Nothing to Do with Weapons, Everything to do With Oil Prices
By Charley Reese
of The Sentinel Staff
Published in The Orlando Sentinel, November 9, 1997
It's about the price of oil. It's not about terrorism or weapons of mass destruction.
The Iraqis are right. The United States and Great Britain have unjustly prolonged the
embargo against Iraq, which has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of
children and the elderly. United Nations officials and humanitarian organizations say
that, not just the Iraqis.
The power structures in both countries have large economic interests in Kuwait and in
other places where there is oil. Iraq has more known oil reserves than any other country
in the world except Saudi Arabia. Some oilmen even think that Iraq's reserves are bigger
than those of the Saudis. If Iraq's oil is allowed to come back on the world's markets,
the price of oil will go down.
That's what it's all about.
Hans Blix, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which for six years has
been overseeing and inspecting the destruction of Iraq's nuclear capability, has stated
publicly that the IAEA is ``sure Iraq has no remaining infrastructure for nuclear weapons
production.''
But, Blix said, he can't certify that, because the United States and Great Britain
disagree with other U.N. Security Council members on the definition of ``capability.''
Presumably, the U.S. position is that Iraq should execute all its engineers and scientists
and destroy all its computers. That's all that's left of Iraq's nuclear program, according
to Blix.
Use common sense. Iraq is a small country. Do you think that on-the-ground inspectors
working for six years could not find a large store of weapons if such existed? Do you
really think that the Iraqi government doesn't want the embargo lifted? The U.N.
resolution doesn't authorize prying into every aspect of Iraq's military -- only into its
weapons of mass destruction.
The United States and Great Britain have just employed the Orwellian technique of
double-speak to keep the sanctions on Iraq. They keep demanding that the inspectors prove
a negative, which is impossible. Can I swear to you that Martians don't exist? No. I can
only tell you that I can't find any evidence that they do.
The legitimate question is: Is Iraq a threat? If the United States did not consider it
a threat before the Gulf War, with its war machine intact, why does it now consider it a
threat with its infrastructure destroyed, its people ill and hungry, its middle class
destroyed, its weapons capability destroyed and continuously monitored?
No, it's oil. That's probably what's behind President Clinton's latest foreign-policy
fiasco, slapping sanctions on Sudan. There is oil in Sudan, but apparently the current
government will not honor the deal made with an American oil company by the previous
government.
This is really interesting. The previous government was run by adictator. It was
engaged in the same civil war the current government is engaged in. The previous dictator
was said by human-rights organizations to be about as bad a chap can be. But there was one
difference.
The U.S. government loved the previous dictator. They didn't think that his conduct of
the civil war warranted sanctions. In fact, the United States would rush warplanes to the
area any time someone looked cross-eyed at its favorite dictator. When its favorite
dictator was in power, a friend of mine lived in the country and reported that Standard
Oil of California had found what appeared to be large oil deposits. This was later
acknowledged by the company.
But after he was deposed, the United States began to say Sudan was a terrorist state
and that its conduct of the civil war was terrible. Funny, the United States had never
previously shown much interest in the human rights of Sudanese (as it now shows no
interest in the human rights of Chinese and Tibetans, not to mention Palestinians).
[Posted 11/08/97 5:51 PM EST]
(c) 1997 Orlando Sentinel Online
