Iraq Oil Warnobody Talks About
No one talks about oil as the real reason for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, but many critics have already coined the war as Iraq Oil War. The strategists in the White House and in the Pentagon naturally avoided defining the goals of the invasion in terms of oil, but rather in broader terms - that Iraq was a growing threat to the United States and its allies, and that the threat needed to be extirpated. Though they preferred to be silent about it, the leaders in the White House were previously involved in the oil industry and thus well acquainted with the strategic consequences of control over oil resources. Before and during the Iraq Oil War, the United States took great care to downplay the issue of oil. When the U.S. forces gained control of a major part of the Iraqi oil fields in the middle of April 2003, President Bush, together with former Prime Minister Tony Blair of UK, sanctimoniously declared to all the world that the Iraqi people were the sole and exclusive owners of Iraqi oil, and these resources would be used solely for their benefit. This showed sensitivity to the issue, but many would still believe that this was and still is Iraq Oil War.
And who would not be interested in Iraq's oil wealth? Iraq has proven oil reserves estimated at 112 billion barrels, which is 11 percent of the world's total known reserves. This volume is second only to the largest in the world, Saudi Arabia. However, the Energy Information Administration in the U.S. Department of Energy actually estimates Iraq's reserves to be at least 220 billion barrels, which would place it on equal footing with Saudi Arabia. The EIA also believes that the total is likely to be even bigger, since there has been no exploration in Iraq in recent years. With so much Iraq oil war over who would control it seemed inevitable. Before the invasion of Kuwait, Iraq produced 3.1 million barrels of oil per day from thirteen major oil fields, and maintained a level of at least 2.6 million barrels per day in the period leading up to the 2003 Iraq Oil War. Under the UN-sponsored oil-for-food program, Iraq exported an average of 2.2 million barrels, and also produced 300,000 barrels of oils for domestic consumption. With the American military victory in the Iraq Oil War, the status of the United States in the global oil market has increased. It did remove the threat of Iraq, to the great relief of the small producers of oil in the Persian Gulf, and it put Iraq in position to gradually increase its production volumes, controlled this time by leaders friendly to the U.S. If this happens, American dependence on Saudi Arabia's oil would be reduced, and, to the Bush administration, the Iraq Oil War would have been well worth the effort and the huge cost. |