1 Boring Old Man

Four public documents in the pre-9/11 period make it perfectly clear what was coming, though those of us not in the thick of things had no idea of what was going on:

KEY DOCUMENT 1: Not long after the Project for the New American Century was founded in 1997, they sent a letter to President Clinton urging him to go to War with Saddam Hussein – the goal being to unseat him as the head of Iraq’s government.

C.E.O. HALLIBURTON: DICK CHENEY FOUNDING MEMBER – PROJECT FOR THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY: DICK CHENEY JANUARY 26, 1998 PNAC LETTER TO PRESIDENT CLINTON Dear Mr. President: We are writing you because we are convinced that current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding, and that we may soon face a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold War. In your upcoming State of the Union Address, you have an opportunity to chart a clear and determined course for meeting this threat. We urge you to seize that opportunity, and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power. We stand ready to offer our full support in this difficult but necessary endeavor. The policy of “containment” of Saddam Hussein has been steadily eroding over the past several months. As recent events have demonstrated, we can no longer depend on our partners in the Gulf War coalition to continue to uphold the sanctions or to punish Saddam when he blocks or evades UN inspections. Our ability to ensure that Saddam Hussein is not producing weapons of mass destruction, therefore, has substantially diminished. Even if full inspections were eventually to resume, which now seems highly unlikely, experience has shown that it is difficult if not impossible to monitor Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons production. The lengthy period during which the inspectors will have been unable to enter many Iraqi facilities has made it even less likely that they will be able to uncover all of Saddam’s secrets. As a result, in the not-too-distant future we will be unable to determine with any reasonable level of confidence whether Iraq does or does not possess such weapons. Such uncertainty will, by itself, have a seriously destabilizing effect on the entire Middle East. It hardly needs to be added that if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil will all be put at hazard. As you have rightly declared, Mr. President, the security of the world in the first part of the 21st century will be determined largely by how we handle this threat. Given the magnitude of the threat, the current policy, which depends for its success upon the steadfastness of our coalition partners and upon the cooperation of Saddam Hussein, is dangerously inadequate. The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy. We urge you to articulate this aim, and to turn your Administration’s attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam’s regime from power. This will require a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts. Although we are fully aware of the dangers and difficulties in implementing this policy, we believe the dangers of failing to do so are far greater. We believe the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf. In any case, American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council. We urge you to act decisively. If you act now to end the threat of weapons of mass destruction against the U.S. or its allies, you will be acting in the most fundamental national security interests of the country. If we accept a course of weakness and drift, we put our interests and our future at risk.

KEY DOCUMENT 2: Meanwhile, George H.W. Bush’s Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney had taken a job as CEO of Halliburton. Not long after the PNAC letter to President Clinton, CEO Dick Cheney made a remarkable speech at the Cato Institute suggesting that our commerce should drive our foreign policy – and made one of the most patently transparent rationalizations of the 20th Century, "Oftentimes the absolute best way to advance human rights and the cause of freedom or the development of democratic institutions is through the active involvement of American businesses."

C.E.O. HALLIBURTON: DICK CHENEY JUNE 23, 1998 CATO INSTITUTE I believe that economic forces have driven much of the change in the last 20 years, and I would be prepared to argue that, in many cases, that economic progress has been a prerequisite to political change. The power of ideas, concepts of freedom and liberty and of how best to organize economic activity, have been an essential, positive ingredient in the developments in the last part of the 20th century. At the heart of that process has been the U.S. business community. Our capital, our technology, our entrepreneurship has been a vital part of those forces that have, in fact, transformed the world. Our economic capabilities need to be viewed, I believe, as a strategic asset in a world that is increasingly focused on economic growth and the development of market economies. I think it is a false dichotomy to be told that we have to choose between "commercial" interests and other interests that the United States might have in a particular country or region around the world. Oftentimes the absolute best way to advance human rights and the cause of freedom or the development of democratic institutions is through the active involvement of American businesses. Investment and trade can oftentimes do more to open up a society and to create opportunity for a society’s citizens than reams of diplomatic cables from our State Department. I think it’s important for us to look on U.S. businesses as a valuable national asset, not just as an activity we tolerate, or a practice that we do not want to get too close to because it involves money. Far better for us to understand that the drive of American firms to be involved in and shape and direct the global economy is a strategic asset that serves the national interest of the United States.

KEY DOCUMENT 3: In a speech at the endof 1999, he makes it very clear  in a speech to the Institute of Petroleum where his sights are being focused, "While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow."

C.E.O. HALLIBURTON: DICK CHENEY NOVEMBER 15, 1999 INSTITUTE OF PETROLEUM – LONDON Producing oil is obviously a self-depleting activity. Every year you’ve got to find and develop reserves equal to your output just to stand still, just to stay even. This is true for companies as well in the broader economic sense as it is for the world. A new merged company like Exxon-Mobil will have to secure over a billion and a half barrels of new oil equivalent reserves every year just to replace existing production. It’s like making one hundred per cent interest discovery in another major field of some five hundred million barrels equivalent every four months or finding two Hibernias a year. For the world as a whole, oil companies are expected to keep finding and developing enough oil to offset our seventy one million plus barrel a day of oil depletion, but also to meet new demand. By some estimates there will be an average of two per cent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead along with conservatively a three per cent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and the national oil companies are obviously controlling about ninety per cent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow.

