Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who has introduced measures to impeach George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, said Thursday that oil executives who secretly met with the vice president in 2001 should be held criminally liable for pushing an illegal war.
"In March of 2001, when the Bush Administration began to have secret meetings with oil company executives from Exxon, Shell and BP, spreading maps of Iraq oil fields before them, the price of oil was $23.96 per barrel. Then there were 63 companies in 30 countries, other than the US, competing for oil contracts with Iraq," the Ohio Democrat said during a speech on the House floor.
"Today the price of oil is $135.59 per barrel, the US Army is occupying Iraq and the first Iraq oil contracts will go, without competitive bidding to, surprise, (among a very few others) Exxon, Shell and BP."
● Kucinich: 'We went to war for the oil companies'
Four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power.
Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company — along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials and an American diplomat.
The deals, expected to be announced on June 30, will lay the foundation for the first commercial work for the major companies in Iraq since the American invasion, and open a new and potentially lucrative country for their operations.
● Deals With Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back
Special commentary by Big dan: "The truth is brutal. If you had a father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, friend, or relative die in Iraq or Afghanistan, they died for the Bush administration's and PNAC's and Exxon and Big Oil's "Oil War". That's all it was about. They lied and tricked all of us into it, including me! They used 9/11 as a pretext for this oil war of lies. And it's a fact that they had this planned before 9/11. PNAC claimed that a 'Pearl Harbor Like Event' was needed to start this war. And then 9/11 'happened' to come along to speed things up. Ask yourself why right now we're forcing Iraq to sign over their oil to Exxon, Shell, BP, and Total, and what has that got to do with bringing freedom to Iraq? And why isn't this huge story being covered in the corporate-owned media who are part of huge conglomerate companies making huge profits off these wars! And why multi-millionaires like Rush Limbaugh and the corporate media are training you to make fun of truth-tellers like Dennis Kucinich! If you don't watch the video below, you shouldn't be allowed to vote!"
PNAC - Project for a New American Century
