Bottom line is gasoline

The Most Important FTW Story in Two Years...

IN YOUR FACE

- Connections between Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force,
9/11
and
Peak Oil �On the Table�

- July '04 Supreme Court Ruling on Secrecy,
Task Force
Documents Obtained through FOIA Suit on Collision
Course as
Cheney �Duck
Hunts� with Scalia

- The Reason Why Activists of All Stripes are
Ineffective

by

Michael C. Ruppert

�The Cheney report is very guarded about the amount
of foreign oil that will be required. The only
clue provided by the [public] report is a chart of
net US oil consumption and production over
time. According to this illustration, domestic oil
field production will decline from about 8.5
million barrels per day (mbd) in 2002 to 7.0 mbd in
2020, while consumption will jump from
19.5 mbd to 25.5 mbd. That suggests imports or other
sources of petroleum� will have to rise
from 11 mbd to 18.5 mbd. Most of the recommendations
of the NEP [National Energy Policy, May
2001] are aimed at procuring this 7.5 mbd increment,
equivalent to the total oil consumed by
China and India .

-- Professor Michael Klare

�Bush-Cheney Energy Strategy: Procuring the Rest of the World's Oil�

Foreign Policy in Focus, January 2004

The White House Stonewall goes on, as the Bush
administration continues to deny the
non-partisan General Accounting Office's request for
information on who the White House
Energy Task Force met with while formulating
national energy policy. For the first time in history,
the GAO has sued the executive branch for access to
the records. It has been 42 days since the
GAO filed their suit against the Bush administration
and 333 days since the White House first
received the GAO request. Why is the White House
going to such lengths? What are they trying
to hide?

Truthout, www.truthout.org

�White House Stonewall�

April 5, 2002

�The Supreme Court said Monday it will settle a
fight over whether Vice President Dick Cheney
must disclose details about secret contacts with
energy industry officials as the Bush
administration drafted its energy policy�

�The Supreme Court will hear the case sometime in
the spring, with a ruling expected by July.�

-- The Associated Press, Dec. 15, 2003

�Bush and Blair have been making plans for the day
when oil production peaks, by seeking to
secure the reserves of other nations.�

-- George Monbiot

�Bottom of the Barrel�

The Guardian, December 2, 2003

� China and India are building superhighways and
automobile factories. Energy demand is
expected to rise by about 50 per cent over the next
20 years, with about 40 per cent of that
demand to be supplied by petroleum�

�Oil supplies are finite and will soon be controlled
by a handful of nations; the invasion of Iraq
and control of its supplies will do little to change
that. One can only hope that an informed
electorate and its principled representatives will
realize that the facts do matter, and that nature ?
not military might ? will soon dictate the ultimate
availability of petroleum.�

-- Alfred Cavallo

Oil: The illusion of plenty

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Jan-Feb 2004

The 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use
force to secure its global domination�

The plan [�Rebuilding America's Defenses�, Project
for a New American Century ? 2000] shows
Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of
the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein
was in power�

The overriding motivation for this political
smokescreen is that the US and the UK are
beginning to run out of secure hydrocarbon energy
supplies� As demand is increasing, so
supply is decreasing, continually since the 1960s.

-- Michael Meacher MP, UK Environment Minister 1997-2003

�The War on Terrorism is Bogus�

The Guardian, September 6, 2003

"Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly
multi-cultural society, it may find it more
difficult to fashion a consensus on
foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly

massive and widely perceived direct external threat."

-- Zbigniew Brzezinski

The Grand Chessboard, p211 (1997)

(Brought to world attention after 9/11 by FTW on Nov. 7, 2001 )

January 29, 2004 1700 PST ( FTW ) ? Nothing can change the
facts.

When, in May 2001, the conservative legal watchdog group
Judicial Watch filed suit to see the records of Dick
Cheney's National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG), it
was the first to protest the unheard of secrecy
at the energy task force. As the White House stonewalled, the
Government Accounting Office (GAO) filed suit
the following February. Congress had, after all, funded the
project. Non-governmental officials had played major
roles in its deliberations and, under the Constitution, the
GAO had an obligation to see how the money was
spent and what was produced. White House refusals prompted
media speculation about deals with Enron and
big oil companies; a divvying of spoils, a rape of the
environment. Judicial Watch was later joined in its suit by
the Sierra Club. A scandal for everyone!

It's a sure bet that of all the plaintiffs; from Congressman
Henry Waxman (D ? CA) and Comptroller General
David Walker who fought for the GAO; to Judicial Watch's Larry
Klayman, who had previously fought Bill Clinton;
to the environmentalists, none had a clue as to what they were
really asking for or why Dick Cheney fought
them so ruthlessly.

