"The country's president-elect Mahmood Ahmadinejad pledged at the weekend he would favour domestic companies in the awarding of oil contracts and vowed to instil transparency in the sector. 'Today the most important asset of our people is the oil industry and our oil resources,' said Ahmadinejad, who will take over as president of OPEC's number-two crude producer and exporter. 'If there is a bit more transparency and things are made a little easier, and part of it that could be done inside the country is done domestically, then good financial resources could be saved,' he told state television. 'The dominant atmosphere in our oil industry, production, export and trade is a bit ambiguous and it should be transparent. This transparency will definitely result in an economisation of resources,' he asserted.   Ahmadinejad's comments on contracts are in line with Iran's constitution, hammered out after the 1979 Islamic revolution, which stipulates the 'prevention of foreign economic domination over the country's economy'."
Iran's president-elect vows to favour domestic firms in oil sector
APX News, 26 June 2005

"The ultra-conservative mayor of Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has won a landslide victory in Iran's presidential poll. Mr Ahmadinejad won 62% of votes, defying predictions of a close race, to defeat the more moderate ex-President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.... Mr Ahmadinejad's victory means all the organs of the Iranian state are now in the hands of conservative hardliners.... Iran's supreme spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, banned both camps from celebrating victory and urged people to keep off the streets."
Iran hardliner sweeps to victory
BBC Online, 25 June 2005

"Pakistani Muslim scholar Komaruddin Hidayat attributed the hard-liner's victory to anger over U.S. foreign policy. 'America has put Islam in a corner,' Hidayat said. 'America attacked Iraq based on false reasoning just as it did in Afghanistan. This has given conservatives the chance to gain power in some Islamic countries.... Russian President Vladimir Putin offered congratulations to Ahmadinejad and said he would continue nuclear cooperation after Russia completes construction of a reactor in Iran's southern port city of Bushehr. ''
Muslim Hard-Liners Cheer Iran Vote Outcome
Associated Press, 25 June 2005

"The hardline conservative mayor of Tehran, who has pledged to turn Iran into a powerful and exemplary Islamic state, defeated experienced political heavyweight Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in a landslide election win on Friday. Political analysts say his victory will remove the moderating policy influence exercised since 1997 by outgoing reformist President Mohammad Khatami and could lead Tehran into more direct confrontation with the West over its nuclear program.... In a campaign where Rafsanjani advocated better ties with the United States, Ahmadinejad had said relations with Washington were not a cure-all for Iran. 'This all but closes the door for a breakthrough in U.S.-Iran relations,' said Karim Sadjadpour, Tehran-based analyst for the International Crisis Group. Washington broke ties with Iran in 1980 and now accuses it of developing nuclear weapons and supporting terrorism. Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil producer, denies the charges.... State television reported that Ahmadinejad won 62 percent of the 27.9 million votes cast, defying forecasts of a tight race and securing a margin that weakened complaints from officials and rivals about voting malpractice. The figures indicated a 60 percent turnout from the 46.7 million eligible voters, versus 63 percent in the first round."
Iran's President - Elect Faces Task of Healing Rifts
Reuters, 25 June 2005

"The second round of Iran’s presidential election was held on June 24, with Expediency Council Chairman Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Tehran Mayor Mahmud Ahmadinejad facing off in the runoff. Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad finished in first and second place in the first round of the election, but neither received over 50 percent of the vote and thus, according to the electoral regulations, the poll went to a second round between the top two candidates. This is the first time in the history of the Islamic Republic that a presidential election has gone to a runoff. Iranians surprised the world with their massive turnout in the first round because a low turnout was expected due to the propaganda and hostility of U.S. and other Western media outlets....After casting his vote in the second round of the presidential election on June 24, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said that the Iranian nation was the real winner of the June 17 election, in which almost 30 million people participated, and the real losers were those who futilely tried to discourage people from voting."
Iranians respond with their ballots
Tehran Times, 25 June 2005

"Iran on Tuesday hit out US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for criticising its presidential elections, saying Washington had been left 'shaking and angry' by the high turnout in the vote. 'Massive participation of the Iranian people in the June 17 elections has confused the Americans,' said foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi, quoted by the IRNA agency.... Around 62 percent of the electorate turned out in the first round of the election, to the relief of the authorities who had made clear strong participation was needed to bolster the regime’s legitimacy."
Iran says US left ‘shaking and angry’ by election
Daily Times (Pakistan), 22 June 2005

"The unfamiliar hardline outsider who stormed to second place in Iran’s presidential election, forcing a run-off this Friday, was best known for removing David Beckham from billboards in Tehran. As mayor of the city, the former Revolutionary Guard commander Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, 49, felt the footballer’s face was at odds with his conservative vision for the capital. Beckham, the first foreigner to be used in advertising in Iran since the 1979 revolution, was pulled from sight. If Mr Ahmadinejad, the nightmare option for Iran’s reformists and the West, wins on Friday, Iran’s international relations seem certain to take a similar plunge. Mr Ahmadinejad, notoriously hostile to the US, said during his campaign: 'America was free to sever its ties with Iran, but it remains Iran’s decision (whether) to re-establish relations with America.'.... the shock result seems more the product of Iran’s opaque politics than widespread fraud.....President Bush contributed to his ascent with an eve-of-election statement in which he said that the Iranian constitution was undemocratic. The regime spun the message brilliantly, telling Iranians that Mr Bush was ordering a boycott: the public voted in droves as a reaction, giving a 63 per cent turnout that exceeded the most optimistic expectations. Ghasim, a 42-year-old Ahmadinejad supporter in south Tehran, said: 'I wasn’t thinking of voting until Bush encouraged us not to. It was like an interfering neighbour affecting family decisions. When I heard he wanted a boycott, I went out and voted immediately.”
Regime rallies behind hardliner
London Times, 20 June 2005
(In the print edition the headline for this article was  'US intervention helps hardliner')

