Why did the Saudis want us to invade Iraqi?

[BlackHeart]

At least I have to assume that they wanted us to or we wouldn't have been able to use their bases and they would have cut off oil sales to us. Or am I working on a false premise?

[goclark]

1. No, you are right on the money

[Jim Sagle]

2. To get us out of Saudi Arabia?

[BlackHeart]

9. Do they have any fear

that we would fake some situation as an excuse to take over Saudi Arabia?
It seems like they should.

[GrumpyGreg]

3. Of course they did,or we wouldn't have, It's a "You scratch my ass,I'll

scratch yours" relationship.

[Elwood P Dowd]

4. They make a ton of extra money

with Iraq oil production down and under control of their Bush buddies.

[valerief]

8. That seems to make the most sense to me. n/t

[PublicWrath]

10. Yes,

And weren't they afraid that when sanctions against Iraq were lifted, Saddam would move too much oil onto the market and cause the prices to drop?

[Elwood P Dowd]

12. That's my understanding

The Saudis and the Bushit Crime Family are one and the same.

[SPKrazy]

5. To Control Saddam who Was A Threat To Them

and to control the Shi'ites who are a threat to them as well


and of course, to control their stranglehold on oil.

They will want us to attack Iran for that reason as well, and Venezuela if they get out of line and undersell the Saudis

[Ksec]

6. What religious sect are they?

Arent they closer to the Shiite sect? If so, that could be why. Since Saddam and the Sunnis were running the show maybe they wanted to get that changed...<shrugs>

[NNN0LHI]

7. How much has the price of oil went up since the invasion?

The Saudi ruling family are the big winners in all this.

Don

[LaPera]

11. To control the flow of oil. Pump less, prices go up...

Its about controlling the flow and the U.S. is building bases to assure that the Iraqi oil flow is controlled and in sync with OPEC...Less oil on the market the higher the gas prices...We are talking record breaking all time profits for these oil companies, the world has ever seen, each quarter...

Just keep the supply low and blame China for using more gas is the reason they keep giving us...

Its all about supply and demand and profits!

[Emit]

13. Funny you should mention that

My teenage daughter is working on a research paper about oil, and we were just discussing this chart:

World Oil Market and Oil Price Chronologies:



The price data graphed above are in nominal terms, i.e., they are in "dollars-of-the-day" and have not been adjusted for inflation. Clicking the link above will enable you to access oil prices in real terms that are adjusted for inflation.

