Peak Oil And The 'Even Newer World Order' - Bush 'Energy Policy' Precipitates New Global Anti-US Alliance

“US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may be in Moscow, but she has Caracas on her mind. Ms. Rice, who arrived in Russia Tuesday for talks with that country's leaders is ‘concerned’ about some arms sales in Latin America, specifically Venezuela, reports Bloomberg News. The Russian government played down US concerns by countering that any of its proposed arms deals with Venezuela are in line with international agreements and international law. Prior to Rice's trip, the US State Department issued its own accusations saying that Venezuela's purchase of 100,000 Russian Kalashnikov rifles, Brazilian helicopters and Spanish patrol boats, might find its way into the hands of Colombian ‘insurgents.’ … Chavez claims the ultimately unsuccessful April 2002 coup [against him] was backed by US interests. Believing he will face more such coups, Chavez has expanded his relations with Russia, China, India and Iran, says India Daily. The oil asset of Venezuela makes it vulnerable. But China, India and Russia have interest in the same. [For Chavez] that may make some difference. The BRIC alliance (Brazil, Russia, India and China) will oppose any invasion or external intervention in Venezuela. It will be of interest to see how BRIC will defend its Venezuelan oil interests in case of a similar crisis. Venezuela currently supplies the United States with over 15% of its oil, making the South American nation its 4th largest supplier, after Saudi Arabia, Canada, and Mexico.”
Venezuela flexes oil muscle
Christian Science Monitor, 20 April 2005

ChavezHuJintao.jpg (24765 bytes)

As oil resources become increasingly scarce
an emerging global alliance aims to outflank
American efforts to dominate world supplies
But Neither G7, G8, Nor G10 Have Credible Plans
To Pre-empt The Impact Of Peak Oil

"Central bankers will assess the growing role of emerging nations such as China whose rapid growth has pushed oil prices to heights threatening U.S. and European economies at their meetings here on Monday. China’s red-hot economy has become a major factor on global markets as it sucks in imports to manufacture cheap exports. Its rapid growth drives up the price of oil and other commodities....Central bankers from rich and developing nations gathering in this Swiss border town said China, oil and slowdowns in Western countries are all on the agenda for their bi-monthly Group of 10 meeting to evaluate the world outlook... 'As you expect, they will talk about China, oil and the U.S. economy,' one central bank official said. Asian finance ministers agreed in Istanbul last week that oil prices posed risks for their economies, a view shared by Group of Seven rich nations at the global level. Retail demand is slumping in Britain. In the euro zone, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet, who chairs the G10 meeting has said growth risks are to the downside."
China, oil impact on global growth on G10 agenda
Reuters, 10 May 2005

"If a report circulating among senior members of America's defense establishment is any guide, the Sino-American war for future petroleum supplies has already begun. According to the 80-page study, Beijing has identified the United States as 'a paramount threat to its energy security and economic stability' and is busily establishing a 'string of pearls' - forward deployments of surveillance stations, naval facilities and airstrips-to safeguard the petroleum-transport route from the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea. Once it controls Asia's vital sea lanes, the report goes on, China may then move on some of the world's key oil reserves-perhaps by replacing the United States as Saudi Arabia's patron and protector, or by seizing a strategic oil pipeline in the Russian Far East. The Chinese, the report says, 'equate energy security with physical possession or control of energy supplies' and 'have a tendency to see securing their energy security as a zero-sum game.' Nowhere is that more clear than in sub-Saharan Africa, where Chinese oil and natural-gas companies have over the past several years inked deals with regimes such as Sudan's.....'In Africa,' says Jamal Qureshi, an oil-markets expert at PFC Energy in Washington, 'you've got new players, with China as a possible counterweight to the U.S. There could be elements of confrontation.... In October Beijing agreed to buy up to $100 billion in Iranian petroleum and gas and to help develop a major Iranian oilfield near the Iraqi border-evidence of an evolving Sino-Iranian alliance that is featured in the Pentagon report. Earlier this year Beijing signed a 25-year deal to develop natural-gas reserves in Iran-despite U.S.-led sanctions-and it is increasingly active in the Gulf states..... Africa, though, remains the new oil frontier for both China and the United States....... Once oil-independent, China has over the last decade become increasingly reliant on imports, which now account for 60 percent of its oil consumption, up from 6.4 percent in 1993.'.... While the United States appears to have conceded Sudan to China, it is active elsewhere in Africa. U.S. President George W. Bush has made a point of meeting with leaders of such countries as Chad and Congo, which in the past barely registered on Washington's foreign-policy map.... Some analysts even suspect that the deliberate way in which the United States lifted sanctions on Libya earlier this year was a move to check China's growing influence in Africa. If China sees energy security as a zero-sum game, so, it appears, does its American rival."
Yet Another Great Game
Newsweek, 20 December 2004

“A new power configuration across the world is being silently fashioned to counter, or at least limit, American supremacy… In the struggle for global dominance, oil is the central currency. Its indispensability for industry, agriculture, transport and military capability, along with the near-certainty that oil production will peak around 2010-2015, is refashioning conventional power rivalries. A new regional and superpower coalition of China, Russia, India and Brazil is emerging, and attracting the close interest of major oil producers, such as Iran and Venezuela, as a counterweight to American power…. It is oil, not ideas of freedom or democracy, that will increasingly determine the direction of events….. The rhetoric about democracy may suit Bush's domestic audience. But the British government will make serious errors over the next four years if it takes what he and other members of his administration say at face value.”
Michael Meacher, former Blair Minister
Now for an even newer world order
New Statesman, 9 May 2005

"The world is about to face an energy crisis because the demand for oil keeps growing even though production is already at its maximum, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said yesterday. Chavez, whose country is the world’s fifth largest crude oil exporter, said that all OPEC members were 'producing at full steam.' 'There’s a worldwide energy crisis around the corner,' Chavez told reporters at the end of the first Summit of South American-Arab Countries in Brazil. 'Especially because the US and other developed countries, but more so the US, have built a way of life based on the wasteful consumption of oil, which is non-renewable.' Representatives of eight of the 11 OPEC members were present at the summit, which did not have energy on its official agenda. 'We are producing at maximum capacity,' he said, adding that non-OPEC members such as Russia and the US were doing the same."
World Facing Energy Crisis Say Oil Producers
Press Association, 12 May 2005

With Record Demand And Short Supply
Why Is There So Little Global Investment In New Oil Production Capacity?

"Investment in new capacity by oil-producing nations and energy companies is too small to meet future growth in demand, the developed world's energy watchdog warned on Tuesday. Claude Mandil, head of the International Energy Agency, said even though energy prices were near record levels, the world was not investing enough in oil and gas production, refining, power generation and transmission."
IEA chief issues energy investment warning
Financial Times, 4 May 2005

Is It Because Oil Companies With Highly Sophisticated Modern Exploration Technology
Know There Is Little Conventional Oil Left To Find, But Are Under Pressure Not To Talk About It?

"Andrew Gould, chairman of Schlumberger, points out that 25 years ago only one-sixth of all exploration wells drilled were successful; now the figure is two thirds. Over that period, the success rate for development wells has gone from hit-or-miss to nearly 100%."
The bottomless beer mug
Economist, 30 April 2005

".... the number of major new oil fields discovered around the world fell to zero for the first time in 2003, despite an obvious increase in technological expertise."
Is the world's oil running out fast?
BBC Online, 7 June 2004

"Legendary Oklahoma energy magnate, T. Boone Pickens [who started Mesa Petroleum with $2500 in 1956, growing it into one of the world's leading independent oil and gas producers] will be 77 years old this month, and maybe because of that, he feels free to speak what's on his mind; and he did to an audience of alternative fuel advocates in Palm Springs today. Addressing the 11th National Clean Cities conference, hosted by the former mayor of Palm Springs and introduced by former U.S. Energy Secretary John Herrington (1984-1989), Boone, as his friends refer to him, was candid in his views of wind energy, nuclear power, natural gas, and in particular petroleum. [He said] '.... Global oil (production) is 84 million barrels (a day)..... 84 million barrels a day times 365 days is 30 billion barrels of oil a year that we're depleting. All of the world's (oil) industry doesn't even come close to replacing 30 billion barrels of oil. We don't spend enough money to even give ourselves a chance to replace 30 billion barrels. It may be because the prospects are not there. I rather imagine that's what the answer is to that..... The majors, they talk about plenty of oil and that they can produce more, but if you look at ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, BP (British Petroleum), all the production (is) going down every year. They don't replace and they don't add to production, but they say there's plenty of oil around..... Now why would they say that? One of the chief economists with one of the major oil companies... I was at a conference where he was... we were talking and I asked, why do they say that? And he said, can you imagine what would happen if one of these major oil company's CEO's got up and made a speech and he said, 'We're running out of oil'? I said there'd be panic and he said, 'That's right. They're not going to make the statement. They're going to say there's plenty of oil around'..".
Boone Pickens Warns of Petroleum Production Peak
EV World, 3 May 2005

