This is our Prime Minister

The 'Moral' Case For War Against Iraq
'We Don't Mind Tyrants As Long As They Let Us Have The Oil'

"With his back against the wall, belatedly aware of the depth of his difficulty, and surrounded by the empty shell casings of a defeated polemic, Blair played his last card in Glasgow at the weekend. Action [against Saddam Hussein] was a moral imperative, he declared."
Guardian, 17 February 2003

"Seventeen British companies who supplied Iraq with nuclear, biological, chemical, rocket and conventional weapons technology are to be investigated and could face prosecution following a Sunday Herald investigation. One of the companies is Inter national Military Services, a part of the Ministry of Defence, which sold rocket technology to Iraq. The companies were named by Iraq in a 12,000 page dossier submitted to the UN in December. The Security Council agreed to US requests to censor 8000 pages -- including sections naming western businesses which aided Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programme. The five permanent members of the security council -- Britain, France, Russia, America and China -- are named as allowing companies to sell weapons technology to Iraq. The dossier claims 24 US firms sold Iraq weapons. Hewlett-Packard sold nuclear and rocket technology; Dupont sold nuclear technology, and Eastman Kodak sold rocket capabilities. The dossier also says some '50 subsidiaries of foreign enterprises conducted their arms business with Iraq from the US'. It claims the US ministries of defence, energy, trade and agriculture, and the Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories, supplied Iraq with WMD technology.... The Department of Trade and Industry said details on export licences, including information on weapons sold to Iraq, was unavailable.....A spokesman for the MoD's International Military Services said he could not comment as no staff from 1991 were on the payroll and no documents from then existed... Tommy Sheridan, leader of the Scottish Socialist Party, said: 'The evidence of British armament companies, with central government support, arming the Butcher of Baghdad lays to rest the moral garbage spewed from the British government. It exposes the fact that Britain, along with America, France and Russia, armed Saddam to the teeth while he was butchering his own people' ...."
Revealed: 17 British firms armed Saddam with his weapons
Sunday Herald, 23 February 2003

"It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Tomorrow New Labour’s ethical policy will drown symbolically in a poisonous cocktail of blood and oil when the Queen shakes hands with Azerbaijan’s President Aliev. Her Majesty may be forgiven for thinking this is one export-driven photo-opportunity too many. The Queen has dutifully entertained tyrants of all stripes but she has never had to shake hands with a SMERSH agent before.... Today, as President of Azerbaijan his secret police regularly arrest scores of critics allegedly plotting against him and thousands languish in his old haunts, the ex-KGB prisons. Others simply disappear. Yet Aliev’s Azerbaijan is respectable. There is one word to explain this bizarre fact: Oil.... Azeri democracy was uniquely Aliev-style.... oil decreed that Aliev had won 98.9% of the votes - a modest 1% fall from his last Soviet-era total... A gaggle of ex-Tory MPs and former Foreign Office diplomats know the value of keeping in with Aliev. So does a host of stars of George Bush’s Administration... [now] Tony Blair is wining and dining Aliev..."
Daily Mail, 20 July 1998

"A secret intelligence report accuses BP, Britain's biggest company, of backing a military coup which installed a ruthless KGB hardman in the former Soviet state of Azerbaijan. An intelligence officer says BP... later consolidated its position with the new regime when the middlemen arranged to supply the incoming government with military equipment in an 'arms-for-oil' deal.... Aliyev's arrival was welcomed by Britain and America, which have a strategic interest in securing oil rights. BP has close links to British intelligence and employs several former MI6 officers... Lord Simon of Highbury, Tony Blair's former trade minister... was BP's group chief executive at the time of the coup... Blair gave [Aliyev] red-carpet treatment when he visited London in 1998 to sign a friendship treaty and $13 billion (£9.5 billion) in contracts with BP and other British firms...."
Sunday Times, 26 March 2000

BP LINKED TO OVERTHROW OF AZERBAIJAN GOVERNMENT - click here
Human rights - Use of torture in Azerbaijan - click here
Former Deputy Head of MI6 gets top post at BP - click here

MI6 funds al Qaeda to carry out failed assassination attempt on head of state of oil rich Libya - click here

"To Azerbaijani officials, a deal with BP was tantamount to a deal with the British government; not only did visiting British officials lobby relentlessly for the company, but for months Britain's diplomatic mission to Azerbaijan had operated out of the BP offices."
Washington Post, 4 October 1998

"Using his KGB methods [Aliyev] has been oppressing and persecuting all active opponents of his regime. Thousands of innocent people have been arrested on fabricated charges of treason, coup d`etat and terror against the President... The country is run by a police regime created by this usurper... we must admit that the oil driven politics of western countries with respect to Azerbaijan helped to create a tolerable and sometimes positive attitude towards Heidar Aliyev's anti-people policies.... Many thousands have died who could be alive today."
US Congressional Human Rights Caucus, 3 December 2002

