http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200203/cmhansrd/cm030318/debtext/30318-46.htm
(link to the full text of the House of Commons debate on declaring war on Iraq)

18 Mar 2003 : Column 899-continued

Mr. Salmond: If this war goes ahead, the minimum cost if it is quick war will be $100 billion, which is 30 times the annual budget of the United Nations for peacekeeping and 20 times its annual budget for development and humanitarian relief. Can the Foreign Secretary offer us
any indication that there will be a change in those ratios?

Mr. Straw: The hon. Gentleman speaks with great confidence about the costs of reconstruction. I do not have his confidence in his figures. I say to him that Iraq is an astonishingly wealthy country. The oil is important to this extent: it has the second largest oil reserves in the middle east. One of the other agreements clearly reached in the Azores, which must also be endorsed by a United Nations Security Council resolution, which we shall propose, is that every single cent and penny of those oil revenues are not plundered by Saddam Hussein and his friends, but used for the benefit of the Iraqi people.
I am quite clear that, when that happens, the costs of reconstruction to the rest of the world will be remarkably insignificant. I also tell the hon. Gentleman that we have already provided funds for contingency work to ensure the smooth passage of the reconstruction work. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development is travelling to New York tomorrow to see the Secretary-General of the United Nations further to co-ordinate that work.


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 http://uk.news.yahoo.com/030319/80/dvspk.html

Foreign Office minister Mike O'Brien said "We will also enable an international reconstruction programme to
facilitate the use of oil revenues for the benefit of the Iraqi people"


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On Friday 21st March 2003 at the U.N. France rejected a motion which would both place Iraq's oil revenues
under UN 'protection' and give The USA control over the reconstruction of Iraq.

On Saturday a rift began to publicly emerge between the Blair emphasis on a UN organised reconstruction, and the Bush plan for US administered reconstruction.

A new battle between the USA and UN is about to commence, The USA is aiming to 'legally' plunder Iraq's oil wealth through awarding itself Iraqi funded reconstruction projects.


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The sequence of events about to unfold is in several key stages, which lead inexorably to the USA pocketing the proceeds of the reconstruction.

1) Humanitarian relief. Since only the USA and a handful of others wanted this war, other nations see little reason
to bail out the 'coalition of the killing' in the form of contributions to the relief effort. France has already included this in their reasons for rejecting the new UN resolution on humanitarian relief and reconstruction.
While many would agree with the French stand, it will play directly into American hands during the reconstruction
phase, as outlined below.

2) A UN resolution to be passed ASAP before the war ends, to ensure that Iraq keeps it's own oil revenues by preventing Saddam Hussein plundering Iraq's wealth after the war (as stated by Jack the last Straw above). This is patent nonsense. Saddam Hussein will not be in a position (and may not be alive) to plunder anything. The resolution achieves nothing in terms of preventing misuse of oil revenues by Saddam Hussein, since it applies to the period after the war when Saddam will have no access to those revenues. The resolution is a smoke screen, the purpose of which is to ensure that Iraq funds the reconstruction.


The resolution will get liberal-intellectual backing as it appears to also prevent the USA and UK plundering Iraq's wealth after the war. In fact it will ensure that precisely that plundering is able to proceed.


3) Having secured UN agreement that Iraq uses it's oil revenues for reconstruction, the Americans then block any suggestion of a UN or multilateral reconstruction project. They give as a justification that other Nations (e.g. France who are already sleepwalking into this trap) did not contribute to the humanitarian aid. Bush has already and blatantly shortlisted a handful of US corporations to exclusively carry out the reconstruction (including Halliburton). Coalition partners are neatly and quitely sidelined into subcontracting for these US led projects. The use of US corporations is crucial to ensuring the USA
achives the plundering of wealth it aims for.

4a) A US controlled administration ensures that the oil flows freely. The world is reassured by Bush that securing massive oil deals will allow the Iraqi economy to take off, to the benefit of the long-suffering Iraqi people, and so OPEC is pressurised or bypassed in order that
Iraq contributes a disproportionate amount of the world's oil ASAP. Iraqi oil is bought by industrialised nations, pumping enormous amounts of revenue into the Iraqi reconstruction fund.

4b) The US controlled administration proceeds to use the revenue stream to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure using multi-Billion dollar contracts with US corporations.



Spotted the outright plundering yet? The above is sufficiently subtle that it is guaranteed to take place, and the groundwork is already in place.

Behind every government policy is an accountant, so think the sequence of business transactions through in slow motion to spot the amazing card-trick being pulled by the US on both Iraq and the non-US oil purchasing nations:

1) The war ends.

2) Industrialised nations buy oil from Iraq.

3) The US controlled administration in Iraq awards the US the massive and lucrative reconstruction projects.

4) The US controlled administration in Iraq pays the US for reconstruction using Iraq's oil revenues.

5) Given the astronomical reconstruction cost, the US therefore gets back the money it itself spent on Iraqi oil, and also money paid to Iraq by other industrialised nations.

6) Britain, Spain, and other 'friends' are allowed by the USA to fight for the crumbs in the form of competitively priced (i.e. barely profitable) sub-contracts.


The net result in terms of balance of trade by the end of the reconstruction project is:

Iraqi oil reserves are reduced, but Iraq has been paid for that oil. However, there is little or none of the oil
revenue left in the bank. Iraq is therefore worse off by the total gross cost of the reconstruction projects.

The US is better off by the total gross cost of the reconstruction projects, less the cost of the military campaign. While the US gains access to Iraqi oil, it pays commercial prices and so has not gained financially. Since the amount Iraq can be induced to spend on reconstruction is related to the amount spent by all industrialised nations on Iraqi oil, the reconstruction projects are significantly more lucrative than a simple oil-grab by the USA would be.

Coalition nations gain little financially since their sub-contracts, while large, are barely profitable due to the US prime contractors driving hard bargains.

The extensive use of proprietary US equipment throughout the rebuilt Iraqi infrastructure will ensure a stable revenue stream for US goods and services in maintaining the infrastructure long into the future, allowing US corporations to firmly entrench themselves within the Iraqi economy. The US balance of trade is therefore further boosted over the long term by the cost of maintaining the US supplied Iraqi infrastructure.


Bush has already made clear that the prime contractors for reconstruction will be American corporations(implying that the US will run the new administration during the reconstruction phase, and that the US will have executive control over the awarding of reconstruction projects). Given this, Britain will have little scope for profiting from the reconstruction of Iraq.

In terms of the British government, the minister who will directly face the conflict between the US and UN over reconstruction is Clare Short (to quote Jackass Straw above 'My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development is travelling to New York tomorrow to see the Secretary-General of the United Nations further to co-ordinate that work'). That meeting has already taken place, and has been completely undermined by US intensions to bypass the UN. Given that Clare stayed in the cabinet in order to take part in the reconstruction (and in doing so gave Blair a great deal of moral support and helped ensure Britain would
take part in the war), she may now find herself surplus to US requirements.


Bush and Blair are right. it's not about the oil (other than ensuring another supply). The USA and UK will inevitably pay the commercial price for Iraqi oil. The immediate financial prize is Iraqi funded reconstruction projects. The bigger prize is the further development of the Brzezinski/PNAC plan for Geo-political dominance of Eurasia.

If you thought the diplomatic fights over the start of the war were ugly, then prepare yourself for the fight between the US and UN over control of Iraqi reconstruction.


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Distributed Intelligence Agency
22nd March, 2003

...For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? (Mark 8:36)...