Asymmetrical Information

While I will readily admit that I could not possibly answer the question satisfactorily, I can say with absolute confidence that the "Laut" could not either.

A left-wing friend concedes that demand from China and India is driving the price of oil up.
However, he believes there is still a premium of at least $10 to $20 barrel due to the War on Terrorism. Therefore, it is reasonable to believe - if one believes in conspiracies - that oil execs encouraged GWB to stir up trouble in the Middle East in order to secure that premium for them and their friends who bought up massive amounts of low-priced futures before the attack on Iraq. How does one disprove such conspiracy theories (or any others for that matter)?

You mean that as a journalist you are not the least bit curious as to why the oil executives felt the need to deny or obfuscate that they had met and worked with Cheney's task force?

What the Democrats need is for Stanley Kurtz to run a statistical analysis to prove that Cheney meeting with oil executives led inexorably to the doubling of gasoline prices.

Realizing that this may label me as a left wing\kook\moon-bat conspiracy nut-job, as a left of center type I fully concede that the people involved in the Energy task force could not have really done anything to increase prices of petroleum products short of taking refining capacity off line.

Indeed the whole point of the task force, I assume, would have been to figure out how to secure more oil supply. While I don’t know, I would bet that a lot of the discussion would have focused on getting the federal government to provide profit guarantees and to lesser extent direct government subsidies to the oil industry (which were both included in the energy bill that is now up in the air).

But one thing that has not been reported on very much is the recommendations of the CFR Energy Report to the Energy task force which was put together by James Baker III. In that report which was submitted to the task force in early 2001, the recommendation concerning Iraq was for the US to reimpose an inspections regime on Iraq with the explicit goal of getting the sanctions dropped so that investment in the Iraqi oil infrastructure could commence and production in that country could be ratcheted up to pre gulf war levels.

Here is a PDF of the report:
http://www.rice.edu/energy/publications/docs/TaskForceReport_StrategicEnergyPolicyUpdate.pdf

I have wondered aloud if this proposal was actually going to be adopted as policy given the fact that at the time there was no real way the administration could have justified invading Iraq. Of course this is all just speculation on my part, but if this was true it would be not just embarrassing for the administration, it would show that the all the talk of Mushroom clouds and WMDs was a covenant rationalization for what the administration really wanted, the free flow of oil at market prices coming out of Iraq (I say convenient because I personally feel that a world without Saddam can’t be any worse off in the long run).

Now if we assume for the moment that this is true, then these two statements (in light of the Recommendations in Bakers report) make sense as foreshadows of a plan to “market” the notion of dropping the sanctions in Iraq (the latter quote being from an article in Foreign Policy magazine where Rice gives a spirited defense of notion that Saddam is no longer a threat).

“[Saddam] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors.”
Colin Powell – February 2001

“We are able to keep arms from [Saddam]. His military forces have not been rebuilt.” Condoleezza Rice – July 2001

When 9/11 hit there was no more need for pussy footing around, and yes while all of this is wild ass speculation , this is the only scenario I can think of where the Rice and Powell quotes make any sense give the Bush administrations assertion that they always believed Saddam Hussein to be a maniacal threat. So that is why I am curious to find out more about the Energy Task force meeting and frankly we all should because it seems to me that there aren’t too many reasons why a policy meeting like this should be conducted behind closed doors, I didn’t like it when Hillary had her Health Care meetings behind closed doors and I didn’t like it what Cheney was pulled the same stunt.

Anyway something for you all to chew on.

BTW the link I provided is a post 9/11 "update" that drops any mention of getting the sanctions dropped, I have tried to find the original on line but it seems to have gone missing (imagine that) If anyone is interested I have a PDF of the original.

4.) Perhaps the most important accusation made by Senator Lautenberg is that the statements by the oil company executives before the Senate committee were misleading. Describe some of the economic harm that can result when someone in a position of power makes statements that could result in a misunderstanding of the facts by the American public.

