ECONOMIC MOTIVES BEHIND AMERICAS GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM

Gurnani Tanya Gupta Ishu Agarwal Amit

The National Security Strategy of the United States.

According to President Bush the War on Terror has 2 main aims:1. Strengthen alliances to defeat global terrorism and work to prevent attacks against us and our friends 2. Prevent our enemies from threatening us, our allies, and our friends, with weapons of mass destruction
The President's State of the Union Address January 29, 2002

 The main concern has been the conflation of al-Qaeda and Saddam Husseins Iraq as a single, undifferentiated terrorist threat. This was a strategic error of the first order because it ignored critical differences between the two in character, threat level, and susceptibility to U.S. deterrence and military action. The result was an unnecessary preventive war of choice against a deterred Iraq that created a new front in the Middle East for Islamic Terrorism and diverted attention and resources away from securing the American homeland against further assault by an undeterrable Al-Qaeda. The war against Iraq was not integral to the GWOT, but rather a detour from it.

Importance of OIL

1. Energy Dependency 2. Limited availability 3. Power

Iraq has the worlds thirdlargest reserves of the most sought-after resource - OIL.

OIL = ENERGY
Oil is critically important to the global economy. Oil accounts for 39% of global energy consumption, including 95 percent of energy used in ground, sea and air transportation. Oil is used to make a range of products, like plastics and paints, that we take for granted today.
War depends on Oil: "But just as important," as Saman Sepheri wrote in the International Socialist Review, "every tank, every airplane--from the B-52 to the stealth bomber--every Cruise missile and most warships in the world rely on oil to wage their terror."

The U.S. continues to claim the lion's share, accounting for 25 percent of oil consumption with just 5 percent of the world's population.

OIL = MONEY

The Bush administration has set up one of the biggest swindles in history - the great Iraq oil robbery.
The new Iraqi government - under pressure from the U.S. who put them in power - has approved a law that they would give Western oil companies ownership of two thirds of Iraqs oil for the next 35 years. The oil companies are guaranteed superprofits.

OIL = POWER
The U.S. government's thirst for oil isn't only about profitsor about securing supplies of a commodity that ordinary Americans depend on--but is also about power. In a world in which the wealth and strength of countries depends on access to oil, more control of oil for the U.S. means less control for its rivals.

The PNAC (Project for a New American Century) has admitted that the USAs invasion of Iraq was not about Saddam Hussein or the War on Terror, rather it was about maintaining the USA position as the worlds economic and military superpower

American OIL Policy

Dick Cheney, Former Vice President of the United States said in a speech in 1999, "The Middle East, with two-thirds of the oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize lies"

The interest in Iraq's oil wasn't new. A Pentagon document made the case that an "oil war" was a "legitimate" military option back in 1999--while Bill Clinton was still president.

In 1979 Saddam was an ally of the West, by 1999 the USA and UK were calling him a Terrorist and a Dictator. As part of the Axis of Evil They claimed he had to be removed from power if the world, including Iraqi citizens, was to be free of Terror.

The USA didn't attack Iraq because Saddam is a brutal dictator and Human Rights abuser. He was a brutal dictator back in the days when the USA supported him in a war against Iran.

Historically, the United States has always been friendly with brutal dictators if we can make money out of it. Currently, there are other dictators in the world and we havent attacked them;
Harley Sorensen, 2004

 US claimed Iraq reconstituted WMD program These were false allegations:

US allies were not in favour of military overrun of Saddam Husseins regime. UNs 400 odd inspections in Iraq never found any evidence of WMDs.

Instead US went ahead with its Operation Iraqi Freedom in the fall of 2002. The real economic reason behind this was the unpublicized but genuine challenge to U.S. dollar predominance from the euro as an alternative oil transaction currency by Saddam Hussein.

WE ARE UNDER REAL AND PRESENT DANGER FROM IRAQS WMDs

WE MUST GO TO WAR!

Dick Cheney said: Victory in Iraq will strike at "the home of the terrorists who have had us under assault for many years, but most especially on 9/11."

A CIA report concluded that Saddam Hussein did not possess stockpiles of illicit weapons at the time of the U.S. invasion in March 2003 and had not begun any program to produce them.
The Iraq Survey Group report authored by Charles Duelfer, who advises the director of central intelligence on Iraqi weapons says Iraq's WMD program was destroyed in 1991 and Saddam had ended Iraq's nuclear program after the 1991 Gulf War.
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Thank You..