Pulp Non Fiction

[ Saturday, May 31, 2003 ]

 

Securing Iraqi oil for Israel: The Plot Thickens

Israel, like the Bush administration, is backing Iraqi opposition leader Ahmed Chalabi in the scramble for power in Baghdad because he is understood to be sympathetic to opening some kind of relationship with the Jewish state and to resurrecting the Mosul-Haifa oil pipeline that would transform the region’s energy map.

Behind the scenes, the Americans are seriously pushing both proposals with the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the umbrella for a wide range of anti-Saddam groups, most of which operated in exile until the Iraqi dictator’s regime collapsed earlier this month. But Washington’s game plan is running into stiff opposition from Iraq’s Shiite majority, which seeks to dominate the post-Saddam government and which is increasingly hostile to the US and its Iraqi surrogates like the INC, including Chalabi ­ even though he is a Shiite.



art [5:01 AM]

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