^{The composition of the task force, according to the report, was confined to government officials. However, according to media reports at the time, energy industry executives participated in the Task Force. In particular, those identified as having been involved included then-Enron President and Chairman Kenneth Lay and lobbyists Haley Barbour and Marc Racicot.}

^{In April 2001, the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group, sought to obtain the records of the task force meetings. In July 2001 Judicial Watch filed suit on the grounds that the administration was not "in compliance with the Federal Advisory Commission Act (FACA), which mandates that certain documents, task force members, meetings, and decision-making activities be open to the public." Judicial Watch argued that the acting as energy lobbyists — "regularly attended and fully participated" in the group’s meetings held behind closed doors, and were in fact members of the group. The Sierra Club also filed suit. (The two actions were later merged.) "At issue is whether Cheney allowed private energy lobbyists and big-name campaign contributors to participate in the work of the group, and if so, whether that information should be made public," UPI reported.}

^{The organizations claim the documents will show the extent to which the task force staff met secretly with industry executives to craft the Bush administration’s energy policies, such as drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and weakening power plant pollution regulations.}

^{Between late January and April 4, 2001, when "representatives of 13 environmental groups were brought into the Old Executive Office Building for a long-anticipated meeting" with Cheney, a "confidential list prepared by the Bush administration shows that Cheney and his aides had already held at least 40 meetings with interest groups, most of them from energy-producing industries. By the time of the [April 2001] meeting with environmental groups, according to a former White House official who provided the list to The Washington Post, the initial draft of the task force was substantially complete and President Bush had been briefed on its progress.">[1]} "In all, about 300 groups and individuals met with staff members of the energy task force, including a handful who saw Cheney himself, according to the list, which was compiled in the summer of 2001."

^{An earlier document obtained by the Washington Post in 2005 "was based on records kept by the Secret Service of people admitted to the White House complex." "This person said most meetings were with Andrew Lundquist, the task force’s executive director, and Cheney aide Karen Y. Knutson." Andrew D. Lundquist was then Director of the U.S. Department of Energy. The names of participants cited on the lists include:}

• ^{Eli Bebout, "an old friend of Cheney’s from Wyoming who serves in the state Senate and owns an oil and drilling company", visited in March 2001.}
• ^{Red Cavaney, "president of the American Petroleum Institute, also met with Lundquist"}
• ^{Jack N. Gerard, "then with the National Mining Association, had a meeting with Lundquist and other staffers" in February 2001.}
• ^{Wayne Gibbens and Alby Modiano, U.S. Oil and Gas Association}
• ^{Alan Huffman, "Conoco manager until the 2002 merger with Phillips, confirmed meeting with the task force staff."}
• ^{Kenneth L. Lay, then head of Enron, "came by for the first of two meetings."}
• ^{Bob Malone, BP regional president, and Peter Davies, chief economist, and "company employees" Graham Barr and Deb Beaubien.}
• ^{Steven Miller, Shell Oil chairman, "and two others."}
• ^{Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, Royal Dutch/Shell Group’s chairman.}
• ^{James J. Rouse, former Exxon vice president. In 2005 Rouse "denied the meeting took place." In 2007, Rouse was revealed to be "One of the first visitors, on Feb. 14, [2001] … then vice president of Exxon Mobil and a major donor to the Bush inauguration".}
• ^{J. Robinson West, "chairman of the Washington-based consulting firm PFC Energy and an old friend of Cheney’s" met with Cheney.}
• ^{Daniel Yergin, "chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates and author of The Prize, a history of the oil industry", met with Cheney and Lundquist.}

^{"One advocacy group that visited was the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, founded in 1998 by Grover Norquist and Gale A. Norton, who became Bush’s first interior secretary. Later, the group was run by Italia Federici, who was involved socially with Steven Griles. Griles, then Norton’s deputy at Interior, was recently sentenced to prison for obstructing a Senate investigation of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff…}

^{In a November 2005 joint hearing of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation and U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Democrat Senator Frank Lautenberg asked the representatives of major oil companies "Did your company or any representatives of your companies participate in Vice President Cheney’s energy task force in 2001?" Exxon’s CEO Lee Raymon, Chevron Chairman David J. O’Reilly and ConocoPhillips chief executive, James J. Mulva all said "no". BP America chief executive Ross Pillari told the hearing he wasn’t sure as he hadn’t been with the company at the time. Shell Oil president John Hofmeister, told the hearing "not to my knowledge."}

It does not take a Freudian Psychoanalyst to hear the music behind these words. There was a move afoot to integrate American Foreign Policy into the goal of the American business community, specifically the Energy giants. We would unseat Saddam Hussein in Iraq to establish an American friendly regime that would give us access to the oilfields in Iraq – those already functioning and those yet to be explored. And the now Vice President, Dick Cheney, was the man spearheading this plan. All of this was before 9/11.