ministry. the perception that the u.s. has launched a war for oil is further stoked when the u.s. army s 101st airborne division crosses the bored near iraq and establishes two refueling stations in the iraqi desert. the army names the two desert outposts after exxon and shell, unbeknownst to the companies themselves. presumably, some kell nell in the planning cell thought that this would be an easy designation for american soldiers, you know, flying helicopters through dust storms to bear in mind and to find on a map, but it did kind of undermine the pr campaign. as coalition forces rolled into baghdad and topple saddam, the general selected by the pentagon to stabilize the situation and quickly turn over power to the iraqis finds that his mission has changed. i did not want to slip from liberation into occupation. i thought that s the worst thing to do my understanding from rumsfeld, from the white house,
oil industry executives. but british documents now reveal that in the fall of 2002, ahead of the invasion, bp s middle east director held a week of meetings with officials from both the u.s. state department and the pentagon, including with paul wolfowitz, donald rumsfeld s second in command. at the pentagon with just two months until the invasion, attention turns to who will run iraq in the immediate days and weeks after the fall of saddam. retired army lieutenant general jay garner, a man with deep experience in the renal, gets the call from donald rumsfeld. he said what we need right now somebody is to come right in, put a staff together, operationalize the plans we put together. you know, you think if you re going to put that together, i d have office space and a desk and computers and tell phones and all that. i didn t even have a chair. that lack of planning when it comes to basic post-saddam governance stands in stark
they are debating,position britain in iraq to maximize their own long-term energy security. and britain is not the only one. in the battles of afghanistan america will not forget that poland rose to the moment. along with britain, poland, a member of bruce administration coalition of the willing also positions itself to take advantage of iraqi oil. in july 2003, a consortium of polish companies signs with halliburton to join in the reconstruction. at the signing poland s foreign minist minister. access to iraq s oil, poland s foreign minister says is our final goal.
from everywhere, that we were going to go in there and we were going to set up an interim government as rapid as we could, but when ambassador bremmer came over, that direction had changed. instead of quickly handing off power to a new iraqi government and getting out, the bush administration selects former ambassador l. paul brimmer to take over in iraq and remake iraq s entire economy, starting with the oil sector. we are not here to be a colonial power. we are here to help turn over as quickly as we can efficiently do it to the iraqi people their country. we had virtually no elbow room for major changes to anything unless we could get the oil going and that was our priority. avo: with expedia you always get the lowest price book any flight or hotel and if you find it for less we ll match it and give you fifty dollars back that s the expedia guarantee
u.s. supplies at a 24-year low, the 2 million barrels of oil a day iraq produces matter. my big fear is that saddam hussein is going to take the advantage of this tight market to cut oil production and that could send prices up much higher. god bless you all. and god bless america. on the campaign trail, bush and cheney zero in on saddam s control of vital oil sources as a potential threat to america s security. on the clinton/gore watch, saddam hussein s iraq has become a major supplier of oil to america. this means that one of our worst enemies is gain more and more control over our country s economic future. i think if we look for something that could develop, it s the possibility that we might find ourselves without adequate supplies of energy in the future and there would be no quicker way to shut down our economy than that. as bush and cheney take office in january 2001, they