"With all the continents (save Antarctica) having been drilled to death over the past century, geologists believe that there are few 'elephant' fields left to be discovered on land. Just about the only virgin territory left is under the sea..... Oil majors are now betting that enormous amounts of oil are trapped under the ocean off Brazil, West Africa and the Gulf of Mexico.... The shallow waters teem with activity as oil rigs, supply vessels, drilling ships and the like go about their business. The skies are full of helicopters ferrying crews and visitors to and from the rigs. And hidden beneath the surface lies a lattice of pipelines that pump the oil and gas ashore (see map above). Today, all of that activity peters out along a line where the underwater contour sinks to below 1,500 feet. James Dupree, head of deep-water production in the Gulf of Mexico for BP, predicts that, in a decade's time, a similar map will show the infrastructure extending out to waters where the depth is more than 5,000 feet. But turning that vision into reality is going to be one of the biggest challenges the oil industry has ever faced."
Into deeper water
Economist, 6 December 2001

"Already, the industry is exploring under water at depths that were unimaginable a decade or two ago. In the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere, oil rigs now float atop 3,000 metres (10,000 ft) of water. These marvels of engineering are stuffed with the latest in robotics, electronics sensors and satellite equipment. Using fancy 'multilateral' wells that twist and turn in all directions, they can hit underwater pockets miles away from the rig."
The bottomless beer mug
Economist, 30 April 2005

"According to a new study published on Sunday by state oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos, the potential for oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico has been greatly overestimated. Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, revealed that terrain in waters deeper than 3,000 meters in the Gulf of Mexico an area known as the Abyssal Plain were ‘not suitable for oil exploration.’ The statement represents a serious setback for future drilling in the area, and, according to petroleum analysts, jeopardizes any possible collaborations with foreign investors. Guillermo Pérez Cruz, head of Pemex's Special Unit for Deep Water Oil Exploration, said the new report reduced previous oil estimates in the zone by 53 percent…. Pemex had initially earmarked a possible 54 billion barrels of oil that could be drilled from the area. With that figure now cut in half, Pérez Cruz says, exploration becomes economically unviable.”
Pemex: Reserves overestimated
The Herald (Mexico), 18 April 2005

"Oil company BP's existing oil and gas fields are posting production declines of about 3 per cent, Tony Hayward, the company's chief executive for exploration and production, said on Wednesday. 'That piece of the portfolio as a whole is declining around 3 per cent,' he told an energy conference. The company's key profit centers, which exclude its stake in Russian TNK-BP and new output from Azerbaijan, are expected to produce about 2 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2005 and are showing different decline rates, he said. 'Alaska is mostly flat; the North Sea is declining somewhere between 6 and 8 per cent; and our South America business is growing, but taken as sub-segment of E&P, it's declining around 8 per cent,' he said. Energy analysts have pointed to sharper decline rates at producing fields as a key reason for rising oil prices, which hit record highs on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Monday. Rising demand in Asia, particularly China and India, has soaked up excess production, creating a tight supply-demand balance and driving up prices, analysts say. Some industry participants have estimated that overall decline rates for existing producing fields could be as high as 8 per cent......"
BP says oil fields declining
Reuters, 7 April 2005

"A senior executive at BP PLC (BP) thinks world oil production will peak in the next decade, earlier than most other forecasts, the Business reported Sunday. BP exploration consultant Francis Harper estimated the amount of total usable oil reserves in the world are 2.4 trillion barrels, and production would peak between 2010 and 2020, the report said. Harper said production would drop off outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries first, concentrating power in the producer group. That forecast would mean demand outstripping supply much earlier than other forecasts by ExxonMobil Corp. (XOM) or Royal Dutch/Shell Group (RD SC), the report said."
World Oil Output To Peak Next Decade - BP Exec
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES, November 7, 2004

Now for an even newer world order
Michael Meacher
Monday 9th May 2005

Election: the future - world views. Michael Meacher on oil and the rise of China

A new power configuration across the world is being silently fashioned to counter, or at least limit, American supremacy. The newly elected British government will need to refashion its approach to the US to take account of this highly significant shift in international power relations.

A doctrine for US power was shaped at the outset of this Bush presidency by the Project for the New American Century. The plan called for unprecedented hikes in military spending, the spreading of American bases in central Asia and the Middle East, the toppling of recalcitrant regimes, the militarisation of outer space, the abrogation of international treaties, a willingness to use nuclear weapons, and control of the world's energy resources.

The goal, it was made quite clear, was "full-spectrum domi-nance". The think-tank's document was explicit: Iran was "perhaps a far greater threat" to US oil hegemony than Iraq, and other nations, including Russia and China, had to be brought to heel - by military means or economic dominance, by conquest, alliance, or silent acquiescence - and forcibly prevented from "challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role". The Bush administration has never deviated from this blueprint. Now it faces a concerted challenge.

In the struggle for global dominance, oil is the central currency. Its indispensability for industry, agriculture, transport and military capability, along with the near-certainty that oil production will peak around 2010-2015, is refashioning conventional power rivalries. A new regional and superpower coalition of China, Russia, India and Brazil is emerging, and attracting the close interest of major oil producers, such as Iran and Venezuela, as a counterweight to American power. The coalition already covers 75 per cent of the world's population and 80 per cent of its natural resources. Iran also looks poised to join, after its recent $200bn (£106bn) energy deal with China, while Venezuela under Hugo Chavez may turn out, even more than Iran, to be the next centre of confrontation for oil supremacy. Venezuela, the biggest Opec producer outside the Gulf, and a major supplier to the US in the past, is offering to help China build a strategic oil reserve.

China, like the US, tends to equate energy security with physical possession or control of energy supplies. Chinese oil and natural-gas companies have already set up deals with African regimes such as Sudan's. They are increasingly active in the Gulf states, and may perhaps replace the US as Saudi Arabia's patron and protector. Some suspect that the US lifted sanctions on Libya a year ago at least partly because it wanted to check China's growing influence in Africa. Even more significant is the realignment between Russia and China, wrought by fear of more assertive US power. Proposed joint military exercises, to be held in China, signify a rapprochement that is one of the most fundamental changes on the geopolitical scene for decades.

Only three decades ago, the USSR had extended its ground forces so that it could threaten China with no fewer than 44 divisions. Now, the last of the border disputes between the two countries has been settled, and President Vladimir Putin has signed an agreement for joint development of Russian energy reserves. Even more significant, military co-operation has become closer than ever before. China has become the prime customer of Russia's arms industry, buying some $2bn of Russian weaponry last year, much of it top of the line.

Indeed, the western arms embargo, which the US insists that the EU continue, has forced China closer to Russia for access to sophisticated arms and technology. What drives the rapprochement is the resolve of both China and Russia to collaborate in diluting what both see as US domination of the post-cold war international order.

It is oil, not ideas of freedom or democracy, that will increasingly determine the direction of events. One wonders why, if human rights and freedom from oppression were really the lodestone of US foreign policy, Condoleezza Rice branded only Belarus, Burma, Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Zimbabwe as "outposts of tyranny". Why not also Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan? The regimes in charge of all these countries could be called "oppressors", with systemic use of torture and sup-pression of basic rights. But the US depends on these countries economically, logistically and politically for its pursuit of the war on terror, as well as for its critical oil-supply routes.

The rhetoric about democracy may suit Bush's domestic audience. But the British government will make serious errors over the next four years if it takes what he and other members of his administration say at face value.

Michael Meacher has been re-elected as Labour MP for Oldham West and Royton

"President Bush is preparing a shift in US space policy that could pave the way for the deployment of offensive and defensive weapons beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. It would overturn a 1996 directive signed by President Clinton, which drew the line at using satellites to support military operations, arms control and non-proliferation pacts. Scott McClellan, Mr Bush’s spokesman, said that US space policy needed to be updated because in the past nine years there had been 'a number of domestic and international developments that have changed the threats and challenges facing our space capabilities'. In an apparent reference to China, but without mentioning it by name, Mr McClellan said: 'There are countries that have taken an interest in space. And they have looked at technologies that could threaten our space systems. And so you obviously need to take that into account when you’re updating the policy.'.... The Global Strike programme envisages a military spacecraft carrying precision-guided weapons capable of striking halfway round the world in 45 minutes. Pentagon chiefs have told Congress that it would offer US commanders 'an incredible capability', allowing them to destroy centres or missile bases around the world. Another USAF programme is the 'Rods from God', in which cylinders of tungsten, titanium or uranium would be launched from space to strike ground targets at speeds of 7,200mph. Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, promoted this new phase in space weapons in 2001 when a commission that he headed recommended that the Pentagon 'ensure that the President will have the option to deploy weapons in space'. Three years later the USAF believes that it has done the planning necessary to move to the next stage. One of the most controversial acts of the early Bush presidency has helped to clear the way. Under the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union, Washington and Moscow agreed not to place weapons in space. Mr Bush unilaterally withdrew from the treaty to allow the Pentagon to pursue the missile defence umbrella first championed by President Reagan."
Bush looks to make space the final weapons frontier
London Times, 19 May 2005

