Keeping Iraq’s Oil In the Ground

Did Dick Cheney send us in to seize the last dwindling supplies? Unlikely. Our world’s petroleum reserves have doubled in just twenty-five years — and it is in Shell’s and the rest of the industry’s interest that this doubling doesn’t happen again. The neo-cons were hell-bent on raising Iraq’s oil production. Big Oil’s interest was in suppressing production, that is, keeping Iraq to its OPEC quota or less. This raises the question, did the petroleum industry, which had a direct, if hidden, hand, in promoting invasion, cheerlead for a takeover of Iraq to prevent overproduction?

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