1. OPEC begins to assert power; raises tax rate & posted prices
2. OPEC begins nationalization process; raises prices in response to falling US dollar.
3. Negotiations for gradual transfer of ownership of western assets in OPEC countries
4. Oil embargo begins (October 19-20, 1973)
5. OPEC freezes posted prices; US begins mandatory oil allocation
6. Oil embargo ends (March 18, 1974)
7. Saudis increase tax rates and royalties
8. US crude oil entitlements program begins
9. OPEC announces 15% revenue increase effective October 1, 1975
10.Official Saudi Light price held constant for 1976
11.Iranian oil production hits a 27-year low
12.OPEC decides on 14.5% price increase for 1979
13.Iranian revolution; Shah deposed
14.OPEC raises prices 14.5% on April 1, 1979
15.US phased price decontrol begins
16.OPEC raises prices 15%
17.Iran takes hostages; President Carter halts imports from Iran; Iran cancels US contracts; Non-OPEC output hits 17.0 million b/d
18.Saudis raise marker crude price from 19$/bbl to 26$/bbl
19.Windfall Profits Tax enacted
20.Kuwait, Iran, and Libya production cuts drop OPEC oil production to 27 million b/d
21.Saudi Light raised to $28/bbl
22.Saudi Light raised to $34/bbl
23.First major fighting in Iran-Iraq War
24.President Reagan abolishes remaining price and allocation controls
25.Spot prices dominate official OPEC prices
26.US boycotts Libyan crude; OPEC plans 18 million b/d output
27.Syria cuts off Iraqi pipeline
28.Libya initiates discounts; Non-OPEC output reaches 20 million b/d; OPEC output drops to 15 million b/d
29.OPEC cuts prices by $5/bbl and agrees to 17.5 million b/d output
30.Norway, United Kingdom, and Nigeria cut prices
31.OPEC accord cuts Saudi Light price to $28/bbl
32.OPEC output falls to 13.7 million b/d
33.Saudis link to spot price and begin to raise output
34.OPEC output reaches 18 million b/d
35.Wide use of netback pricing
36.Wide use of fixed prices
37.Wide use of formula pricing
38.OPEC/Non-OPEC meeting failure
39.OPEC production accord; Fulmar/Brent production outages in the North Sea
40.Exxon's Valdez tanker spills 11 million gallons of crude oil
41.OPEC raises production ceiling to 19.5 million b/d
42.Iraq invades Kuwait
43.Operation Desert Storm begins; 17.3 million barrels of SPR crude oil sales is awarded
44.Persian Gulf war ends
45.Dissolution of Soviet Union; Last Kuwaiti oil fire is extinguished on November 6, 1991
46.UN sanctions threatened against Libya
47.Saudi Arabia agrees to support OPEC price increase
48.OPEC production reaches 25.3 million b/d, the highest in over a decade
49.Kuwait boosts production by 560,000 b/d in defiance of OPEC quota
50.Nigerian oil workers' strike
51.Extremely cold weather in the US and Europe
52.U.S. launches cruise missile attacks into southern Iraq following an Iraqi-supported invasion of Kurdish safe haven areas in northern Iraq.
53.Iraq begins exporting oil under United Nations Security Council Resolution 986.
54.Prices rise as Iraq's refusal to allow United Nations weapons inspectors into "sensitive" sites raises tensions in the oil-rich Middle East.
55.OPEC raises its production ceiling by 2.5 million barrels per day to 27.5 million barrels per day. This is the first increase in 4 years.
56.World oil supply increases by 2.25 million barrels per day in 1997, the largest annual increase since 1988.
57.Oil prices continue to plummet as increased production from Iraq coincides with no growth in Asian oil demand due to the Asian economic crisis and increases in world oil inventories following two unusually warm winters.
58.OPEC pledges additional production cuts for the third time since March 1998. Total pledged cuts amount to about 4.3 million barrels per day.
59.Oil prices triple between January 1999 and September 2000 due to strong world oil demand, OPEC oil production cutbacks, and other factors, including weather and low oil stock levels.
60.President Clinton authorizes the release of 30 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) over 30 days to bolster oil supplies, particularly heating oil in the Northeast.
61.Oil prices fall due to weak world demand (largely as a result of economic recession in the United States) and OPEC overproduction.
62.Oil prices decline sharply following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, largely on increased fears of a sharper worldwide economic downturn (and therefore sharply lower oil demand). Prices then increase on oil production cuts by OPEC and non-OPEC at the beginning of 2002, plus unrest in the Middle East and the possibility of renewed conflict with Iraq.
63.OPEC oil production cuts, unrest in Venezuela, and rising tension in the Middle East contribute to a significant increase in oil prices between January and June.
64.A general strike in Venezuela, concern over a possible military conflict in Iraq, and cold winter weather all contribute to a sharp decline in U.S. oil inventories and cause oil prices to escalate further at the end of the year.
65.Continued unrest in Venezuela and oil traders' anticipation of imminent military action in Iraq causes prices to rise in January and February, 2003.
66.Military action commences in Iraq on March 19, 2003. Iraqi oil fields are not destroyed as had been feared. Prices fall.
67.OPEC delegates agree to lower the cartel’s output ceiling by 1 million barrels per day, to 23.5 million barrels per day, effective April 2004.
68.OPEC agrees to raise its crude oil production target by 500,000 barrels (2% of current OPEC production) by August 1—in an effort to moderate high crude oil prices.
69.Hurricane Ivan causes lasting damage to the energy infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico and interrupts oil and natural gas supplies to the United States. U.S. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham agrees to release 1.7 million barrels of oil in the form of a loan from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/chron.html

[Neil Lisst]

17. that's a great resource for oil and gas data http://www.eia.doe.gov/

http://www.eia.doe.gov

They have wonderful charts and graphs on reserves, production, prices, etc.

[davekriss]

14. Working on false premise, BlackHeart

The Saudi's didn't want us to invade Iraq, they just wanted our troops out of their country.

In 2000 we had 80 jets in the Prince Sultan Air Base along with all the support equipment and troops needed to keep them combat ready. Our presence, meanwhile, was contributing to social and political upheavel under the House of Saud. They wanted us out, and Bush was willing to cooperate with his friends (but to do so he needed a New Pearl Harbor -- and, so we see, 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers were Saudi's). This left us with a pressing need for new bases from which we can radiate future imperial power (you know, for the days when oil really becomes scarce). Enter soooo conveniently the right-next-store nation of Iraq, the patsie and dupe of the Bush Regime, Saddam Hussein, just ready to fall.