"The muted response of the United States to the death toll in Uzbekistan demonstrates how not all former Soviet republics are equal in the eyes of the White House. President Bush spent last week championing the democratic freedoms secured in the Baltic states and Georgia and pushing for further reforms on Russia’s doorstep — but the rhetoric tails off when the subject of human rights abuses in Uzbekistan crops up. Scott McClellan, Mr Bush’s spokesman, declined to take sides when asked about Uzbek troops opening fire on unarmed civilians. 'The people of Uzbekistan want to see a more representative and democratic government, but that should come through peaceful means, not through violence.' The State Department was equally unwilling to speak against the iron-fisted regime of President Karimov. Richard Boucher, a State Department spokesman, said: 'We believe that everywhere people have the right to express their grievances, but that grievances should be pursued through a peaceful process.' The tone is designed to avoid conflict with Mr Karimov ..... Uzbekistan opened its door in 2001 to a vast US military base without which the assault on Afghanistan would have been much more complicated. In return for millions of dollars of US aid, Mr Karimov has allowed the base to stay, giving the US a permanent military foothold in Central Asia. There is also evidence that the US has allowed Mr Karimov’s feared security services to do its dirty work, flying stubborn high-level detainees to Uzbekistan to be tortured. The US is also interested in Uzbek oil and gas reserves."
Reticence is price for War on Terror
London Times, 16 May 2005

"Islam Karimov, President of Uzbekistan, boils people alive. Why? For the same reason Saddam Hussein put his enemies in a shredder: because, at the time, he could. When the West is your pal you are able, quite literally, to get away with murder. And what murder! It is a surprise Karimov has time for governing at all, once he has spent the morning formulating new ways to poach, grill, tenderise, smoke and flambé his citizens to death. Boiling water, electrocution, chlorine-filled gas masks, drowning, rape, shooting, savage beatings, Karimov’s Uzbekistan is the absolute market leader in torture right now. The CIA would not shop anywhere else, which is why a mysterious Gulfstream 5 executive jet routinely delivers terrorist subjects from Afghanistan there for interrogation and, perhaps, percolation. Craig Murray, the former British Ambassador, drew attention to this last year, and the noted socialist Tony Blair acted immediately. He sacked him. Mr Murray’s warnings echo louder than ever now, on the back of hundreds of corpses in the streets of Andijan..... Live and don’t learn would appear to be the moral to this story. Karimov may be a vicious, murdering, malevolent despot, but he is our vicious, murdering, malevolent despot so, like Saddam, he can boil, shred and gas away until we tire of uses for him. Saddam was in the right place, sharing our hostility towards Iran at the right time, and so we armed him to the teeth in the name of a cause. Karimov, a nasty member of the regional Soviet hierarchy even before independence in 1991, stands beneath another flag of convenience. He is frightened of Islam, rich in gas and oil, and within striking distance of Afghanistan. An American airbase, which Karimov allowed to be built at Khanabad, now protects the American-owned pipeline carrying Central Asia’s black treasure through Afghanistan to the sea. Is it not strange that all our pals have the same thing in common? Just as celebrities end up latching on to other celebrities, so the West always finds itself hanging out with guys who are knee-deep in four-star..... We mould these little monsters such as Saddam, Karimov and General Manuel Noriega and they do our dirty work until such a time when it is no longer expedient, at which point we extract revenge and dress it up as a moral crusade; or enduring freedom."
Ready, steady, cook up reasons for supporting the boiling butcher
London Times, 17 May 2005

"....despite President Bush’s pledge to make the 'end of tyranny' the hallmark of his second term, US officials tip toed around direct criticism of the regime of President Karimov, who has given the US a priceless 'footprint' in Central Asia by allowing the Pentagon to open an airbase in his country. Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, offered no direct censure of Uzbekistan as she flew back to Washington after her surprise visit to Iraq."
Tensions mount in Central Asia as regime counters Uzbek revolt
London Times, 17 May 2005

"The bodies of hundreds of pro-democracy protesters in Uzbekistan are scarcely cold, and already the White House is looking for ways to dismiss them. The White House spokesman Scott McClellan said those shot dead in the city of Andijan included 'Islamic terrorists' offering armed resistance. They should, McClellan insists, seek democratic government 'through peaceful means, not through violence'. But how? This is not Georgia, Ukraine or even Kyrgyzstan. There, the opposition parties could fight elections. The results were fixed, but the opportunity to propagate their message brought change. In Uzbek elections on December 26, the opposition was not allowed to take part at all..... One of the uses of Uzbek torture is to provide the CIA and MI6 with 'intelligence' material linking the Uzbek opposition with Islamist terrorism and al-Qaida. The information is almost entirely bogus, and it was my efforts to stop MI6 using it that led ultimately to my effective dismissal from the Foreign Office. The information may be untrue, but it is valuable because it feeds into the US agenda. Karimov is very much George Bush's man in central Asia. There is not a senior member of the US administration who is not on record saying warm words about Karimov. There is not a single word recorded by any of them calling for free elections in Uzbekistan.... The airbase opened by the US at Khanabad is not essential to operations in Afghanistan, its claimed raison d'être. It has a more crucial role as the easternmost of Donald Rumsfeld's 'lily pads' - air bases surrounding the 'wider Middle East', by which the Pentagon means the belt of oil and gas fields stretching from the Middle East through the Caucasus and central Asia. A key component of this strategic jigsaw fell into place this spring when US firms were contracted to build a pipeline to bring central Asia's hydrocarbons out through Afghanistan to the Arabian sea. That strategic interest explains the recent signature of the US-Afghan strategic partnership agreement, as well as Bush's strong support for Karimov. So the Uzbek people can keep on dying. They are not worth a lot of cash, so who cares? I travelled to Andijan a year ago to meet the opposition leaders, and kept in touch. I can give you a direct assurance that they are - or in many cases were - in no sense Islamist militants. They died an unwanted embarrassment to US foreign policy. We will doubtless hear some pious hypocrisies from Jack Straw. But when I was seeking funding to support the proto-democrats, the Foreign Office turned me down flat. The US will fund 'human rights' training in Uzbekistan but not help for the democratic opposition, in contrast to its policy elsewhere in the former Soviet Union. When Jon Purnell, the US ambassador, last year attended the opening of a human rights centre in the Ferghana valley, he interrupted a local speaker criticising repression. Political points, Purnell opined, were not allowed. The western news agenda has moved the dead of Andijan from the 'democrat' to the 'terrorist' pile. Karimov remains in power. The White House will be happy. That's enough for No 10."
Craig Murray, British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, 2002 - 2004
What drives support for this torturer? - Oil and gas ensure that the US backs the Uzbek dictator to the hilt
Guardian, 16 May 2005

"The US, while citing democracy for Uzbekistan as a long-term goal, acknowledges that the autocratic president, Islam Karimov, has problems: democracy could result in an Islamist government that would almost certainly not be favourable to the US.... Imran Waheed, spokesman for Hizb ut-Tahrir, said the organisation was committed to change through non-violence. 'President Karimov makes Saddam Hussein look like a choirboy, but he is in the arms of the west,' he said."
Scepticism greets Straw's reproof
Guardian, 16 May 2005

"Enron's export plan remains the most ambitious attempted so far by a foreign investor in Uzbekistan: a deal signed in 1996 gave it the rights to explore 11 fields in the Surkhandariya and Bukhara region. The proposed project called for an initial investment of $300 mn that would reach $1.3 bn over the next 20 years. The US government funded a feasibility study for the project, coupled with a pledge of $400 mm financing and insurance support. The aim was to see gas flowing through the existing infrastructure to markets in Russia and elsewhere from the fields as early as 1998.... Like other Central Asian countries, double-landlocked Uzbekistan is keen to develop alternative export routes to the Russian pipeline system.... Ambitions of linking into a southern export pipeline crossing Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan to deliver gas to Pakistan have vanished for the time being, now that project sponsor Unocal has put it on the back burner.... Uzbekistan signed an MoU with the countries involved to participate in the project. But in August the Taliban consolidated its control over Afghanistan by capturing key northern towns previously under the control of ethnic Uzbek leader Rashid Dostum. Uzbekistan is extremely concerned at the growing strength of the Taliban and its potential impact on stability in Uzbekistan, making any future co-operation on a pipeline project which benefits the Taliban unlikely."
Uzbekistan has difficulties finding venues for its gas
Alexander's Oil And Gas, Volume 3, issue #27-10-12-1998