"Iran's spy chief used just two words to respond to White House ridicule of last week's presidential election: 'Thank you.' His sarcasm was barely hidden. The backfire on Washington was more evident. The sharp barbs from President Bush were widely seen in Iran as damaging to pro-reform groups because the comments appeared to have boosted turnout among hard-liners in Friday's election — with the result being that an ultraconservative now is in a two-way showdown for the presidency. 'I say to Bush: 'Thank you,' ' quipped Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi. 'He motivated people to vote in retaliation.' Bush's comments — blasting the ruling clerics for blocking 'basic requirements of democracy' — became a lively sideshow in Iran's closest election since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. And they highlighted again the United States' often crossed-wire efforts to isolate Iran... the harder the United States has pushes, even with the best of intentions, the more ground it has seems to lose among mainstream Iranians, who represent possible key allies against the Islamic establishment, say some analysts of Iranian politics. 'Unknowingly, (Bush) pushed Iranians to vote so that they can prove their loyalty to the regime — even if they are in disagreement with it,' said Hamed al-Abdullah, a political science professor at Kuwait University. In 2002, most Iranians were indignant when Bush placed their nation in an 'axis of evil' with North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Since then, U.S.-led pressure over Iran's nuclear program has put even liberal Iranians on the defensive. Bush's pre-election denunciations seemed to do the same. Iranian authorities claim Bush energized undecided voters to go to the polls and undercut a boycott drive led by liberal dissidents opposed to the Islamic system. The unexpectedly strong turnout — nearly 63 percent — produced a true surprise in the No. 2 finish of hard-line Tehran Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, He will face the top finisher, moderate statesman Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, in a Friday runoff. Rafsanjani, Iran's president in 1989-1997, has said he is open to greater dialogue with the United States. But Ahmadinejad offered no such opening after the vote was tallied Saturday, and he could take a harsher stance toward the United States and its concerns — especially accusations that Iran is secretly seeking nuclear arms. Iran denies the charges and puts them down to U.S. anger with the clerical regime. 'You only have to look at the comments' by Bush to understand that he 'seeks hostility' against Iran, Ahmadinejad said. The conservative hard-line Iranian newspaper Kayhan wrote: 'People crushed the U.S. comments and wishes under their feet.' But even many opponents of the Islamic establishment objected to Bush's tone and timing. The president's words sounded too much like the prewar rhetoric against Saddam, and many on-the-fence voters were shocked into action, said Abdollah Momeni, a political affairs expert at Tehran University.'People faced a dilemma,' Momeni said. 'In people's minds it became a choice between voting or giving Bush an excuse to attack.'... The Bush comments are an example of 'the kind of American intervention' that often boomerangs in the region, said Egyptian political analyst Salama Ahmed Salama. 'Bush meant to discourage the hard-liners,' he said, 'but instead he mobilized their supporters.'"
Bush criticism of Iran vote backfires
Associated Press, 19 June 2005

"Iran's foreign minister demanded an apology Sunday from U.S. President George W. Bush for his criticism of Iran's presidential elections, which are heading to an unprecedented run-off later this week. Foreign Minister Kamel Kharrazi said Bush 'should apologize to the people of Iran for his comments.' He also told a news conference that Bush's barbs boosted turnout and helped quash a boycott drive by dissidents. 'It goaded them into voting,' he said, pointing to the nearly 63 percent turnout in Friday's election. Kharrazi also took his own swipe at America, suggesting its popularity around the world is slipping. 'We're ready to challenge the U.S. to conduct an opinion poll: Iran or the U.S., who is more popular? The answer would be clear: Iran.'"
Iran demands Bush apology for election barbs
GEO TV, 19 June 2005

"On the eve of Iran's presidential election, President Bush said the voting has been designed to keep power in the hands of a few rulers 'through an electoral process that ignores the basic requirements of democracy.' 'The Iranian people deserve a genuinely democratic system in which elections are honest - and in which their leaders answer to them instead of the other way around,' Bush said in a statement released by the White House Thursday. 'And to the Iranian people, I say: As you stand for your own liberty, the people of America stand with you.'.... Some 500 people demonstrated in front of the main radio and television building in Tehran Thursday, calling on Iranians to boycott the polls because the process is unfair."
Bush: Iran vote meant to strengthen power
Associated Press, 16 June 2005

"Iran's radical cleric-led regime is bolstering its efforts to jam satellite television signals from about 20 foreign TV channels beaming calls to boycott a nationwide election widely regarded as fraudulent.... The move comes on the heels of coverage by foreign radio and TV channels of the 'Iran Freedom Walk,' from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., in which participants called for peaceful regime change and for Iranians to stay away from the polls June 17.... Along with independent opposition radio and TV broadcasters, coverage of the walk included Voice of America radio... Experts believe that while Iran may be unable to totally block the signals, they can beam so much noise over the city's skyline that broadcasts suffer lengthy drop-outs, AFP said. The primary targets are the mostly Los Angeles-based stations sympathetic to the rule of the late shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Other channels opposed by the mullahs include the MTV-inspired Persian Music Channel."
Mullahs jam election-boycott message
WorldNet.Daily, 12 June 2005

"Two weeks ahead of Iran's presidential elections, the exiled son of the deposed Shah is urging a boycott of the poll, saying Iranians should send a clear message to the world that the regime has no political legitimacy and is ready for a change. Addressing a press conference in Paris Thursday, Reza Pahlavi said most Iranian opposition groups have declared their intent to boycott the June 17 election. He claimed further that at least 65 percent of voters were planning not to participate because there were no real candidates, and in Iran's hard-line theocracy, the unelected Council of Guardians can overrule any elected officials. Pahlavi, who has lived in the U.S. since his father was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic revolution, said Iran was the only country in the world whose written constitution specifically denies that sovereignty belongs to its citizens.' He said the election boycott would be a 'symbolic gesture' to show that Iranians are aware the regime has no legitimacy. Beyond that gesture, opposition groups would seek a referendum for a constitution based on international human rights conventions."
Boycott Iran's Sham Election, Urges Son of Ex-Shah
CNSNews.com, 3 June 2005

China Is The Main Foreign Beneficiary Following The Iranian Election Result

"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.' ..... 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.... "
Yet Another Great Game
Newsweek, 20 December 2004

"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.....'"
In search of crude China goes to the Americas
Institute For The Analysis Of Global Security, 18 January 2005

"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

Competing For Oil China Needs The Middle East As Much As US Does

China, By The Numbers Special Report, TIME, 27 June 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

"The dependence of the U.S. on oil creates serious national security vulnerabilities that, if exploited, could result in widespread economic dislocation and increased global instability, according to former top government officials who gathered today to examine how the nation might manage an oil supply crisis. The findings of these leading experts comes amid reports of terrorist threats against oil-rich Nigeria, a state-owned Chinese company's bid for a major U.S. oil firm, and as Congress considers energy legislation that does little to curb U.S. oil dependence."
Oil Dependence Creates Severe National Security and Economic Risks, Top Officials Find at Crisis Simulation Event
PRNewswire, 24 June 2005

"Move over, Big Oil. There's a new oilman on the world stage -- China. China's takeover bid for Unocal Corp. makes clear to sticker-shocked Americans that the 1.3 billion Chinese people are demanding an ever-larger supply of the world's energy to fuel their booming economy and are willing to get it wherever necessary. From Central Asia to Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and even Canada, Chinese firms are pumping oil and natural gas in many areas that the United States was counting on to meet its own record-high demand.... While the Bush administration tries to build international pressure against Iran over its nuclear aspirations, China has signed a $70 billion long- term oil and gas supply deal with the Tehran... Chinese firms signed numerous contracts to co-produce oil and natural gas. Iran is China's largest single source of foreign oil, providing 13 percent of China's total annual imports..."
China on global hunt to quench its thirst for oil
San Francisco Chronicle, 26 June 2005

Whichever Way You Look, It's The Oil Stupid!

