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The Bush Administration, Member of OPEC

by Daniel Pipes
April 1, 2004
updated Apr 8, 2004

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One of the Left's main themes in opposing the war to depose Saddam Hussein was "No blood for oil" – the argument that the ultimate goal behind invading Iraq was stealing Iraqi oil and gas. That phrase records no less than 23,000 times at google.com and turned up on signs at most rallies against the invasion. Behind it lies a deep, even conspiratorial, view of U.S. intentions. As the website http://www.nobloodforoil.org (ungrammatically) puts it, "To The Victors, Go the Oil."

Not only is this financially absurd (the war is costing much more than simply buying the commodity from Saddam Hussein) but Washington has been so hands-off of Iraqi oil, so willing to let Iraqis run this critical aspect of their country's national life, that it permits them to act exactly against not just U.S. interests but against Bush administration interests. Here's the story:

It is a little-noted implication of U.S.-led coalition forces seizing control in Iraq that the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority has been since last April effectively a part of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Put more starkly: the White House has a vote at the OPEC table.

In perhaps its most important action of the past year, OPEC decided yesterday to keep prices high by cutting production 4 percent, or one million barrels a day. The Wall Street Journal sees this step resulting from budgetary needs in Saudi Arabia and a weaker U.S. dollar, and it anticipates major consequences from it: "The move confirms the cartel's abandonment of its years-old efforts to maintain price stability and raises the prospect of greater volatility for consumers of oil and petroleum."

Not surprisingly, this Saudi-led step met with disapproval in Washington. White House spokesman Scott McClellan indicated that "The President is disappointed in today's decision. It is important that producers should not take steps that harm American consumers and our economy." And John Kerry immediately turned the high and rising price of oil into a campaign issue; "it has become clear that Bush did nothing to even try and prevent OPEC's recent cut in oil production."

Yet according to a report by State Department Watch (e-mailed, not posted), which I have corroborated with other sources, Iraqi oil minister Ibrahim Bahr Al-Ulum, representing occupied Iraq at the OPEC meeting in Vienna, came out in favor of the production cutback.

How do the oil-grab conspiracy theorists explain this? (April 1, 2004)

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