Iraqis sacrificed on the altar of oil

February 3, 1999
Issue 

By Norm Dixon

The US massacred at least 11 Iraqi civilians, and wounded 59 others, in missile attacks on January 25. Air strikes on Iraq continue almost daily.

In December, the four-night bombardment of Iraq killed 82 civilians and 62 soldiers. The 1991 one-sided "war" against Iraq resulted in the slaughter of more than 200,000 Iraqi civilians and conscripts in just six weeks.

As harrowing as those figures are, they pale against the number of Iraqis who have been callously murdered by sanctions. According to the most conservative estimates, well over 1 million Iraqis have died. The World Health Organisation estimates sanctions have killed more than 480,000 children alone, and the death toll is mounting at the rate of 5000 a month.

In 1991, Iraq's entire military, economic and public infrastructure was shattered by high explosives equivalent to seven Hiroshima-type atomic bombs. Sanctions have made reconstruction impossible. The result has been deadly epidemics, malnutrition and a health system that cannot cope.

More than 200 US and British fighter aircraft continue to patrol "no fly zones" over Iraq — supposedly to protect the Kurdish minority in the north and the Shiite minority in the south. Not coincidentally, much of Iraq's oil deposits are located in the south. US protection of Kurds does not extend to shielding them from the predation of the Turkish military, which regularly invades to hunt down Kurdish freedom fighters.

The role of the crippling sanctions and the no fly zones — supplemented by heavy air attacks in 1993, 1996 and in December — is to keep Iraq militarily and economically weak. It would be a bonus for the US if this triggered a military coup that replaced dictator Saddam Hussein with a pro-imperialist dictator.

The function of the US-controlled UNSCOM is to prolong sanctions. The lurid fear-mongering by US officials — amplified by the mass media — over Hussein's possession of seemingly undetectable "weapons of mass destruction" is a smokescreen behind which Washington can enforce its political and economic hegemony over the oil-rich Middle East.

Five of the United States' 12 largest corporations, and seven of the top 20, are oil companies. The profitability of Middle East oil remains immense — the cost of producing a barrel of oil in the Gulf has been estimated to be as low as $2. While Middle East oil accounts for less than 2% of US investments, its share of total foreign earnings is about 33%.

Addressing a conference in December 1996, the deputy director for intelligence at the Central Intelligence Agency, John C. Gannon, was candid about US policy. "Our nation will not be secure if global energy supplies are not secure", he stated.

"The area of the world where energy supplies are most abundant and at the same time most vulnerable is the Persian Gulf ... As a consequence, the US will need to keep close watch on events and remain engaged in the Persian Gulf to safeguard the flow of vital oil supplies.

"In the most obvious sense, global energy security is important to our national security because we need a substantial quantity of imported oil to sustain our economy", Gannon continued. "The US consumes about 18 million barrels of oil per day, accounting for about one-quarter of world oil demand ... In the past decade, US reliance on oil imports has crept up from 30% to 50% of total oil requirements ... All expectations are that US dependence on imported oil will continue to grow ... to 55% by 2000 and to nearly 60% by 2005."

Gannon pointed out: "Most of the new supplies will come from the Persian Gulf region. The Gulf holds about two-thirds of the world's oil reserves, and the share of total production from this region is expected to climb steadily. By the next century, the Gulf will account for roughly one-third of global production.

"... Energy security is key to the economic well-being and political stability in many countries that are strategically important to the US ... thus [also to] our own investment and trade interests."

And if his eager big business and political listeners had yet to figure it out, Gannon reminded them: "There's no room to be complacent. It was six years ago this month that the United States and its allies were building up the forces and collectively spending more than $60 billion to ensure the security of oil supplies in the Gulf."

You can't put it any plainer than that!

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