"... since Pakistan joined the nuclear club and recklessly spread weapons technology to the world’s most terrifying states, General Musharraf, its leader, has been feted by President Bush.... The US gives the impression that it might go to war to stop Iran getting the bomb. That cannot be because it is a Muslim country nor because it gives its secrets to rogue states, since those points apply to Pakistan. Is it because Iran is not a democracy? In the past week it has voted for its president. Musharraf is unelected."
Michael Portilo, Former Conservative Minister Of Defence
Does Britain need nuclear missiles? No. Scrap them
Sunday Times, 19 June 2005

So What Is It Then? - Why Is Cheney Aiming For Iran?

"For the world as a whole, oil companies are expected to keep finding and developing enough oil to offset our seventy one million plus barrel a day of oil depletion, but also to meet new demand. By some estimates there will be an average of two per cent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead along with conservatively a three per cent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and the national oil companies are obviously in control of about ninety per cent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow."
Dick Cheney, Chief Executive of Halliburton, now Vice President of the United States
Speech at London Institute of Petroleum, Autumn Lunch 1999

"The Oil Ministry angrily rejected accusations from hard-line presidential candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Iran's vast oil wealth was controlled by one powerful family.... In a meeting with MPs on Monday, Ahmadinejad said: 'It has been years that oil revenues are practically in hands of one family and a political gang. This gang of power and fortune is going to confiscate everything in the country.' Ahamdinejad also said he would 'sweep out' the family's hold over oil and would nationalize public resources. The comments were a clear snipe at Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, his rival in the presidential race, who is rumored to be one of Iran's richest men, as well as of holding a substantial interest in the oil industry.Rafsanjani vehemently denies such claims, and has so far gone out of his way in the campaign to present himself as a man of modest means."
Iranian oil ministry slams presidential candidate
Agence France Presse, 23 June 2005

"In his first public statement following the result, Mr Ahmadinejad said he wanted to 'build up an exemplary, developed and powerful Islamic society'. On the economy, Mr Ahmadinejad said he would favour Iranian companies when awarding oil contracts, and talked of removing what he called ambiguities and a lack of transparency. The BBC's Frances Harrison in Tehran says it is not yet clear whether this is just more of the populist rhetoric which brought Mr Ahmadinejad to power, or an indication that he is planning a major economic shake-up in the world's second largest oil producer. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, described Mr Ahmadinejad's victory as a 'profound humiliation' for the US."
Iran loser blasts 'illegal' poll
BBC Online, 25 June 2005

"Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who won Iran’s presidency by an overwhelming vote, said that the country’s oil production and export deals need to be clarified. In a radio address after winning presidential elections, Ahmadinejad said that 'the country's biggest capital today is the oil industry and our oil reserves'. 'The atmosphere ruling over our deals, production and exports is not clear. We should clarify it'. Ahmadinejad also said he would favour domestic companies in the awarding of future oil contracts. According to political analysts, Ahmadinejad is expected to make sweeping changes in the management of Iran's oil industry. He repeatedly made comments during his campaign accusing powerful 'mafias' of monopolising oil revenues. 'I will cut the hands off the mafias of powers and factions who have a grasp on our oil, I stake my life on this .People must see their share of oil money in their daily lives,' he said during the election campaign.Ahmadinejad was apparently referring to his defeated rival in the presidential race Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the richest men in Iran who allegedly has a substantial interest in the oil industry. Iran has the world’s second largest reserves of oil."
Iran changes oil policy
Al Jazeera, 26 June 2005

If The June Bombs In Iran Were An Attempt To Reduce Iranian Voter Turn-Out, Whose Bombs Were They?
US Sponsored Terrorists Accused Of Trying To Bomb Out Iranian Elections

A TV grab from the state run Iranian network shows a damaged car by the explosion in Ahvaz, Iran, Sunday June 12, 2005. (AP / Iran TV)

"Six bombs have exploded in Iran, killing at least 10 people, days before the presidential election. Four blasts targeted public buildings in the south-western city of Ahwaz, killing at least eight people and wounding more than 70 others. Hours later, a bomb exploded in the capital Tehran, killing two people. Three other bombs were defused. Bombings have been rare in Iran since the war with Iraq ended in 1988. No group has claimed responsibility.... A spokesman for the Supreme National Security Council, Iran's top security decision-making body, blamed the attacks on separatist Arabs aided by members of the armed Iraq-based opposition group, the People's Mujahideen, and remnants of the Baath Party. The spokesman, Agha Mohammadi, told the BBC he was sure the Americans were behind the attacks and also suggested that Britain might be involved"
Iran rocked by series of blasts
BBC Online, 13 June 2005

"Iranians reacted with anger and fear on Monday to a rare string of bomb attacks that killed nine people and wounded more than 70 ahead of presidential elections. Officials have blamed Sunday's attacks on exiled opposition groups, such as the People's Mujahideen Organization, and foreign agents seeking to deter Iranians from voting... The bombings in Ahvaz and Tehran jolted a country where such attacks have become a rarity in the past decade..."
Bombs scare Iran voters ahead of presidential vote
Reuters, 13 June 2005

"The Pentagon is considering a massive covert action program to overthrow Iran's ruling ayatollahs... The proposal, sources say, includes ... backing armed Iranian dissidents and employing the services of the Mujahedeen e Khalq [People’s Mujahidin], a group currently branded as terrorist by the United States..."
The Iran Debate
ABC News, 29 May 2003

"The People’s Mujahidin is seen by Washington as a possible instrument for 'regime change' in Tehran....The Marxist movement, which initially supported the Islamic revolution and then broke with the fundamentalist regime, was formally designated last year as 'terrorist' by the State Department and the EU but it is known to have links with the CIA and other US agencies."
France rounds up US-linked Iranian exiles
London Times, 16 June 2003

"It has emerged that the Royal Marines arrested off the coast of Iran are from Faslane and Arbroath. It is understood they were on a secret reconaissance mission when they were confronted by the Iranian authorities. Foreign secretary Jack Straw is locked in talks trying to secure the marines' safe return. The M-16 rifle is an American weapon preferred by Britain's special forces who shun the issued SA-80 rifle because of its catalogue of faults. The fact that M-16s were filmed by the Iranian captors were among the equipment being carried by the British servicemen suggests they were perhaps not as innocent as is being made out.... There is no Royal Marine unit in Iraq at the moment and one theory is that the Scottish-based soldiers were on a reconaissance mision ahead of the deployment of 40 Commando to Iraq later this year. If so, this is a deeply embarrassing situation."
Marines held in Iran are from Faslane and Arbroath
Scotland Today (Scottish TV), 22 June 2004