I refer you to the S.O.T.U.A in the run-up to the Iraqi war where Bush claimed that the UK had intelligence that Saddam had tried to buy Yellow-cake from Niger (even though our intelligence had already debunked this idea). $200 Billion Dollars later should we ask ourselves whether misleading the American people can have economic ramifications?

Apparently the answer to all those questions is "Bush lied about Iraq!"

Perhaps they could get a stamp made to save on all the writing.

slovack@pacatech.com

flandersdrivesaredgeometro.00pro.com

Kate, where did you get this S.O.T.U.A. with the words "Niger" and "yellowcake" in it? I've never found one like that.

rdm:

for myself and many other people, the acceptable balance of risk changed rather drastically one day in september 2001. taking that action, along with the surprises coming out of India, Pakistan, and North Korea, intelligence that suggested little threat from a monomaniacal strong man who wanted to control the region could no longer be relied upon. hence why people who in early 2001 could take evidence that seemed to indicate no threat from Iraq and in early 2002 see it as a gathering storm.

Further, Saddam's own actions in late 2001 early 2002 made him appear to be exceptionally dangerous and unhinged. Most people, seeing a long time enemy riled up and willing to go after anything that looks at them crosseyed, will very obviously be no threat and stay the heck out of the way. Only someone who wants a fight and is sure they can win will provoke someone is such a state. As we have later learned, Saddam was completely looney tunes (no bounded rationality) and was likely being lied to by his advisors (most people, when running a bluff that is about to be called by an opponent, and where said calling of the bluff involves a rather intense effort by the world's superpower to kill them and their entire family, will fold. Saddam didn't, leading to the rather obvious conclusion that he didn't know he was bluffing.)

As for a "war for oil"... it's the absolute dumbest thing in the history of the world. Getting the inspections off the table should have cost nothing, inaction being cheap, but this being diplomacy and politics, and involving the French, should have cost no more than several Billion dollars. Conquering the country to improve oil production, where oil facilities would have been our first target and where the ruler had previously destroyed the oil facilities of Kuwait, is so obviously a non-paying proposition that you have to be of Juan Cole levels of anti-Semitism to believe it. Also, as is obvious now, and is obvious to anyone casually considering the problem, sabotaging an oil pipeline is one of the easiest guerilla actions. You don't need much of an insurrection to cause problems with an oil pipeline.

So, RDM, you're way out in left field, and if you actually hold this belief, are completely unreachable by logic and discussion.

Kate:

Long time communist ghost of this site, as well as a friend of the proprietors... oy vey. As you should know, Bush never said "Yellow cake from Niger". He said that Iraq had attempted to procure it from Africa. There's a rather significant difference. As well, the Brits have said that they had a completely different source, concerning a different country, and that it still holds up. But you still believe that Ted Kennedy is an honourable man who did what he could on that bridge so many years ago, and that JfingK is a brilliant man stampeded into voting for war by a drooling moron/maniacal evil genius.

OK..... you should up the dosage on your meds

Since people seem to want to discuss the SOTU...

He said that Iraq had attempted to procure it from Africa. There's a rather significant difference.

Not at all. There are only three countries on the whole continent that export uranium oxide: South Africa, Namibia, and Niger. Gabon used to, but they depleted their supplies in 1999. South Africa is not a country that is under suspicion for this kind of thing, which leaves only Namibia. If there is any information out there that Namibia might have been supplying material to Saddam Hussein, or even any suspicion, no one's mentioned it.

So Bush's allegation was significantly specific in terms of the countries that may have been involved. The difference being that few Americans listening to the speech would have heard of "Nee-ZHAIR" but we all know what Africa is.

hey,

I'm in complete agreement with you on all your points, but I really wish you had been a little more polite to both the posters you were responding to.

In both cases what they posted was, if wrong, at least well written and polite.

