So it was about oil, after all

War on terrorism, fighting Al Qaida, toppling a dictatorship and spreading democracy throughout the Middle East were a few of the pretexts used by the US administration to justify its war on Iraq. Soon enough, everyone realised the US campaign, which started in Afghanistan and ended in Iraq, was in fact for oil.

After the invasion of Baghdad, it was not surprising to see American forces throwing a cordon around the ministries of oil and defence, while all other Iraqi ministries, institutes and establishments were left at the mercy of looters and arsonists.

The US quest for oil in Iraq is now confirmed by Alan Greenspan, a Republican with an 18-year tenure as head of the US Federal Reserve. In his long-awaited memoir, which was published recently, he writes the primary motive for the war in Iraq was oil.

Greenspan book is now mired in controversy and is being hotly debated. "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil," he asserted.

Paul Wolfowitz, president of the World Bank, and a former US deputy secretary of defence stated after the US invasion of Iraq that the US military campaign was the only strategic option, as Iraq is practically floating on a sea of oil.

Recently, the New York Times wrote that "Four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalisation as Saddam Hussain rose to power."

The newspaper also wrote that "Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP - the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company - along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq's Oil Ministry for no-bids contracts to service Iraq's largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials and an American diplomat."

Deep links

Unlike the previous US administrations, the Bush administration has deep and strong relations with the oil companies all over the world. President George W. Bush also belongs to a family with connections to oil firms since the 1920s. Bush had himself established Arbusto Oil in 1977 with wealthy Arabs in Texas as partners.

Vice-President Dick Cheney was the chairman of the board of directors of Halliburton, the giant energy services company, for more than five years before joining hands with Bush.

Zalmay Khalilzad, US ambassador to both Afghanistan and Iraq after the US invasion of both countries, and a close associate of Cheney, was an adviser to UNOCAL, a US oil firm.

Ever since the early days of the current administration, oil company CEOs were constantly meeting secretly with Cheney, and were known in US political circles as "Cheney's Energy Task Force". Incriminating documents relating to Iraqi oil were leaked.

As a result, a number of public interest groups, such as Judicial Watch, which call for transparency in government dealings, demanded feedback on this task force and the names of its members. Judicial Watch also asked the Bush administration to reveal all information about this group, saying that keeping information from the public was against US Federal law.

The US administration in turn tried its best through the Supreme Court to deny this organisation any information about the group.

Judicial Watch, which investigates and legally challenges government corruption and abuse, said the documents turned over by the Commerce Department, under court order as a result of the group's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit concerning the activities of the "Cheney Energy Task Force", contained a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as two charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts".

The documents are dated March 2001, six months prior to 9/11 and two years before the US invasion of Iraq.

Dr Mohammad Akef Jamal is an Iraqi writer based in Dubai.