The fight was just beginning.

As reported in the congressional newspaper The Hill on
February 19, 2003, the GAO dropped its suit after the
administration made threats of heavy cuts to its budget. The
offer GAO couldn't refuse was delivered by Alaska
's Republican Senator Ted Stevens where a lot of new drilling
was expected to take place. Judicial Watch and the
Sierra Club stood firm. Both had the money to see their suits
through.

The controversy boiled throughout 2001-2002. It was a crisis
which ? absent the war on terror ? might have
been one of the biggest constitutional crises of all time. It
might still be.

Enron seems like a pleasant diversion now. All these battles
started before the first plane hit the Twin Towers .
That's one reason why everyone was so shocked at the blatantly
illegal secrecy and the manner in which the
administration fought. This was long before The Patriot Act,
Homeland Security, Patriot Act II, and all the
scandalous lies that have since been revealed. One of the
administration's bets was that, in the wake of 9/11,
the NEPDG records would be forgotten.

They lost that one.

Hints as to what was discussed in the secret task force ?
empanelled immediately after Bush took office in
January 2001 ? are now on the table. They strongly suggest
that inside the NEPDG records lay the deepest,
darkest secrets of 9-11. The motive; the apocalyptic truth
that would compel such carnage and hairpin the
course of human history; the thing that no one ever wanted to
know; the thing that makes it utterly believable
that the US government could have deliberately facilitated the
attacks of September 11th, stands on the brink
of full disclosure.

The likelihood that those truths might soon be revealed is
serious enough that two weeks ago Dick Cheney
found it convenient to go duck hunting with Justice Antonin
Scalia who will hear arguments in the case this
spring.

Nature laughs as pundits spin and concerned peoples around the
world frantically and frenetically expend futile,
disorganized energies against the juggernaut of tyranny and
madness: elect a Democrat (any Democrat);
impeach Bush; write a check to support an activist group;
place an ad; stage a protest march; vote; don't vote;
file a suit; file another suit; demand that the major media
tell the truth, as long as it's the truth you want to
hear; blame political ideology; blame a religion; blame a
race; blame Capitalism; blame Communism; fight each
other to release your frustrations and fears. That will make
it better. Do anything but accept the obvious reality
that for the US government to have facilitated and
orchestrated the attacks of 9/11, something really, really bad
must be going on.

There are so many inconsistencies, proven lies, conflicts of
interest, and contradictions in the Bush
administration's accounts of 9/11 that the sheer multitude of
them ? in a rational world ? would have brought
the government to a halt long ago. But this is not a rational
world.

It is full of people ? on both sides ? who are not behaving
rationally.

A
SEVEN-PAGE GLIMPSE UNDER THE DOOR

Last July, after appealing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
request for NEPDG documents, Judicial Watch
won a small victory with the release of seven pages of NEPDG
documents.

They included:

� A detailed map of all Iraqi oil fields (11% of world
supply);

� A two-page specific list of all nations with development
contracts for Iraqi oil and gas projects and the
companies involved;

� A detailed map of all Saudi Arabian oil fields (25% of
world supply);

� A list of all major oil and gas development projects in
Saudi Arabia ;

� A detailed map of all the oil fields in the United Arab
Emirates (8% of world supply);

� A list of all oil and gas development projects in the UAE;

The documents may be viewed online at:
http://www.judicialwatch.org/071703.c_.shtml .

In their austerity, the documents scream of what NEPDG was
debating. If 7.5 mbd of new oil production was to
be secured from any place there was only one place to get it ?
the Persian Gulf . All told, including Qatar (firmly
under US control and the home of headquarters for US Central
Command) and Iran, the Gulf is home to 60% of
all the recoverable oil on the planet. Not only would these
oil fields have to be controlled, billions of dollars in new
investment would be required to boost production to meet US
needs, simultaneously denying that same
production to the rest of the world where demand is also
soaring.

Klare wrote:

According to the Department of Energy, Saudi Arabia
's net petroleum output must grow
by 133% over the next 25 years, from 10.2 mbd in
2001 to 23.8 mbd in 2025, in order to meet
anticipated world requirements at the end of that
period. Expanding Saudi capacity by 13.6 mbd,
which is the equivalent of total current production
by the United States and Mexico, will
cost hundreds of billions of dollars� The Cheney
report calls for exactly that. However, any effort
by Washington to apply pressure on Riyadh is likely
to meet significant resistance from the
royal family�

Not to mention from Muslim fundamentalists and ordinary Saudi
citizens who oppose the corrupt and teetering
regime.