"Aliyev first became leader of Azerbaijan 29 years ago as Communist Party secretary. He spent five years in the Soviet politburo in the 1980s before being sacked by Mikhail Gorbachev. He made a political comeback in Azerbaijan in 1993... Tomorrow (Tuesday), before his talks with Blair, he will attend a lunch hosted by Britain's Board of Trade."
Radio Free Europe, 20 July 1998

"Aliyev is quite possibly the only man alive who once had his paystubs ticked by Lavrentii Beria and Joseph Stalin, and certainly the only one still in power anywhere in the world... In 1944, Heydar Aliyev began his life-long employment in the secret police - Lavrentii Beria's secret police.... He achieved the rank of general in the KGB in 1960 - vice-chairman of the Azeri KGB in 1964 and First Secretary of the Central Committee for Azerbaijan - effective leader of the republic - in 1969.... Aliyev was regarded as the Number 3 leader in the Soviet Union in 1983 by foreign diplomats. He was a full member of the Politburo and deputy prime minister of the USSR.... He fought tooth and nail every policy introduced by new leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, including torpedoing a 1986 draft law on state enterprise which, if introduced at that early date, might have forestalled or at least softened the blow of the economic holocaust which followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in all the former republics, not least of all in poverty-stricken Azerbaijan... His son Ilham is ... vice-president of state oil firm SOCAR in 1994... all of the scandals collapsed as a revamped police state with an ideology of blood and oil tightened its grip over the country. In the vacuum caused by the arrest, imprisonment and exile of opposition politicians came the proliferation of a personality cult unseen in the Caucasus since the fall of Beria: larger than life posters, young quasi-Komsomol activists chanting 'Baba!', huge outdoor rallies with a captive audience of bussed-in state employees. A star and a mountain were named after Azerbaijan's atman,and there are now three museums whose subject is Heydar Aliyev, whose task is to collect every scrap of state-sanctioned Heydarphrenalia shed like dead cells and snakeskins in his march to the grave. Azerbaijan's energy potential has given Baba plenty of cash to pay for a pin-striped army of corporate mercenaries who run interference for him in Washington. Prominent lobbyists badger congressmen for him, including Cold Warriors and stalwarts from the Bush I administration like former Secretary of State James Baker, National Security Chairman Brent Scowcroft and Chief of Staff John Sununu. A similar coterie of Tory party geriatrics perform the same function in London. It's difficult to find a model for the state that Aliyev has built in Azerbaijan. It combines elements of Sungism from North Korea with the cannibalistic frenzy of Mobutu Sese Seko's Zaire (Azerbaijan typically ranks in the bottom five countries of the dozens listed by anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International in their annual reports). But in its subtleties, Aliyev's Azerbaijan is as rare and exceptional in its forms of beggary and elitist depravity as the man who built it."
Sobaka Dossier, 23 August 2002

"Due to the tightly controlled image of the Aliyev Dynasty and their family-state, objective news coverage of Azerbaijan either borders on Soviet style propaganda, or to Oil Company Press Releases. The purpose of this site is to present a more balanced coverage of the Aliyev government"
Aliyev.com

"BP ... took the initial step when, through intermediaries, it bought off key members of the [Azerbaijan] government just before the coup. The idea was to steal a march on the other western companies and the Russians in the battle for Azerbaijan’s huge reserves of oil and gas... Blair (whose government claims to pursue an ethical foreign policy, and to support democratic regimes in the ‘developing world’) apparently had no inhibitions about endorsing a former KGB operative brought to power [in Azerbaijan] by a military coup."
Crescent International, May 16-31, 2000

"The woman seen as Prime Minister Tony Blair's closest and most trusted aide is to leave the government for a job at oil giant BP.... [Anji Hunter] has been a permanent fixture at the prime minister's side since he first became Labour leader in 1994 ...[and] is widely seen as the prime minister's door keeper..."
BBC Online, 8 November 2001

"The construction phase of the Baku-Tbilisi- Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline project [lead by BP] has officially begun, following a ceremony held September 18 at the Sangachal Terminal Expansion area... President Aliyev.. was on hand to commemorate the occasion and lay the foundation stone for construction of the pipeline... The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline Company (BTC Co.) was formed in London on August 1 to construct, own and operate the pipeline... During the first board meeting of the BTC Co., SOCAR President Natig Aliyev was elected Chairman and BP's Michael Townshend was elected Chief Executive Officer."
Azerbaijan International, Autumn 2002

"Washington wants Caspian oil to flow through many pipelines so that no single country can bottle it up, and is adamantly against having a new pipeline pass through Iran... Specifically, the U.S. wants the big new carrier, the one the oilmen call the main export pipeline, to run westward from the Caspian to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, on the Mediterranean, because Turkey is a NATO ally.... The last thing we need,' says a White House aide, 'is to rely on the Persian Gulf as the main access for more oil.'..."
Time Magazine, 4 May 1998

