The Ming Report

RETURN OF THE PINK PANTHER

May 09, 2003 - A draft resolution to be introduced by the United States, Britain and Spain on Friday morning lifting economic sanctions against Iraq calls for the Security Council to endorse American and British control of Iraq's political development and financial resources for at least 12 months.

Under the resolution, new Iraqi oil revenues and at least $3 billion in the current United Nations-controlled escrow fund would be transferred to a new Iraqi Assistance Fund to be "disbursed at the direction of" the United States and Britain — referred to as the "provisional authority" — in consultation with the interim government to be formed in Iraq.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/09/international/worldspecial/09DIPL.html

But, of course, the Second Iraqi War was not about oil or oil revenues at all. From the beginning it was about liberating the Iraqi people from a cruel despot. It was thought, erroneously it turns out, that the Bush Administration's presentation to the United Nations Security Council laid out the reasons for the war, the threat posed by those Weapons of Mass Destruction that had so eluded the attention of Hans Blix and his weapons inspectors. We marveled at how the Iraqi Regime had been so successful in hiding the massive quantities of chemical and biological weapons that the United States and Britain knew the Iraqi dictator had. After all the United States and Britain knew where the materials were. Unfortunately we could not share that specific information with Mr. Blix and his crew because it might reveal our sources and methods of intelligence gathering.

Our knowledge and Hans Blix failure to find those weapons and materials in 90 days proved that the weapons inspection program was as incompetent as Inspector Clouseau. But we are there now and just 30 days after the fall of Baghdad we have been able to trot out Exhibit "A", the proto-type for the mobile biological weapons laboratory featured by Colon Powell's Disneyesque animation that debuted last January. It was discovered three weeks ago, we are told, It was on a tank transporter, we are told. In every detail it conformed to the Powell cartoon, we are told. Preliminary tests failed to reveal any traces of bacteria, we are told. It was intercepted, we are told, by Kurdish forces at a highway check in Kurdish controlled Northern Iraq. Photographs released show that it was in pristine condition, unscarred by exposure to desert sandstorms, as though it had just rolled from the factory floor. But it revealed not one ounce of the 30000 liters of biological agents or the tons of chemical agents that we knew Saddam possessed. It is a mystery that will challenge even Inspector Clouseau.

But remember it has never been a war for control of oil.