.8 percent), Canada (14.8 percent), Mexico (14.5 percent), Venezuela (13.5 percent) and Nigeria (9.6 percent).
One might think that the best way to see whether the United States went into this war on an oil binge is to watch how Iraq’s production changes after the war. However, it seems reasonable to suspect that if Iraq becomes a free nation after the war, it will increase its production to a level befitting the second-largest oil nation. It also seems reasonable that the United States would actively seek deals with Iraq in increasing oil exports to reduce America’s dependence on Saudi oil.
Thus, an increase in the United States importation of Iraqi oil is no more a significant reason that the war was fought because of oil than an increase in German-engineered cars coming to the United States is proof that World War II was fought for foreign luxury automobiles.
The best way to see if the Bush administration has ulterior motives in the upcoming war is to look at the freedom the Iraqi people have over their oil once the war ends. If Iraq can establish a free government, then they will have something Afghanis still waiting for rebuilding do not have — a huge stockpile of resources, which is something that France, Russia, the United States and all other oil-guzzling nations can benefit from.
But if Americans businesspeople profit more from Iraq’s oil than the oppressed people to which the president has appealed, all the protesters dawning “No war for oil” T-shirts will be justified.
Furthermore, Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice all worked as executives in oil firms. Although it’s unreasonable to think none of their former business acquaintances will make money if billions of barrels of oil became accessible to the free market, they all should be extra careful in their upcoming correspondences to reduce any implication of a fix.
Even if the end is a free and financially viable oil-based economy for Iraq, if the motives behind the war are compromised in the future, Bush will have a black smear on his legacy as noticeable as oil on a baby seal.
—Think oil is bloody? E-mail JJ Bowman at jjbowman@pepperdine.edu.
March 20, 2003