"Following the war in Afghanistan BP are now opening up the Caspian Sea region (which will also feed the post 911 trans-Afghan pipeline to the east) from the western side. This involves the construction of a new pipeline to the Mediterranean via Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. It follows the build-up of US troops in most of the Asian Islamic 'Stan' countries and Georgia for such purposes following 911. Needless to say Islamic militants are unlikely to be too pleased about this. When the Prime Minister says al Qaeda attacks on the UK are now inevitable, this is a key reason why. It is now well documented that the US led attack on Afghanistan was planned well before 911 as a result of the collapse of US negotiations with the Taliban to build a new gas pipeline through the country. This was part of a broader White House strategy to open up the Caspian Sea region with western oil companies, including BP and Enron (it was Enron who paid a 'modest' $300,000 towards the inauguration ceremony of President Bush at the beginning of 2001)."
'Fight Smart', 9 Feb 2003

"... two grand juries have been investigating allegations that ExxonMobil, the world’s largest corporation, and BP Amoco paid cash bribes to the president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, and his oil minister, Nurlan Balgymbayev... During the years when these alleged crimes took place, Vice President Dick Cheney, then the CEO of oil services giant Halliburton, was a sitting member of the Kazakh government’s oil advisory board. What did Cheney know? When did he know it?"
THE ELEPHANT IN THE LIVING ROOM - PART I
From the Wilderness Publications, 30 March 2002

What Iraqi Kurds Think About Blair's 'Moral' War
Excerpts from London Times, 22 February 2003, "Gas victims struggle for air and gasp at Western 'hypocrisy'"

"....if Saddam’s record of human rights abuses and the use of chemical weapons against his own people is being drawn by Tony Blair as the last arrow in his quiver of credible reasons for war with Iraq, the rhetoric has made little impression on the [Kurdish] people of Halabja [who were gassed in Iraq]"

"...Rezan Fakhraden was five when Iraqi forces bombed her home city of Halabja ...'I don’t trust Britain or America at all,' Rezan gasps. 'They have said nothing about our plight due to the gases for 15 years. They even supported Saddam then. We have received no medicines from Britain or America in all that time to help us...'..."

"...Hiding in his family’s cellar with his parents, five sisters, brother and 15 neighbours, Kamel Abdulqader, now 30, remembered what happened.... 'Why are America and Britain now helping to defend Turkey, Israel and Kuwait against chemical attack, but not us?' Kamel asked. 'We have suffered so much already without any medical aid, and we are so much closer to Saddam’s missiles than anyone else. Do they not believe we will be attacked like this again, or do they just not care?'..."

"...Dr Gulpy, whose mother and brother died in the Halabja attack, said: 'Britain and America supported Saddam back then because for them Iran and its revolutionary ideology was the threat. We were of no use or interest to them. But now they have new plans for involvement in Iraq and suddenly they talk about our suffering. Where have they been for 15 years?'

"The US is abandoning plans to introduce democracy in Iraq after a war to overthrow Saddam Hussein, according to Kurdish leaders who recently met American officials.....The Kurdish leaders are enraged by an American plan to occupy Iraq but largely retain the government in Baghdad. The only changes would be the replacement of President Saddam and his lieutenants with senior US military officers. It undercuts the argument by George Bush and Tony Blair that war is justified by the evil nature of the regime in Baghdad."
Independent, 17 February 2003

"...Saddam knows that as Miss Rice, the National Security Advisor, herself puts it: 'Weapons of mass destruction are unusable by Saddam because he knows that any attempt to use them would bring national obliteration.'...As for the nightmare of biochemical weapons, he's used it only against a weak enemy that could not retaliate in kind. Saddam knows that the United States, if it chose, could retaliate in kind with overwhelming force.... The very latest polls show 65% of Americans willing to go to war if the United Nations sanctions it. Only 37% if not. But it has to be said that as the prospect darkens, no more than half the American people want to go to war at all."
Alistair Cooke's Letter From America
BBC Online, 17 February 2003

"[BP's] Lord Browne's said that most exploration for new supplies had halted [in Iraq] when the Iraqis nationalised their industry.... he believed there was a plenty of oil and gas waiting to be discovered in Iraq and that BP should be in prime position to capitalise [after a war with Iraq] because it had found most of the country's oil before being thrown out in the 1970s.... Lord Browne will be listened to carefully in Downing Street because the BP executive team has such close links with the UK government that it was once dubbed Blair Petroleum."
Guardian, 30 October 2002

"David O'Reilly, chairman and chief executive of Chevron Texaco said there was a view among some sections of the public that the [Iraqi] conflict was about nothing but oil and that was not a good enough reason to go to war. But he said that the diversity and continuity of the world's energy supply were vital strategic concerns [especially when you've got no renewable energy strategy worth speaking of, nlpwessex]."
Daily Telegraph, 18 February 2003

And you thought it couldn't get any worse? Then try digesting the latest twist in the UK's emerging energy policy.

