"We are going to impose our agenda on the coverage by dealing with issues and subjects that we choose to deal with". -Richard M. Cohen, former Senior Producer of CBS political news "Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have" -Richard Salant, former President of CBS News Josh
"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history in America, as an independent press You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dare to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the street looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my' paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities, and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes. -John Swinton, former chief of staff, The New York Times, in a 1953 speech before the New York Press Club Josh
I am neither for or against Bush, Gore, Clinton, Bush Sr. I am for America, freedom of speech, the democratic process, and transparency of our government. If an open debate is held, with all the data brought out, and congress decides to support the plan put forth by Bush, I will support that. Here are recent poll results, which tell us a lot about the trends of public opinion and the true wishes of the people based on what we have been told thus far. http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm If Bush has an airtight case, why not bring it to Congress? Since Bush is so certain, why not present enough of that information that brought him to that certainty to rest of us? He did very little to impress or change the opinon of the rest of the free world with his speech at the UN.
In Iraqi War Scenario, Oil Is Key Issue U.S. Drillers Eye Huge Petroleum Pool By Dan Morgan and David B. Ottaway Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, September 15, 2002; Page A01 A U.S.-led ouster of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein could open a bonanza for American oil companies long banished from Iraq, scuttling oil deals between Baghdad and Russia, France and other countries, and reshuffling world petroleum markets, according to industry officials and leaders of the Iraqi opposition. Although senior Bush administration officials say they have not begun to focus on the issues involving oil and Iraq, American and foreign oil companies have already begun maneuvering for a stake in the country's huge proven reserves of 112 billion barrels of crude oil, the largest in the world outside Saudi Arabia. The importance of Iraq's oil has made it potentially one of the administration's biggest bargaining chips in negotiations to win backing from the U.N. Security Council and Western allies for President Bush's call for tough international action against Hussein. All five permanent members of the Security Council -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China -- have international oil companies with major stakes in a change of leadership in Baghdad. "It's pretty straightforward," said former CIA director R. James Woolsey, who has been one of the leading advocates of forcing Hussein from power. "France and Russia have oil companies and interests in Iraq. They should be told that if they are of assistance in moving Iraq toward decent government, we'll do the best we can to ensure that the new government and American companies work closely with them." But he added: "If they throw in their lot with Saddam, it will be difficult to the point of impossible to persuade the new Iraqi government to work with them." Indeed, the mere prospect of a new Iraqi government has fanned concerns by non-American oil companies that they will be excluded by the United States, which almost certainly would be the dominant foreign power in Iraq in the aftermath of Hussein's fall. Representatives of many foreign oil concerns have been meeting with leaders of the Iraqi opposition to make their case for a future stake and to sound them out about their intentions. Since the Persian Gulf War in 1991, companies from more than a dozen nations, including France, Russia, China, India, Italy, Vietnam and Algeria, have either reached or sought to reach agreements in principle to develop Iraqi oil fields, refurbish existing facilities or explore undeveloped tracts. Most of the deals are on hold until the lifting of U.N. sanctions. But Iraqi opposition officials made clear in interviews last week that they will not be bound by any of the deals. "We will review all these agreements, definitely," said Faisal Qaragholi, a petroleum engineer who directs the London office of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an umbrella organization of opposition groups that is backed by the United States. "Our oil policies should be decided by a government in Iraq elected by the people." Ahmed Chalabi, the INC leader, went even further, saying he favored the creation of a U.S.-led consortium to develop Iraq's oil fields, which have deteriorated under more than a decade of sanctions. "American companies will have a big shot at Iraqi oil," Chalabi said. The INC, however, said it has not taken a formal position on the structure of Iraq's oil industry in event of a change of leadership. While the Bush administration's campaign against Hussein is presenting vast possibilities for multinational oil giants, it poses major risks and uncertainties for the global oil market, according to industry analysts. Access to Iraqi oil and profits will depend on the nature and intentions of a new government. Whether Iraq remains a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, for example, or seeks an independent role, free of the OPEC cartel's quotas, will have an impact on oil prices and the flow of investments to competitors such as Russia, Venezuela and Angola. While Russian oil companies such as Lukoil have a major financial interest in developing Iraqi fields, the low prices that could result from a flood of Iraqi oil into world markets could set back Russian government efforts to attract foreign investment in its untapped domestic fields. That is because low world oil prices could make costly ventures to unlock Siberia's oil treasures far less appealing. Bush and Vice President Cheney have worked in the oil business and have long-standing ties to the industry. But despite the buzz about the future of Iraqi oil among oil companies, the administration, preoccupied with military planning and making the case about Hussein's potential threat, has yet to take up the issue in a substantive way, according to U.S. officials. The Future of Iraq Group, a task force set up at the State Department, does not have oil on its list of issues, a department spokesman said last week. An official with the National Security Council declined to say whether oil had been discussed during consultations on Iraq that Bush has had over the past several weeks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Western leaders. On Friday, a State Department delegation concluded a three-day visit to Moscow in connection with Iraq. In early October, U.S. and Russian officials are to hold an energy summit in Houston, at which more than 100 Russian and American energy companies are expected. Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) said Bush is keenly aware of Russia's economic interests in Iraq, stemming from a $7 billion to $8 billion debt that Iraq ran up with Moscow before the Gulf War. Weldon, who has cultivated close ties to Putin and Russian parliamentarians, said he believed the Russian leader will support U.S. action in Iraq if he can get private assurances from Bush that Russia "will be made whole" financially. Officials of the Iraqi National Congress said last week that the INC's Washington director, Entifadh K. Qanbar, met with Russian Embassy officials here last month and urged Moscow to begin a dialogue with opponents of Hussein's government. But even with such groundwork, the chances of a tidy transition in the oil sector appear highly problematic. Rival ethnic groups in Iraq's north are already squabbling over the the giant Kirkuk oil field, which Arabs, Kurds and minority Turkmen tribesmen are eyeing in the event of Hussein's fall. Although the volumes have dwindled in recent months, the United States was importing nearly 1 million barrels of Iraqi oil a day at the start of the year. Even so, American oil companies have been banished from direct involvement in Iraq since the late 1980s, when relations soured between Washington and Baghdad. Hussein in the 1990s turned to non-American companies to repair fields damaged in the Gulf War and Iraq's earlier war against Iran, and to tap undeveloped reserves, but U.S. government studies say the results have been disappointing. While Russia's Lukoil negotiated a $4 billion deal in 1997 to develop the 15-billion-barrel West Qurna field in southern Iraq, Lukoil had not commenced work because of U.N. sanctions. Iraq has threatened to void the agreement unless work began immediately. Last October, the Russian oil services company Slavneft reportedly signed a $52 million service contract to drill at the Tuba field, also in southern Iraq. A proposed $40 billion Iraqi-Russian economic agreement also reportedly includes opportunities for Russian companies to explore for oil in Iraq's western desert. The French company Total Fina Elf has negotiated for rights to develop the huge Majnoon field, near the Iranian border, which may contain up to 30 billion barrels of oil. But in July 2001, Iraq announced it would no longer give French firms priority in the award of such contracts because of its decision to abide by the sanctions. Officials of several major firms said they were taking care to avoiding playing any role in the debate in Washington over how to proceed on Iraq. "There's no real upside for American oil companies to take a very aggressive stance at this stage. There'll be plenty of time in the future," said James Lucier, an oil analyst with Prudential Securities. But with the end of sanctions that likely would come with Hussein's ouster, companies such as ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco would almost assuredly play a role, industry officials said. "There's not an oil company out there that wouldn't be interested in Iraq," one analyst said. Staff writer Ken Bredemeier contributed to this report. © 2002 The Washington Post Company
At the risk or repeating stuff that has been said here, or of being otherwise redundant, I will chime in any way (I am too lazy to read all the past posts here). It seems to me that Bush is being too aggressive with his campaigning to attack Iraq. Now I am admittedly not a fan of Dubya, but he is our president for the time being. So I accept that. As President, it would seem he has a responsibly to our nation. That is to act in the best interest of all of us, and in the best interest of global peace. Of his top advisors, it seems like Colin Powell is the most reluctant to go ahead and start up with the proposed use of force. Powell is the only one among his top cabinet voices qualified to make military assessments. His qualifications are beyond question. When JFK was facing the Cuban missile crises, he did EVERYTHING he could to avoid direct military confrontation. This was a situation in which there was a clear and present danger......nuclear weapons; DELIVERABLE nuclear weapons within easy striking range of our shores. Kennedy brought PROOF before the world and still refrained from the use of force. He worked out a political resolution. It was a very scary time, and it was a resolution that most people felt could not be accomplished. We really were on the brink of war. But level heads and great minds and great effort avoided a great catastrophe. Bush has so far introduced no PROOF and seems to want to use force as a FIRST and not a LAST resort. Is this a Texas Cowboy mentality? Is it a family feud? Whatever the motivations, it just seems wrong to threaten force before exhausting all other means of resolving this problem. And also, a problem must be shown to actually exist. Saddam is a bad guy. No doubt about it. But his power can be attenuated by other means. His reign will end one way or the other. If it can be done without the cost of American lives, that is the way to go. If it absolutely requires force, it should be well conceived and well planned. Another massive invasion and a long term occupation is not in the interests of the US. This is not 1941, or 1965. We don't need to mobilize our troops and commit the lives of our young soldiers to a bloody confrontation. We have the technology and the resources to achieve our goals in a much more strategically efficient way than we did in WW II or Vietnam. And, we need to learn from our past mistakes. The Korean conflict never really ended. Vietnam was a debacle. If we need to "take out" Saddam, I would imagine we can do it without going to war with an entire nation. And without inciting more hatred from the Arab world towards the democratic west. It may seem like a difficult task to accomplish this, but as Kennedy said, we do these things "not because they are easy". There HAS to be a way to avoid war and attain the results we want. But it will take great thought and great effort. Let's hope that Powell will prevail. His is the voice of reason. And experience. Dubya is certainly, IMHO, the least qualified president to sit in office in my lifetime. Our only hope is that he gets and listens to good advice. Cheney and Rumsfeld are not the best choices for military advice. Between them they have no military experience. Yet they are the most hawkish voices of the administration. Powell was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. His is the most restrained voice regarding a conflict with Iraq. Why is that?? Maybe he understands a little more than the non combatants who are so willing to commit our forces for a questionable cause. JFK brought us through a crisis without a drop of blood being shed. Why can't Bush strive to do the same? Is he just pissed because his dad got involved in a feud with Saddam? This is not the Hatfields and the McCoy's. Or is it (as has been suggested) just about oil. Is it coincidence that Bush and especially Cheney happen to be oil men? Give Peace a Chance. (J.Lennon). rs7
"Cheney and Rumsfeld are not the best choices for military advice." that's where I disagree with you RS7. There is no reason to believe that Rumsfeld is not the best General that we have right now. There is no point having a bunch of generals that don't want to fight. So he is a general and a war hawk, well that seems to go hand in hand in my mind. As for Cheney, he is probably one of the smartest presidential advisors since Kissinger. His advice makes up a lot for Dubya not being the sharpest knife in the drawer. Dubya is the balls of the operation and Cheney is the brains. As for Powell, I think he is really just playing Devil's advocate.
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