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"On the first day of the campaign, Marine units were ordered to secure 600 Iraqi oil wells and prevent environmental disaster." - George W. Bush
Online Speech Bank: President George W. Bush - Address at Camp Lejeune to Military Personnel and Families
"Hours after the invasion began, U.S. forces had seized two offshore terminals that can transfer 2 million bbl. daily to tankers. They secured the southern Rumaila oil field so swiftly that Saddam Hussein's retreating troops managed to set only nine wells ablaze, compared with 650 Kuwaiti wells during Gulf War I, and U.S. airborne troops took the northern oil fields at Kirkuk largely intact.
Three weeks later, when U.S. forces rolled into downtown Baghdad, they headed straight for the Oil Ministry building and threw up a protective shield around it. While other government buildings, ranging from the Ministry of Religious Affairs to the National Museum of Antiquities, were looted and pillaged, while hospitals were stripped of medicine and basic equipment, Iraq's oil records were safe and secure, guarded by the U.S. military. General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had an explanation: "I think it's, as much as anything else, a matter of priorities."
Read more:
Iraq's Crude Awakening - TIME