"Much though I liked Oona King, whom he defeated, I am delighted that Galloway and two other independents will enliven the new parliament.... Last week, however, it was Galloway’s performance in the US Senate that held our gaze. In the days since he harangued Senator Coleman’s committee there has been a fresh outbreak of British snootiness about the inferiority of the debating skills of US politicians. That underplays Galloway’s achievement: we have not always felt so superior. I have seen MPs on select committees bully their witnesses as, Walter Mitty-like, they dream of being the young Richard Nixon on the house committee on un-American activities crushing Alger Hiss. That reputations and lives have been destroyed before such committees did not faze Galloway. Indeed it provided him with an opportunity to parody that catchphrase from the Hiss era: 'Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist party?'...... The committee foolishly gave Galloway a platform in Washington to berate the US for the hypocrisy of its foreign policy. Gorgeous George might as well have been in Hollywood, because the Americans enabled him to achieve superstar status, as demonstrated by the adoring crowd that greeted him in Bethnal Green on his return. One of Galloway’s most telling lines was that he had met Saddam only twice, as had Donald Rumsfeld, the difference being that the US defence secretary had sought him out in order to sell arms. ..... Galloway was on to a good point when arguing that another disgrace is America’s administration of Iraq following the fall of Baghdad.... if we care so much about setting the Iraqi people free, why do we refuse to keep any record of how many of those we have liberated have been killed? As one who supported the war, I think it is right that we should be held to account for what has happened on our watch. It is because the allies employ double standards that a showman such as Galloway becomes a popular hero. As the cabaret was being played out on Capitol Hill, the US administration was framing its first mealy-mouthed comments on the slaughter of hundreds of civilians by government forces in Uzbekistan. Condoleezza Rice managed eventually to call for political reform and the State Department said it was deeply disturbed, but still its spokesman condemned the violent protesters who had stormed government buildings. Maybe America believes President Islam Karimov’s claim that the trouble is caused by Muslim extremists. Craig Murray, Britain’s former ambassador to the country, says that is a lie. The pressure, he says, comes not from militants but from businessmen in Andijan who want capitalism and democracy. Murray has described a regime that tortures and murders, sometimes by boiling victims alive. For his pains he was sacked as ambassador. The American and British attitude to this former Soviet republic contrasts sharply with their approach to Ukraine and Georgia. George Bush greeted Viktor Yushchenko, the new Ukrainian leader, with these words: 'You are an inspiration to all who love liberty . . . an example of democracy for people around the world.' In Tbilisi Bush’s rhetoric was still more grandiloquent: 'Georgia is today both sovereign and free, a beacon of liberty for this region and the world.' He recalled that a Georgian crowd had once pulled down Lenin’s statue. You sense that if the Uzbeks did such a thing the State Department would condemn them for vandalising public art. The Uzbek regime allows America to use the former Soviet airbase at Khanabad. The US is to build a pipeline across Uzbekistan and Afghanistan to the Arabian Sea. The words 'Islamic militants' are like a spell. Mumble those words and the Americans will forget that they love democracy and freedom. Karimov intones the incantation and the US overlooks his barbarities. President Vladimir Putin whispers it, too, to win Washington’s acquiescence for the massacres in Chechnya. You could argue that is realpolitik: to chafe at it is naive. But we have been here before. When Rumsfeld met Saddam he may or may not have tried to sell him weapons, but he did see the Iraqi dictator as a bulwark against Iran, which was exporting terror. The mayhem in Iraq today shows that we were right to regard Saddam as a buttress against Islamic militancy. But it also demonstrates how foolish we are if we try to base our foreign policy on alliances with monsters. Our support for Karimov is not only morally repugnant but also strategically short-sighted. Bush has used speeches to set out a narrative as beautiful and simple as any fairy tale. The countries that have lived under the yoke of tyranny can look forward to freedom. Across the Muslim world torture will give way to human rights and repression to democracy. He has explicitly repented past American policy, saying that the US can no longer ignore despotic outrages committed by governments, even if they are useful regional allies. However, American double standards in Iraq and Uzbekistan make us less credulous and ruin the fairy tale’s simplicity. Bush’s beautiful story cannot survive the fierce critique of a Gorgeous George."
Michael Portilo, former Conservative British Minister of Defence
Gorgeous George batters Bush’s beautiful fairy tale
Sunday Times (London), 22 May 2005

"We now know that a blueprint for the creation of a global Pax Americana was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice-president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), Jeb Bush (George Bush's younger brother) and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences, was written in September 2000 by the neoconservative think tank, Project for the New American Century (PNAC). The plan shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It says 'while the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.'... The evidence again is quite clear that plans for military action against Afghanistan and Iraq were in hand well before 9/11.... The BBC reported that Niaz Niak, a former Pakistan foreign secretary, was told by senior American officials at a meeting in Berlin in mid-July 2001 that 'military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October'. Until July 2001 the US government saw the Taliban regime as a source of stability in Central Asia that would enable the construction of hydrocarbon pipelines from the oil and gas fields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Indian Ocean. But, confronted with the Taliban's refusal to accept US conditions, the US representatives told them 'either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs' .... The 9/11 attacks allowed the US to press the 'go' button for a strategy in accordance with the PNAC agenda which it would otherwise have been politically impossible to implement. The overriding motivation for this political smokescreen is that the US and the UK are beginning to run out of secure hydrocarbon energy supplies.... A report from the commission on America's national interests in July 2000 noted that the most promising new source of world supplies was the Caspian region, and this would relieve US dependence on Saudi Arabia. To diversify supply routes from the Caspian, one pipeline would run westward via Azerbaijan and Georgia to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. Another would extend eastwards through Afghanistan and Pakistan and terminate near the Indian border. This would rescue Enron's beleaguered power plant at Dabhol on India's west coast, in which Enron had sunk $3bn investment and whose economic survival was dependent on access to cheap gas... "
This war on terrorism is bogus
The Guardian, 6 September 2003

"Russia's security chief accused Britain and America of using civic groups as a front for spies yesterday, and blamed similar operations for fomenting recent uprisings in other former Soviet republics. Nikolai Patrushev, the director of the KGB successor Federal Security Service (FSB), told parliament that his agency had uncovered spies working for the British and US governments, as well as for Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, operating under cover of non-governmental organisations.....The FSB chief's comments, an unusually detailed reiteration of suspicions often voiced, came days after the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, hosted George Bush and other world leaders for the Victory Day celebrations in Moscow.The visit of Mr Bush, who described the Soviet occupation of Europe as one of the great wrongs of the 20th century, underlined growing mistrust of the west among Kremlin hardliners. During his visit, Mr Bush made a point of meeting Kremlin critics and telling them they could count on his support to build a civil society and democracy. The US has also been accused of involvement with opposition movements in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, three former Soviet republics transformed by popular uprisings. In a broad reference to the supporting role that Washington and EU member states played in the protest-led regime changes, Mr Patrushev added: 'Our opponents are steadily and persistently trying to weaken Russian influence in the commonwealth of independent states and the international arena as a whole. The latest events in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan unambiguously confirm this.' Mr Patrushev, a close Putin ally, also accused an American NGO of organising a meeting in Slovakia last month at which further 'velvet revolutions were discussed'".
Russia says 'spies' work in foreign NGOs
Guardian, 13 May 2005

“Georgia was always set to be an exhilarating, even giddy, stop for Bush on this tour. Mikheil Saakashvili, the young pro-US President, is a model ally. He was always going to give Bush a flattering welcome.... Above all, Bush’s embrace of Georgia’s 18-month-old Government, in Russia’s backyard, was a way of delivering a ruder snub to President Putin than he could have done face to face in Moscow a day earlier.... his language also showed the profound muddles that the pursuit of democracy abroad has created in US foreign policy, behind the confident words. 'The world has marvelled at the hopeful changes taking place from Baghdad to Beirut to Bishkek,' Bush said, trying through alliteration to establish a similarity that is only partially there......Freedom is advancing from the Black Sea to the Caspian to the Persian Gulf,' he declared, counting his way through the 'Purple Revolution in Iraq', the 'Orange Revolution in Ukraine', the 'Cedar Revolution in Lebanon', and the 'Rose Revolution' in Georgia, like a tableau on a nursery school wall. But joining up the dots in this way ignores the different causes of these upheavals — and other, worsening threats in those regions..... Bush’s claim that freedom is advancing across the 'Caucasus, Central Asia and the broader Middle East' is simply untrue. In Central Asia, the US faces some of its toughest dilemmas: whether to back unpleasant regimes with no interest in freedom for fear that the replacement might be worse. In Chechnya, which warranted a routine mention, the conflict is turning from a local insurgency against Moscow to a bitter regional fight and a magnet for Islamic terrorists."
Turning revolution into a nursery game
London Times, 11 May 2005

"President Putin has drawn a line in the mountains of the North Caucasus beyond which Russia will not withdraw.... Mr Putin has also added into this complex mix the spectre of international (by which he means Islamic) terrorism and an accusation that unnamed foreign countries want to break bits off Russia.... An oil pipeline from Azerbaijan used to run through Chechnya, but it was by-passed after earlier fighting and now goes through Dagestan. There is oil and gas to be developed in the Caspian Sea and Russia wants a stable area through which to pass supplies."
Chechnya: Why Putin is implacable
BBC Online, 6 September 2004

"While it would be a distortion of history to claim that the struggle between Russia and Chechnya arises solely because of the of the jockeying for control of the Chechen oil deposits, refineries as well as the crucial pipeline which passes through Grozny, there is no doubt that petroleum has played a central role in the dispute. Given the potential of what seem to be vast untapped deposits in the Caspian Sea and the fact that the best if not only pipeline route from the Caspian through Russia to the West runs through Grozny, the odds are that tensions between Russia and Chechnya will not soon disappear. That will be the case even if constitutional matters dealing with regional rights and the integrity of the Russian Republic can be resolved.... Much more important in today's world is the fact that that Grozny is at the hub of Russia's pipeline network from the Caucasus' and most important to the vast deposits in the Caspian sea off Azarbajian........ If Russia's only concern was the Chechan rebellion, Russia would not be so anxious about the development of mineral reserves in the Caspian. However, in the aftermath of the breakup of the USSR, and the emergence of a newly assertive 'independent' Azerbaijan, Russian oil policy has suddenly taken on a new importance. This is due to the fact that there is a real possibility that Russia may find itself looking on from the outside as Azerbaijan, not Russia, becomes the recipient of billions of dollars worth of royalties from the sale of Caspian oil. Given the growing likelihood of such a development, the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea and the Chechan pipeline have suddenly become matters of international power politics, not only in the Kremlin, but because of the intense interest in the area by American oil companies, by the Washington White House.... It is easy to understand the Russian concerns. Oil from Caspian Sea deposits were first developed in the days of the czars and expanded in the Soviet era. Why should other governments now become the beneficiary of this initial work.... This hardening of attitudes is part of the growing suspicion by the Russians of western intentions. It is not just that oil companies from Russia's former enemies have been gathering data and control over what was once the Soviet Union's most valuable resources, but that their efforts seem to be part of a strategy to cut Russia off completly from the Trans Caucasus. How else can the United States support of Chechnya and 'The Confederation of Mountain Peoples' be explained..... As if all this were not threatening enough, the United States and its obedient oil companies have also begun to insist on the opening of a second pipeline route from the Caspian Sea....The real reason the American oil companies want to ship through Georgia they insist is to deprive the Russians of the transit fees and insure that the Russians will lose monopoly control over the pumping and shipping of Caspian Oil."
Marshall I. Goldman, Associate Director, Russian Research Center, Harvard University
Petroleum, Pipelines and Paranoia in the Caucasus
International Conference on 'International Law and the Chechen Republic', Cracow, Poland, Dec.1995