We often talk about how we want to reduce the rancor in politics. I think the best way each of us can start is by not escalating language in our own debates.

"Hey", what country do the Brits blame? Can you give us more information?

Here's my source of information:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2278019.stm

From that source, "The Namibian output comes from the Rossing mine, run by the Rossing Corporation, whose majority shareholder is the British mining company Rio Tinto." Do the British believe that a company controlled by British interests supplied the yellowcake? Astonishing, if so.

Kate: "Bush claimed that the UK had intelligence that Saddam had tried to buy Yellow-cake from Niger (even though our intelligence had already debunked this idea)."

Had our intelligence debunked this idea? Funny. I seem to recall that our analysts concluded that Iraq HAD tried to acquire uranium from Niger. (Even Joe Wilson's trip to Niger supported this conclusion -- recall the former P.M. of Niger told Wilson that Iraq had sent a trade delegation to Niger and that it was Niger's opinion that the purpose of the delegation was to buy uranium.) Some of our analysts also concluded that it was unlikely that Niger would sell uranium to Iraq.

Of course, Bush never claimed that Iraq HAD bought uranium from Africa. He claimed that the U.K. believed that Iraq was TRYING to do so. Bush's point: Iraq was trying to build its nuclear capacity and we could not allow them to keep trying. Where, exactly, is the part of this that was misleading?

Seconding David Walser (came in too late): The claim wasn't that Iraq had gotten uranium, but that it had tried to.

Back to the issue of energy executives helping to develop energy policy - sometimes, shouldn't you ask the people who know what they're talking about? I understand that limits must be placed on possible conflicts of interest, but if someone in my family needs legal advice, I'll ask a lawyer. If I need to decide how to provide a stable energy supply to 300m people, I'll ask someone who has some demonstrated expertise in the area.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2278019.stm

"Africa produces about 20% of the world's uranium. Four African countries have exported uranium in recent years - Niger, Namibia, South Africa and Gabon.

Other countries - Zambia, Central African Republic and Botswana - are believed to have exploitable deposits."

What do Uranium, yellow cake, Niger or Africa have to do with the questions posed? Tyical partisan bickering - it just turns into semantic arguments about something that has little to do with anything.

Oh for f**ks sake, it was a joke. Take a pill.

Oh for f**ks sake, it was a joke.

There's this little secret to jokes, where they're supposed to have the part that's funny.

I admit there's some humor value in seeing the same debunked claims repeated over and over again by anti-war types, but I'm not sure that's what you were going for.

Mr. Hey,

OK so I'm a part of the tin-foil-hat brigade, fair enough, but please indulge me, why is it that both Powell and Rice were out there telling us that Saddam posed no real threat in 2001 given the fact that we have been recently reminded of the proliferation of pre 2000 quotes from Democrats and Republicans alike about how Saddam was such a threat regime change was the only answer.

Additionally how do you square the "Saddam is a threat" quotes with the fact that Bush ran on a non-interventionist platform in 2000 never once bringing up terrorism as an issue in the campaign. Then we have zero activity on the terrorism front in the first half of the Bush presidency with Powell and Rice both downplaying the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

Oh I remember 9/11 changed everything. Well I guess your right, they decided that they didn't have to screw around with dropping the sanctions and could go stright for the gold.

BTW is not war for oil, it's war for the free flow of oil a market prices.

And the idea that my suspicions are devoid of any logic is simply not true, if James Baker III was recommending that we work to get the sanctions dropped on a regime that we are now reminded that “everyone” thought was a threat, then I would suggest that our interest in Iraqi oil was more then just a passing fade. Also there were many administration statements after 9/11 in the run up to the war about how we would pay for it by using profits from the oil that would soon flow after liberating Iraq.

From where I’m sitting it is more then plausible that the administration was going to propose dropping the sanctions in Iraq and 9/11 simply gave them the excuse they needed to go for the whole enchilada so to speak.