If the future of UK energy is not nuclear (see below), not coal (ask Tony Benn), and not renewables (see below), then all you have left is oil and gas. And that is what Saddam Hussein, the man the West installed in Iraq via a coup d'etat and then armed during his dictatorial regime (resulting in the US having to edit out thousands of pages from Iraq's own weapons dossier before it was circulated to other members of the UN), has got in abundance.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is our Prime Minister and his alarming national energy strategy (see below). It is a strategy which will go a long way to guaranteeing war and terrorism for years to come.

This man appears to be fast going the same way as Mrs Thatcher - deranged and out of office.

BP
Blair Petroleum

"Tony Blair has blocked plans to produce a fifth of Britain's electricity from renewable sources, in revenge for his failure to push through a programme of new nuclear power stations."
PM scraps renewable energy targets
Independent, 16 February 2003

"While the days of ownership have long past, BP's ties with the British government are still so close that rivals call it 'Blair Petroleum'...One Whitehall insider says there is a 'meeting of minds' between Tony Blair and Browne, who is a regular visitor to Downing Street. Both men admire the other's leadership... This rapport is reinforced by the presence on Browne's staff of former New Labour officials still close to Number 10. Anji Hunter, Blair's childhood friend and former special assistant, is Browne's director of communications. Nick Butler, strategic policy adviser, is a former Labour candidate and friend of Jonathan Powell, Blair's chief of staff... Browne has encouraged BP managers to make use of secondment programmes to ministries, mostly the Department of Trade and Industry, but also the Foreign Office and Treasury. There are four BP employees at the DTI. "
Oiling the political engine
Financial Times, 2 August 2002

BP Chairman Sir David Simon appointed Blair's EU Minister
BP - Britain's largest company, and the second largest oil company in the world

Prime minister argues case for 'Blair Petroleum' - Guardian 13 February 2003
Among friends at 'Blair Petroleum' - Guardian, 9 November 2001

BP
Blair Petroleum

"The prime minister, Tony Blair and Russian president Vladimir Putin were closely involved in the signing of this week's groundbreaking deal between BP and TNK. The successful conclusion of the merger helped to heal memories of a dispute which opened up when Mr Blair personally intervened in a wrangle BP was having in Russia. All of this underlines the close links between Big Oil and politics, while confirming more particularly the way Mr Blair and BP have a working arrangement that has led to the company being dubbed 'Blair Petroleum'.... A Downing Street spokesman confirmed that Mr Blair had discussed the $6.75bn (£4.2bn) merger move by BP - the biggest foreign investment in Russia's history...BP declined to say whether it had asked Mr Blair to intervene. 'You will have to ask Number 10 why they sent it,' said a company spokesman."
Prime minister argues case for 'Blair Petroleum'
Guardian, 13 February 2003

"Forties, the largest oilfield discovered in the UK North Sea, is to be sold by BP in a deal that marks a watershed in Britain’s declining offshore oil industry... Discovered in October 1970 by the Sea Quest drilling platform, production was inaugurated five years later by the Queen. The field rapidly came to symbolise Britain’s North Sea oil boom. Within three years, Forties was pumping 500,000 barrels per day down a 170-kilometre pipeline to the company’s refinery at Grangemouth in Scotland. Forties has delivered 2.5 billion barrels of oil over three decades but today its produces little more than 45,000 bpd."
BP sells off Forties field as oil output dwindles
London Times, 14 January 2003

"The choice is simple. Either we wean ourselves off oil and gas (and there are both economic and environmental benefits to be had from doing so) or there is going to be permanent war and terrorism as the imbalance between global hydrocarbon supply and demand rapidly deteriorates, especially as huge countries like China and India industrialise. Unfortunately whilst it is well known that the Bush administration is stuffed full of former oil executives, the departure of the British Prime Minister's own closest personal aide (Anji Hunter) to join BP virtually the moment the so called 'war against terrorism' was launched also speaks volumes. Hunter left 10 Downing St for BP as soon as the post 911 Afghan invasion coalition was set up. It was she and Alastair Campbell (get the picture?), not the Foreign Secretary, who accompanied Blair on his world tour to build the coalition.... In this context Ms Hunter's story looks suspiciously like a case of 'lets clear the way for the oil companies, and then stick close to them', a development very much consistent with Blair's call in Texas for greater politico-corporate collaboration in the sector. Whatever the case Hunter's arrival at BP makes the company incomparably close to Downing Street. Hunter has been described as one of the few people that could go into the Prime Minister's office without knocking on the door first."
What is happening to Britain and America?
'Fight Smart', 9 Feb 2003

