Subject: ＥＥＥ会議（米国のイラク攻撃は石油利権確保のためか？）
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 08:39:41 +0900
From: "kkaneko" <kkaneko@eagle.ocn.ne.jp>

各位

ブッシュ政権がイラク攻撃に熱心なのは、世界第２の確認埋蔵量を持つイラクの石油
権益確保が真の狙いではないかという見方が、以前からエネルギーの専門家の間には
根強く存在しますが、こうした見方については、先般カーター元大統領もノーベル賞
授賞式の演説ではっきり否定しました。　しかし、ヨーロッパ（とくに仏独）には依
然としてこうした見方が多いようですが、米国内からは反論が出ています。　次にご
紹介するのは、New York Times（２月１３日）に載ったある著名外交評論家（外交評
議会の上級研究員）の意見ですが、彼は「イラクの石油生産量は日量350万バレル＝
1990年レベル＝で、世界の全石油供給量を１．３％増加するだけだ。イラク攻撃開始
となれば最低500〜６００億ドルの戦費が必要で、もし戦後復興費も出すとなると
200〜1000億ドルもかかる。それだけの金を使うなら、ベネズエラの経済建て直しに
使った方が石油確保の観点からは遥かに得だ。米国のイラク攻撃は、資源問題を超え
た原則の問題であり、誤解してもらっては困る」と論じております。
金子熊夫

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A War for Oil? Not This Time
By MAX BOOT


UNICH ・When Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld visited "Old Europe" last
week, the placards and protesters lining his path were a visceral reminder
of what the Bush administration already knew: Solid majorities in key
European countries think that greed is our motive for wanting to depose
Saddam Hussein. In fact, in a recent Pew Research Center poll 75 percent of
respondents in France, 54 percent in Germany and 76 percent in Russia said
that America wants to invade Iraq because "the U.S. wants to control Iraqi
oil."

Although Americans are divided on the wisdom of an invasion, only 22 percent
of us subscribe to the cynical view that it's just about oil. Even Jimmy
Carter, hardly a hawk, rebutted the accusation at the Nobel Peace Prize
ceremony: "I know my country, I know my people, and I can assure you that's
not the policy of my government."

What accounts for this trans-Atlantic disconnect? To answer that question,
start by considering the accusation on the merits: Is America going into
Iraq in search of "black gold"?

The charge has a surface plausibility because Iraq does have the
second-largest known reserves in the world. But we certainly don't need to
send 250,000 soldiers to get at it. Saddam Hussein would gladly sell us all
the oil we wanted. The only thing preventing unlimited sales are the United
States-enforced sanctions, which Baghdad (and the big oil companies) would
love to see lifted. Washington has refused to go along because Saddam
Hussein flouts United Nations resolutions. This suggests that our primary
focus is the threat he poses, not the oil he possesses.

It's true that overthrowing Saddam Hussein would lead to the lifting of
sanctions and a possible increase in oil exports. But it would take a lot of
time and money to rebuild Iraq's dilapidated oil industry, even if the
regime didn't torch everything on the way out. A study from the Council on
Foreign Relations and the James A. Baker III Institute at Rice University
estimated that it would take three years and $5 billion to restore Iraqi
production just to its pre-1990 level of 3.5 million barrels a day. That
would increase total world production by only 1.3 percent, and might not
reduce prices at all if other countries cut output or banded together to
keep prices stable.

Some optimists think a postwar Iraq would stiff OPEC and slash prices
radically. This seems unlikely, if the experience of Kuwait is anything to
go by. While oil prices spiked before the Persian Gulf war and plummeted
afterward, the long-term impact has been close to nil. Kuwait hasn't exactly
been offering to fill up American sport utility vehicles free out of
gratitude for being liberated. It hasn't even carried out its pledge to
allow direct foreign investment in state-owned oil fields.

As with Kuwait, a liberated Iraq would likely remain an enthusiastic member
of OPEC because it would need to establish its nationalist credentials and
maintain amicable relations with its oil-cartel neighbors.

For that matter, would our government really want a steep drop in prices?
The domestic oil patch ・including President Bush's home state, Texas ・was
devastated in the 1980's when prices fell as low as $10 a barrel. Washington
is generally happy with a range of $18 to $25 a barrel, about where oil was
before the strikes in Venezuela and jitters about Iraq helped push prices
over $34 a barrel. If we were really concerned about cheap oil above all,
we'd be sending troops to Caracas, not Baghdad.

The other possible economic advantage in Iraq would be for American
companies to win contracts to put out fires, repair refineries and help
operate the oil industry, as they did in Kuwait. What's the total value of
such work? It's impossible to say, but last year Iraq signed a deal with
Russian companies (since canceled by Saddam Hussein) to rebuild oil and
other industries, valued at $40 billion over five years.

Yet the White House estimates the military operation alone would cost $50
billion to $60 billion. (Others suggest the figure would be far higher.) And
rebuilding of the country's cities, roads and public facilities would cost
$20 billion to $100 billion more, with much of that money in the initial
years coming from the "international community" (read: Uncle Sam).

Thus, if a capitalist cabal were running the war, it would have to conclude
it wasn't a paying proposition.

This doesn't mean that oil is entirely irrelevant to the subject of Iraq. It
does matter in one very important way: Oil revenues make Saddam Hussein much
more dangerous than your run-of-the-mill dictator, because they give him the
ability to build not only palaces but also top-of-the-line weapons of mass
destruction.

Americans recognize this. Europeans don't. Why not? Here's my theory:
Europeans are projecting their own behavior onto us. They know that their
own foreign policies have in the past often been driven by avarice ・all
those imperialists after East Indian spices or African diamonds. (This
tradition is going strong today in Russia and France, whose Iraq policies
seem driven at least in part by oil companies that were granted lucrative
concessions by Saddam Hussein.)

Nobody would claim that America's global intentions have always been
entirely pure. Still, our foreign policy ・from the Barbary war to Kosovo ・
has usually had a strain of idealism at which the cynical Europeans have
scoffed. In the case of Iraq, they just can't seem to accept that we might
be acting for, say, the general safety and security of the world. After more
than 200 years, Europe still hasn't figured out what makes America tick.


Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is author of
"The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power."