The biggest threat to the World community is not the exploitation of oil, it is the proliferation of WMDs; right here in the U.S., facilitated by a nest of former military industrial executives (military industrial warriors) in the Defense Dept. and in the Bush administration.

Andrew Card Chief of Staff- General Motors

Gordon England Secretary of the Navy- General Dynamics (defense contractor), Former President Lockheed

Don Evans Commerce Secretary- Tom Brown Inc. (oil)

George W. Bush President- Harken Energy

Dick Cheney Vice President- Halliburton

Paul O'Neil Secretary of the Treasury- Alcoa (chemicals and metals)

James G. Roche Secretary of the Air Force- Northrop Grumman Corp. (Former President)

Donald Rumsfeld Defense Secretary- G. D. Searle, General Instrument

Condoleeza Rice National Security Advisor- Chevron, Charles Schwab, J. P. Morgan

Thomas E. White Secretary of the Army- Enron

Richard Armitage - State, Deputy Secretary | President and partner, Armitage Assoc. LLP, a Boeing consultant, a Raytheon consultant; Advisory board member

Karl Rove - White House, Senior Advisor to the President | Boeing Shareholder

I. Lewis Libby - White House, Chief to the President | Northrup-Grumman Consultant

Dov Zakheim - Defense; Under Secretary for Comptroller | Paid advisory board Northrup-Grumman

Douglas J. Feith - Defense; Under Secretary for Policy | President and managing partner of former law firm, Feith & Zell; clients include Northrop Grumman

Paul Wolfowitz - Defense; Deputy Secretary | Northrop Grumman Consultant

Nelson F. Gibbs - Air Force; Assistant Secretary for Installations, Environment and Logistics | Former corporate comptroller ,Northrop Grumman

Sean O'Keefe - NASA Administrator | Paid advisory board: Northrop Grumman, Raytheon

Peter B. Teets - Air Force; Assistant Secretary | Former CEO, Lockheed

Everet Beckner - Energy; Administrator for Defense Programs | Former Vice President, Lockheed

Otto Reich - State; Assistant Secretary for Latin America | Paid Consultant, Lockheed

Norman Mineta - Transportation; Secretary | Former Vice President; Shareholder, Lockheed

Michael Jackson - Transportation; Deputy Secretary | Former Vice President; Former COO Lockheed Information and Management Services; Shareholder

Larry C. Johnson - Justice; Deputy Attorney General | Partner at Atlanta law firm of King & Spalding, client to Lockheed

David E. Jeremiah Vice Chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board | Board of Directors, Alliant Techsystems

Defense contractors' web sites:
Globalsecurity.org-50 Leading Defense Contractors

Opensecrets.org. Donor look-up:

"Bush Top 100" at the Center for Public Integrity

William D. Hartung, "About Face: The Role of the Arms Lobby in the Bush Administration's Radical Reversal of U.S. Nuclear Policy," World Policy Institute [May 2002]



The United States military budget exceeds that of the next 25 nations combined. $400 billion a year, and that's just the public accounting. [1]

North America accounts for over 65% of the world's arms exports. Of it's 65% share of export agreements, Russia, Germany, France, UK accounted for 5.4% to 1.4% in respective order. Of the 43 countries with over $500 million in arms imports, 23 obtained two-thirds or more from the U.S. The Middle East and Western Europe have been the primary importing regions for major weapons, with East Asia the third largest. Sizable world import shares are held by Southern Africa countries which imported primarily artillery and surface-to air missiles, subsonic aircraft and helicopters, missile attack boats, and surface-to air and surface-to-surface missiles. [2]

In order to replace weapons used in Afghanistan and in preparation for possible military action in Iraq, many U.S. weapons makers have increased production.

Boeing added a second shift of workers to boost production of its Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs)—the most widely used smart bomb in the Afghan war. Raytheon, best known for its Tomahawk missile, added a third shift and announced that production for its laser-guided bomb has been accelerated by five months “to support the warfighter in the war on terrorism.”