'Axis of Oilvil'
Why Blair Doesn't Want To Decouple From Bush On Iraq
He Wants A Share Of The Oil Spoils For BP Once The War Is Over
Bush Will Share The Spoils If Blair Co-operates

"Even if the majority of public opinion outside the United States admits that oil is not the only reason for the imminent military intervention in Iraq, it continues to feel that oil is at the heart of this [Iraq] crisis. The option of the United States to take the risk of remodeling the map of this region of the world is probably based on several motives. But if one considers the strategic role of oil and the importance of the Gulf region's oil reserves, it seems difficult to deny the determining weight of oil interests in this affair. Finally, the other objectives that are invoked are not incompatible with these oil interests.... Now more than ever, because it is one of the nerves of the world economy and of war, oil is a highly sensitive product. At the international level, control of its main flows gives-on both the economic and the geo-strategic levels- an undeniable comparative advantage to whoever has it... The [US's] initial plan's objectives are known [see for example PNAC and James Baker Institute documents, nlpwessex]. It is a matter of securing supplies, redistributing the oil domain for the profit of American companies, and finally positioning the U.S. so as to be able to influence the course of oil as a geo-strategic management factor. To assure such a project, the American authorities deem their military presence in the whole [Gulf] region to be absolutely necessary... the United States will be the sole guarantors of the security of the region and of the flows of oil supplies, vital to the whole world's economy. This strategic position would, of course, be validated under diverse forms. The first, and not the least, would consist of allowing American companies to obtain more oil and gas production permits. European, Russian, or Chinese companies could also participate in the exploitation of some part of these resources, but their participation would take place under an American umbrella... The Bush team considers Iraq, with its geographic placement and immense oil potential, weakened and stuck in the uncomfortable position Saddam Hussein has put it the last twenty years, presents a good profile to serve as the launching pad for this oil project. The geo-political context since September 11, 2001 offers as a bonus the opportunity and a window to accelerate its realization..."
Sadek Boussena, former Algerian Energy Minister, former President of OPEC
Le Monde, 20 February 2003

"Let's look for a minute at Iraq's oil, even if no one else wants to.... It goes back to the 1920s when the seven major oil companies (American and British) began operating in the Middle East. The companies functioned as a cartel. With explicit agreements not to compete against each other, they carved up the rich Middle East oil reserves, thereby enabling them to control most of the world's oil supply [including BP who, then known as Anglo Persian, discovered Iraqi oil in the 1920s, nlpwessex]....The West couldn't really intervene to stop the Iraqi [1972 oil] nationalization, however, because Iraq invited in the Soviets to develop its oil fields and buy its oil. The Iraqi deal with the Soviets — regarded as the ultimate treachery by the oil companies, Washington and London — was negotiated by the Number 2 man in the new Baathist regime that had seized power in Iraq. His name was Saddam Hussein."
The thing is, it is about oil
Toronto Star, 16 February 2003

"[Spanish Prime Minister] Mr Aznar also faced embarrassment yesterday when it was revealed that in 1997 he had offered to pay Baghdad in 'aid' if it gave oil contracts to the Spanish-owned Repsol company....But Repsol never managed to close the deal."
Supporters desert Aznar as Spaniards reject conflict
Guardian, 18 February 2003

"Although U.N. Resolution 986 mandates that at least half of the 'Oil-for-Food' exports must transit [to Europe] through Turkey [via Ceyhan], it appears that in recent months more Iraqi oil (close to three-quarters) has been exported via Mina al-Bakr rather than via Ceyhan, in part due to a shift in oil exports away from Europe and the United States and towards Asia... An estimated 30% of Iraqi oil is sold initially to Russian firms (i.e., Emerkom, Kalymneftegas, Machinoimport, Rosnefteimpex, Sidanco, Slavneft, Soyuzneftegaz, Tatneft, and Zarubzhneft). The remaining 70% of Iraq's oil is first purchased by companies from many countries, including Cyprus, Sudan, Pakistan, China, Vietnam, Egypt, Italy, Ukraine, and others [but not primarily the three countries most actively seeking war with Iraq - the UK , the US, and Spain - whose oil companies must buy Iraqi oil from middlemen, nlpwessex]..."
Iraq - Country Brief
US Energy Information Administration, October 2002

