The reason for military action against Iraq was spelled out by Cheney's Energy Task Force before the Saudi's attack on 9/11.
Official: US oil at the heart of Iraq crisis
Sunday Herald, The, Oct 6, 2002 by Exclusive By Neil Mackay
President Bush's Cabinet
agreed in April 2001 that "
Iraq remains a destabilising influence to the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East" and because this is an unacceptable risk to the US "military intervention" is necessary.
Vice-president Dick Cheney, who chairs the White House Energy Policy Development Group, commissioned a report on "energy security" from the Baker Institute for Public Policy, a think-tank set up by James Baker, the former US secretary of state under George Bush Snr.
The report, Strategic Energy Policy Challenges For The 21st Century, concludes: "The United States remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma. Iraq remains a de-stabilising influence to the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East. Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated
a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export programme to manipulate oil markets. Therefore the US should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq
including military, energy, economic and political/ diplomatic assessments.
"The United States should then develop an integrated strategy with key allies in Europe and Asia, and with key countries in the Middle East, to restate goals with respect to Iraqi policy and to restore a cohesive coalition of key allies."
Baker who delivered the recommendations to
Cheney, the former chief executive of Texas oil firm Halliburton, was advised by Kenneth Lay, the disgraced former chief executive of Enron, the US energy giant which went bankrupt after carrying out massive accountancy fraud.
The other advisers to Baker were: Luis Giusti, a
Shell non- executive director; John Manzoni, regional president of
BP and David O'Reilly, chief executive of
ChevronTexaco. Another name linked to the document is Sheikh Saud Al Nasser Al Sabah,
the former Kuwaiti oil minister and a fellow of the Baker Institute.
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