"The President has signed a series of findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as ten nations in the Middle East and South Asia. The President’s decision enables Rumsfeld to run the operations off the books—free from legal restrictions imposed on the C.I.A. Under current law, all C.I.A. covert activities overseas must be authorized by a Presidential finding and reported to the Senate and House intelligence committees..... In my interviews, I was repeatedly told that the next strategic target was Iran..... The Administration has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran at least since last summer....  'The idea that an American attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would produce a popular uprising is extremely illinformed,' said Flynt Leverett, a Middle East scholar who worked on the National Security Council in the Bush Administration. 'You have to understand that the nuclear ambition in Iran is supported across the political spectrum, and Iranians will perceive attacks on these sites as attacks on their ambitions to be a major regional player and a modern nation that’s technologically sophisticated.' Leverett, who is now a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, at the Brookings Institution, warned that an American attack, if it takes place, 'will produce an Iranian backlash against the United States and a rallying around the regime.'”
Seymour Hersh
The Coming Wars
The New Yorker, 24 January 2005

'The US War With Iran Has Already Begun' - Scott Ritter

In Iran White House Backs People's Mujahadeen [MEK], A State Department Listed Terrorist Organisation,
So What's New? - US Backed Islamic Terrorism in the Balkans

".... It is bitter irony that the CIA is using a group still labelled as a terrorist organisation, a group trained in the art of explosive assassination by the same intelligence units of the former regime of Saddam Hussein, who are slaughtering American soldiers in Iraq today, to carry out remote bombings in Iran of the sort that the Bush administration condemns on a daily basis inside Iraq. ... [these actions are] exposing as utter hypocrisy the entire underlying notions governing the ongoing global war on terror... history will show that the US-led war with Iran will not have begun once a similar formal statement is offered by the Bush administration, but, rather, had already been under way since June 2005, when the CIA began its programme of MEK-executed terror bombings in Iran."
'The US War With Iran Has Already Begun'
Scott Ritter, 19 June 2005

Deja Vue

"You're either with us or against us in the fight against terror"
George W.Bush
CNN, 6 November 2001

Oil As The Bedrock Of Anglo-American Relations With Iran
How The CIA And MI6 Toppled Iran's First Democratic Government In 1953 And Replaced It With Dictatorship
In Order To Secure Access To Iranian Oil

Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, 1953

"Of the many factors that went into the Bush administration's decision to attack and occupy Iraq, one of the most important was the long-held view of Richard Cheney, the vice-president, that America's power was threatened by the potential loss of control over Middle East oil. In August 2002, Mr Cheney declared that 'armed with an arsenal of these weapons of terror, and seated atop 10 per cent of the world's oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of a great portion of the world's energy supplies, directly threaten America's friends through the region and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail'..... Mr Cheney's focus on Middle East oil supplies dates back at least 30 years, since he was chief of staff to President Gerald Ford following the first Arab oil embargo. But his long-standing vision of using military might to secure US energy needs has been as erroneous as his assumptions about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. At the root of his approach has been the arithmetic of global oil supplies.US oil production peaked in the early 1970s, leading to a long-term rise in US dependence on imported oil. This year the US will have imported about 11m barrels of petroleum a day and mainstream forecasts project a growth of imports to about 20m barrels a day by 2025. Moreover, global competition for worldwide oil supplies is projected to grow markedly, especially with China's emergence as a huge oil importer. Despite discoveries of new reserves elsewhere, petroleum supplies from the Middle East and the nearby Caspian Sea region are expected to become even more pivotal in the coming decades, accounting for two-thirds or more of the world's petroleum reserves in 2025. With oil supplies and production increasingly concentrated in the Middle East, and with growing competition from other oil importers, Mr Cheney and associates believe the US has a long-term strategic need to secure military pre-eminence in the region....Mr Cheney's geopolitical miscalculation is equally bad. As defence secretary in the Bush Sr administration, Mr Cheney initiated the deployment of US troops to Saudi Arabia, which then lasted more than a decade and fuelled the grievances that helped spawn al-Qaeda. In Mr Cheney's current strategy, the US has moved into Iraq on an open-ended basis. Perhaps the main reason the US does not want to turn matters over to the United Nations is not political unilateralism but the core strategy of stationing troops in Iraq to secure long-term access to Middle East oil. Indeed, one of the reasons for moving the US military into Iraq was the need to move out of an increasingly unstable Saudi Arabia.The fundamental miscalculation, however, is the same one that contributed to the fall of the Shah in Iran, the tottering of Saudi Arabia, the wide popularity among Arab youth of al-Qaeda and the chaos in Iraq. The US cannot secure oil supplies in the Middle East by means of a military occupation. We are in 2003, not 1903. The age of imperialism is past. Nationalism in the Middle East is as fervent as anywhere else in the world, which is understandable given the amount of meddling by the great powers in the 20th century. Each time America embraces a Middle East regime, the regime loses legitimacy. The US is playing out Mr Cheney's fantastical vision of national security - one in which a future struggle over scarce and vital petroleum resources must be won by force of arms. It should be replaced by a level-headed and internationally co-operative strategy of economising on petroleum demand and developing energy alternatives that are cost-effective and environmentally sound. Mr Cheney's view is technologically naive and politically disastrous. And yet it has become the strategy of the world's most powerful country."
America's disastrous energy plan
Financial Times, 22 December 2003

"The Central Intelligence Agency's secret history of its covert operation to overthrow Iran's government in 1953 offers an inside look at how the agency stumbled into success, despite a series of mishaps that derailed its original plans. Written in 1954 by one of the coup's chief planners, the history details how United States and British officials plotted the military coup that returned the shah of Iran to power and toppled Iran's elected prime minister, an ardent nationalist. The document shows that:

Britain, fearful of Iran's plans to nationalize its oil industry, came up with the idea for the coup in 1952 and pressed the United States to mount a joint operation to remove the prime minister.

• The C.I.A. and S.I.S., the British intelligence service, handpicked Gen. Fazlollah Zahedi to succeed Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and covertly funneled $5 million to General Zahedi's regime two days after the coup prevailed.
• Iranians working for the C.I.A. and posing as Communists harassed religious leaders and staged the bombing of one cleric's home in a campaign to turn the country's Islamic religious community against Mossadegh's government.