"[In 1990] President Bush - the first that is - called a dawn meeting of the National Security Council at which the likely commander of any military action, one General Schwarzkopf, expressed the general feeling that the United States might fight for Saudi Arabia but hardly for Kuwait. President Bush told the press there was no thought of American intervention [following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait]. The United Nations anyway had voted to impose a total embargo on Iraq.... What so swiftly transformed the views and policy of the United States and the onlooking allies-to-be was the recognition, first pressed on President Bush by Mrs Thatcher and then rather late in the day realised by the King of Saudi Arabia, that once he held Kuwait there was nothing to stop Saddam from seizing the Saudi oil fields.[i.e. the concern was oil, not weapons of mass destruction or Saddam's human rights record, nlpwessex]"
Alistaire Cooke's Letter From America
BBC Online, 24 June 2002

"Lord Browne, chief executive of BP and one of New Labour's favourite industrialists, has warned Washington not to carve up Iraq for its own oil companies in the aftermath of any future war. The comments from the most senior European oil executive.... will ... serve to underline concern that the US is primarily concerned with seizing control of Saddam Hussein's oil and handing it over to companies such as ExxonMobil rather than destroying his weapons of mass destruction..... Lord Browne's views will be listened to carefully in Downing Street because the BP executive team has such close links with the UK government that it was once dubbed Blair Petroleum. A number of former BP executives, such as Lord Simon, have been seconded into Whitehall while one of Mr Blair's personal assistants, Anji Hunter, joined Lord Browne's team. "
BP chief fears US will carve up Iraqi oil riches
Guardian, 30 October 2002

"France and Russia have been warned they must support the US military invasion and occupation of Iraq if they want acess to Iraqi oilfields in a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq."
France & Russia warned support US war on Iraq or no Iraqi oil
Oil and Gas International, 27 January 2003

"President Bush's Cabinet agreed in April 2001 that 'Iraq remains a destabilising influence to the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East' and because this is an unacceptable risk to the US 'military intervention' is necessary. Vice-president Dick Cheney, who chairs the White House Energy Policy Development Group, commissioned a report [on which this policy was built] from the Baker Institute for Public Policy, a think-tank set up by James Baker, the former US secretary of state under George Bush Snr...."
Official: US oil at the heart of Iraq crisis
Sunday Herald, 6 October 2002

"... the United States remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma.... the American people continue to demand plentiful and cheap energy without sacrifice or inconvenience... [with the] energy sector in critical condition, a crisis could erupt at any time [which] could have potentially enormous impact on the US ...[Iraq is the] key swing producer ... turning its taps on and off when it has felt such action was in its strategic interest... [there is a] possibility that Saddam may remove Iraqi oil from the market for an extended period of time.."
Baker Institute for Public Policy Report
The West's battle for oil
Sunday Herald, 6 October 2002

"Iraq holds more than 112 billion barrels of oil - the world's second largest proven reserves. Iraq also contains 110 trillion cubic feet of natural gas... The reduced volume of Iraqi exports in 2002 appears to have been a result of [in part]... Iraq's unilateral one-month embargo of oil exports in April 2002 ostensibly in support of the Palestinians..."
Iraq - Country Brief
US Energy Information Administration, October 2002

"Dwindling domestic supplies and surging demand could lead to a severe gas shortage within three years, the Department of Trade and Industry warned British consumers yesterday."
Gas shortage in Britain 'due within three years'
London Times, 26 June 2002

"... the UK has been self-sufficient in energy... The future context for energy policy will be different. Increasingly policy towards energy security ...... will be pursued in a global arena, as part of an international effort.... The UK will become increasingly dependent on imported oil and gas.... [One way to maintain security is] to use international action to address global threats to energy security."
The Energy Review
A Performance and Innovation Unit Report - February 2002

"You have got to admit that Rupert Murdoch is one canny press tycoon because he has an unerring ability to choose editors across the world who think just like him. How else can we explain the extraordinary unity of thought in his newspaper empire about the need to make war on Iraq? After an exhaustive survey of the highest-selling and most influential papers across the world owned by Murdoch's News Corporation, it is clear that all are singing from the same hymn sheet..... Most revealing of all was Murdoch's reference to the rationale for going to war, blatantly using the o-word. Politicians in the United States and Britain have strenuously denied the significance of oil, but Murdoch wasn't so reticent..."
Their master's voice
Guardian, 17 February 2003

"Fuel is our economic lifeblood. The price of oil can be the difference between recession and recovery. The western world is import dependent. ....So: who develops oil and gas, what the new potential sources of supply are, is a vital strategic question...The Middle East, we focus on naturally."
Prime Minister's speech at the George Bush Senior Presidential Library
10 Downing St, Press Release, 7 April 2002

Huh?

