Ex-CIA chief: Oil key to U.S. security

Think gas prices are bad now?

Imagine another terrorist attack — especially one on Saudi Arabian oil refineries, former CIA Director R. James Woolsey said Monday during a visit to Pittsburgh.

If terrorists took out the sulfur-cleaning towers in northeastern Saudi Arabia, as described in the beginning of Robert Baer’s book, “Sleeping With the Devil,” crude oil prices could easily top $150 a barrel and stay there for more than a year, Woolsey said.

A barrel of oil sold for about $73 yesterday, with gas prices in the United States hovering around $3 a gallon.

Most Americans don’t want to think about paying double that.

They also don’t want to think about where some of the money goes when they buy gasoline — to groups that threaten the U.S., Woolsey said. And it’s not just terrorists, but established Middle Eastern regimes that restrict women’s rights, have poor education systems and fail to invest in their societies.

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review