Tuesday, April 19, 2011



It was all about the oil

When the US and UK invaded Iraq back in 2003, they claimed that it was about human rights and stopping the spread of WMDs, rather than about oil. Since then, torture has continued unabated, aided and abetted (and sometimes carried out) by US and UK forces, while no WMDs have been found (no doubt they're hiding with Elvis and Jimmy Hoffa somewhere). As for the oil, it turns out that the UK government was conspiring with British oil companies on how to divide the spoils of war in the leadup to the invasion:

Plans to exploit Iraq's oil reserves were discussed by government ministers and the world's largest oil companies the year before Britain took a leading role in invading Iraq, government documents show.

[...]

The documents were not offered as evidence in the ongoing Chilcot Inquiry into the UK's involvement in the Iraq war. In March 2003, just before Britain went to war, Shell denounced reports that it had held talks with Downing Street about Iraqi oil as "highly inaccurate". BP denied that it had any "strategic interest" in Iraq, while Tony Blair described "the oil conspiracy theory" as "the most absurd".

But documents from October and November the previous year paint a very different picture.

Five months before the March 2003 invasion, Baroness Symons, then the Trade Minister, told BP that the Government believed British energy firms should be given a share of Iraq's enormous oil and gas reserves as a reward for Tony Blair's military commitment to US plans for regime change.

The papers show that Lady Symons agreed to lobby the Bush administration on BP's behalf because the oil giant feared it was being "locked out" of deals that Washington was quietly striking with US, French and Russian governments and their energy firms.

There's more, and it shows the British government working hand in glove with the oil industry to steal and divide up Iraq's resources. When compared with their pious public denials, it shows that the Blair government were simply a lying pack of shits. But then, we knew that already.