The programme in question is 'Pipeline Politics', a four-part series
which starts on 15th September. You do not say where in the world you
are located, but if you listen online (via the 'Listen to World Service
Radio' link under the LISTEN TO WORD SERVICE heading on our home page
 http://www.bbcworldservice.com), broadcast times for Europe apply: Mon
0806 GMT, repeated 1306 GMT, 1806 GMT, Tue 0006 GMT, Sun 1906 GMT.

Each programme will also be available on demand for seven days (Mon-Mon)
at  http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/docu1.shtml

PIPELINE POLITICS

How does America's appetite for oil influence its foreign policy?
While opponents saw the recent war in Iraq as a crude 'oil grab'
designed to give the USA access to the world's second largest reserves,
political leaders in both the USA and Britain have insisted that oil was
not a motive. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed the idea as
"nonsense", and President Bush has repeatedly stated that Iraq's oil
belongs to the Iraqi people. In Pipeline Politics, broadcaster and
writer Maurice Walsh takes a considered look at the connections between
oil and US foreign policy.

America now imports more than half of the 22 million barrels of oil it
needs each day to keep its economy on the road. By 2020 forecasts
suggest 70% of its oil needs will be served by overseas suppliers.
Although the oil shocks of the 1970s prompted some efforts to curb oil
use, successive US governments have focused mainly on diversifying oil
supplies: importing oil from as many different parts of the world as
possible.

From President Franklin D Roosevelt's post-World War II
oil-for-protection deal with the Saudi-Arabian Royal Family, Walsh
traces the US effort to guarantee access to the cheap gasoline many
Americans view as their birthright. The series charts the race to open
up a new oil frontier in Azerbaijan, where Washington's diplomatic
muscle has ensured that Caspian oil flows west towards Europe and the
USA, rather than northwards to Russia, or south to Iran.

In Venezuela, the series explores the story of a major oil supplier
whose political leadership has clashed ideologically with Washington.
How comfortable is America when buying its oil from governments of which
it disapproves? And what truth is there in rumours that the USA lent
support to last year's attempted coup in Caracas?

Washington policy researchers are quizzed on plans to privatise Iraq's
oil wealth, while serving and retired US diplomats reflect on
controversial suggestions that oil, so often a cause of conflict around
the world, might be used to promote democracy and stability in the
Middle East. These programmes are a sober attempt to go behind the
conspiracy theories to uncover the role that oil plays in US foreign
policy calculations.

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