In a column last week in The Guardian indelicately titled
Bush Didn't Bungle Iraq, You Fools,
THE MISSION WAS INDEED ACCOMPLISHED, Greg Palast discusses a meeting that was held in London about a month before the war began, about the same time as the meeting in the
latest Downing Street memo. The meeting was held pursuant to "a 323-page plan for Iraq's oil secretly drafted by the State Department." Two of the key negotiaters were the CIA's lead oil analyst, Robert Ebel, and the former (and future) Iraqi Oil Minister, Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum. Ebel was sent by the Pentagon "to finalize the plans for 'liberating' Iraq's oil industry." The result: "As per Plan Bush, Bahr Al-Ulum became Iraq's occupation oil minister; the conquered nation 'enhanced its relationship with OPEC;' and the price of oil, from Clinton peace-time to Bush war-time, shot up 317%."
more...
According to Ebel, the plan was to restrain Iraqi oil production by subjecting it to OPEC discipline. That would boost oil prices and keep them up. It was not to finance the war by selling Iraqi oil, nor to bring gas prices down at home to feed our "addiction." No, as many of us suspected all along, the real mission was to feed the addiction of the oil industry, and especially the Saudis, to astronomical profits. That was the real mission in this sense:
it was the one that they actually planned for and accomplished.
The column is short and noteworthy for its named sourcing. Check it out.