How PR Sold the War in the Persian Gulf

Excerpted from Toxic Sludge Is Good For You, Chapter 10

"If I wanted to lie, or if we wanted to lie, if we wanted to exaggerate, I wouldn't use my daughter to do so. I could easily buy other people to do it."
--Saud Nasir al-Sabah, Kuwait's Ambassador to the United States and Canada

The Mother of All Clients

On August 2, 1990, Iraqi troops led by dictator Saddam Hussein invaded the oil-producing nation of Kuwait. Like Noriega in Panama, Hussein had been a US ally for nearly a decade. From 1980 to 1988, he had killed about 150,000 Iranians, in addition to at least 13,000 of his own citizens. Despite complaints from international human rights group, however, the Reagan and Bush administrations had treated Hussein as a valuable ally in the US confrontation with Iran. As late as July 25 - a week before the invasion of Kuwait - US Ambassador April Glaspie commiserated with Hussein over a "cheap and unjust" profile by ABC's Diane Sawyer, and wished for an "appearance in the media, even for five minutes," by Hussein that "would help explain Iraq to the American people."69

Glaspie's ill-chosen comments may have helped convince the dictator that Washington would look the other way if he "annexed" a neighboring kingdom. The invasion of Kuwait, however, crossed a line that the Bush Administration could not tolerate. This time Hussein's crime was far more serious than simply gassing to death another brood of Kurdish refugees. This time, oil was at stake.  read more »

Iraqi oil minister says Hunt Oil deal with Kurd regional government illegal

VIENNA, Austria: An agreement announced this weekend between U.S.-based Hunt Oil Co. and the self-ruled Kurdish administration of northern Iraq to explore for oil is illegal, Iraq's oil minister Hussain al-Shahristani said Monday.

Those comments underscore the central government's view that exploration contracts with foreign companies should be signed only after the adoption of a new national oil law, which has been stalled for months.

"Any oil deal has no standing as far as the government of Iraq is concerned," al-Shahristani said as he arrived for an OPEC meeting in Vienna. "All these contracts have to be approved by the Federal Authority before they are legal. This (contract) was not presented for approval. It has no standing."

Hunt Oil, a privately held independent oil company, and the Kurdish regional government said Saturday they had signed a production-sharing contract for petroleum exploration in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. Terms were not disclosed.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/10/business/EU-FIN-Austria-Iraq-H...

It was announced a few days ago that the Kurds have made separate agreements, production-sharing contracts, with foreign oil companies, which has led to harsh words between the Kurds and central Iraqi government officials and threatens passage of the national production-sharing plan. One of the companies the Kurds have signed an agreement with is Hunt Oil. According to CBS News (Sept. 9) CEO Ray Hunt is on the board of Halliburtin and "has been a key fundraiser for President George W. Bush, who named him to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board."
http://www.politicalcortex.com/story/2007/9/14/52938/0479