(If you're familiar with the draft 1992 Defense Policy Guidance, written for Dick Cheney by Paul Wolfowitz and Scooter Libby -- but rejected by George Herbert Walker Bush for being too out there -- it recommended regime change in Iraq. The only reason that policy wasn't followed in 1993 was a funny-eared guy named Perot split the Republican vote, letting Clinton squeak into office, but it was not to be a peaceful Presidency, with every Republithug step taken to weaken and finally impeach him. You know, so PNAC could get on with the business Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Libby conceived eight years earlier.)

We invaded Iraq to obtain territory on which we're now building four impregnable super military garrisons (and something like a dozen more around the Caspian Basin). The Bush Regime doesn't give a flying f*ck about the chaos outside these bases (just as they didn't give a hoot for the dead and dying of Katrina -- in the words of David Ray Griffin, this Regime embraces a Deeply Perverted Value System), instead the focus was and is on establishing these military strongholds. For the future. Since this was the real mission and it was indeed accomplished, Bush surely feels school children will sing songs of praise for generations to come, he (Bush) is that morally deranged.

[BlackHeart]

15. The Saudi's both trust us

and distrust us at the same time, if I understand you.

They trusted us enough to let us put 80 planes on their airbase in 2000. But then change their minds and don't trust us and want us out so they supply us with hi-jackers to stage a Pearl Harbor type event. Trusting us not to use that as a reason to attack them and take over their oil fields. (wouldn't a military attack on the Saudis have been a lot easier than one on Iraq?)

[davekriss]

16. Use of the airbase was a...

...vestige of the first Gulf War, it's not something we did in 2000.

If you recall, our military presence in Saudi Arabia is a part of the causus beli raised by Osama Bin Laden when he issued his famous fatwa against the U.S. a number of years ago. Increased maldistribution of wealth and lack of employment opportunities for young Saudi's led to increasing social unrest at a time when there were transition concerns within the House of Saud. Keeping a U.S. military presence in Saudi would have exacerbated tension within the Kingdom. Note how quietly and quickly our troop presence was removed soon September 11, our own false flag causus beli, leaving us need for new homes for our hardware and personnel. Qatar and U.A.E. were part of the transition; the final destination was intended to be Iraq.

The House of Saud trusts the House of Bush, and vice versa (as far as any criminal family trusts another), that was not the issue. Both are private allies, business partners. Both understood that our presence in Saudi made life difficult for the House of Saud. The easier path for both houses was to exit Saudi for the nation next store, a former client dictator who no longer danced when the USG said dance (this just another added weight on the side of war on the decision-making scale). Invading Iraq would solve lots of problems, or so went the thought. But before the USG could manufacture consent for its unprovoked, illegal, and immoral invasion of Iraq, it needed its New Pearl Harbor.

I mean, there is so much out there. The Grand Chessboard, of course. The paper from the James Baker Institute at Rice University (yes, that James Baker) on the growing need to dominate the middle east and eurasia as oil stocks decline. Then there's the draft Defense Policy Guidance document (DPG) written for then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney by Wolfowitz and Libby in 1992, delayed by Perot's impact on the 1992 election; formation of PNAC to include Jeb Bush, Rumsfeld, Perl, Cheney, Wolfowitz, etc.; PNAC's Rebuilding America's Defenses, which includes by reference and praises the DPG; threats to Afganistan prior to 9-11 that they accept our carpets of gold or get carpet bombed; so many troubling questions about 9-11, our new Pearl Harbor; the fact that 15 of the 19 purported hijackers were Saudi's; flying the Bin Ladan clan out of the U.S. when there was a complete ban on private flights; excessive put options on just American, Delta, and JP Morgan just before that tragic Tuesday -- I could go on and on.

There is a prima facie case for treason and immense criminal undertaking beneath the geo-strategic posturing we've seen in full foul bloom by the current Regime, like some monsterous aristolochea gigantea. There are no accidents in politics. Nothing is what it seems. Bush accomplished his mission, he is building his bases in Iraq.

[BlackHeart]

18. Like it or not

they won't be his bases after 2008.

[davekriss]

19. I hope yer right (eom)