The Corporate Takeover of Iraq’s Economy
The roots of the economic takeover of Iraq are long and deep. They became more aggressive after the strongest U.S. ally in the region, the Shah of Iran, was deposed in the 1979. The roots of the quest of dominance of the oil-rich region are found in both the Democratic and Republican Party, but the most aggressive pursuit has been by George W. Bush.
Former President Jimmy Carter wrote in his memoirs that many Americans “deeply resented that the greatest nation on the earth was being jerked around by a few desert states.” And, when he was president he put forward “the Carter Doctrine” in a State of the Union Address in 1980 that acknowledged “the overwhelming dependence of the Western democracies on oil supplies from the Middle East” and promised military force would be used to ensure access to Middle East oil: “Any attempt by an outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America and . . . will be repelled by any means necessary including the use of force.”
But, according to a book by Antonia Juhasz, “The Bush Agenda,” it was the Reagan, Bush I and Bush II administrations that most aggressively pursued the Iraq oil economy. Her excellent book tells a story that explains the reasons for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. It shows how the Reagan and Bush I administrations began by building a friendly trade relationship that provided money, arms, intelligence, and political protection to Saddam Hussein–despite his brutal record as a despotic dictator. And, how the Clinton years led to ‘regime change’ in Iraq becoming the policy of the United States and naturally following that was the Bush II’s military invasion of the country.
She highlights the web of corporate interests from the oil, oil engineering and military sectors of the U.S. economy that have combined with government to the build-up to the invasion of Iraq. Many of the corporate players–Chevron, Bechtel, Lockheed Martin and Halliburton–have corporate leaders who went into and out of government over the years, influencing the direction of U.S. policy and then ensuring that their corporations profited mightily from the policies they put in place. Juhasz points to Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, L. Paul Bremer, Scooter Libby, Robert Zoellick, Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad and George Shultz, as key players in the long term quest to takeover of Iraq’s economy.
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