• The shah's cowardice nearly killed the C.I.A. operation. Fearful of risking his throne, the Shah repeatedly refused to sign C.I.A.-written royal decrees to change the government. The agency arranged for the shah's twin sister, Princess Ashraf Pahlevi, and Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the father of the Desert Storm commander, to act as intermediaries to try to keep him from wilting under pressure. He still fled the country just before the coup succeeded."
  The CIA In Iran
  New York Times On The Web, 2000

"For nearly five decades, America's role in the military coup that ousted Iran's elected prime minister and returned the shah to power has been lost to history, the subject of fierce debate in Iran and stony silence in the United States. One by one, participants have retired or died without revealing key details, and the Central Intelligence Agency said a number of records of the operation — its first successful overthrow of a foreign government — had been destroyed. But a copy of the agency's secret history of the coup has surfaced, revealing the inner workings of a plot that set the stage for the Islamic revolution in 1979, and for a generation of anti-American hatred in one of the Middle East's most powerful countries. The document, which remains classified, discloses the pivotal role British intelligence officials played in initiating and planning the coup, and it shows that Washington and London shared an interest in maintaining the West's control over Iranian oil. The secret history, written by the C.I.A.'s chief coup planner and obtained by The New York Times, says the operation's success was mostly a matter of chance. The document shows that the agency had almost complete contempt for the man it was empowering, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, whom it derided as a vacillating coward. And it recounts, for the first time, the agency's tortured efforts to seduce and cajole the shah into taking part in his own coup. The operation, code-named TP-Ajax, was the blueprint for a succession of C.I.A. plots to foment coups and destabilize governments during the cold war — including the agency's successful coup in Guatemala in 1954 and the disastrous Cuban intervention known as the Bay of Pigs in 1961. In more than one instance, such operations led to the same kind of long-term animosity toward the United States that occurred in Iran."
How a Plot Convulsed Iran in '53 (and in '79)
New York Times On The Web, 2000

1953 US COUP IN IRAN More Details From The New York Times

INTRODUCTION

I: THE ROOTS

II: THE PRESSURE

III: THE COUP

IV: THE SUCCESS

V: THE PREMIER

VI: THE MEDIA

VII: THE SPY

TIMELINES

THE U.S & IRAN

THE COUP PERIOD

TIMES ARCHIVES

ARTICLES

PAGE ONES

PHOTOS

Click Here "The Director, on April 4, 1953, approved a budget of $1,000,000 which could be be used by the Tehran Station in any way that would bring about the fall of Mossadegh." — C.I.A. Document, Part I, page 3 "The purpose will be to create, extend, and enhance public hostility and distrust and fear of Mossadegh and his government." — C.I.A. Document, Appendix B, page 15

"Fifty years ago this week, the CIA and the British SIS orchestrated a coup d'etat that toppled the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mossadegh. The prime minister and his nationalist supporters in parliament roused Britain's ire when they nationalised the oil industry in 1951, which had previously been exclusively controlled by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company [later renamed as BP]. Mossadegh argued that Iran should begin profiting from its vast oil reserves. The British government tried to enlist the Americans in planning a coup... The crushing of Iran's first democratic government ushered in more than two decades of dictatorship under the Shah... The author of All the Shah's Men, New York Times reporter Stephen Kinzer, argues that the coup planted the seeds of resentment against the US in the Middle East, ultimately leading to the events of September 11.... The coup and the culture of covert interference it created forever changed how the world viewed the US, especially in poor, oppressive countries. For many Iranians, the coup was a tragedy from which their country has never recovered."
The spectre of Operation Ajax
Guardian, 20 August 2003

'Democracy Now' Interviews Stephen Kinzer On The 1953 Coup - 25 August 2003 - Click Here

It Has The World's Second Largest Oil Reserves
But Has Iranian Oil Production Already Peaked?

"The supplies side is limited. We are reaching the limits of the planet very soon.We can't produce much more oil than we are producing today..... I am talking about two to three years from now.... It is always a supply problem. It is never a demand problem. The oil fields cannot produce enough oil anymore..... If what I predict is going to happen in 2006 or 2007 then you will have a constant oil shock after that. So everything is going to change..... [When this oil crisis happens] You will cut demand first but then the supply is going to go down as well. In the previous ones it was not like that. You would cut demand and supply would go up and you would recalibrate the whole system...... This time you will not be able to recalibrate. What I'm saying is that you don't have any more spare capacity neither in the Middle East, nor in OPEC, nor anywhere else. That's why a problem like Yukos, which is a small problem after all, becomes such a big problem today."
Dr Ali Samsam Bakhtiari, Vice President of the National Iranian Oil Company
Oil demand will soon outstrip supply: industry planner
ABC (Australia), 9 August 2004

"A major 'tipping point' (where global daily oil production reaches a top plateau and then declines, more colloquially referred to by others as 'Peak Oil') is predicted by PFC to arrive as early as 2014 under conditions of surging global demand for oil. This will be most likely if countries such as China and India continue to achieve rapid rate industrialisation. Under an energy demand growth scenario of 1.8% approximating to the recent historic average the date slips back, but only to 2018. Under these scenarios the arrival of the critical peak oil 'tipping point' is therefore projected on a ten to fifteen year time horizon. The most pessimistic PFC scenario is based on a projected high annual oil growth demand of 2.4%. This compares with global oil demand in 2004 increasing at the unexpectedly high rate of around 3% in large part driven by high demand from China. Production from the Former Soviet Union will peak around 2012, whilst production from many other non-OPEC countries has already peaked according to PFC. PFC state that OPEC as a group is itself already depleting at a rate of about 1% per year, even taking into account new discoveries.Importantly PFC's forecasts include provision for projected new exploration discoveries, the rate of which is expected to continue to decline as a result of fundamental geological constraints. PFC concludes that there is no alternative to the curbing of global demand for oil. This presumably means increasing conservation measures, and developing alternative energy sources. Or it means global economic recession. Or it means a combination of these. Ten years is, however, a very short space of time in which to fundamentally change the way the world produces and consumes its energy. Is the western political system prepared for this? Or will Washington and London simply continue to seek control of oil rich countries (and oil transit route countries) through 'regime change' as time runs out in a strategic environment where no credible 'Plan B' for alternative sources of energy has been put in place? From the false-pretext toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 to the apparent British sponsorship of a failed coup d'etat in oil rich Equatorial Guinea in 2004, the situation is looking increasing desperate. And how viable is such an approach in any case? PFC suggest that as the role of OPEC becomes increasingly pivotal regime change in such countries will prove more challenging as a direct result of rising oil prices. PFC states "Higher volumes and higher prices will bring back large financial surpluses to the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. The new-found wealth will alter the present strategic relationship with the US: despite louder calls for reforms from the US, the region will spend its way out of reforms, and the regimes will have the opportunity to use their financial might to co-opt and divide the different interest groups".
Peak Oil To Arrive As Early As 2014
'Peak Oil' Update, 4 January 2005

Click Here - To See Graph Of OPEC Depletions Levels, Including Iran

"An official of Tehran Chamber Commerce, Industries and Mines said the government expects the price of oil to reach $80 per barrel in the coming years, raising Iran's revenues from crude oil sales to as high as $1 bln. Deputy head of the chamber, Jamshid Edalatian said if the price prediction does materialize, Iran's total annual earnings will increase to almost $37 bln to which another $10 bln revenues in non-oil export can be added, ILNA reported. Edalatian further said Iran's per capita income is expected to reach $130 bln within four years, stirring an unprecedented economic boom similar to that experienced by China. 'The oil boom is likely to bring about a two-fold rise in the per capita income,' he said. Oil hit $60 a barrel in late-day trading Thursday, and closed at a record $59.42--high enough to hurt stock prices of fuel-dependant industries and drag down the major market indices."
Oil boom imminent: Iranian official
IranMania, 26 June 2005

