Terror Alert may be downgraded from “beheading” to “plastic swords”

Terror Alert may be downgraded from “beheading” to “plastic swords”

When Mustafa Dirani’s home was raided in September, the heavy throng of police were photographed taking a sword from his home. Even though his home was searched for 8 hours with items seized by the police, Dirani was released without charge.

It may be because the sword taken from his home was plastic. Not only was the sword plastic but it is so ubiquitous in Shiite homes that it would have been immediately discounted as evidence if the police had someone with community knowledge with them - probably the same people who could tell the police that it’s rare to find a Shiite terrorist - almost as rare as finding a Shiite sword sharp enough you could “cut a cucumber with it”

The Australian Federal Police will not confirm the sword is plastic nor will they return it, quite possibly because Scott Morrison is still playing with it in his Super Security No Julies Allowed Mega Mecha Awesome Christified Agency.

No word on whether George “Bigot” Brandis is expanding ASIO’s powers to raid homes for party poppers and unattended showbags but Miranda Devine is going undercover to find out what it’s like to be a slice of Fairy Bread left on a ping pong table.

Macquarie University Muslim students sent someone out into the streets to hector Muslims and for once it wasn’t a Daily Telegraph reporter. Their social experiment was to perform racial taunts in public and gauge the public response as part of the Association for Islamic Awareness Week's "iSlamPhobia”.

What happened? Some took photos but most arked up in the most Australian way possible.

A FAMILY caught up in Australia’s biggest counterterrorism operation is reportedly set to launch legal action, claiming to have been unfairly targeted.

The brothers, aged 15 and 14, and their mother have told Fairfax Media they were mistreated as police took 12 hours to search their home in Sydney’s southwest but found nothing.

Using the name Mohamed, the older of the brothers says he was woken at 4.30am by men in balaclavas who bashed the door in and dragged his mother out of bed without giving her a chance to cover herself.

Mohamed claims she was also punched because she tried to resist, and that he and his brother were handcuffed during the ordeal. “They bought in dogs to smell the place, they bought in metal detectors, they scratched the doors, they dug up the backyard, they looked through all the books and they found nothing,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald.

“Even if they found one thing, they would have charged us.” The paper says the family of three will launch a civil suit in the NSW Supreme Court this week.

Their home was one of 16 raided by state and federal police before dawn on September 18, but they were not detained or charged and they still have not been told why they were raided.

Following the raids, two people were charged, one with terrorism offences and the other for possession of an unauthorised firearm.[2]

More than 800 police were scrambled to launch pre-dawn raids across Sydney and Brisbane, searching 25 homes in two states, detaining and questioning 15 men and charging two, including Azari, for terrorism offences.

A sword was seized in Marsfield in Sydney's north-west; machetes, balaclavas, a gun and ammunition in Brisbane. .

What exactly motivated the quick-fire call for terror remains unclear, although the conversation came just days after Australia announced its commitment to send 600 military personnel and military aircraft to the Middle East to prepare to wage war on Islamic State.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/terror-raids-the-rising-fear-in-sydneys-suburbs-20140919-10jctz.html#ixzz3FVo8af6m

Didge wrote:Oh my more childishness.
I do not live by fear, where you have policies put in place is for the benefit of the people of  nation against perceived threats, whether real or not. The reality is there is a threat, what level of that threat will be different in each country, but there certainly is a threat. That is not cowardly or living in fear but placing policies to defend against if necessary where there is one. Now we can argue at the level and extent of the polices, but to say there should be no policies is not only absurd but on the realms of lunacy. If you back the view there is no threat, which clearly you do think there is a threat but that it is minimal, then it would make you cowardly also by your logic, which shows you do not think through any of your views. 
Are you Saying We didn't have police before the New Terror Laws??? You see the reason why what you wrote is Crap is that WE HAVE POLICE WE HAVE STRONGER LAWS THAN THE UK ALREADY WHY DO WE NEED NEW STRONGER ONES that are now 2 steps in front of the UK , So yes I am saying IF you already have sufficient protection(0 dead, 0 attacks on Australian soil implies that) and you are then going to surrender more freedoms for NO ADDITIONAL PROTECTION but a lot of additional Risks and potential for abuse then you are a STUPID COWARD