"Brian Wilson, the Energy Minister, said that Britain will become heavily dependent on imported natural gas .... the Energy Minister predicted that 70 per cent of Britain’s electricity would be generated from gas by 2020 and 90 per cent of the fuel would need to be imported... Mr Wilson’s comments come after rumours that the Government’s White Paper is likely to water down a previous target that renewable sources of energy account for a fifth of power generation by 2020.... The Energy Minister, who is in Algeria [yet another Islamic country whose internal affairs we will no doubt start meddling with as our energy dependency on it grows, nlpwessex] discussing the possibility of importing liquefied natural gas to Britain, said that the issue of future gas supply should not be overlooked."
UK 'will depend on imported gas'
London Times, 21 February 2003

MI6 funds al Qaeda to carry out failed assassination attempt on head of state of oil rich Lybia - click here

"Britain has the greatest renewable energy resources in Europe – with 40 per cent of the entire continent's potential for windpower and some of the world's greatest supplies of wave power – but does less to exploit them than any other EU country."
PM scraps renewable energy targets
Independent, 16 February 2003

"....a study by the research unit of the former Atomic Energy Authority has shown that a quarter of England's electricity requirements could be sourced from wind turbines built off the East Anglian coast alone. The Scottish Parliament is already talking about such schemes, with the possibility of Scotland becoming a net exporter of electricity."
What is happening to Britain and America?
'Fight Smart', 9 Feb 2003

Latest Blair government energy policy doesn't make sense?
Then guess who is hoping to earn huge tariffs out of these increased energy imports
as foreign gas starts arriving at our shores?
Yes, you've got it - BP

"An Energy treaty between Britain and Norway aimed at bringing new gas supplies to the UK is being undermined by a dispute between BP and Statoil, the Norwegian state oil company, over who collects the tariffs from a pipeline under the North Sea.... Britain is expected to become a net importer of gas in 2005... Statoil, the Norwegian state oil company, wants to build an undersea pipeline at a cost of $1 billion (£620 million), with a landfall at Easington on the East Riding coast. BP argues that the gas should be piped through existing infrastructure. It says the option was cheaper, would extend the life of the UK undersea gas grid and encourage further development in the UK sector ."
Dispute threatens plan for fresh UK gas supply
London Times, 18 February 2003

"...the complacency takes your breath away.... despite a year of chinwagging, we are no closer to a deal with the Norwegians on how the precious [gas] molecules are to arrive in the UK. Like banana republics, Britain and Norway are squabbling over who controls which bit of the pipeline. Statoil, owner of the Ormen Lange gasfield, wants to build a new line direct to an English beach but a jealous BP wants to keep Statoil’s longboats out of our waters and insists the Norwegians use the existing UK subsea gas grid. A serious delay could matter — Britain becomes a net gas importer in 2005 and no one is expecting domestic prices to decline when we start buying abroad. This is more than a quarrel over who — Statoil or BP — collects the pipeline tariff..."
Gas quarrel means trouble in the pipeline
London Times, 19 February 2003

"For how long will you [Mr Blair] lie and deceive this country and speak so many words, but very few truths? Don't underestimate or insult our intelligence."
'Miss Dynamite' addressing the crowd at the London Peace Rally
Marchers’ anger washes onto Blair
NBCNews, 16 February 2003

"What will come of it remains to be seen, but Saturday's march might just be the rumblings of the beginning of the end for Tony Blair's political career."
Marchers’ anger washes onto Blair
NBCNews, 16 February 2003

“I normally vote Labour, but I think Blair is running a very fine line of alienating his supporters, and if you look around at this march that bears it out — I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Labour voters begin to turn their backs on Blair
London Times, 17 February 2003

"The party is split over this. There are only 180,000 members but more than one million people were in the park. The government no longer speaks for its constituency. If Blair takes us into the war we will launch a movement in the Labour party to indict him."
Alan Simpson, Labour MP
New protests planned in bid to bring Britain to a standstill
Guardian, 17 February 2003

"The antipathy in Labour ranks has resulted in one party member setting up a website — www.cutitup.co.uk — calling on fellow members to cut up their membership cards in protest... Of more general concern are reports suggesting that three out of four Labour constituencies in a recent newspaper survey reported serious discontent among members over Iraq."
Labour candidates face cull in May polls
London Times, 18 February 2003

“[Husband]: This is our first march, we came down on a train-load of Middle England. We feel strongly against the war, but feel we didn’t have an opportunity to express that. I’ve voted Conservative in the past, but on this issue it is very hard to find a reasonable voice. I’ve been very disappointed with Iain Duncan Smith....[Wife]: It makes you despair of any of them, but the march has been exhilarating.”
Labour voters begin to turn their backs on Blair
London Times, 17 February 2003

"We only have one political party in the U.S., and that is the property party, which essentially is corporate America, which has two right wings, one called Republican and one called Democrat. I can't say I like either of them."
Gore Vidal, USA Today, 4 February 2003
'Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta'

"The public's lack of trust in Blair is terminal. There is a feeling of ancien regime as Blair and Mandelson try to copy Bush/Sharon's use of scare tactics, now absurdly placing tanks in Heathrow. New Labour is now as discredited as the tories."
www.dumpblair.co.uk