Alliant Techsystems, the largest supplier of ammunition to the U.S. military, was awarded a $92 million contract to make 265 million rounds of small-caliber ammunition for the Army. [3]

With the new influx of money for homeland defense ($38 billion for FY 2003), virtually all of the big defense contractors—Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon—have adapted their marketing strategies and are repackaging their products for use in domestic security. Boeing is looking into how its sensors designed to track enemy missiles could be used to locate and identify hijacked planes.

Lockheed is trying to adapt military simulators to train local emergency response teams. And Raytheon is pitching its hand-held thermal-imaging devices, designed for the military, as useful for fire fighters searching through collapsed buildings. [4]

A surge of new business for nuclear arms makers in the midst of a policy of nuclear reductions – is rooted in the Pentagon’s commitment to develop a "New Triad." The "old" triad is the combination of land-, sea-, and air-based nuclear delivery vehicles that was developed during the Cold War as a way to diminish the vulnerability of U.S. forces to a nuclear first strike.

The New Triad includes: 1) Offensive strike systems (nuclear and non-nuclear); 2) Strategic defenses; and 3) A revitalized defense infrastructure. Each element of the New Triad entails major new investments in weapons research, production, and infrastructure. [5]

Major Beneficiaries of the Modernization of the Offensive Leg of the New Triad:

Trident II (D-5) SLBM: Lockheed Martin’s Sunnyvale, California facility will produce at least 115 additional Trident II (D-5) missiles at a total estimated cost of $4.2 billion as part of a plan to extend the service life of existing Trident submarines from 30 to 44 years while replacing Trident I missiles in the older subs with Trident II missiles. The Navy has included funds for 24 missiles in the 2002 and 2003 budgets.

Trident Submarine modifications: General Dynamics’ Electric Boat shipyard in Groton, Connecticut is the likely beneficiary of a significant portion of the $4 billion in planned expenditures for converting four Trident ballistic missile subs to carry 154 Tactical Tomahawk cruise missiles each. Initial funding of $1 billion has been requested in the Bush administration’s FY 2003 budget.

Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles: Boeing is in the last few months of a 42-month, $131 million project to "design, fabricate, and flight test" a UCAV demonstrator system, with work being performed at its Phantom Works in Seattle, Washington as well as its St. Louis, Missouri facilities.

In June of 2000, Boeing and Northrop Grumman each received $2 million projects for the study and preliminary design of the Naval Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle (UCAV-N). If, as planned, UCAVs evolve into a major platform for delivering precision weapons over long distances against both conventional targets and weapons of mass destruction, Boeing and Northrop Grumman will have a head start towards dominating a lucrative new line of business.

Raytheon is the prime contractor for the Tactical Tomahawk cruise missile, which is produced at its Tucson, Arizona plant. The company should garner orders for at least 600 additional missiles (at roughly $2 million per copy) as part of the plan to outfit four Trident submarines with Tactical Tomahawks: the budgets for 2002 and 2003 already include orders for 138 of the new missiles.

Lockheed Martin’s Integrated Systems division in Orlando, Florida is the prime contractor for the Joint-Air-to-Surface-Standoff Missile (JASSM), a joint Air Force/Navy program to "provide a conventional precision guided long-range standoff cruise missile that can be delivered from both fighters and bombers." The Bush administration has increased the production run of the JASSM by more than 50%, from 2,400 to 3,700, at an estimated cost of $712 million. The Pentagon will purchase 176 of these missiles in the 2002 and 2003 budgets.

In late September of 2001, Lockheed Martin Orlando and the McDonnell Douglas Corporation of St. Louis, Missouri (a division of Boeing) received $11.6 million each for advanced development work on the small diameter bomb system, which involves development of "a 250-pound class weapon and carriage systems for integration on various aircraft platforms." The FY 2003 budget calls for an additional $54 million for the system, which is described as "a smaller, lighter weapon that will allow fighters and bombers to carry more ordnance and thus provide more kills per sortie."

Who facilitates the contracts? Who are the Military industrial intermediaries in the Bush administration?