'Peak Oil'
Iran, Iraq, And The Oil And Gas Strategic Elipse

Colouring on map shows countries with largest gas deposits
Red = countries with more than 20 trillion m3 of natural gas reserves (i.e. Russia and Iran)
Click here to see full map including the Americas
Will the hydrocarbon era finish soon?
Geosciences in Exploration and Production: Information exchange for research and Industry, Hanover, 23.05.2000

"Optimists about world oil reserves, such as the Department of Energy, are getting increasingly lonely. The International Energy Agency now says that world production outside the Middle Eastern Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (opec) will peak in 1999 and world production overall will peak between 2010 and 2020. This projection is supported by influential recent articles in Science and Scientific American. Some knowledgeable academic and industry voices put the date that world production will peak even sooner—within the next five or six years. The optimists who project large reserve quantities of over one trillion barrels tend to base their numbers on one of three things: inclusion of heavy oil and tar sands, the exploitation of which will entail huge economic and environmental costs; puffery by opec nations lobbying for higher production quotas within the cartel; or assumptions about new drilling technologies that may accelerate production but are unlikely to expand reserves. Once production peaks, even though exhaustion of world reserves will still be many years away, prices will begin to rise sharply. This trend will be exacerbated by increased demand in the developing world..... The recent report by the President's Committee of Advisers on Science and Technology... concluded   'A plausible argument can be made that the security of the United States is at least as likely to be imperiled in the first half of the next century by the consequences of inadequacies in the energy options available to the world as by inadequacies in the capabilities of U.S. weapons systems.   It is striking that the Federal government spends about 20 times more R&D money on the latter problem than on the former.'... The nearly $70 billion spent annually for imported oil represents about 40 percent of the current U.S. trade deficit.... Research is essential to produce the innovations and technical improvements that will lower the production costs of ethanol and other renewable fuels and let them compete directly with gasoline. At present, the United States is not funding a vigorous program in renewable technologies.... The United States cannot afford to wait for the next energy crisis to marshal its intellectual and industrial resources....Our growing dependence on increasingly scarce Middle Eastern oil is a fool's game—there is no way for the rest of the world to win. Our losses may come suddenly through war, steadily through price increases, agonizingly through developing-nation poverty, relentlessly through climate change—or through all of the above."
Senator Richard G. Lugar and R. James Woolsey (Former Director of the CIA)
The New Petroleum - Foreign Affairs January/February 1999

"... the mideast will increasingly become the source of the world's oil, and this is a strategic problem for us and for many other countries."
James Woolsey, Former Director of the CIA
Online Interview with the Council on Foreign Relations and the Washington Post: June 7, 2000

"Iraq can be seen as the first battle of the fourth world war. After two hot world wars and one cold one that all began and were centered in Europe, the fourth world war is going to be for the Middle East."
Former Director of the CIA, James Woolsey
NATO conference, Prague, November 2002

"In August 2002, Mr Cheney declared that 'armed with an arsenal of these weapons of terror, and seated atop 10 per cent of the world's oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of a great portion of the world's energy supplies, directly threaten America's friends through the region and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail'..... ."
America's disastrous energy plan
Financial Times, 22 December 2003 

"In the context of the recent history of 'regime change' as a foreign policy tool, it is interesting to note that the PFC figures show that within OPEC the country whose oil reserves are least depleted in percentage terms is Iraq. Besides its importance as a new military platform from which to police the whole of the Gulf, Iraq (with the third largest reserves in the world after Saudi Arabia and Iran) therefore has the greatest proportional capacity for increased production within OPEC.The US Energy Information Administration's (EIA) 2004 International Energy Outlook report has Iraq moving up the table of OPEC daily production from fourth in 2001 behind Iran and Venezuela (both these countries' production is already close to or past peak according to PFC data), to second in 2025 with only Saudi Arabia remaining ahead. To 2025 the EIA is projecting an increase of 136% in Iraqi production over 2001 levels, a higher increase than projected for any other country in the world. Realising as much as possible of this Iraqi potential will become increasingly important as the global 'peak' gets closer. However, the White House miscalculation of the Iraqi response to the occupation of their country has resulted in the opposite effect. Iraqi oil production has fallen as the fighting continues, thereby threatening an acceleration of the onset of the global peak all the time the situation has not been recovered (according to the London Times 4 January the director of Iraq's intelligence service estimates there are more than 200,000 insurgents in the country, a figure now greater than coalition forces).Since its publication PFC's oil supply-demand forecast has been followed by the surfacing of a similar prognosis from a senior exploration geologist at BP who issued a separate 'peak oil' warning in November 2004. This forecast predicts the arrival of the peak oil tipping point some time between 2010 - 2020."
Peak Oil To Arrive As Early As 2014
'Peak Oil' Update, 4 January 2005

British Bombing Raids In Iraq Were Illegal, Says Foreign Office

Morally Bankrupt US And Britain 'Losing It' In The Persian Gulf

"After reporting these [Downing St] secret memos, which revealed the dubious manoeuvrings of government, I expected the US press to react. Surely there would be a storm of anger over the way in which the American public had been deceived into going to war? But still there was no interest. Then slowly something astonishing happened. People power took over. The Sunday Times website was inundated with ordinary US citizens wanting to read the minutes of the July meeting. Bloggers set to work passing the word. Six ordinary, patriotic citizens with no political axe to grind were so outraged to discover the truth about the path to war that they set up their own website, naming it after the minutes, which had become known as the Downing Street memo. The focus turned to what may ultimately be the most important part of the memo: the point where Hoon said that the US had already begun 'spikes of activity to put pressure on the regime'. Ministry of Defence figures for the number of bombs dropped on southern Iraq in 2002 show that virtually none were used in March and April; but between May and August an average of 10 tons were dropped each month, with the RAF taking just as big a role in the "spikes of activity" as their US colleagues. Then in September the figure shot up again, with allied aircraft dropping 54.6 tons. If this was a covert air war, both Bush and Blair may face searching questions. In America only Congress can declare war, and it did not give the US president permission to take military action against Iraq until October 11, 2002. Blair's legal justification is said to come from UN Resolution 1441, which was not passed until November 8, 2002. Last week one US blogger, Larisa Alexandrovna of RawStory.com, unearthed more unsettling evidence. It was an overlooked interview with Lieutenant-General T Michael Moseley, the allied air commander in Iraq, in which he appears to admit that the 'spikes of activity' were part of a covert air war. From June 2002 until March 20, when the ground war began, the allies flew 21,736 sorties over southern Iraq, attacking 349 carefully selected targets. The attacks, Moseley said, 'laid the foundations' for the invasion, allowing allied commanders to begin the ground war. The bloggers may have found their own smoking gun."
How the Leaked Documents Questioning War Emerged from 'Britain's Deep Throat'
Sunday Times, 26 June 2005