Look I’m not saying they were doing it *just* for the oil, as I clearly stated a world without Saddam Hussein is far better off then one with him, but all of this could be cleared up by simply releasing the information from the energy task force, if the administration has nothing to hide why are they stonewalling the release of this information.

They do seem to be going to the mattresses over a fairly minute point of “executive privilege” when they could release the information and really embarrass the living crap out of the democrats.

Frankly my “absolute dumbest thing in the history of the world” is no dummer then the idea that Bush invaded Iraq because a strongman dictator, who was being effectively barred from operating in 2/3rds of his own country, being repelled in the north by a gang of rag tag Kurds (with US Air support), and had an Armey that had been cut down to a shadow of it’s former capability by war, attrition, and much less money then he was used to getting when he was shaking hands with Rumsfeld, was any kind of direct threat to the US. But after reading you argument which is mostly assertion, particularly about Saddam’s “unhinged status” I have to acknowledge that it’s possible.

But really how unhinged could he be, when Bush sent the troops and parked them on his border he acquiesced pretty quickly to reestablishing the inspections régime, which strikes me as a fairly reasonable response to a few divisions of heavily armed troops as opposed to the actions of an insane megalomaniac.

Again why the filp fop on the part of Powell and Rice, They seem to be the only ones on the face of the planet who didn't know Saddam was 6 months away from getting nukes.

Rick-But subsequent, on 15 may 01, Powell said:

"And even though we have no doubt in our mind that the Iraqi regime is pursuing programs to develop weapons of mass destruction -- chemical, biological and nuclear -- I think the best intelligence estimates suggest that they have not been terribly successful. There's no question that they have some stockpiles of some of these sorts of weapons still under their control, but they have not been able to break out, they have not been able to come out with the capacity to deliver these kinds of systems...."
I take it from the above that Powell felt that Iraq HAD certain types of WMD's and was seeking others. Also, that by late '01 with the advent of a terrorist org as a delivery system, the need for direct action had escalated? Not that this has anything to do with the test.

To add onto Mike's point, it's better to fight a coming war too soon than too late. An Iraq with limited WMDs is less dangerous than an Iraq with mature WMDs.
Iraq never complied with the cease fire agreement for Gulf War I. The obvious consequence for this would be the resumption of hostilities. It shouldn't have taken 10+ years for it to reach that point. But since it did, and since the prevailing wisdom was that Saddam had WMDs, and that he wasn't to be trusted with them, Saddam had to go.
He was stupid to bluff the U.S. after 9/11. Few people were in the mood to take that kind of chance. That war is over, and like a good neighbor, the U.S. is trying to leave the country in a better shape than it was before.
Unless you consider the peace of a ruthless dictatorship preferrable.

Lautenberg: it appears that some Big Oil CEOs might have lied to Congress to cover up their involvement with the White House task force.

Hamilton: Develop further Lautenberg's theme that the statements made by those called before the Senate were knowingly false. In particular, refute the claim by ConocoPhillips CEO James Mulva that in 2001 he had been the chief executive of Phillips and that Cheney met with someone from Conoco, which at that time had been a separate company.

Quiz: Explain the difference between "those called before the Senate" and "some of those called before the Senate," with reference to the differences between universal and existential quantifiers. Why is "Mulva was telling the truth" compatible with what Lautenberg said, but not with the statement that Hamilton attributed to Lautenberg?

[I'll grant Hamilton (1) and (2), but I think it's bad to have secret meetings followed by oil executives lying to Congress about their participation in those meetings, even if oil prices aren't driven up as a result.]

And if the US was going to invade a country in order to steal their oil, how about Venezuela? We could have engineered a coup there to overthrow the Communist government (you do believe we do that, don't you?), sent in troops to "stabilize the situation" and be done in a month.

tritical,

And if the US was going to invade a country in order to steal their oil

No one said anything about stealing oil; I have been very deliberate in talking about the free flow of oil at market prices. Not stealing oil, not making Bush's buddies rich or any of the typical left wing boiler plate. On the other hand it does make a great straw man.

