Chapter 85 Where the ultimate prize is

In April 2001, the Cheney Task Force presented the National Energy Policy Report to the President, which was based on the Baker Institute's Energy Strategy Report.Both Baker's report and Cheney's report predict that the United States will rely heavily on oil imports in the next 20 years.The Baker Institute clearly pointed out: the world will be increasingly short of oil, and we must attach great importance to Iraq."Iraq is an unstable factor in the flow of Middle Eastern oil to international markets," the Baker Institute study declared.They didn't explain it.They simply called on Washington to pay more attention to its Iraq policy and reposition its goals.

The Baker Institute study also recommends that Cheney's energy policy task force include representatives from the Department of Defense.US military and energy strategies have always been consistent.The Baker report concludes that the future is unpredictable and that "unless America plays a leadership role in the new rules of the game for the future, American businesses, consumers, and the U.S. government will be in a vulnerable position."Cheney and the new administration should not hesitate to assume the leadership role, even though they don't know how to set the new rules of the game.

Cheney's report emphasized that the US economy will increasingly rely on imported oil, making the US must focus on the future.The report did not pay too much attention to the issue of domestic oil substitution, and its core is how to ensure the safety of new oil sources outside the United States.At this point, the report points to a problem.In many parts of the world, the largest oil resources are in the hands of governments whose interest is not in helping the United States solve its energy problems.The Cheney report says that the governments of these countries do not have US interests at heart.What he means is that these populist governments control oil resources and have ideas of their own, and they have no intention of sharing them with ExxonMobil, Chevron-Texaco or Cheney.

Cheney, Baker, and other policymakers in Washington think long term.They rarely discuss the issue of oil supply publicly, but privately they are extremely concerned about the status quo of the world's energy supply.They are also considering how to reach out to uncontrolled oil areas. Dating back to the autumn of 1999, at a small meeting of the Institute of Petroleum in London, Cheney, then the CEO of Honeyburton Petroleum Company, told the giants of the international oil industry that in the next few decades, the Middle East would be the oil industry. The most important strategic core area in resource reserves.In his 2001 Energy Report forecast, Cheney told Big Oil: By 2010, we will need 50 million barrels a day more oil.Where does this oil come from?It is obvious that governments and national oil companies control 90% of oil assets.Oil remains the government's most fundamental priority.

Fifty million barrels per day was a huge number, more than six times the total oil production of Saudi Arabia and almost two-thirds of the world's total oil production at the time.Saddam Hussein and the leaders of other oil-producing countries quickly understood this fact. Where will the world find six more Saudi Arabias?Cheney replied: "While many parts of the world offer opportunities, the Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, remains the ultimate jackpot." At an oil conference in Texas a year ago, Cheney hinted that the Bush administration will focus on oil geopolitics.Referring to the dangers and instability in Kazakhstan, Cheney, then CEO of Honeyburton, retorted: "You already know where the oil is, and I don't have any more worries." Think clearly.

Iraq, which has more untapped oil reserves than Saudi Arabia, has long been an area of ​​intense interest for the Cheney and Bush administrations.Paul O'Neill, a member of the Bush cabinet who has been retired since late 2002 because of teamwork issues, later revealed that, long before the 9.11 terrorist attacks, President Bush had made regime change in Iraq his top goal. On January 11, 2004, in an interview with the very popular American TV program "60 Minutes", the former treasury secretary of the Bush administration pointed out that as early as 2001, Bush began to focus on how to overthrow the Iraqi government. "From the very beginning, Saddam Hussein was considered guilty, he was a bad guy, he had to go," O'Neill recalled. "For me, the notion of preemptive strikes, where America can do what she decides to do, is a really big change," the famously stubborn and honest O'Neill declared ten days before Bush entered the White House. , Iraq is the top priority.Eight months before Osama bin Laden and the war on terror were on the agenda, Bush and Cheney and the cabinet had been considering a military solution to Saddam Hussein.

The Baker Institute is by no means the first to propose a regime change in Iraq. When the "9.11" attacks occurred, it was not the first time that the US industrial, military, energy and political elites discussed how to maintain US hegemony. "Strategic Energy Policy: Challenges for the 21st Century" chaired by James Baker at the Institute for Public Policy and the Council on Foreign Relations, April 2001, www rile edu; report highlights that the world has entered a "new energy age . . . In 20 years, the dependence on the uncertain oil resources in the Middle East will increase sharply... ".The report further emphasizes that just before the second Iraq war, "Iraq had become a major producer of instability, putting the US government in a difficult position".Top officials recommend that the Cheney and Bush administrations develop a "comprehensive energy policy...".

For more information on the daughter of the Kuwaiti oil minister and her testimony, see Tom Regan's article "When Thinking About War, Babies Are Growing," in the Christian Science Monitor, September 6, 2002.Dick Cheney's 1999 "Speech at the Autumn Luncheon" of the Petroleum Institute in London is available at www Petroleun co uk; O'Neill's statement is reported in "Middle East Reality" Washington, January 10, 2004 at www Mieldle Eashorg; A day later, the Bush administration threatened O'Neill with arrest for leaking classified documents, "Plan for Iraq After Saddam" detailing control of the postwar Iraqi oil industry.The Bush White House was clearly not happy with O'Neill's speech.