"The Downing Street Memo explains in brisk understated English what I didn’t fully understand when I worked for Secretary Rumsfeld and Dough Feith in the Pentagon in 2002 and early 2003....Today we have not even a shadow of the Nixon or Clinton era political and media power competition. Instead, we see only unbalanced power, unbalanced perspective, unbalanced minds. A warped political-media borg warning us that resistance is futile. The mass state, while obscenely expensive, dangerous and even ridiculous, is the present reality of the United States. Imminent federal biometric ID cards courtesy of the REAL ID Act are just one more symbol of this ongoing massification and American totalitarianism.... Thus, my gentle thoughts are increasingly turning to murder. Murder of the state. In self-defense, of course! LRC’s Butler Shaffer, eminently wise as always, points out that 'we would be better advised to confront our own existential cowardice. Political leaders amass power only through our moral exhaustion; they are strong only because we have allowed ourselves to become weak.'... We might take a lesson from the growing Iraqi insurgency and the response of that nation nearly destroyed by our pretext-laden invasion and the American neo-Jacobin possession of that country. The U.S. Army wonders about the robustness and fluidity of the hard to catch and harder to kill insurgents.... How do the Iraqi insurgents do it? How are they defending themselves from the oppressive U.S. managed state in Baghdad? How are they killing it? They know what they don’t want, and have made a personal commitment to resist it....They don’t trust the central government in Baghdad. They judge the American state’s intent solely from the American state’s actions, never its words.... 'Liberty' is also a concept George W. Bush favors. He said 'liberty' fifteen times in his 2005 inaugural speech, second only to his 25 mentions of 'freedom.' Bush didn’t specifically advocate the murder, or even the restraint, of the state. On the other hand, perhaps he did. The way ahead is clear. We should promote our Great Leader’s love of liberty and resist, resist, resist!"
Unleashing the Resistance - Karen Kwiatkowski
Karen Kwiatkowski, Ph.D., [ksusiek@shentel.net] is a retired USAF lieutenant colonel, who spent her final four and a half years in uniform working at the Pentagon.
LewRockwell.com, 15 June 2005

"The word 'quagmire' has returned to the debate - Mr Bush even made a joking reference to it yesterday, when asked by a journalist about his declining popularity and political difficulties. More serious is a decline in public support for the war, which proved fatal to the Vietnam enterprise three decades ago. Republicans and Democrats are complaining that the administration has no credible plan for victory, while General John Abizaid, the commander of US forces in Iraq, has voiced the military's alarm over the public mood. Troops in Iraq were becoming aware of the decline in enthusiasm for the war at home, General Abizaid told a Congressional hearing, and the troops were asking him 'whether or not they've got support from the American people'".
America turns on Bush over Iraq
Independent, 25 June 2005

"The war has reached a tipping point - not in Iraq, but in the US. Every announcement of a 'turning point' heightens the rising tide of public disillusionment. Every reference to September 11 strains the administration's credibility. Every revelation of how "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" for war, as in the Downing Street memo, shatters even Republicans' previously implacable faith. On June 21, a Gallup poll reported that Bush's approval rating was collapsing along with support for the war. Only 39% of Americans support it. "The decline in support for the war is found among Republicans and independents, with little change among Democrats."..... Iran is the long-term winner. "Iran intends to pull the Shia state of Iraq into its orbit. You can be sure that Iranian revolutionary guards are honeycombed throughout Iraq's intelligence to make sure things don't get out of hand." About the "euphoria" after the election, especially echoed by the press corps, Lang simply says: "Laughable, comical, pathetic."  Bush's Iraq syndrome is a reinvention of Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam syndrome. In December 1967, Walt Rostow, LBJ's national security adviser, famously declared about the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese: 'Their casualties are going up at a rate they cannot sustain ... I see light at the end of the tunnel.' The official invitation to the New Year's Eve party at the US embassy in Saigon read: 'Come see the light at the end of the tunnel.' The Tet offensive struck a month later. '"Even when what happened was really more positive than it seemed to be - the Tet offensive in 1968 was a military disaster for the Vietcong and North Vietnamese army - no one believed it because there was no light at the end of tunnel,' Harry McPherson, who was President Johnson's counsel in the White House, told me. For a modern instance, McPherson cited the statement this week by Chuck Hagel, a Republican senator from Nebraska: 'The White House is completely disconnected from reality. It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."
Blinded by the Light at the End of the Tunnel
Guardian, 23 June 2005

"The number of serious international terrorist incidents more than tripled last year, according to U.S. government figures, a sharp upswing in deadly attacks that the State Department has decided not to make public in its annual report on terrorism due to Congress this week. Overall, the number of what the U.S. government considers "significant" attacks grew to about 655 last year, up from the record of around 175 in 2003, according to congressional aides who were briefed on statistics covering incidents including the bloody school seizure in Russia and violence related to the disputed Indian territory of Kashmir.Terrorist incidents in Iraq also dramatically increased, from 22 attacks to 198, or nine times the previous year's total -- a sensitive subset of the tally, given the Bush administration's assertion that the situation there had stabilized significantly after the U.S. handover of political authority to an interim Iraqi government last summer.The State Department announced last week that it was breaking with tradition in withholding the statistics on terrorist attacks from its congressionally mandated annual report. Critics said the move was designed to shield the government from questions about the success of its effort to combat terrorism by eliminating what amounted to the only year-to-year benchmark of progress....The controversy comes a year after the State Department retracted its annual terrorism report and admitted that its initial version vastly understated the number of incidents. That became an election-year issue, as Democrats said the Bush administration tried to inflate its success in curbing global terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks."
U.S. Figures Show Sharp Global Rise In Terrorism
Washington Post, 27 April 2005

"The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered. Several US officials defended the abrupt decision, saying the methodology the National Counterterrorism Center used to generate statistics for the report may have been faulty, such as the inclusion of incidents that may not have been terrorism. Last year, the number of incidents in 2003 was undercounted, forcing a revision of the report, 'Patterns of Global Terrorism.'  But other current and former officials charged that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's office ordered 'Patterns of Global Terrorism' eliminated several weeks ago because the 2004 statistics raised disturbing questions about the Bush's administration's frequent claims of progress in the war against terrorism. 'Instead of dealing with the facts and dealing with them in an intelligent fashion, they try to hide their facts from the American public,' charged Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department terrorism expert who first disclosed the decision to eliminate the report in The Counterterrorism Blog, an online journal....According to Johnson and US intelligence officials familiar with the issue, statistics that the National Counterterrorism Center provided to the State Department reported 625 "significant" terrorist attacks in 2004.  That compared with 175 such incidents in 2003, the highest number in two decades. The statistics didn't include attacks on American troops in Iraq, which President Bush as recently as Tuesday called 'a central front in the war on terror.' The intelligence officials requested anonymity because the information is classified and because, they said, they feared White House retribution. Johnson declined to say how he obtained the figures..... Last June, the administration was forced to issue a revised version of the report for 2003 that showed a higher number of significant terrorist attacks and more than twice the number of fatalities than had been presented in the original report two months earlier....US intelligence officials said Rice's office decided to eliminate 'Patterns of Global Terrorism' when the counterterrorism center declined to use alternative methodology that would have reported fewer significant attacks. The officials said they interpreted Rice's action as an attempt to avoid releasing statistics that would contradict the administration's claims that it's winning the war against terrorism."
Bush Administration Eliminating 19-year-old International Terrorism Report
Knight Ridder Newspapers, 15 April 2005

