Two years ago today - when President George Bush announced US, British and Allied forces would begin to bomb Baghdad - protestors claimed the US had a secret plan for Iraq's oil once Saddam had been conquered.In fact there were two conflicting plans, setting off a hidden policy war between neo-conservatives at the Pentagon, on one side, versus a combination of "Big Oil" executives and US State Department "pragmatists."
Remember when Bush first took office and an announcement was made that Cheney was meeting with certain figures to work on an "energy plan"? Ta da:
Insiders told Newsnight that planning began "within weeks" of Bush's first taking office in 2001, long before the September 11th attack on the US.An Iraqi-born oil industry consultant Falah Aljibury says he took part in the secret meetings in California, Washington and the Middle East. He described a State Department plan for a forced coup d'etat.
All this and more can be gleaned from Mr Palast's website, gregpalast.com. What is somewhat surprising to me, is that a lot of the information that Palast is using came to him through Freedom of Information Act requests to the State Department. Obviously, someone over there is not privy, or couldn't care less, or just plain doesn't like the present administration, and released the information. I can't imagine that a Shrubbery plant would allow that stuff out of the building. My hat is off to him or her.
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