1410 Duration: 13.01 seconds
Robert Dreyfuss:
But in Moore's movie, and in the general public perception I think, Bush = oil = Saudi Arabia. And therefore he went to war. Well, that's completely wrong.
1412 Duration: 30.5 seconds
Robert Dreyfuss:
Most of the Arabs -- and in fact most of the oil companies were against attacking Iraq. Because they were pretty happy with the status quo of dealing with the Gulf states and having good relations with Saudi Arabia. And even being able to buy oil from Iraq, which, after all, produces it and sells it. It doesn't dump into the Persian Gulf. So the oil interests, the oil industry, and the Saudis were all uniformly against the war in Iraq.
1413 Duration: 25.06 seconds
Robert Dreyfuss:
And even some of the Republicans who are most closely connected to the oil industry, like Brent Scowcroft or Jim Baker or Larry Eagleburger were also all against the war. And spoke out in 2002 and 2003 against the war. And those are the people who are denouncing the neocons in the conservative party.
1415 Duration: 11.48 seconds
Robert Dreyfuss:
My argument is that if Saudi Arabia was against the war and Israel was supporting it? Who won? It wasn't the Saudis.
1416 Duration: 12.88 seconds
Echo Chamber Project:
Earlier you said it is about oil and now you say it's not. So can you make the distinction, when you say it's about oil, what do you mean by that? [Well --]
1417 Duration: 17.32 seconds
Robert Dreyfuss:
The war in Iraq was about oil, but it wasn't about the oil companies and it wasn't about Saudi Arabia. The issue of oil in Iraq was a strategic question. Whoever controls the Persian Gulf is going to control the next hundred years of world history.
1418 Duration: 27.13 seconds
Robert Dreyfuss:
Because every country in the world from China and Japan to the Europeans to all the developed countries like India, not to mention the Americas, are going to be increasingly dependent over the next 30 to 40 years on two countries: Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Those are the only two countries that have sufficient oil reserves to be able to double and triple and quadruple their production
1419 Duration: 14.78 seconds
Robert Dreyfuss:
And everybody else, the North Sea, Alaska, Venezuela, parts of Africa, are running out of oil. The production is declining and there's no more to be found -- or little to be found.
1421 Duration: 7.14 seconds
Robert Dreyfuss:
Saudi Arabia and Iraq, as important as they are now, are going to be ten times more important in 20 years.
1423 Duration: 37.1 seconds
Robert Dreyfuss:
We already control all the rest of the Gulf countries. We virtually occupy Kuwait now. We have our main headquarters in Qatar. We control Saudi Arabia by default, basically, with having surrounded it and propping up the royal family there. And now we own Iraq. So now we control all of the sources of oil in the world for the next 50 years. And that's going to be a major factor in the strategic development of future world history.
1424 Duration: 10.58 seconds
Echo Chamber Project:
If people on the Right heard you say "we own Iraq", they'd say, "no we don't. It's a free country now." On what basis do you say we own Iraq? [Well --]
1425 Duration: 38.74 seconds
Robert Dreyfuss:
We own Iraq. We're occupying it with 140,000 troops. We're not letting in anybody else where we can to get business contracts. The entire Iraqi government -- currently -- was appointed by the United States. A number of them, including the Prime Minister, were CIA agents for 20 years. I mean, it's -- I call it Iraqistan. I mean, it's a quisling government of CIA stooges and tribal sheiks and other corrupted individuals. Just because Chalabi isn't a part of it doesn't mean the rest of them aren't corrupt as well.
1427 Duration: 34.7 seconds
Robert Dreyfuss:
Now what eventually emerges in Iraq, it's a country that's catastrophically plagued by violence. It's on the brink of civil war. There's no order. Major cities are under the control of privately-owned militias. The Kurds control their little fiefdom. The Shiites control the south. In the center of Iraq, most of the cities from Fallujah to Ramadi to Samara are being controlled by various coalitions of resistance groups. The Iraqi government -- the so-called government controls a few neighborhoods of Baghdad.
1428 Duration: 21.72 seconds
Robert Dreyfuss:
It's just like Afghanistan where Karzai, this well-dressed stooge we put in power there. controls Kabul, and the entire rest of the country is controlled by pro-al Qaeda militia and warlords and tribal leaders and so forth. There's no Afghan government to speak of. And now there's no Iraqi government to speak of.
1430 Duration: 9.14 seconds
Robert Dreyfuss:
It's more likely that Iraq will break up into pieces than it will have anything resembling a government next year.
1431 Duration: 24.16 seconds
Echo Chamber Project:
If we go back to Israel and look at the media's treatment of Israel, do they not cover Israel as a part of Iraq because either the Democrats and Republicans agree or because they would receive too much flack or -- can you speak to some of the reasons why you think the media doesn't?
1432 Duration: 8.04 seconds
Robert Dreyfuss:
I think the media is just afraid to get accused of anti-Semitism. So they ignore the Israeli question.
1433 Duration: 11.41 seconds
Robert Dreyfuss:
I mean, the fact is that all the leading advocates of -- I shouldn't say all -- Many of the leading advocates -- Let me start that again I guess.
1434 Duration: 33.57 seconds
Robert Dreyfuss:
The fact that many of the leading advocates of war on Iraq signed documents and papers and advisory position papers to the Israeli government in the 1990s, went on record saying that they were basically working as advisors to the Israelis. Doug Feith and his law firm have offices in Israel. They're extremely close to the rightwing Zionists. They're extremely close to Ariel Sharon. I mean, this is known information.
1435 Duration: 22.32 seconds
Robert Dreyfuss:
And it certainly needs to be put in the debate about "why did we go to war?" "Was there an ulterior objective among some of these people to eliminate Israel's main opponents?" And I think the answer is clearly, "Yes." But that's treated as if it's an illegitimate subject to raise.
1436 Duration: 14.58 seconds
Robert Dreyfuss:
And that's why I think the media is afraid to go into this, because as soon as you start to raise the Israeli question, the neoconservatives start attacking you as anti-Semitic.
1437 Duration: 7.84 seconds
Echo Chamber Project:
[background noise] Just repeat that last --
1438 Duration: 7.27 seconds
Robert Dreyfuss:
As soon as you start attacking the neoconservatives, then they start accusing you of being anti-Semitic.
1440 Duration: 36.14 seconds
Robert Dreyfuss:
You know, the whole Israeli question is very complex. There are a lot of Israelis who didn't see Iraq as a major threat. There are a lot of moderate Israelis and people in the Israeli army who think that the main threat to Israel came from Iran and Hamas and the fundamentalist movement, and thought that Saddam was contained. So even in Israel there was a debate. But the current leadership around Sharon was militantly in favor the Iraq crusade.
1442 Duration: 16.75 seconds
Robert Dreyfuss:
Even in Israel, there's a more robust debate than there is here because at least the Israelis who criticize Sharon can't be accused of anti-Semitism. Here it's considered bad form to attack Sharon.
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