"Why would a group of leading American neo-conservatives, dedicated to fighting Islamic terror, have climbed into bed with Chechen rebels linked to al-Qaeda? The American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC), which includes Pentagon supremo Richard Perle, says the conflict between Russia and Chechnya is about Chechen nationalism, not terrorism. The ACPC savaged Russia for the atrocities its forces have committed in the Caucuses, said President Vladimir Putin was 'ridiculous', claimed Russia was more 'morally' to blame for the bloodshed than Chechen separatists and played down links between al-Qaeda and the 'Chechen resistance'. The ACPC's support for the Chechen cause seems bizarre, as many of its members are among the most outspoken US policymakers who have made it clear that Islamist terror must be wiped out. But the organisation has tried to broker peace talks between Russia and Chechen separatists. The ACPC includes many leaders of the neo-conservative think-tank, Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which advocates American domination of the world.... ACPC executive director Glen Howard said the continuation of the 'brutalising tactics' of Russian forces would only lead to 'the resistance employing more brutal tactics' like the assault on School Number One in Beslan...... The nurturing of Chechen fighters against Russia recalls America's support for the Mujahideen in Afghanistan - an act that went on to spawn al-Qaeda and the Taliban.... Howard said hardliners like Richard Perle were backing Chechnya as they 'understood what it feels like to be under the Russian yolk'. Some critics believe the support for the Chechens may be a cold war hangover or part of a policy to keep Russia weak through bloodletting in the Caucuses.... According to Howard, due to the vast energy resources in the Caucuses, the West, which is heavily dependent on foreign energy, has strategic interests in the area to which it cannot afford to turn a blind eye."
US neo-cons: Kremlin is 'morally' to blame for the school massacre
Sunday Herald - 12 September 2004

"The Caucasus is among the most vital regions of the world for the United States, said Commander of the United States European Command James Jones..... At the hearings in the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services on March 1 General Jones presented an analytical report on the current and future military strategic interests of the United States in the world. 'Caucasus is increasingly important for our interests,' he said. This region is a key one in the process of spreading democracy and market economy to the countries of Central and Southeast Asia, Mr. Johns said. In the coming five years Caspian oil running across the Caucasus may account for 25% of the world increase in oil production, he said. It has been estimated by the U.S. military that the Caucasian oil and gas will ensure a diversification of the energy sources for Europe, the general said, according to a RIA Novosti report."
U.S. Commander-in-Chief in Europe: Caucasus is vital for U.S.
Pravda, 4 March 2005

"Washington's support for Shevardnadze's overthrow certainly had nothing to do with its love of democracy, which was not much in evidence when Azerbaijan, just east of Georgia and another pipeline country, held even more outrageously rigged elections in October. For the Bush administration, the goal is to freeze Russia out of the new oil bonanza in the Caspian and Caucasus countries, all former Soviet fiefdoms, and Shevardnadze's crime was to be too accommodating to the Russians. ... when Shevardnadze signed a deal last year with the Russian gas giant Gazprom, Washington went ballistic. Bush's energy adviser Steven Mann flew in to warn Shevardnadze not to go ahead with the deal, Mikhail Saakashvili denounced it - and Shevardnadze signed it anyway. So no illusions about America's motives for opposing him - but on the other hand, most Georgians really did want to be rid of Shevardnadze."
The power to dismiss
Dawn (Pakistan), 12 January 2004

"The United States has poured about $1.3 billion (£735 million) in aid into Georgia since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The EU and individual EU states have contributed a similar amount, and funds continue to flow in. In the past week alone, the US Embassy announced a package worth $21 million to pay for heating bills, pensions and salaries during the harsh winter that will challenge Mr Saakashvili's fledgeling government from its first days. Washington's interests go far further than propping up the economy, however. A contingent of US special forces is rebuilding Georgia's ramshackle army, while Richard Miles, the US Ambassador, has become a constant presence at negotiations during the political upheaval that followed the ousting of Mr Shevardnadze. The focus on Georgia is explained mainly by the building of a pipeline to carry Caspian Sea oil from neighbouring Azerbaijan through to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan for export to Western clients. The pipeline, which will run through Georgia and bypass Russia, has long been a favourite American idea. Until now, Russia has been able to control most routes for exporting the Caspian's huge energy resources. Although the pipeline, in which BP has a leading stake, is due to be completed only in 2005, it has already transformed Georgia's place in the world. 'For us, it's a matter of survival to have this pipeline,' Mr Saakashvili said."
Georgia turns its face to the West
London Times, 31 December 2003

"The latest recipient of Washington's 'regime change' was not some miscreant Muslim state but the the mainly Christian mountain nation of Georgia. Eduard Shevardnadze, the 75-year-old strongman who has ruled post-Soviet Georgia's 5.1 million citizens since 1991, was overthrown by a bloodless coup that appears to have been organized and financed by the Bush administration. Shevardnadze's sin, in Washington's eyes, was being too chummy with Moscow and obstructing a major U.S. oil pipeline, due to open in 2005, from Central Asia, via Georgia, to Turkey. Georgia occupies the heart of the wild, unruly, and strategic Caucasus region, which I call the Mideast North. In recent months, Shevardnadze had given new drilling and pipeline concessions to Russian firms.....Washington sent high-level emissaries to warn Shevardnadze not to do anything that threatened the proposed oil corridor. When he went ahead with Russian oil deals, Washington denounced the Nov. 2 Georgian elections as rigged, which they were, although it also turns a blind eye to rigged elections in useful allies like oil-rich Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, Egypt, Pakistan, etc. Cash and anti-Shevardnadze political operatives from the U.S. poured into Tbilisi to back up the president's American-educated principal rival, Mikhail Saakashvili.... Washington will shore up its man in Tbilisi, Saakashvili, and may send Special Forces troops under the pretext of the faux war on terrorism. The entire Caucasus is near a boil. The sharply increasing rivalry between the U.S. and Russia for political and economic influence over this vital land bridge between Europe and the oil-rich Caspian Basin promises a lot more intrigue, skullduggery and drama."
Shevy's big mistake: Crossing Uncle Sam
Toronto Sun, 30 November 2003

"It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Tomorrow New Labour’s ethical policy will drown symbolically in a poisonous cocktail of blood and oil when the Queen shakes hands with Azerbaijan’s President Aliev. Her Majesty may be forgiven for thinking this is one export-driven photo-opportunity too many. The Queen has dutifully entertained tyrants of all stripes but she has never had to shake hands with a SMERSH agent before.... Today, as President of Azerbaijan his secret police regularly arrest scores of critics allegedly plotting against him and thousands languish in his old haunts, the ex-KGB prisons. Others simply disappear. Yet Aliev’s Azerbaijan is respectable. There is one word to explain this bizarre fact: Oil.... Azeri democracy was uniquely Aliev-style.... oil decreed that Aliev had won 98.9% of the votes - a modest 1% fall from his last Soviet-era total... A gaggle of ex-Tory MPs and former Foreign Office diplomats know the value of keeping in with Aliev. So does a host of stars of George Bush’s Administration... [now] Tony Blair is wining and dining Aliev..."
Aliev In Britain
Daily Mail, 20 July 1998

"To Azerbaijani officials, a deal with BP was tantamount to a deal with the British government; not only did visiting British officials lobby relentlessly for the company, but for months Britain's diplomatic mission to Azerbaijan had operated out of the BP offices."
A British 'Coup'
Washington Post, 4 October 1998

"A secret intelligence report accuses BP, Britain's biggest company, of backing a military coup which installed a ruthless KGB hardman in the former Soviet state of Azerbaijan. An intelligence officer says BP... later consolidated its position with the new regime when the middlemen arranged to supply the incoming government with military equipment in an 'arms-for-oil' deal.... Aliyev's arrival was welcomed by Britain and America, which have a strategic interest in securing oil rights. BP has close links to British intelligence and employs several former MI6 officers... Lord Simon of Highbury, Tony Blair's former trade minister... was BP's group chief executive at the time of the coup... Blair gave [Aliyev] red-carpet treatment when he visited London in 1998 to sign a friendship treaty and $13 billion (£9.5 billion) in contracts with BP and other British firms...."
BP accused of backing 'arms for oil' coup
Sunday Times, 26 March 2000