Sixty per cent of all the recoverable oil on the
planet is in an area no larger than

the state of Indiana

Herein lays the motive behind the US 's eagerness to quietly
and wrongly implicate the Saudi government in
9/11. A closer look at the maps obtained by Judicial Watch
explains why. When placed side by side the maps
reveal that 60% of the world's recoverable oil is in a
�golden� triangle running from Mosul in northern Iraq, to
the Straits of Hormuz, to an oil field in Saudi Arabia 75
miles in from the coast, just west of Qatar, then back up
to Mosul. Sixty per cent of all the recoverable oil on the
planet is an in area no larger than the state of Indiana .

Is it surprising then that the overwhelming majority of US
military deployment since 9/11 is in this region? How
easy would it be for the US military, already surrounding it,
to occupy this area in the event that the Saudi
monarchy became unstable?

The list of countries and companies already invested in new
development projects in the region reads like the
perfect answer to the question: �OK, who do we have to deal
with to get this done? Who will come with us if we
offer them a piece and who will refuse, no matter what,
because they can't afford to have their share reduced?�
Look at the documents and answer that question and you have
perfectly separated the investor nations into
two camps; those who supported the Iraqi invasion and those
who opposed it.

The simple fact, as described in the opening quote from
Michael Klare, is that to secure imports equivalent to the
amounts consumed by China and India means taking that oil away
from China and India, or some other mix of
countries. The question is, from whom?

Other global battles for the oil that remains have already
begun, albeit quietly for the time being. This year China
will pass Japan as the world's second largest oil importer. A
January 3 article by James Brooke in the New York
Times titled Japan and China Battle for Russia's Oil and Gas,
described the fierce high-stakes contest
underway. Russia is going to build only one pipeline east from
its Siberian fields. It is either going to terminate in
the middle of China, or on Russia 's Pacific coast where it
can supply Japan, Korea and the Philippines. Brooke
wrote, �With the choice Russia faces, the political and
economic dynamics of Northeast Asia stand to be
profoundly shaped for years to come.�

No kidding.

Russia has 60 billion barrels (Gb) of proven reserves, a
690-day supply for planet earth and there are no more
significant quantities of oil to be discovered anywhere inside
or outside of Russia . World oil discovery peaked in
the 1960s and has been declining ever since. The human race
now uses four barrels of oil for every barrel found
and the gap is widening each year. What remains to be
discovered is gong to be of a lesser quality, much more
expensive to obtain, and more expensive to refine.

WEST AFRICA,
LATIN AMERICA, SOUTHEAST ASIA

The public NEPDG report also addresses (in oblique fashion)
areas of the world which have increasingly become
inflamed since 9/11: West Africa, South America, and Southeast
Asia . For more than two years FTW has paid
close attention to a shift in US and NATO military presence in
West Africa, Venezuela, Colombia, the Philippines
and Indonesia . (Please see:
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/index.html#oil )

Of particular interest here are the facts that on May 1 2003,
through the CIA 's Voice of America, NATO
commander James Jones announced that NATO was shifting its
focus to West Africa; new US naval bases are
being negotiated in the tiny West African island nations of
Sao Tome and Principe (Klare); and that the US gave
six naval warships to Nigeria last summer (Reuters, CNN).
Isn't it convenient that a US-friendly coup toppled the
Sao Tome government last July? (source: CNN)

As detailed by Klare, the importance of these regions is that
while they contain far smaller reserves than the
Gulf, they can be brought online (and drained) quickly to meet
current demand without destabilizing the US
(world) economy. The tens and perhaps hundreds of billions of
dollars needed to invest in infrastructure to
increase production in the Gulf will come only when oil prices
have soared enough to provide that capital. Don't
expect Wall Street to drain their reserves. They aren't going
to pay for it. You are.

Make no mistake, the oil companies and Wall Street are banking
on severe oil price spikes to fund this
short-lived development and, almost as importantly, to reduce
consumption on an ad hoc basis as people find
they can't afford five or six-dollar gasoline and businesses
shut down. The world uses a billion barrels of oil
every eleven and one half days and the rate of consumption is
growing. There are, at best, 500-600 billion
barrels in the Gulf, which can only be pumped if the
investment is made over the next ten years and begun
immediately.

Do the math.

The vaunted �proven reserve� numbers touted by economists have
been shown to be as questionable as
Enron's bookkeeping. FTW documented in April of 2002 that the
US Geological Survey admits that it estimates
reserves as a function of demand . On January 9th 2004 Royal
Dutch Shell announced that it had overstated
its proven reserves by 20 per cent. The markets reacted
accordingly.

When will the price spikes come? Within six months to a year
of the 2004 election. Not ? if George W. Bush can
prevent it ? before then.