Mike,

RE: the Powell follow up, sure but that is a long, long, long, way away from mushroom clouds over New York, and it still doesn't explain away the Baker proposal and the Rice comments, nor does it explain Bush's complete absence of any discussion of terror during the 2000 campaign. Isn’t there anyone who is even curious as to why Baker would make such a proposal when “everyone in the world” knew what an insane megalomaniac Saddam was? I mean come on, aren’t any of you curious as to what went on in that meeting or does it really just boil down to what party wants to keep secrets.

What I gather is that you all think that Chaney’s Energy task force meeting notes and information should not be made public, it kind of scares me that people seem to have so much trust in politicians that they are not curious as to what is might be keep from the American public hidden, especially since Republicans were almost apoplectic over Hillary’s secret health care meetings.

Additionally how do you square the "Saddam is a threat" quotes with the fact that Bush ran on a non-interventionist platform in 2000 never once bringing up terrorism as an issue in the campaign.

"The coalition against Saddam has fallen apart or it's unraveling, let's put it that way. The sanctions are being violated. We don't know whether he's developing weapons of mass destruction. He better not be or there's going to be a consequence should I be the president."

-- George W. Bush, during the second Bush v. Gore debate during the 2000 election.

It is incorrect to say that Bush ran on an "anti-interventionist" platform. He was opposed to the use of the US military for missions that served no US interest, such as in the Bosnian conflict. He was not opposed to using the military to deal with actual threats to the United States, such as Iraq.

In any case, the obvious and correct answer to your query is that most people changed their risk assessments in response to September 11th. Prior to that, the notion of terrorists using a nuke on a major city had been irrationally dismissed by most people as a flight of fancy. Once people took a second look at the idea and realized that there was essentially nothing stopping such an attack once terrorists actually got their hands on a weapon, people reappraised their willingness to risk letting people with terrorist ties get such weapons. You provided quotes showing that the Bush people didn't view Hussein as a conventional threat. What you failed to realize was that that was precisely why they changed their minds after 9/11 -- because they realized the real threat Iraq posed was one of UNconventional warfare.

In any case, we obviously didn't invade to help the oil market. The way to do that would have been to lift the sanctions -- something the international community and most of the UN security council was already harassing us to do. The press-hyped humanitarian "crisis" caused by the sanctions would have even given us a face-saving way to end them. All we would have had to do would be to declare the latest round of inspections "enough" and packed our bags for home. The idea that we invaded instead of doing that is just silly.

Rick Dement: "Then we have zero activity on the terrorism front in the first half of the Bush presidency." Eight months is half of what?

Well, one thing that could have gone on in the 'secret meetings' were discussion of how an invasion of Iraq and the inevitiable spike in oil prices that would result due to the general risk premium increse.

Another thing that could have gone on would be discussion of how conservation as a tool of limiting energy requirements would be thrown out completely by the administration in an effort to increase profits for energy companies.

--------------------------------------

It is increasingly hysterical to watch you pro-war guys cling to the threads of your arguments when it is so plainly clear at this point that our invasion was a huge f-up. Keep it up, you're good for a few laughs

How did all of this get sucked up by the war?

James Hamilton as quoted by Jane shows that a US Senator is a populist idiot with no understanding of markets or economics.

An important discovery perhaps?

Meanwhile, in other news, kittens are cute and water is rumoured to be wet.

Your assignment is to describe in detail the possible economic mechanisms whereby the actions of this task force might have contributed to a doubling in the world price of oil.

Your assignment, on the other hand, is to write on the difference between "price" and "profit".

Your assignment, on the other hand, is to write on the difference between "price" and "profit".

Maybe you should have read the article first. Lautenberg said "In the four years since the secret Cheney task force met, we have seen gas prices double". That is what Hamilton was referring to -- not the increase in profits.

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