"The Bush Administration put huge effort yesterday into preaching two contradictory messages on democracy. On one side, we had Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, in north Africa to champion the cause of democracy and human rights. On the other, we had Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defence, congratulating the President of Azerbaijan on his landslide October poll victory, which even the State Department has said was tarnished by fraud, and which triggered street riots. But the contradiction is not between Powell and Rumsfeld, notorious though their different views of the world are. It lies at the heart of the Administration’s foreign policy: does it always want to promote democracy, when that would produce a government hostile to its interests? That is the question the US faces in Iraq, above all — one it has chosen so far to duck. First Rumsfeld, who stopped in Baku on his way from Brussels to Kabul. The reason for the US’s interest is no mystery. Azerbaijan’s Caspian oilfields are an attraction as the US looks for alternatives to the Gulf.... Rumsfeld emphasised the closeness of those links yesterday: 'We have a military-to-military relationship, as well as political and economic relationships. And certainly we intend to continue that military-to-military relationship with the new administration here in this country.' The problem is the nature of that administration. The elections allowed Ilham Aliyev to succeed his father, Heider Aliyev, longtime leader of the Soviet-era Communist Party, who returned to power in 1993 after a military coup. Senior opposition figures are among 100 said still to be in jail after post-election riots. So is Ilgar Ibrahimogul, imam of a mosque in the capital, and founder of Azerbaijan’s Centre for Religious Freedom, together with Rauf Arifoglu, editor of the biggest-circulation newspaper. The State Department has called for an investigation into intimidation and ballot-rigging. In that light Rumsfeld’s remarks amount to a bald statement of the bargain that the US will strike to pursue its strategic interest."
Bush's officers parade policy contradiction
London Times, 5 December 2003

"Yes, our man (Yushchenko) and our system (democracy) won in Ukraine, and once again good triumphed over bad. Yet this presentation, so characteristic of the Western media, misses the point about what the struggle is really about. If the issue was fair elections, there would have been an equal furore about the grossly rigged elections by which Ilham Aliyev assumed the presidency of Azerbaijan in 2003 from his father, a ruthless KGB hardman in the former Soviet state. In fact the West turned a blind eye, in order to maintain access to Azerbaijan’s oil supplies after a $13 billion contract had been signed with BP in 1998. Equally, there would have been uproar when the pro-Russian Shevardnadze was ousted as President of Georgia in 2003 and the West’s favoured candidate won 96 per cent of the vote to replace him. But nobody raised any complaint. If the issue was legitimate government, much more attention would have been focused on Yushchenko’s aides and the tenor of his administration. His closest aide, Julia Timoshenko, known as Ukraine’s ‘gas princess’, and now appointed Prime Minister, has been widely accused by both the Russian and Ukrainian authorities of bribery and embezzlement. Another aide admits that ‘the key people in the Yushchenko team are from the same oligarchic mould as our opponents’. Economic interests, not political principle, pitted them against the Yanukovich camp. Many fear that turning over state power to entrenched oligarchs like these will make Yushchenko’s government little different from its predecessor. What is really at stake is something quite different, almost entirely unmentioned in the Western media. It is rather more prosaic than a ‘people power’ revolution. It is primarily a battle over oil transit routes from the second largest remaining oil deposits in the world, and, more long term, a US attempt to pre-empt Chinese designs on the key strategic space round the southern rim of the old Soviet Union. In May 2000 an oilfield containing 20–50 billion barrels of oil was discovered in the Caspian Sea off the Kazakhstan coast, probably the biggest hitherto untapped reserve in the world. But, with major exploration only now getting under way, early seismic studies suggest vast resources of hydrocarbons ranging from 70–200 billion barrels of oil and some 250 trillion cubic feet of gas — less than in the Middle East but much more than in the US and Europe. The geopolitical problem, however, centres on the fact that the Caspian Sea is landlocked, so that oil and gas have to be transported by pipeline to a terminal on the open sea. One relatively short route runs through Iran, but that is not acceptable to the US. Another plan, from the US oil company Unocal, was to extend Turkmenistan’s existing route through Afghanistan and Pakistan on to the Arabian Sea, and this was a consideration behind launching the war against Afghanistan in 2001. A third alternative is a pipeline westwards from the Caspian port of Baku through Georgia to the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean; but this has been heavily opposed on grounds of environmental destruction. A fourth option is a pipeline from Kazakh to the Black Sea, but this has the severe drawback of tanker congestion in the Bosphorus. Against this background, Ukraine’s geographical location makes it an ideal corridor for oil and natural gas from the Caspian region to Western markets. The most suitable conduit is the Odessa–Brody pipeline which was completed in 2001 and runs north from Ukraine’s Black Sea port to the city of Brody, and is thence extended to the refinery at Plotsk in Poland and a further link to the Baltic port of Gdansk. However, this has been blocked hitherto by Moscow’s stubborn insistence on operating the pipeline in the reverse direction, to move oil from Russia southwards to tankers in the Black Sea for onward shipping to world markets. Moscow has also tried to drag Ukraine into a customs or even an economic union in the framework of its so-called Integrated Economic Zone. By depriving Ukraine of its European prospects and hence of its opportunity to become more independent economically, the Kremlin has been trying to pull Kiev back into Moscow’s orbit. What has been at stake in Ukraine is less a fight over democracy than a struggle over the geopolitics of oil and military reach. If Ukraine is absorbed into the Nato orbit, Russia will be deprived of access to its naval bases in the Crimea, and Russian oil and gas exports will be squeezed by a new US straitjacket. But the significance of the Ukrainian confrontation goes even wider. China remains the sole long-term challenger to US hegemony, and while the Chinese economy has been expanding at a phenomenal rate, its weakness continues to be its energy supply. Once oil-independent, China has over the last decade become increasingly reliant on imports, which now account for 60 per cent of its oil consumption, compared with only 6 per cent in 1993. Within the next five years, according to Beijing, China will be importing 50 million tons of oil and 50 billion cubic metres of gas annually. Chinese petro-diplomacy already extends worldwide, including Africa, and it is busily establishing surveillance stations, naval facilities and airstrips to safeguard the oil route from the Gulf to the South China Sea. But its main goal in escaping dependence on maritime oil supplies is access to Russian and central Asian oil. Another facet, therefore, of intense US pressure on Ukraine is to forestall any Chinese encroachment on this oil-strategic area in the soft underbelly of the former Soviet Union. Ukraine is in reality a key flashpoint in the new Great Game being played out by the US, not so much with Russia, still a declining force, but with China, the emerging long-term threat."
One for oil and oil for one
The Spectator, 5 March 2005

"I wish I could simply wave a magic wand and lower gas prices tomorrow. But we must act now to address the fundamental problem. Our supply of energy is not growing fast enough to meet the demands of our growing economy..... Our dependence on foreign energy is like a foreign tax on the American Dream - the tax our citizens pay every day in higher gas prices, higher cost to heat and cool their homes - a tax on jobs. Worst of all, it's a tax increasing every year."
George W. Bush 20 April 2005
Bush Urges Action 'Now' on Energy
Washington Post, 21 April 2005

" .. in 1973.... the Arab oil embargo temporarily left the U.S. unable to satisfy its voracious appetite for oil. That created a deep sense of vulnerability — a rare experience for the world's most powerful country. Preventing the U.S. from ever being vulnerable like that again has been a key objective of American strategic planners ever since. The 1973 embargo sparked a new hawkishness in Washington. An article in the March, 1975, issue of Harper's, titled 'Seizing Arab Oil,' unabashedly outlined plans for a U.S. invasion to seize key Middle East oilfields and prevent Arab countries from having such control over the modern world's most vital commodity. The author, writing under a pseudonym, wasn't just any old right-wing blowhard; it turned out to be Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. But seizing Arab oilfields was too risky as long as the Soviet Union existed. The Soviet collapse in 1991 opened up new possibilities."
History Will Show U.S. Lusted after Oil
Toronto Star, 26 December 2005

"....we could have the perfect storm if there were a revolution in Saudi Arabia and no one can really predict how bad it would be, or would it spill over into the other Gulf countries... what I'm saying is I think we should anticipate for it. If the United States keeps on its policy of, you know, aggressive, pro-Israeli policy in the Middle East, it could affect Saudi Arabia in terms of a revolution and we have to be prepared for the consequences... this sounds.... like a hawk now, but you know, we have to be prepared. We, the West, have to take over those oil fields if there's a serious Islamic revolution in the Gulf that affects all these countries. ...... It's a world commodity, oil, and it has to be protected for our survival ..... Now whether, you know, whether it's seizing the oil fields or putting them under the United Nations' control or accommodating Saudi Arabian public opinion.... I think [the war in Iraq is] ultimately destabilising because we've essentially effaced a country in the Middle East, which is Iraq."
Bob Baer, former CIA operative in the Middle East
Former CIA analyst comments on US/ Saudi relations
Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 30 April 2003

"A briefing given last month to a top Pentagon advisory board described Saudi Arabia as an enemy of the United States, and recommended that U.S. officials give it an ultimatum to stop backing terrorism or face seizure of its oil fields and its financial assets invested in the United States.... The briefing did not represent the views of the board or official government policy, and in fact runs counter to the present stance of the U.S. government that Saudi Arabia is a major ally in the region. Yet it also represents a point of view that has growing currency within the Bush administration -- especially on the staff of Vice President Cheney and in the Pentagon's civilian leadership -- and among neoconservative writers and thinkers closely allied with administration policymakers."
Briefing Depicted Saudis as Enemies
Washington Post, 6 August 2002

