Why did Cheney's "Energy Task Force" need oil maps of Iraq ...

[skeptic9]

.. and lists of possible international competitors for contracts to rebuild Iraqi oil-producing capacity?

See http://www.judicialwatch.org/071703.b_PR.shtml

for the results of a "freedom of information" request for the documents distributed to Cheney's and Ken Lay's secret attendees.

Litigious nutball Larry Klayman, who's filed hundreds of legal actions (including lawsuits against his own mother), is the source for this link. But it has gotten lots of attention since it was posted last July, and no one has claimed it is a fraud.

Are there direct connections between deliberations by Cheney's task force and the invasion of Iraq on falsified "intelligence" and a new Bush Doctrine of "preventive war"?

Is this why Dubya's cabinet gave vastly higher foreign policy priority to finding a pretext for invading Iraq than to retaliating against the bombers of the USS Cole?

Is preventing the media from connecting these dots the reason Scalia has been forced to compromise the Supreme Court's reputation so thoroughly once again?

[arcane1]

1. the succinct answer to those questions is:

yes

I printed out those maps last year and it was amazing the mental gymnastics that repubes would go through to explain them away...

[bpilgrim]

2. PEAK OIL

is here and the oilmen got the helm

(in a soundbyte that will never be used)

peace

[punpirate]

3. In conjunction with Paul O'Neill's recent comments...

... about an Iraq invasion being on the table from the very start of the administration, it doesn't surprise me, at all.

[H2O Man]

4. Read "Farewell America"

by James Hepburn, Penmarin Books. For many years, this book was not available in the USA. Chapters 10 & 11 are "must reads" for anyone interested in the history of oil wealth in Texas and in the world of politics.

[many a good man]

5. NSC and Cheney's Secret Energy Task Force

Did you read Seymour Hersh's recent article in the New Yorker where he mentions a source who tells him that Bush ordered unprecedented cooperation between the National Security council and the energy task force? The implications are huge because it would show that the secret task force WAS making plans for Iraq and the maps really meant something. Sorry I can't provide the link for you...

[skeptic9]

6. Do you see the article you're thinking of in the NewYorker archive ...

... folder on 'The War in Iraq'? The link is at http://www.newyorker.com/archive -- just above the thumbnail image of a New Yorker magazine cover. There are quite a few Seymour Hersh articles listed there

I'm really glad I posted this discussion tonight. I'm learning quite a bit from my fellow DUers.