Bush distorts intel re: Potential Iraq Oil Revenues (Drudge)

[djg21]

Drudge reports the following. He doesn't provide a link.

"GERTH: Bush administration's optimistic statements earlier this year that Iraq's oil wealth would cover most of cost to rebuild Iraq were at odds with bleaker assessment by government task force secretly established last fall to study Iraq's oil industry ... Developing..."

If true, this may be more critical than WMDs, in light of the request for $87 Billion meandering through Congress, the deficit, and the dismal state of the economy!

[E_Zapata]

1. I think there's plenty of oil

But if the creeps can make us think there isn't and it can't pay for the reconstruction, then the US taxpayer pays the bill and the oil interests keep all those oil profits.

Just more of the "gee, sorry, we thought X but we guess not."

[fizzana]

2. We all know there's plenty of oil

It's just that they can barely pump it out of the ground without spending billions to fix the system, and in the north they can't even pumpany oil because of sabotage.

[Old and In the Way]

9. That's it, of course......

A sea of oil, but no way to get it out. And until we relinquish control of it, there it will stay.

Thank the collective braintrust at PNAC for not figuring this little problem out....

[juajen]

10. Don't forget

the thread a couple of months ago from the satellite imaging expert who said there was a new pipeline from the oilfield near Basra into Kuwait. Yes, they are stealing the oil.

[djg21]

4. You miss the point.

The issue that this raises pertains to the Administration's pattern of misrepresenting amd contorting intelligence, and lying to the Congress and the American people, in order to push it's neo-con agenda. Lies about WMD, about the costs of the war, and about the sources of revenue available to fund the war.

[JohnyCanuck]

14. Now, now, don't say lies.

According to Tucker Carlson, they were just "mistakes." Anyone can make a mistake, or two, or three, or four, or five, or er...um... just lets say a whole bunch of "mistakes."

[9215]

11. a note on Zapata

I thought you might be interested in. Remember the movie "Viva Zapata" with Marlon Brando? Who could forget it.

After seeing it Poppy Bush decided to name his oil company after it and thus born Zapata Oil.

I often wondered which did more harm to the reputation of E. Zapata--the movie, or having the Bush company namesake.

[xray s]

3. How can we trust Bush & his pals to not steal the oil?

He was pals with the biggest con man in the oil game...Kenny Boy Lay.

There is a long, long history of fraud and theft in the oil & gas business, going all the way back to Teapot Dome.

It is the wild west in Iraq. There are no rules.

I think we are getting ripped off (again)

[wtmusic]

5. We'll be lucky if we see

$5 billion a year for 3-5 years

[femmecahors]

6. What on earth is going on?

I can't believe all the DRUDGE links I'm seeing on DU.

[QERTY]

7. He's pulling a reverse Dennis Miller

He sees the tide turning. . . .
I'll never take anything he has at face value, but hot gossip is often a precursor of fact.

[Unknown Known]

8. Dennis who?

[Snellius]

12. This is the NY Times story:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 4 — The Bush administration's optimistic statements earlier this year that Iraq's oil wealth, not American taxpayers, would cover most of the cost of rebuilding Iraq were at odds with a bleaker assessment of a government task force secretly established last fall to study Iraq's oil industry, according to public records and government officials.

The task force, which was based at the Pentagon as part of the planning for the war, produced a book-length report that described the Iraqi oil industry as so badly damaged by a decade of trade embargoes that its production capacity had fallen by more than 25 percent, panel members have said.

Despite those findings, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz told Congress during the war that "we are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon."

Moreover, Vice President Dick Cheney said in April, on the day Baghdad fell, that Iraq's oil production could hit 3 million barrels a day by the end of the year, even though the task force had determined that Iraq was generating less than 2.4 million barrels a day before the war.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/05/international/middleeast/05OIL.html?hp

[aquart]

13. So they knew and they lied. Again.

Why, they do it so much it could be called pathological.

[fshrink]

15. The ideal deal:

Capital is given to you by the taxpayer and you cash the profit. Incidentally, that's also how Bush made his first millions with the stadium he financed. It's also a very common capitalistic tactic: privatize profits and make debt public.

[Paschall]

16. "Secret task force"? Excuse me, but...

...we had numerous talking heads on European media, commentators with knowledge of the Iraqi oil industry, who said plainly--well before the invasion--that reconstruction couldn't possibly be financed by oil revenus. This was widely acknowledged public information for weeks prior to "major combat operations."