I would begin in the Air Force where Peter Teets now serves as the director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), undersecretary of the Air Force, and chief procurement officer for all of military space, controlling a budget in excess of $65 billion, a figure that includes $8 billion a year for missile defense and $7 billion annually for NRO spying. Teets, is the former president and chief operating officer of Lockheed Martin who retired from the company in late 1999.

To date, it is believed that the NRO has provided slightly more than $500 million each to Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

Teets is a firm believer in the conclusions of the Rumsfeld Commission's January 2001 report on the military in space, which warns of a "space Pearl Harbor" if the U.S. does not thoroughly dominate all aspects of space.

In addition, key lobbyists for Lockheed-Martin, Bruce Jackson, vice president of corporate strategy and development at Lockheed Martin and our intrepid flunky bungler, Stephen Hadley, played central roles in developing space policy for the U.S. [6]

"I wrote the Republican Party's foreign policy platform," declared Jackson. His corporation has given over $391,000 to the Republican Party since 1998. Lockheed Martin vice- president Bruce Jackson, who served as chairman of the US Committee to Expand NATO along with Stephen Hadley, was overheard by one of the authors at an industry gathering bragging about how the industry's troubles will be over if GWBush was elected. [7]

“Space is going to be important. It has a great feature in the military,” Stephen Hadley, introduced as “an advisor to Governor George W. Bush,” told the Air Force Association Convention in a speech September 11 in Washington. Hadley worked in the past for a law firm that represented Lockheed. Jackson and Hadley have worked closely together on the Committee to Expand NATO. Jackson was president of this entity, based in the Washington offices of the right-wing American Enterprise Institute; Hadley was its secretary. Hadley was also a member of the National Security Council staff during the earlier Bush administration.

Bruce Jackson is the founder and President of the Project on Transitional Democracies.
From 1979 to 1990, Bruce Jackson served in the United States Army as a Military Intelligence Officer. From 1986 to 1990, he served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in a variety of policy positions pertaining to nuclear forces, strategic defenses and arms control. Upon leaving the Department of Defense in 1990, Mr. Jackson joined Lehman Brothers, an investment bank in New York, where he was a strategist in the firm's proprietary trading operations. Between 1993 and 2002, Mr. Jackson was Vice President for Strategy and Planning at Lockheed Martin Corporation.

During 1995 and 1996, Mr. Jackson was National Co-Chairman of the Dole for President Finance Committee. In 1996, he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention where he served on the Platform Committee and the Platform's subcommittee for National Security and Foreign Policy. During the 2000 Presidential Campaign, he chaired the Foreign Policy Subcommittee of the Republican Platform Committee. [8]

More ominous was the establishment in the fall of 2002, of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (original website expunged)(Chairman of the Board, Bruce Jackson) which engaged in educational and advocacy efforts to mobilize US and international support for policies aimed at ending the regime of Saddam Hussein. This came at the same time that Stephan Hadley and Condi Rice were engaged in a series of briefings of foreign policy groups, Iraq specialists and other opinion makers that was described as a "new phase," by a White House spokesman, who described the goal as building fresh public support for Bush administration policy vs. Iraq.
November 2002 Article
Alternet Article
Jim Lobe Iraq Report
Key Officials Used 9/11 As Pretext for Iraq War

Among the participants in the CLI were, Treasurer Julie Finley, the Republican mouthpiece who worked for NBC, ABC News and the Washington Post, President and Executive Director, Randy Scheunemann (Scheunemann was until recently a consultant to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld), Gary Schmitt (director of the conservative foundation, Project for the New American Century), John McCain, Newt Gingrich, William Kristol, General Barry McCaffrey, Richard Perle, James Woolsey, Richard Shultz, and Amb. Jeane J. Kirkpatrick

To be sure there was a handful of Dems who were drafted, like Sen. Leiberman and Bob Kerry. But it appears that this corporate clan was formed to rescue and promote the administration's hunger for war with Iraq, which lacked any reasonable rationale within a U.S. military doctrine that reserved direct action for imminent threats to the national security of the nation or its allies.

Interesting that the focus of the CLI was 'liberation' rather than disarnament.