"David O'Reilly, chairman and chief executive of Chevron Texaco said there was a view among some sections of the public that the [Iraqi] conflict was about nothing but oil and that was not a good enough reason to go to war. But he said that the diversity and continuity of the world's energy supply were vital strategic concerns "
Iraq is 'an excuse'
Daily Telegraph, 18 February 2003

"The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, yesterday pinpointed for the first time security of energy sources as a key priority of British foreign policy. Mr Straw listed energy as one of seven foreign policy priorities when he addressed a meeting of 150 British ambassadors in London. The US and British governments officially deny that oil is a factor in the looming war with Iraq, but some ministers and officials in Whitehall say privately that oil is more important in the calculation than weapons of mass destruction.... Mr Straw told ambassadors that, following a review he ordered last year, the Foreign Office drew up a list of seven medium to long-term strategic priorities, including 'to bolster the security of British and global energy supplies'".
Straw admits oil is key priority
Guardian 7 January 2003

"This International Energy Strategy is the product of cross-government work, particularly between the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I'm glad to welcome Mike O'Brien back to the Foreign Office to launch it with me. The Government's Energy White Paper last year identified a dual energy challenge: to maintain Britain's access to secure and affordable energy supplies, while mitigating the effects of climate change.Both issues are vital to our prosperity and security. And both require not just domestic but international action. That is what this International Energy Strategy is about..... The second part of the energy challenge which this strategy addresses is the need for secure and affordable energy supplies. Our economy, our public services and our security rely on them. For the United Kingdom, our growing need for energy over the next decades has to be seen in a changing context – that of a probable fall in our own domestic production, as North Sea reserves are run down. We are likely to become net importers of gas by 2006 and of oil by 2010. By 2020, we will probably be importing three-quarters of our primary energy needs – and we will need to adapt to that..... By 2020, around half of global oil demand will probably be met by countries with significant risk of internal instability – and that will require more focus on policies which tackle the potential causes of conflict, and spread the benefits of energy wealth.... Energy is one of the eight international priorities which we identified in the FCO's Strategy last December. On this and on all of those priorities, we can only meet our objectives by working closely together, across government and outside. We are publishing this International Energy Strategy – the first time that we have done so – to help us to do that. I will be tasking our Ambassadors and High Commissioners in priority posts overseas to take personal charge of implementing this Strategy and delivering its objectives. We will be developing with them individual Country Action Plans on energy and climate change. And we will be enhancing our posts' capacity on energy issues and making better use of our network of energy attachés, with a particular focus on the large new consumers of energy such as China and India, and producers such as Russia."
Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary,
Launch of the UK International Energy Strategy, Foreign Office, 28 October 2004

Chavez with President Khatami Of Iran
"The presidents of two leading oil producing nations, Venezuela and Iran, are due to meet to discuss closer economic co-operation. Hugo Chavez and Mohammad Khatami are expected to sign a number of energy deals during President Khatami's three-day visit to Caracas. Both countries have strained relations with Washington.... Mr Khatami's visit will be his third to Venezuela. Mr Chavez visited his Iranian counterpart in Tehran in November last year. Venezuela is one of the leading suppliers of petroleum to the US, but recently it has been seeking alternative energy partners such as Russia, China and India."
Chavez seeks Iran economic ties
BBC News, 10 March 2005

"For a United States increasingly pointing at China as the next biggest challenge to Pax Americana, the Iran-China energy cooperation cannot but be interpreted as an ominous sign of emerging new trends in an area considered vital to US national interests..... Even short of joining forces formally, the main outlines of a China-Russia-Iran axis can be discerned in their mutual threat perception... For now, however, the quantum leap of China into the Middle East and Caspian energy markets has become a fait accompli, no matter how disturbed its biggest trade partner, the US, may be over its geopolitical ramifications"
China Rocks the Geopolitical Boat with Iran Oil Deal
Asia Times, 2 December 2004

"President Hugo Chavez said oil and gas deals he recently signed with the Chinese, part of a strategy to reduce his country's reliance on US export markets, will boost trade with the Asian country to nearly $3 billion next year. Speaking to reporters yesterday after his return from a five-day visit to Beijing, Chavez said the trip brought 'great results' for Venezuela. The agreements allow Chinese companies to explore for oil, set up refineries, and produce natural gas in the South American country, officials said earlier. Chinese companies intend to invest $350 million in 15 oil fields in eastern Venezuela and $60 million in natural gas projects, Chavez said yesterday. Venezuela will receive $250 million next year from China for fuel oil exports, Chavez said.China is eager to secure new sources of energy for its booming economy, which is struggling with power shortages. Venezuela wants to find new customers to reduce its reliance on the United States, its number one market but also a critic of Chavez's government. Meanwhile, Chavez said Venezuela will also buy a satellite from China. He didn't give details, but last week Information Minister Andres Izarra told the state news agency Venpres that within a year the satellite would be in orbit to fill Venezuela's communication needs and would give the country 'full sovereignty' in telecommunications. He also said the Venezuelan government will acquire Chinese radar to improve security along its borders. The South American country already has announced measures to tighten control over its border with Colombia."
Chavez predicts energy deals with China to boost trade to $3b
Associated Press, 28 December 2004

"Latin America is becoming a rich destination for China in its global quest for energy, with the Chinese quickly signing accords with Venezuela, investing in largely untapped markets like Peru and exploring possibilities in Bolivia and Colombia. China's sights are focused mostly on Venezuela, which ships more than 60 percent of its crude oil to the United States. With the largest oil reserves outside the Middle East, and a president who says that his country needs to diversify its energy business beyond the United States, Venezuela has emerged as an obvious contender for Beijing's attention.The Venezuelan leader, Hugo Chávez, accompanied by a delegation of 125 officials and businessmen, and Vice President Zeng Qinghong of China signed 19 cooperation agreements in Caracas late in January. They included long-range plans for Chinese stakes in oil and gas fields, most of them now considered marginal but which could become valuable with big investments. Mr. Chávez has been engaged in a war of words with the Bush administration since the White House gave tacit support to a 2002 coup that briefly ousted him. Still, Venezuela is a major source for American oil companies, one of four main providers of imported crude oil to the United States, inexorably linking the two countries' interests......'The Chinese are entering without political expectations or demands,' said Roger Tissot, an analyst who evaluates political and economic risks in leading oil-producing countries for the PFC Energy Group in Washington. 'They just say, 'I'm coming here to invest,' and they can invest billions of dollars. And obviously, as a country with billions to invest, they are taken very seriously.' China's entry is worrisome to some American energy officials, especially because the United States is becoming more dependent on foreign oil at a time when foreign reserves remain tight. It was the limited supplies that pushed a barrel of oil to $55 in October, driving up retail prices and hurting economies. On Monday, crude oil for April delivery settled at $51.75 in New York, up 26 cents. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, headed by Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana, recently asked the Government Accountability Office to examine contingency plans should Venezuelan oil stop flowing. ...... To be sure, China, the world's second-largest consumer of oil, has emerged as a leading competitor to the United States in its search for oil, gas and minerals throughout the world - notably Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa. China has accounted for 40 percent of global growth in oil demand in the last four years, according to the Energy Department, and its consumption in 20 years is projected to rise to 12.8 million barrels a day from 5.56 million barrels now. Most of that oil will need to be imported. The United States now uses 20.4 million barrels a day, nearly 12 million of it imported.Aggressively seeking out potential deals, China tries to out-muscle the big international oil companies, always beholden to shareholders. Chinese companies, which have substantial government help, can dispense government aid to secure deals, take advantage of lower costs in China and draw on hefty credit lines from the government and Chinese financial institutions.......Venezuela, with a view to exports to China, says it is exploring plans to rebuild a Panamanian pipeline to pump crude oil to the Pacific, where it would be loaded onto supertankers that are too big to use the Panama Canal.Another proposal, with neighboring Colombia, would lead to the construction of a pipeline across Colombia to carry Venezuelan hydrocarbons, which would then be shipped to Asia from Colombia's Pacific ports.Mr. Chávez has promoted these plans in three visits to China. In the most recent, in December, he unveiled a statue of Simón Bolívar in Beijing. Trade between the two countries could rise to $3 billion this year from $1.2 billion, Mr. Chávez said, celebrating their links as a way for Venezuela to break free of dependence on the American market. 'We have been producing and exporting oil for more than 100 years,' Mr. Chávez told Chinese businessmen in December. 'But these have been 100 years of domination by the United States. Now we are free, and place this oil at the disposal of the great Chinese fatherland.' China, though, is not just interested in Venezuela. Much of Latin America has become crucial to China's need for raw materials and markets, with trade at $32.85 billion in the first 10 months of 2004, about 50 percent more than in 2003. Mining, analysts say, is among China's priorities, whether it is oil in Venezuela, tin in Chile or gas in Bolivia. Chinese involvement in Latin America is 'growing by leaps and bounds,' said Eduardo Gamarra, director of the Latin America and Caribbean Center at Florida International University, adding, 'It's driven by the need for privileged access to raw material and privileged access to hydrocarbons.' "
China's Oil Diplomacy in Latin America
New York Times, 1 March 2005