"He is a pillar of the New Labour establishment: the husband of Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell, golf partner of Alastair Campbell and a host to Peter Mandelson at his Cotswold country home. But it is David Mills's controversial links to Italian Prime Minister and media magnate Silvio Berlusconi that now threaten to embarrass Tony Blair's Government. .. He is suspected of potential complicity in an alleged multi-million pound tax evasion and money laundering scandal.... Mills has acted for Berlusconi for more than two decades and set up a network of offshore companies to help the billionaire media magnate avoid millions of pounds in tax. Over the past six years Mills has given evidence in a string of continuing fraud investigations into Berlusconi's media empire.... Despite the fact that Berlusconi leads a right-wing party in Italy and has long been a hate figure in some Labour circles, Blair has enjoyed a close relationship with him."
Labour link to Berlusconi cash probe
Observer 16 February 2003

"Less than 48 hours after a massive peace march opposing Prime Minister Tony Blair's stance on Iraq brought central London to a standstill, the big banks have begun to think out loud about what might happen if the PM got the push. For Japanese bank Nomura, economist Anais Faraj told clients in a strategy note that as head of a government that 'has perhaps cried wolf once too often', Mr Blair's own future is now at stake.... 'He has used up his political capital,' Mr Faraj told BBC News Online. He compared Saturday's march to the poll tax riot in 1990 which was followed a few months later by the exit of the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher."
Markets mull life after Blair
BBC Online, 18 February 2003

"French President Jacques Chirac has warned that a US invasion of Iraq would only inflame terrorism. In an interview with Time magazine, he said it would create many 'little bin Ladens'."
Times Online, Breaking News, 17 February 2003

March 5 - National Moratorium to Stop the War on Iraq

"Following Saturday's [Feb 15] remarkable demonstrations in London and Glasgow, which have already made political history, the Coalition Steering Committee has agreed the following points for the continuing mobilisation of the British people against war. Please take them up immediately!"
STOP THE WAR COALITION ACTION PLAN

"Influenced by the massive anti-war demonstrations staged around the world last weekend and the growing rift between the US and the less hawkish countries led by France and Germany, American press coverage has seen a substantial shift away from backing an immediate war regardless of international opinion. A survey of 37 leading US papers publishing editorials between February 15 and 19 found that almost two thirds now called for a 'world coalition' to be formed before any military action in the Middle East."
US media move away from Bush
Guardian, 21 February 2003

"We must not be prisoners of our own time. The horrific terrorist attack in Bali, the attack on the French tanker off Yemen the other week - these threats are coming at the world from all directions....And you can't continue.... to just keep erecting security and defence barriers all around you..... We have a way of life, a set of [energy] consumption patterns, that are going to have to change - all of us. We have to recognise that without a major shift in the whole way we organise ourselves, our pattern of life is simply not sustainable."
Peter Hain, UK minister for Europe (since moved to Welsh Office)
Mid-East oil 'too costly' for Europe
BBC Online, 17 Oct 2002

"Much of this international security disaster is thanks to the stubborn refusal of our political leaders to plan a modern economy based on renewable energy, a prospect of great anathema to their friends in the oil and gas sectors. This syndrome is so pervasive that last year the British government rejected a proposal from major motor manufacturers to start the conversion of the car industry to a hydrogen based system - fuel that can be sourced widely across the globe with the right alternative technology (already Iceland is converting all of its motor energy to hydrogen including its fishing fleet). According to the London Times 22 April 2002 government ministers decided (stupifyingly) in response to the proposal 'that fossil fuels will not be phased out for at least another 50 years'. Meanwhile a study by the research unit of the former Atomic Energy Authority has shown that a quarter of England's electricity requirements could be sourced from wind turbines built off the East Anglian coast alone. The Scottish Parliament is already talking about such schemes, with the possibility of Scotland becoming a net exporter of electricity."
What is happening to Britain and America?
'Fight Smart', 9 Feb 2003

http://www.peacestore.us/

New 'Peace Store' Initiative
Waiting for Government to Create Peace is a Waste of Time - It's Now Down to Citizens

"We are working on a War Tax Neutralization calculator so that you can keep track of how much
you have paid in war taxes and how much you have eliminated by shopping through this site.
Until that day, just keep shopping for peace."
Peace Store, Feb 2003

"Trying to judge if there are more terrorists being created than are being inhibited or killed or captured or detained [as a result of our war against terrorism] - there's no one on the face of the earth who can answer that question."
Donald Rumsfeld, Defense Secretary, testimony before the US House Armed Services Committee 5 February 2003
C-SPAN realvideo ( @ 1 hr 43 mins)

What is 'Peace Store'? - click here

http://www.peacestore.us/


Blair lubricates BP agreement with 'police state' Aliyev, 1998	London 15 February 2003