VP Dick Cheney may have been a little off on WMD, but oil is his thang. So when, as reported by The Wall Street Journal, Dick assured us that our friends the Saudis are producing oil as fast as they can, you've just gotta believe him. Or look for the loophole. Last week, Cheney said crude oil prices in excess of $100 a barrel reflect the reality in the marketplace. "There's just not a lot out there, and some of that excess capacity represents high sulfur crude for example, it's not very attractive and not easily marketed." That's correct; KSA oil minister Ali al-Naimi has been complaining about a lack of buyers for excess Saudi sour crude for several years. The most reasonable conclusion: the U.S. is finally desperate enough to take the second-class sticky stuff off our allies' hands. Now that's the sort of speculation that will affect the price of oil.
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Interestingly, I read something on a Russian news site (in English) a few years ago, that reported from Iraq, that the American military HAD found WMDs and were destroying them so the insurgents could not get them. Certainly the Russians have absolutely no reason to back Bush assertions!
I also have been reading for about four years that the Israelis swear blind that some WMDs were shipped to Syria from Iraq before America went in. Anyone recognize the name of the Mossad organization? I think they are known as one of the best “intelligence” organizations on earth.
What puzzles me is that if these are so, why isn’t the present Bush/Cheney administration pushing these factoids?
But then they confuse me a lot, in many ways. You’d think there was some hidden agendas going on, or something…
Like ignoring entirely American technology which can convert garbage, offal and sewage into diesel fuel (so that there would be no shortage) and which can be used to make gasoline, as well.
http://www.changingworldtech.com/
Perhaps it has to do with the fact that Iraq has roughly the same geographic size as the state of California and that Bush’s own people declared roughly 18 months after going in that there were no WMD’s?
Could they have shipped them out? Possibly, but the facts that we have now and that the UN had don’t point strongly in that direction. You can bet if they did it would be all over the news everywhere.
If you want an interesting read, look up March 2001 energy talks – Cheney brought together a few energy experts to map out the Iraqi oil fields. Not that it really points to oil as a reason for the war, but it does make you wonder.
All that aside, with the record profits our oil companies have been making they should re-invest that into being able to refine this lower-grade oil for us.
From everything I’ve read it seems that Saddam had no “active” WMD programs. Of course he didn’t act like that so everybody and their uncle (Russians, Israelis, French, US etc.) thought he had them. And it appears that as soon as the world spotlight was off him and the sanctions collapsed (they were already collapsing) then he was going to go back at it with gusto. That’s why they found a centrifuge buried in the property of an Iraqi nuclear scientist. They have found some WMD’s – mostly old shell stockpiles that were not considered viable any more. Not that the stuff couldn’t hurt you – it just didn’t have nearly the potency it had when new.
Getting back to the sour crude.
There’s no easy oil left to find, and that realization is dawning on more and more people – which is why we’re being inundated with alternative drive-train proposals and projects, as well as calls for lighter cars, etc.
Being able to suck Iraqi oil out of the ground without being bothered by the locals would help, of course. It’s high quality and easily recovered – in fact a huge treasure just waiting to be found by some lucky army.
So, apparently some Americans still think the Bush administration was right about the WMD’s all along huh? Hey Donal Fagan, after reading some of these comments I’m thinkin’ maybe you should change the first sentence of your blurb?
Something like, “VP Dick Cheney is well known for his candor and honesty (in fact, he’s never told a lie); he boldly predicted that Iraq had WMD’s when many were skeptical of his claims…”
I’m thinkin’ maybe you should change the first sentence of your blurb?
Well, ain’t that a shot in the face …
The technology exists to clean up this sour (sulfurous) crude oil and make something useful out of it (like gasoline and diesel fuel) but the hypocritical greenies keep everyone scared and thus saying NIMBY (not in MY back yard).
Thus America has not only had no new refineries since 1976, the conversion of a California refinery to take sour crude is stalled by environmental wackos and NIMBY’s.
So doesn’t that mean that Californians DESERVE $7 a gallon gas while the rest of us suffer with $5 a gallon gas later this year? I think so!
Not that I am happy with environmental disasters, anything but. However, a little realism would be nice once in awhile from some of these folks.
“What puzzles me is that if these are so, why isn’t the present Bush/Cheney administration pushing these factoids?”
Because the US, France, Russia, and China supplied Saddam with WMDs and they wanted to play this down. Best to claim no WMD than have to answer questions about the origin of the WMDs.
There is plenty of sour crude on the market but it cost a lot of money to scrub out the sulfur.
Thus America has not only had no new refineries since 1976, …
Actually they’ve been greatly expanding and upgrading the ones they already had.
… the conversion of a California refinery to take sour crude is stalled by environmental wackos and NIMBY’s.
Do you have a link for this?
Politics aside, Are there new refineries to process em oil and will diesel become cheaper?
To politics, Obama 08!
Qusus:
“… VP Dick Cheney…boldly predicted that Iraq had WMD’s when many were skeptical of his claims…”
Actually the guy that was so certain of WMD (other than the British, French, Russians, Israelis, etc. that I mentioned before) that he told President Bush point blank that it was a ‘slam dunk’ or some similar phrase was a guy by the name of Tenet who had once worked for a guy by the name of Clinton. Could “Slick” have been setting up “W”? Now I’d like to see all the conspiracy theorists have a field day with that!
Luther,
I have not heard this angle before. Do you have any sources about various nations supplying Saddam with WMD? I did hear something about the Germans giving him certain chemicals.