Nobody is saying you should shit your pants, us Brits have lived through decades of actual terrorism, that has cost many lives and yet we do not live in fear and get on daily with out lives. We do though recognise there is a threat and that measures should be put in place. I was very much against the stop ad search policy on terrorism, as I knew it would be not effective to the point nobody was every convicted out of hundreds of thousands of stop and search for an act of terrorism and that to me, intelligence is the key to thwarting any attempted attacks .
WE ALREADY HAVE HIGHER MEASURES THAN THE UK YOUR POINT IS BEYOND IRRELEVANT

So again you have not the first clue behind my view points or what I agree or disagree on, this has nothing to do with fear, but being well prepared against real threats, of which in this country, our security service has been very effective at thwarting.
NO so again you don't have a clue to the fact WE ALREADY HAD LAWS HIGHER THAN YOUR
If you continue with the immature rants, the discussion is over, as your counters are very much childish and irrational. If you want to be adult, will continue tomorrow.
I don't want to continue because you are an arrogant racist bigot OR you cannot count SIMPLE as that. AS you literally have Produced No Valid point for a single part of your argument and YOU are plain WRONG. I produce Numbers time and time again that show your statement to be FALSE and you just keep parroting it ... Bird brain.
At least Smelly Bandit had the Balls to Admit he was a racist

Goodnight

Ben_Reilly wrote:But that's just the thing -- we fear (and invest billions in fighting, and thousands of lives) stuff that has a one-in-20-million chance of killing us while not doing more to keep people from dying of something as stupid as heat.

Every year in Texas, thousands of elderly people die during heat waves because either they don't have AC, they don't have the awareness that they're becoming overheated, or (as I saw first-hand) their younger relatives who pay their bills actually tell them not to turn it on because the bill will be bigger.

If we were really all about saving lives, you'd think we'd do more to fight heart disease and heat deaths and not worry so much about something that kills less than lightning strikes do.

Instead, we have come up with a world that includes stuff like these things:



... to rain fiery death on, mostly, innocent people who happen to have last names you can't pronounce without sounding like you're clearing your throat, and worship a funny god that is nothing like our totally rational god, and that put funny things on their heads and just so happen to mostly live atop a bunch of precious oil.

Come on, man -- you really don't think we've gotten something seriously wrong along the road to where we are now?

Ben_Reilly wrote:People kill in the name of Buddhism, Hinduism and every other "ism" we've invented

Didge wrote:

Ben_Reilly wrote:People kill in the name of Buddhism, Hinduism and every other "ism" we've invented

Yes they do in Burma, that is correct, there is very real oppression of Muslims there, which the world needs to do something about, also in China, but again it goes against the doctrine of Buddhism, where again the central tenants of this faith are peace. What you are missing in Islam, is there is armed Jihad and martyrdom in its doctrine, all you need is for people, which is happening, being fed that the west and others are at war with Islam, they view then that they are defending their faith according to scriptures Ben. They are being mislead of course, but the point you are missing is that it is only a small step to make this believable and compatible with the religion, hence why some Muslims have been attracted to its cause.

Original Quill wrote:

Didge wrote:


Yes they do in Burma, that is correct, there is very real oppression of Muslims there, which the world needs to do something about, also in China, but again it goes against the doctrine of Buddhism, where again the central tenants of this faith are peace. What you are missing in Islam, is there is armed Jihad and martyrdom in its doctrine, all you need is for people, which is happening, being fed that the west and others are at war with Islam, they view then that they are defending their faith according to scriptures Ben. They are being mislead of course, but the point you are missing is that it is only a small step to make this believable and compatible with the religion, hence why some Muslims have been attracted to its cause.

