Ex-British Army Chief in Iraq Confirms Peak Oil as Motive for War;
Praises Fraudulent Reconstruction Programmes
Brigadier-General James Ellery CBE, the Foreign Office's Senior Adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad since 2003,
confirmed the critical role of Iraqi oil reserves in potentially alleviating a "world shortage" of conventional oil. The Iraq War has helped to head off what Brigadier Ellery described as "the tide of Easternisation" – a shift in global political and economic power toward China and India, to whom goes "two thirds of the Middle East's oil."
After the 2004 transfer of authority to an interim Iraqi civilian administration, Brigadier Ellery set up and ran the 700-strong security framework operation in support of the US-funded Reconstruction of Iraq. His remarks were made as part of a presentation at the School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS), University of London, sponsored by the Iraqi Youth Foundation, on 22nd April.
World Oil Shortage
"The reason that oil reached $117 a barrel last week", he said, "was less to do with security of supply... than World shortage." He went on to emphasise the strategic significance of Iraqi petroleum fields in relation to the danger of production peaks being breached in major oil reserves around the world. "Russia's production has peaked at 10 million barrels per day; Africa has proved slow to yield affordable extra supplies – from Sudan and Angola for example. Thus
the only near-term potential increase will be from Iraq," he said. Whether Iraq began "favouring East or West" could therefore be "de-stabilizing" not only "within the region but to nations far beyond which have an interest." much more at:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Ex-British-Army-Chief-in-I-by-Nafeez-Mosaddeq-Ah-080617-625.html