Did Hadley and Condi push the administration even beyond the doctrine of their core constituency?

Was former Vice President for Strategy and Planning at Lockheed Martin Corporation, Bruce Jackson, svengali to Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and Condi Rice?

Did this administration's military industrial warriors promote a conflict with Iraq at the behest of their former employers and their cronies?

Who does this war benefit the most?

White House Executive Order 13303 decrees that 'any attachment, judgment, decree, lien, execution, garnishment, or other judicial process is prohibited, and shall be deemed null and void', with respect to the Development Fund for Iraq and "all Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products, and interests therein." (The Development Fund, derived from actual and expected Iraqi oil and gas sales, apparently will be used to leverage U.S. government-backed loans, credit, and direct financing for U.S. corporate operations in Iraq. [9] [10]

In other words, if ExxonMobil or ChevronTexaco touch Iraqi oil, it will be immune from legal proceedings in the US. Anything that could go, and elsewhere has gone awry with U.S. corporate oil operations will be immune to judgment: a massive tanker accident; an explosion at an oil refinery; the employment of slave labor to build a pipeline; murder of locals by corporate security; the release of billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.The President with a stroke of the pen, signed away the rights of Saddam's victims, creditors and of the next true Iraqi government to be compensated through legal action. Bush's order unilaterally declares Iraqi oil to be the unassailable province of U.S. corporations. [11]

It is absurd to describe our invasion of Iraq and the theft of their oil as an effort to reduce our dependence on Saudi oil.The only ones who benefit from the pursuit of oil are the companies that exploit it. The oil mongers incestually share the profits at our expense. Among the oil executives the only nationality or alliance they recognize is their allegiance to profit and perhaps to the World Bank.

BP and Shell were among the first foreign companies to benefit from resumption of Iraqi oil exports when the country signed its first long-term supply contracts since the war was declared over. Among the other companies that are thought to have signed deals with Iraq are BP, Royal/Dutch Shell, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Marathon Oil Corp, Sinochem of China, Mitsubishi Corp, Repsol YPF and Vitol SA. Indian Oil Corp is due to sign soon- Independent, July 24 [12] [13]

BP is scheduled to load 2 million barrels of Basra Light crude oil at the Gulf port of Mina Bakr. US oil giant ChevronTexaco will lift a further 2m barrels, and Shell will take its own tranche. These are the first direct purchases of freshly pumped Iraqi crude since the fall of Saddam. Other exports have been taken from stocks, or last week's cargo to a Swiss-based trading house. At least three-quarters of the new oil will be heading for the US. Most of the $200m proceeds from the oil sales will go into the coalition-controlled Development Fund for Iraq, contradicting the occupying authorities who say that it will be the first time that proceeds from the country's oil wealth will directly benefit its people. [14]

BP has been criticized a number of times in the past for its mineral operations on tribal people lands. The company has now pulled out of minerals. It does however continue to search for oil and, along with other companies, it has been criticized for operations in the Amazon, where a number of Indian Reserves have been affected.

Also, between 1985-9 BP received contracts from the Ministry of Defence for more than £100 million and is the supplier of strategic and non-civilian products used in weapons systems. [15]

People in Durban in South Africa and Manila in the Philippines and Louisiana in the US are still breathing polluted air, feeling the pain of skin diseases and worrying about accidents. In Nigeria and Argentina communities are still waiting for real changes that they can see and feel. And in Texas and in China, people are fed up because they think that, despite some nominal community work, Shell lacks real commitment to the people whose health and/or livelihoods are threatened by refineries and pipelines. shell_record_profits

War against terrorism in Afganistan?

Between confirmed and estimated oil reserves, Kazakhstan is destined to become the world's largest oil-producing nation, and will one day dwarf even Saudi Arabia.The shortest and cheapest of all possible pipelines would run from the Caspian to the Persian Gulf via Iran. [16]

War with Iran?