"Since it became a net oil importer in 1993, China has traversed the globe in a frantic quest for oil to fuel its booming economy. In some cases, its pursuit of oil has caused considerable irritation in Washington especially due to China's decision to support rogue regimes, such as Iran and Sudan, just because it depends on their oil. Now, China might be on the verge of causing even greater vexation by setting its sights on a new oil domain: the Western Hemisphere. In recent months, Chinese state-owned oil companies have begun seeking ambitious oil deals in Canada - the top petroleum supplier to the U.S. - including the acquisition of Canadian energy companies. Sinopec, one of China's largest state-owned energy companies, is interested in buying stakes in the vast reserves of the Alberta oilsands. The Canadian giant Enbridge is pushing ahead with a plan to build a $2.5-billion pipeline to transport oil from Alberta to the coast of British Colombia from where it will be shipped across the Pacific to China. Though it is not clear which of these deals will come to fruition, the possibility of Chinese acquisition of portions of Canada's energy industry - which could lead to a loss of up to a third of Canada's potential exports to the U.S. - should be a source of concern in Washington.... Further, the implications of China's stepping into the Western Hemisphere are political no less than economic. Many in Canada and Venezuela feel that the U.S. has taken their oil for granted and therefore they see China as a provider of market competition which could give them political leverage over Washington when it comes to contentious issues.... Last March, China's deputy foreign minister, Wang Yi, admitted in a lecture at Beijing University that Chinese foreign polices are 'at the service of China's economic development.'"
In search of crude China goes to the Americas
Institute For The Analysis Of Global Security, 18 January 2005

"Canada's second-biggest pipeline company, may build a line to carry imports of an oil additive to Alberta as part of a C$2.5 billion ($2 billion) project to send Canadian crude oil to China.The conduit would carry as much as 150,000 barrels a day of condensate, an ultra-light oil that's produced with natural gas, from a British Columbia port, said Richard Bird, Enbridge's vice- president responsible for the project. The condensate would dilute the tar-like heavy oil pumped in Alberta to allow it to be transported by another new pipeline back to the West Coast..... Production of heavy oil, which is trapped in sand in northeastern Alberta, has begun to outpace output of condensate from Canadian gas wells. About 150,000 barrels of condensate is produced daily in Canada.... About 80 percent of the oil produced from sands in Canada requires dilution with condensates before they can be transported, Gobert said. Demand for condensate is beginning to outstrip supply, as production at fields like Shell Canada Ltd.'s Caroline field in Alberta declines, he said..... Calgary-based Enbridge in April signed an agreement with PetroChina Co. to develop the Gateway project. "
Enbridge May Build Condensate Pipeline for Gateway Project
Bloomberg, 20 May 2005

"After Iraq it is oil rich Venezuela led by Hugo Chavez that has become the center for confrontation between America and the Euro Zone. Chavez is dead against America and Euro Zone needs him to keep the oil balance -- the power symbol in 2005. But this time the equation is a little different. A new regional and super power coalition of India, China, Russia and Brazil is making a huge difference. Russian President is in the zone to pull Brazil in the coalition and influence on Chavez for mutual support......Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is leveraging his country's oil resources to build new geopolitical relationships with key regional powers like Russia, China, India and Brazil..... According to think tanks, it is not Iran but Venezuela will be the next epicenter of confrontation for oil supremacy. But this time both Euro zone and America will face a real formidable super power coalition -- the combined resources of India, China, Russia and Brazil."
After Iraq it is Venezuela
India Daily, 27 November 2004

"On November 10, Russia took the lead role in coalition with China, India and Brazil to challenge the super-power supremacy of the US. Brazil and Venezuela are very open to the coalition concept where these large countries support each other in terms of trade, economics, international politics and defense. ..... Iran is about to join the coalition due to their US$200 billion energy deal with China.... With the oil and gas deals between China and Iran and Venezuela, these two countries have come under the protection of China".
The biggest mistake in the history of American foreign policy
VHeadline.com, 30 December 2004

"...in Russia [Chavez] signed energy cooperation accords and agreements to purchase military helicopters to secure Venezuela's borders, as well as 100,000 assault rifles for the army..... He is urging that country, along with India, Iran, Russia and Venezuela's South American neighbours, to forge new strategic alliances to act as a counterweight to the United States, the world's only superpower."
Chávez Steps Up Efforts to Forge International Alliances
Inter Press Service, 15 December 2004

"Mr Musharraf was adamant he would not be persuaded by the US to drop plans to build a gas pipeline from Iran. This would cross Pakistan and India and is seen as a cornerstone of a two-year-old peace process between the two neighbours. Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, has warned the countries against proceeding with the $4.5bn (€3.5bn) pipeline, which State Department officials say could expose energy-deficient India and Pakistan to US sanctions. Gen Musharraf maintained he would take a decision by year-end that would be based solely on Pakistan's national interest. Qatar and Turkmenistan could provide politically easier substitutes for Iranian gas, but both face considerable logistical difficulties. He said: 'We are short of energy. We want gas immediately. Our industry is suffering; investment coming to Pakistan is suffering, so Pakistan's interest is to get gas fast. Iran is the fastest source.'"
Al-Qaeda's back has been broken, says Musharraf
Financial Times, 16 May 2005

"Decades from now, historians will likely calmly discuss the war currently raging in Iraq, and identify oil as one of the key factors that led to it. They will point to the growing U.S. dependence on foreign oil, the importance of oil in the rising competition between the U.S. and China, and the huge untapped store of oil lying unprotected under the Iraqi sand. It will all probably seem fairly obvious. Just don't expect to hear this sort of discussion now, however, when it might actually make a difference. In fact, a year-and-a-half into the U.S. occupation of Iraq, with the carnage over there spiralling ever more out of control, don't expect media discussions of Iraq to stray much beyond the issue of 'fighting terrorism.' Indeed, while ordinary people around the world apparently suspect Washington was motivated by oil, not terrorism, there continues to be a strange unwillingness in the mainstream media to probe such a possibility."
History Will Show U.S. Lusted after Oil
Toronto Star, 26 December 2005

"The Bush administration made plans for war and for Iraq's oil before the 9/11 attacks, sparking a policy battle between neo-cons and Big Oil, BBC's Newsnight has revealed..... Two years ago today - when President George Bush announced US, British and Allied forces would begin to bomb Baghdad - protesters claimed the US had a secret plan for Iraq's oil once Saddam had been conquered. In fact there were two conflicting plans, setting off a hidden policy war between neo-conservatives at the Pentagon, on one side, versus a combination of 'Big Oil' executives and US State Department 'pragmatists'. 'Big Oil' appears to have won. The latest plan, obtained by Newsnight from the US State Department was, we learned, drafted with the help of American oil industry consultants. Insiders told Newsnight that planning began 'within weeks' of Bush's first taking office in 2001, long before the September 11th attack on the US....The industry-favoured plan was pushed aside by a secret plan, drafted just before the invasion in 2003, which called for the sell-off of all of Iraq's oil fields. The new plan was crafted by neo-conservatives intent on using Iraq's oil to destroy the Opec cartel through massive increases in production above Opec quotas. The sell-off was given the green light in a secret meeting in London headed by Ahmed Chalabi shortly after the US entered Baghdad, according to Robert Ebel. Mr Ebel, a former Energy and CIA oil analyst, now a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told Newsnight he flew to the London meeting at the request of the State Department.....Philip Carroll, the former CEO of Shell Oil USA who took control of Iraq's oil production for the US Government a month after the invasion, stalled the sell-off scheme.... Ariel Cohen, of the neo-conservative Heritage Foundation, told Newsnight that an opportunity had been missed to privatise Iraq's oil fields..... New plans, obtained from the State Department by Newsnight and Harper's Magazine under the US Freedom of Information Act, called for creation of a state-owned oil company favoured by the US oil industry. It was completed in January 2004 under the guidance of Amy Jaffe of the James Baker Institute in Texas. Formerly US Secretary of State, Baker is now an attorney representing Exxon-Mobil and the Saudi Arabian government.... "
Secret US plans for Iraq's oil
BBC News, 17 March 2005

"President Hugo Chavez has for the first time admitted that Venezuela's oil industry is producing 100,000 barrels a day less than planned. He said investigations into possible sabotage were under way. But he also blamed the state oil company PDVSA.... Last week, Venezuela's Defence Minister Jorge Luis Garcia Carneiro suggested the United States' Central Intelligence Agency might be responsible for organising sabotage in the country's oil industry. President Chavez said this possibility was being investigated, but specifically blamed management mistakes for the failure to meet production targets."
Venezuelan oil output 'still low'
BBC Online, 5 May 2005

“Another key change of direction needed concerns the handling of power. We display undue subservience to the US when the bottom line of our foreign policy should be protecting British interests and UN legitimacy.”
Michael Meacher, former Blair Minister
We need power to the people, not to the autocratic new Labour clique
London Times, 12 May 2005

“As Michael Meacher wrote in the NS [New Statesman] last week, the growth of US militarism is prompting the emergence of a new power bloc of China, Russia, India and Brazil. The regimes governing the first two countries are hardly beacons of moral authority. But that is beside the point: as one commentator has put it, America itself is now so radioactive’ that nobody wants to stand beside it.”
How Blair Backed A Loser
New Statesman, 16 May 2005

".... the implications of China's exploding thirst for crude oil are epic in scope... Based on our analysis of the intense economic, crude oil, and mili