FTW has spent 27 months exploring and educating people about
all the nuances involved in a world that is
running out of hydrocarbon energy. We have looked at its
effects on transportation, electricity, economic
growth and contraction, political power, civilization and ?
perhaps most importantly ? food production. The
coming showdown over the NEPDG records is probably the single
most important battle that can be fought to
learn the truth of 9/11 and the one overriding mandate that is
now driving human history.

I am not optimistic about the outcome.

WHY ACTIVISTS FAIL

There are two reasons why activist efforts to halt the inertia
of the Empire have failed and will continue to fail:
human nature, and human nature.

Activists all over the political spectrum are flailing about
in the post-9/11 world, spinning wheels, and throwing
out idea after idea without a unifying principle or a clearly
stated goal. As has happened so many times before
with the victims of a dozen other instances of government
criminality, the new victims ? like the New Jersey
widows of 9/11 who are known for their persistence in
challenging government lies ? make mistakes that have
been made before, put their faith in strategies that have been
tried before, and discount the wisdom and
experience of those who have suffered before. Human nature
says that it is wrong to criticize victims. Yet the
new ones make a habit of ignoring the old ones, only to be
replaced and forgotten when the next, inevitably
greater, crime takes place.

Each time a new tragedy strikes, whether it be 9/11, TWA 800
(a Navy shootdown), CIA involvement in drug
trafficking, Iran-Contra, Waco, The Savings and Loan Scandal,
the Enron shareholders, the Gander crash, or
any of a dozen other events in recent history, a new crop of
people is instantly and brutally transformed from
people who once trusted the system into people who have been
betrayed by it. Psychologically and emotionally
raped, they rage. They vow to fight. The need to make the
system that failed them work as they were �taught�
becomes a new imperative for their sanity and emotional
stability. They must believe that they can make people
listen to them, that they can �fix� it.

When, therefore, others who have been brutalized before them
present themselves with valuable experience and
try to explain the lay of the land, the new victims are faced
with the awful responsibility of acknowledging that
they themselves had not listened or responded when their
predecessors cried out for help. They had been just
as quick to say �I'm too busy� or �That's a bunch of b.s. It
couldn't be that way.� Yet it is. The new victims had
once been as deaf as the rest of the world now appears to
them. Still they clutch at straws and cling to the
illusion that �this time it will be different�. For their own
sanity they must ignore the reality of the people who
came before them, when to listen and learn might provide a
unifying, if terrifying, focus that might ensure
success. All it takes is courage and a good map .

THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR

But there is a deeper part of human nature which covers the
planet in a sickly, light-sweet-crude blanket of
denial. It is best exemplified from the closing lines of
Sidney Pollack's 1975 Three Days of the Condor,
perhaps the best spy movie ever made. As FTW has shown in
recent stories ? using declassified CIA
documents ? the CIA was well aware of Peak Oil in the mid
1970s. Three Days of the Condor took that awful
truth and said then, what few in the post-9/11 world have had
the courage to say. I can guarantee you that it is
the overriding rationale in Dick Cheney's mind, in the mind of
every senior member of the Bush administration,
and in the mind of whomever it is that will be chosen as the
2004 Democratic Party nominee. Getting rid of Bush
will not address the underlying causative factors of energy
and money and any solution that does not address
those issues will prove futile.

Turner (Robert Redford): "Do we have plans to invade the
Middle East ?"

Higgins (Cliff Robertson): " Are you crazy?"

Turner: " Am I?"

Higgins: "Look, Turner�"

Turner: "Do we have plans?"

Higgins: "No. Absolutely not. We have games. That's all. We
play games. What if? How many men? What would
it take? Is there a cheaper way to destabilize a r�gime?
That's what we're paid to do."

Turner: "Go on. So Atwood just took the game too seriously. He
was really going to do it, wasn't he?�

Higgins: "It was a renegade operation. Atwood knew 54-12 would
never authorize it. There was no way, not
with the heat on the Company.�

Turner: "What if there hadn't been any heat? Supposing I
hadn't stumbled on a plan? Say nobody had?"

Higgins: "Different ball game. The fact is there was nothing
wrong with the plan. Oh, the plan was alright. The
plan would have worked."

Turner: "Boy, what is it with you people? You think not
getting caught in a lie is the same thing as telling the
truth?"

Higgins: "No. It's simple economics. Today it's oil, right? In
10 or 15 years - food, Plutonium. And maybe even
sooner. Now what do you think the people are gonna want us to
do then?

Turner : " Ask them."

Higgins: "Not now - then. Ask them when they're running out.
Ask them when there's no heat in their homes
and they're cold. Ask them when their engines stop. Ask them
when people who've never known hunger start
going hungry. Do you want to know something? They won't want
us to ask them. They'll just want us to get it
for them."

What do you want?

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-- -Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
http://www.anaphoria.com
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