South Pars gas field is the largest field in the world and, stretching over an area of 3,700 sq km. The field contains 10 % of the world's known gas reserves and 60 % of Iran's total gas deposits which have been estimated at 350 tcf. Iran shares the resources of the South Pars gas field with Qatar in the Persian Gulf. [17]

Normalization of relations with Vietnam?

With a new oil discovery at the Su Tu Den (Black Lion) oil and gas field on the south-eastern continental shelf, Vietnam expects to exploit 28-30 mm tons of oil and gas per year by 2010. Under the contract, the joint venture, named Cuu Long Joint Venture Company (CLJOC), is shared by the PetroVietnam (50 %), the United States' Conoco (23.25 %), the Republic of Korea's KNOC (14.25 %) and SK (9 %), and France's Geopetrol (3.5 %). [18]

Intervention in Liberia?

Nigeria is a key player in moves to bring peace to Liberia. Aside from its role as west Africa's big brother, Washington's other big interest in Nigeria is its huge oil reserves. Described by one oil executive this week as a US strategic target. The United States already imports 1.5 million barrels of Nigerian crude per day -- three quarters of Nigeria's OPEC export quota -- and expects to source much more of its energy in Africa in the years to come. Many analysts see Nigeria as a useful source of oil far away from the political and military uncertainties of the Middle East. [19]

In Africa, Shell's oil exploration and production activities on Ogoni land in Nigeria has brought to the public's attention the impact these operations have not only on the environment but also on tribal peoples' land rights. Shell is not the only oil company operating in Nigeria; British Petroleum, Chevron / Esso, Du Pont, ERAP, Texaco, and Total also have interests in Nigeria, where any exploitation is facilitated by a compliant oppressive regime. [20]

The US currently receives 16 percent of its imported oil from sub-Saharan Africa—more than it gets from Saudi Arabia. West Africa exported almost twice as much crude oil to the US in 2001 as it did to Europe (68.1 million tonnes to the US, 34.9 million tonnes to Europe.) According to projections by the US National Intelligence Council, the proportion of oil imported to the US from sub-Saharan Africa will reach 25 percent by 2015, exceeding that from the Persian Gulf. [21]

Was BushI motivated to send troops to Somalia because of the hunger and starvation there?

Nearly two-thirds of Somalia was allocated to the American oil giants Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips in the final years before Somalia's pro-U.S. President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown and the nation plunged into chaos in January, 1991. Industry sources said the companies holding the rights to the most promising concessions are hoping that the Bush Administration' decision to send U.S. troops to safeguard aid shipments to Somalia will also help protect their multimillion-dollar investments there. [22]

Does our oil dependence threaten our national security?

The American Petroleum Institute (api). in an analysis presented to the us commerce department, stated: "a growing dependence does not necessarily imply growing vulnerability since the risks associated with growing dependence are manageable. Meeting the expected growth in global demand for petroleum products without supply disruptions depended upon preparation," [23]

Our dependence on foreign oil can only be limited in a significant way if we reduce our consumption of oil. There is substantial room to achieve such reductions since the consumption of oil per dollar of GDP is now more than 40 percent higher in the United States than it is in Germany and France. [24]

We possess a mere 3 percent of the world's oil reserves, but we consume fully 25 percent of the world's oil supply. We could drill the Arctic Refuge, Greater Yellowstone, and every other wildland in America and we'd still be importing oil, still be paying worldwide prices for domestic oil, and still be vulnerable to wild gyrations in price and supply. As The Atlanta Constitution put it: "Burning through our tiny oil supply faster will not make our country more secure." I'd go further: increasing our dependence on oil, whether that oil comes from the Persian Gulf or the Arctic Refuge, practically guarantees national *insecurity*. And we know that it will bring more habitat destruction, more oil spills, more air pollution, and more global warming- Robert Redford. [25]

No single renewable energy product can immediately replace oil, but a combination of hydrogen, wind and agricultural by-products may be able to cut U.S. dependence on one of the nation's most-coveted resources in the next 10 to 20 years, government and industry officials said. [26]

If it's not about oil than what's it; oil, about?

[9] http://www.archives.gov/federal_register/

executive_orders/2003.html