That is so much bullshit, ethnocentric crap.  All religions have the metaphor of battle in their doctrine.  There is a song about Christianity...it goes: Onward, Christian soldiers, Marching as to war, With a cross of Jesus, Going on before...  That is a song about armed warfare and martyrdom, and indeed it has a reality in the Crusades.
Complete babble, so you use other religions, which I never denied others have aspects of warfare where Judaisms has the worse called herem, which is genocide, but I would love for you to show me the warfare aspects of Jainism and Buddhism?
Indeed, Christians are being misled today...into another gratuitous war by conservative elements in the West.  They are being deceived into believing that Muslims have a peculiar penchant for "Jihad and martyrdom" and that we must send our sons and daughters to be killed in a ritual sacrifice called making the world safe for freedom and democracy.  It is a small step for these conservatives to motivate the herd-like people in their communities, despite a historical reality of what they are doing being torture, rape, kidnapping and mass genocide.

Works both ways, innit?

Original Quill wrote:Do you realize that Roman Christianity is not a pacifist faith, Didge?

All of the major religions are, or have been platforms for war.

victorisnotamused wrote:it seems to have escaped your attention Quill, ben and veya...that these isil bods have control over a substantial area of the middle east, over a substantial economic area too...and are busily(and successfully) interested in increasing that area....will you eventually stop appologising and appeasing when they take jordan...or eleswher..or will you still sit there...smug on your isolated continents saying "its nothing for us to be concerned with".
Idiots

It is exactly the same attitude that has now resulted in the feral youth of today holding the attitude "i can do as i like. that has resulted in at least two generations of youth with no respect, no self respect and no discipline or self discipline. For whom education and learning is to be despised and "bein fick is good wot". For whom there is no such thing as a deterrent, where prison is a holiday camp and no matter how violent their crime the likelyhood of a severe sentence is remote....

well I should watch this decrepit (your view not mine) island carefully over the next few years....

we (by that read most people) have had a bellyfull of the liberalist progressive  crap.....
and those of us who are educated can see  a better way.....

Original Quill wrote:

victorisnotamused wrote:it seems to have escaped your attention Quill, ben and veya...that these isil bods have control over a substantial area of the middle east, over a substantial economic area too...and are busily(and successfully) interested in increasing that area....will you eventually stop appologising and appeasing when they take jordan...or eleswher..or will you still sit there...smug on your isolated continents saying "its nothing for us to be concerned with".
Idiots

It is exactly the same attitude that has now resulted in the feral youth of today holding the attitude "i can do as i like. that has resulted in at least two generations of youth with no respect, no self respect and no discipline or self discipline. For whom education and learning is to be despised and "bein fick is good wot". For whom there is no such thing as a deterrent, where prison is a holiday camp and no matter how violent their crime the likelyhood of a severe sentence is remote....

well I should watch this decrepit (your view not mine) island carefully over the next few years....

we (by that read most people) have had a bellyfull of the liberalist progressive  crap.....
and those of us who are educated can see  a better way.....

Or...maybe us liberalists have had it with your fuck-all wars that do nothing and end up in the same place you started--short a little of my money, btw.

I'm like your father: tell me where you are going before I give you the keys to the car!  Fuck ISIL, there will be another party next weekend.

victorisnotamused wrote:it seems to have escaped your attention Quill, ben and veya...that these isil bods have control over a substantial area of the middle east, over a substantial economic area too...and are busily(and successfully) interested in increasing that area....will you eventually stop appologising and appeasing when they take jordan...or eleswher..or will you still sit there...smug on your isolated continents saying "its nothing for us to be concerned with". the thing is we could do that, it is a valid option for our nations, I don't think it is the right one but not because of any impact it will have on us, more morally wrong since we over threw Saddam
Idiots

It is exactly the same attitude that has now resulted in the feral youth of today holding the attitude "i can do as i like. that has resulted in at least two generations of youth with no respect, no self respect and no discipline or self discipline. For whom education and learning is to be despised and "bein fick is good wot". For whom there is no such thing as a deterrent, where prison is a holiday camp and no matter how violent their crime the likelyhood of a severe sentence is remote.... Funny that In Australia at least ALL crime but fraud has decreased per capita EVEN though Police say the reporting is greatly improved

well I should watch this decrepit (your view not mine) island carefully over the next few years....

we (by that read most people) have had a bellyfull of the liberalist progressive  crap.....
and those of us who are educated can see  a better way.....
LOLZ fine prove it cause over the past 25 years we (and USA over 75 years at least) have thrashed the shit out of you in economic, social, trade, infrastructure investment in large part thanks to the fact that we have embraced the 'progressive crap' (your view not mine)

victorisnotamused wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

Or...maybe us liberalists have had it with your fuck-all wars that do nothing and end up in the same place you started--short a little of my money, btw.

I'm like your father: tell me where you are going before I give you the keys to the car!  Fuck ISIL, there will be another party next weekend.

untill they start bringing their nukes and bio weapons to YOU ....then we will hear a different tune......

Original Quill wrote:Your last post is as boring and repetitive as all your others. Lol.

The point is there is nothing to single out Islam as being any more violent than any other belief system.  ISIL is just a bunch of Hells Angels on the loose.  We have them in this country...they are called the KKK, among others.  You have them too.

The ISIL is no more distinctly Muslim, than the KKK is distinctly Christian.  They are just bad apples in the barrel.

veya_victaous wrote:

Macquarie University Muslim students sent someone out into the streets to hector Muslims and for once it wasn’t a Daily Telegraph reporter. Their social experiment was to perform racial taunts in public and gauge the public response as part of the Association for Islamic Awareness Week's "iSlamPhobia”.

What happened? Some took photos but most arked up in the most Australian way possible.

The gulf between Murdoch Media and regular Aussies is becoming apparent, this video makes me proud to be Aussie....

Bugger Team Australia, it’s time for Team Be A Decent Human Being And Be Respectful To Everyone No Matter Where You’re From. The team name could do with some work, but you get the idea.

Recent newspaper headlines might suggest otherwise, but a social experiment conducted by student Kamal Saleh shows that a lot of Aussies are actually pretty great.

Saleh, who studies media and law at Macquarie University, used hidden cameras to film the reactions of passers-by when they witness anti-Muslim abuse in Sydney. The responses were beautiful, as many people rushed over to confront the abuser or to usher the victims away.

Saleh has said, “We did not expect every single person that witnessed the attack to intervene. It was an overwhelming response. It reaffirmed our view of humanity”.

Saleh later posted on his Facebook, “I'm not going to lie... the lady at the end of this video almost made me cry

This social experiment was possibly one of the most eye opening experiences ever. EVERY SINGLE PERSON STOPPED and interfered. NOWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD have we seen such a response!

This video is hard proof that the Australian public do not welcome hate against Muslims. Yes it does occur. But it is clearly not welcome. ‪#‎Respect”

veya_victaous wrote:

veya_victaous wrote:


The gulf between Murdoch Media and regular Aussies is becoming apparent, this video makes me proud to be Aussie....

Update on the Video

Bugger Team Australia, it’s time for Team Be A Decent Human Being And Be Respectful To Everyone No Matter Where You’re From. The team name could do with some work, but you get the idea.

Recent newspaper headlines might suggest otherwise, but a social experiment conducted by student Kamal Saleh shows that a lot of Aussies are actually pretty great.

Saleh, who studies media and law at Macquarie University, used hidden cameras to film the reactions of passers-by when they witness anti-Muslim abuse in Sydney. The responses were beautiful, as many people rushed over to confront the abuser or to usher the victims away.

Saleh has said, “We did not expect every single person that witnessed the attack to intervene. It was an overwhelming response. It reaffirmed our view of humanity”.

Saleh later posted on his Facebook, “I'm not going to lie... the lady at the end of this video almost made me cry

This social experiment was possibly one of the most eye opening experiences ever. EVERY SINGLE PERSON STOPPED and interfered. NOWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD have we seen such a response!

This video is hard proof that the Australian public do not welcome hate against Muslims. Yes it does occur. But it is clearly not welcome. ‪#‎Respect”

In 2010, 13,186 people died in terrorist attacks worldwide, while 31,672 people were killed with firearms in America alone


Listed below are the 11 gun fatalities I found where a preschooler pulled the trigger (from Jan. 1 to June 9, 2013). Starting with a list of five toddler shooting deaths The Jewish Daily Forward published in early May, I unearthed six additional cases. This tragic, unthinkable event has happened every month, like clock-work.

Jan. 10: 6-year-old playmate shoots and kills 4-year-old Trinity Ross, Kansas City, Kan.

Feb. 11: 4-year-old Joshua Johnson shoots and kills himself, Memphis, Tenn.

Feb. 24: 4-year-old Jaiden Pratt dies after shooting himself in the stomach while his father sleeps, Houston.

March 30: 4-year-old Rahquel Carr shot and killed either by 6-year-old brother or another young playmate, Miami.

April 6: Josephine Fanning, 48, shot and killed by 4-year-old boy at a barbecue, Wilson County, Tenn.

April 8: 4-year-old shoots and kills 6-year-old friend Brandon Holt, Toms River, N.J.

April 9: 3-year-old is killed after he finds a pink gun that he thinks is a toy, Greenville, S.C.

April 30: 2-year-old Caroline Sparks killed by her 5-year-old brother with his Cricket “My First Rifle” marketed to kids, Cumberland County, Ky.

May 1: 3-year-old Darrien Nez shoots himself in the face and dies after finding his grandmother’s gun, Yuma, Ariz.

May 7: 3-year-old Jadarrius Speights fatally shoots himself with his uncle’s gun, Tampa, Fla.

June 7: 4-year-old fatally shoots his father, Green Beret Justin Thomas, Prescott Valley, Ariz.

victorisnotamused wrote:untill they start bringing their nukes and bio weapons to YOU ....then we will hear a different tune......

Baladi D wrote:

Law of Inevitability

A few years back I was working in a Bank back in Bangalore. As with most jobs in the world this was a job filled with pressures of facing customers and relentless questions. And on bad days, anyone would cop it in plenty. As a young officer, I was eager to provide the best service possible and ensure that the customer in front of me went away happy. But a few of the cases it did not happen. Sometimes it was due to my inexperience, a few times because of circumstances well beyond my control. On one such occasion, it was a saturday and it was a very busy day at the branch. Saturdays are usually the worst in a bank branch. And this was an exceptionally bad saturday. The queues had grown so long that it stretched well outside the branch. Customers were naturally irate and started shouting and groaning. I was feeling miserable sitting there in the front desk and trying very hard to control things. I always like to be in charge of things and take control of situations. And this situation was no exception. And to top it all, the system also slowed down and then completely died down. Now there was pandemonium in the branch. Customers were yelling at us and each one of the staff bearing the brunt of it. At this point there was an elderly gentleman sitting in front of me. He wanted a DD printed and I was fidgeting around the desk trying to get the system to respond to my actions. In between I looked apologetically at this gentleman and said sorry. He simply smiled. This went on for about 15 minutes. I was increasingly getting agitated. I was hoping the system would restart. The simple thought of being helpless and not being able to resolve the issue was driving me mad. At this point, the elderly gentleman asked me my name and started a conversaton. He said,

"I can see that you are extremely stressed. Why is that?"

I replied, " What to do sir, it is a very busy morning an there are so many people who are waiting for us to do our jobs and I feel I am letting them all down"

He smiled again and said "Ok. So why are you unable to help them? "

I broke from my persistent fidgeting of the system and looked at his face. It was a very benign face filled with a wonderful glow that I can't quite explain. In all sincerity I replied, " The system is down since the last 20 minutes and all transactions have ground to a halt. I feel as a banker I should be in control."

He replied " Look Balaji, I can appreciate your eagerness. I also understand your need to be in control all the time. But do you realize there are somethings that are inevitable and no amount of fretting and fidgeting will solve it?".

Yes, the Iraq War was a war for oil, and it was a war with winners: Big Oil.

It has been 10 years since Operation Iraqi Freedom's bombs first landed in Baghdad. And while most of the U.S.-led coalition forces have long since gone, Western oil companies are only getting started.

Before the 2003 invasion, Iraq's domestic oil industry was fully nationalized and closed to Western oil companies. A decade of war later, it is largely privatized and utterly dominated by foreign firms.

From ExxonMobil and Chevron to BP and Shell, the West's largest oil companies have set up shop in Iraq. So have a slew of American oil service companies, including Halliburton, the Texas-based firm Dick Cheney ran before becoming George W. Bush's running mate in 2000.

The war is the one and only reason for this long sought and newly acquired access.

Ben_Reilly wrote:

Yes, the Iraq War was a war for oil, and it was a war with winners: Big Oil.

It has been 10 years since Operation Iraqi Freedom's bombs first landed in Baghdad. And while most of the U.S.-led coalition forces have long since gone, Western oil companies are only getting started.

Before the 2003 invasion, Iraq's domestic oil industry was fully nationalized and closed to Western oil companies. A decade of war later, it is largely privatized and utterly dominated by foreign firms.

From ExxonMobil and Chevron to BP and Shell, the West's largest oil companies have set up shop in Iraq. So have a slew of American oil service companies, including Halliburton, the Texas-based firm Dick Cheney ran before becoming George W. Bush's running mate in 2000.

The war is the one and only reason for this long sought and newly acquired access.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/19/opinion/iraq-war-oil-juhasz/

Didge, sounds like you've got some studying to do. I'm actually biting my tongue a bit; let me just ask that we keep this debate civil, please.

Updated Nov. 28, 2013 1:48 p.m. ET
Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM -2.92%  agreed to sell stakes in its West Qurna-1 oil project in Iraq to PetroChina Co. 601857.SH +0.38%  and PT Pertamina (Persero) of Indonesia.

Exxon said Thursday that PetroChina would take a 25% stake in the project and Pertamina would take a 10% stake. The West Qurna-1 field is located near Basra in southern Iraq. It is one of several big fields that Western oil companies agreed in 2010 to help Iraq develop.

After selling the stakes, Exxon will retain 25% of the field and continue as its operator. The rest of the field is owned by Royal Dutch Shell RDSB.LN -2.07%  PLC and Iraq's state-owned South Oil Co.

The auction’s outcome helped defuse criticism in the Arab world that the United States had invaded Iraq for its oil. “No one, even the United States, can steal the oil,” the Iraqi government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said at the time.

But American companies can, apparently, drill for the oil.

In fact, American drilling companies stand to make tens of billions of dollars from the new petroleum activity in Iraq long before any of the oil producers start seeing any returns on their investments.

Lukoil and many of the other international oil companies that won fields in the auction are now subcontracting mostly with the four largely American oil services companies that are global leaders in their field: Halliburton, Baker Hughes, Weatherford International and Schlumberger. Those four have won the largest portion of the subcontracts to drill for oil, build wells and refurbish old equipment.

In 2000, Big Oil, including Exxon, Chevron, BP and Shell, spent more money to get fellow oilmen Bush and Cheney into office than they had spent on any previous election. Just over a week into Bush's first term, their efforts paid off when the National Energy Policy Development Group, chaired by Cheney, was formed, bringing the administration and the oil companies together to plot our collective energy future. In March, the task force reviewed lists and maps outlining Iraq's entire oil productive capacity.

Planning for a military invasion was soon under way. Bush's first Treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill, said in 2004, "Already by February (2001), the talk was mostly about logistics. Not the why (to invade Iraq), but the how and how quickly."
In its final report in May 2001 (PDF), the task force argued that Middle Eastern countries should be urged "to open up areas of their energy sectors to foreign investment." This is precisely what has been achieved in Iraq.

The tragic misunderstanding is that we in the West don't, for the most part, really butcher their people because of their religion, but because they happen to be standing on top of the oil reserves we want ...

And what happened at President Bush's very first National Security Council meeting is one of (former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul) O'Neill's most startling revelations.

"From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," says O'Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic "A" 10 days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11.

"From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime," says Suskind. "Day one, these things were laid and sealed."

As treasury secretary, O'Neill was a permanent member of the National Security Council. He says in the book he was surprised at the meeting that questions such as "Why Saddam?" and "Why now?" were never asked.

"It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying 'Go find me a way to do this,'" says O'Neill. "For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the U.S. has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap."

And that came up at this first meeting, says O'Neill, who adds that the discussion of Iraq continued at the next National Security Council meeting two days later.

He got briefing materials under this cover sheet. "There are memos. One of them marked, secret, says, 'Plan for post-Saddam Iraq,'" adds Suskind, who says that they discussed an occupation of Iraq in January and February of 2001.

Based on his interviews with O'Neill and several other officials at the meetings, Suskind writes that the planning envisioned peacekeeping troops, war crimes tribunals, and even divvying up Iraq's oil wealth.

He obtained one Pentagon document, dated March 5, 2001, and entitled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield contracts," which includes a map of potential areas for exploration.

Review policies toward Iraq with the aim to lowering anti-Americanism in the Middle East and elsewhere, and set the groundwork to eventually ease Iraqi oil-field investment restrictions. Iraq remains a destabilizing influence to U.S. allies in the Middle East, as well as to regional and global order, and to the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East. Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export program to manipulate oil markets. This would display his personal power, enhance his image as a "Pan Arab" leader supporting the Palestinians against Israel, and pressure others for a lifting of economic sanctions against his regime.
The United States should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq, including military, energy, economic, and political/diplomatic assessments. The United States should then develop an integrated strategy with key allies in Europe and Asia and with key countries in the Middle East to restate the goals with respect to Iraqi policy and to restore a cohesive coalition of key allies. Goals should be designed in a realistic fashion, and they should be clearly and consistently stated and defended to revive U.S. credibility on this issue. Actions and policies to promote these goals should endeavor to enhance the well-being of the Iraqi people. Sanctions that are not effective should be phased out and replaced with highly focused and enforced sanctions that target the regime’s ability to maintain and acquire weapons of mass destruction. A new plan of action should be developed to use diplomatic and other means to support U.N. Security Council efforts to build a strong arms-control regime to stem the flow of arms and controlled substances into Iraq. Policy should rebuild coalition cooperation on this issue, while emphasizing the common interest in security. This issue of arms sales to Iraq should be brought near the top of the agenda for dialogue with China and Russia.

Once an arms-control program is in place, the United States could consider reducing restrictions on oil investments inside Iraq. Like it or not, Iraqi reserves represent a major asset that can quickly add capacity to world oil markets and inject a more competitive tenor to oil trade. However, such a policy will be quite costly as this trade-off will encourage Saddam Hussein to boast of his "victory" against the United States, fuel his ambitions, and potentially strengthen his regime. Once so encouraged and if his access to oil revenues were to be increased by adjustments in oil sanctions, Saddam Hussein could be a greater security threat to U.S. allies in the region if weapons of mass destruction (WMD) sanctions, weapons regimes, and the coalition against him are not strengthened. Still, the maintenance of continued oil sanctions is becoming increasingly difficult to implement. Moreover, Saddam Hussein has many means of gaining revenues, and the sanctions regime helps perpetuate his lock on the country’s economy.

Another problem with easing restrictions on the Iraqi oil industry to allow greater investment is that GCC allies of the United States will not like to see Iraq gain larger market share in international oil markets. In fact, even Russia could lose from having sanctions eased on Iraq, because Russian companies now benefit from exclusive contracts and Iraqi export capacity is restrained, supporting the price of oil and raising the value of Russian oil exports. If sanctions covering Iraq’s oil sector were eased and Iraq benefited from infrastructure improvements, Russia might lose its competitive position inside Iraq, and also oil prices might fall over time, hurting the Russian economy. These issues will have to be discussed in bilateral exchanges.

From: Report of an Independent Task Force
Sponsored by the
James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy of Rice University
and the
Council on Foreign Relations

Throughout the lead-up to the war and well past the fall of Baghdad, oil was the great unmentionable.

But now Bush himself is mentioning it.

At his press conference on Wednesday, he brought up the dirty little word three times as a reason for the United States now to stay in Iraq.

“We can’t tolerate a new terrorist state in the heart of the Middle East, with large oil reserves that could be used to fund its radical ambitions, or used to inflict economic damage on the West,” he said the first time.

“Extreme elements” in Iraq “want to control oil resources,” he said at second reference.

“They’ve got the capacity to use oil as an economic weapon,” he said the third time.

I'd already had in my hands a 101-page document, another State Department secret scheme, first uncovered by Wall Street Journal reporter Neil King, that called for the privatization, the complete sell-off of every single government-owned asset and industry. And in case anyone missed the point, the sales would include every derrick, pipe and barrel of oil, or, as the document put it, "especially the oil".

That plan was created by a gaggle of corporate lobbyists and neo-cons working for the Heritage Foundation. In 2004, the plan's authenticity was confirmed by Washington power player Grover Norquist. (It's hard to erase the ill memory of Grover excitedly waving around his soft little hands as he boasted about turning Iraq into a free-market Disneyland, recreating Chile in Mesopotamia, complete with the Pinochet-style dictatorship necessary to lock up the assets – while behind Norquist, Richard Nixon snarled at me from a gargantuan portrait.)

The neo-con idea was to break up and sell off Iraq's oil fields, ramp up production, flood the world oil market – and thereby smash OPEC and with it, the political dominance of Saudi Arabia.

General Jay Garner also confirmed the plan to grab the oil. Indeed, Garner told me that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld fired him, when the General, who had lived in Iraq, complained the neo-con grab would set off a civil war. It did. Nevertheless, Rumsfeld replaced Garner with a new American viceroy, Paul Bremer, a partner in Henry Kissinger's firm, to complete the corporate takeover of Iraq's assets – "especially the oil".

But that was not to be. While Bremer oversaw the wall-to-wall transfer of Iraqi industries to foreign corporations, he was stopped cold at the edge of the oil fields.

How? I knew there was only one man who could swat away the entire neo-con army: James Baker, former Secretary of State, Bush family consiglieri and most important, counsel to Exxon-Mobil Corporation and the House of Saud.

(One unwitting source was industry oil-trading maven Edward Morse of Lehman/Credit Suisse, who threatened to sue Harper's Magazine for my quoting him. Morse denied I ever spoke with him. But when I played the tape from my hidden recorder, his memory cleared and he scampered away.)

Weirdly, I was uncovering that the US oil industry was using its full political mojo to prevent their being handed ownership of Iraq's oil fields. That's right: The oil companies did NOT want to own the oil fields – and they sure as hell did not want the oil. Just the opposite. They wanted to make sure there would be a limit on the amount of oil that would come out of Iraq.

There was no way in hell that Baker's clients, from Exxon to Abdullah, were going to let a gaggle of neo-con freaks smash up Iraq's oil industry, break OPEC production quotas, flood the market with six million barrels of Iraqi oil a day and thereby knock its price back down to $13 a barrel where it was in 1998.