Oil To Hit $161 Per Barrel?
US Forced To Contemplate National Energy Crisis
As Middle East War For Oil Starts To Slip Through Its Fingers

"... the mideast will increasingly become the source of the world's oil, and this is a strategic problem for us and for many other countries."
James Woolsey, Former Director of the CIA
Online Interview with the Council on Foreign Relations and the Washington Post: June 7, 2000

"Iraq can be seen as the first battle of the fourth world war. After two hot world wars and one cold one that all began and were centered in Europe, the fourth world war is going to be for the Middle East."
Former Director of the CIA, James Woolsey
NATO conference, Prague, November 2002

"These scenarios unfolded in a simulated oil shock wave held Thursday in Washington. Two former CIA directors and several other former top policy-makers participated to draw attention to America's need to reduce its dependence on oil, especially foreign oil... Former CIA chief Woolsey described as 'relatively mild' the scenarios that the National Commission on Energy Policy and the advocacy group Securing America's Future Energy simulated. Both groups are pushing for reduced dependence on conventional oil. 'It was striking that by taking such small amounts off the market, you could have such dramatic impact' on world oil prices, said Robbie Diamond, the president of Securing America's Future Energy. Richard Haass was a top adviser to former Secretary of State Colin Powell until 2003. The simulation taught him how little influence policy-makers would have in reversing an oil shock wave. 'I think where most of the work has to happen now, both intellectually and politically, is on demand' reduction, Haass said."
Simulated oil meltdown shows U.S. economy's vulnerability
Knight Ridder Newspapers, 24 June 2005

    * Gasoline prices of $5.74 per gallon;
    * Global oil price of $161 per barrel;
    * Heating oil prices of $5.14 per gallon;
    * Fall of gross domestic product for two consecutive quarters;
    * Drop in consumer confidence by 30 percent;
    * Spike in the consumer price index to 12.6 percent;
    * Ballooning of the current accounts deficit to $1.087 trillion;
    * Decline of 28 percent in the S&P 500;
    * Aggressive pressure on the U.S. from China to end arm sales to Taiwan,
      and;
    * Demands from Saudi Arabia for changes to U.S. policy regarding the Mid-
      East peace process.

    Participants included:

    Robert M. Gates, former Director of Central Intelligence;
    Richard N. Haass, former Director of Policy Planning at the Department of
     State;
    General P.X. Kelley, USMC (Ret.), former Commandant of the Marine Corps,
     member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff;
    Don Nickles, former U.S. Senator;
    Carol Browner, former Administrator of the Environmental Protection
     Agency;
    Gene B. Sperling, former National Economic Advisor;
    Linda Stuntz, former Deputy Secretary of Energy;
    Frank Kramer, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International
     Security Affairs, and;
    R. James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence.

    Other key findings:

    * Once oil supply disruptions occur, there is little that can be done in
      the short term to protect the U.S. economy from its impacts, including
      gasoline above $5/gallon and a sharp decline in economic growth
      potentially leading into a recession.

    * There are a number of supply and demand-side policy options available
      that would significantly improve U.S. oil security.  Benefits from these
      measures will take a decade or more to mature, and thus should be
      enacted as soon as possible.

    * Supply-side measures include promoting developing of conventional oil
      reserves in nations currently off limits to private investment through
      enhanced U.S. diplomacy, increase research and development into
      environmentally-benign extraction of unconventional oil reserves such as
      oil shale and tar sands, and enable siting of new liquid natural gas and
      other energy facilities.

    * Demand-side measures include promoting energy efficient passenger
      vehicles with incentives for hybrid electric vehicles, strengthen fuel
      economy standards, and increase research and development into plug-in
      hybrids and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

    * Alternative fuel measures include increased research and development
      that enables ethanol production from plant materials, fischer-tropsch
      diesel from domestic coal, and hydrogen from coal and eventually from
      renewable sources.

"Optimists about world oil reserves, such as the Department of Energy, are getting increasingly lonely. The International Energy Agency now says that world production outside the Middle Eastern Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (opec) will peak in 1999 and world production overall will peak between 2010 and 2020. This projection is supported by influential recent articles in Science and Scientific American. Some knowledgeable academic and industry voices put the date that world production will peak even sooner—within the next five or six years. The optimists who project large reserve quantities of over one trillion barrels tend to base their numbers on one of three things: inclusion of heavy oil and tar sands, the exploitation of which will entail huge economic and environmental costs; puffery by opec nations lobbying for higher production quotas within the cartel; or assumptions about new drilling technologies that may accelerate production but are unlikely to expand reserves. Once production peaks, even though exhaustion of world reserves will still be many years away, prices will begin to rise sharply. This trend will be exacerbated by increased demand in the developing world..... The recent report by the President's Committee of Advisers on Science and Technology... concluded   'A plausible argument can be made that the security of the United States is at least as likely to be imperiled in the first half of the next century by the consequences of inadequacies in the energy options available to the world as by inadequacies in the capabilities of U.S. weapons systems.   It is striking that the Federal government spends about 20 times more R&D money on the latter problem than on the former.'... The nearly $70 billion spent annually for imported oil represents about 40 percent of the current U.S. trade deficit.... Research is essential to produce the innovations and technical improvements that will lower the production costs of ethanol and other renewable fuels and let them compete directly with gasoline. At present, the United States is not funding a vigorous program in renewable technologies.... The United States cannot afford to wait for the next energy crisis to marshal its intellectual and industrial resources....Our growing dependence on increasingly scarce Middle Eastern oil is a fool's game—there is no way for the rest of the world to win. Our losses may come suddenly through war, steadily through price increases, agonizingly through developing-nation poverty, relentlessly through climate change—or through all of the above."
Senator Richard G. Lugar and R. James Woolsey (Former Director of the CIA)
The New Petroleum - Foreign Affairs January/February 1999

'PEAK OIL'
GLOBAL ENERGY CRISIS LOOMING
Click Here For More Information
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/energycrisis.htm

Preventing More War In The Middle East
The Real Meaning Of 'Defence'

NATURAL LAW PARTY WESSEX
nlpwessex@btinternet.com
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex