Does Cheney know about peak oil?

This is being reproduced with the permission of William R. Clarke, author of the new book Petrodollar Warfare. This is probably the most concise, obvious, and shocking assesment of the current situation that I have read.

You can be sure that Cheney read the IHS Energy (formerly Petroconsultants Inc) reports back in 1997-2000. The most interesting thing that alludes to Cheney's world view from that 1999 speech in London is this sentence:

Well, the end of the oil era is not here yet, but changes are afoot and the industry must be ready to adapt to the new century and to the transformations that lie ahead.

Of course the "transformations" that he spoke of did not become apparant until after 9/11, but it is obvious to every dispassionate observer that the plan is for the US military to gain strategic control of the world's oil and gas reserves under the guise of the perpetual "war on terror." Of course Cheney knows all about Peak Oil. He seems to have been brought into the Bush administration to specifically do something about it. In Feb 2001 his frist assignment was to develop a National Energy Plan Development Group (NEPDG). Michael Klare, an international expert on natural resource conflict and author of Resource Wars and Blood for Oil, provided the following analysis of the NEPDG report. The report made three key points about US energy challenges between 2000 and 2020:

• The United States must satisfy an ever-increasing share of its oil demand with imported supplies. (Note: By 2020, daily US imports will total nearly 17 million barrels per day, over 65 percent of consumption, up from 10 m/bl/d, or 53 percent in 2000.)

• The United States cannot depend exclusively on traditional sources of supply like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Canada. It will also have to obtain substantial imports from new sources, such as the Caspian states, Russia, and West Africa.

• The United States cannot rely on market forces alone to gain access to these added supplies, but will also require a significant effort on the part of government officials to overcome foreign resistance to the outward reach of American energy companies.

Instead of advocating various policies to reduce America’s consumption of oil, either through conservation, improvements in efficiency, or the development of large-scale alterative energy sources, the 2001 Bush/Cheney energy policy implicitly assumed the US will continue to consume what is almost universally regarded as excessive oil consumption. According to Klare this was a “fateful decision.” It means the US must find a way to increase oil imports from 11 mb/d to 18.5 mb/d by 2020. Klare noted, “Securing that increment of imported oil — the equivalent of total current oil consumption by China and India combined — has driven an integrated US oil-military strategy ever since.” The 2001 NEPDG energy plan obliquely inferred that the primary role of the US military in the beginning decades of the 21st century will be to “secure” physical control of the world’s largest hydrocarbon reserves. The problem? As evidenced in Iraq and Iran, US and/or UN sanctions have prevented US oil and gas companies into these two countries (until Iraq was overthrown and the US/UK gained control of the oil). Elsewhere in Central Asia, US energy companies will have to compete with European, Chinese, Russian and ultimately Indian oil and gas firms for those deposits. To reiterate the item highlighted by Cheney 2001 energy plan:

The United States cannot rely on market forces alone to gain access to these added supplies, but will also require a significant effort on the part of government officials to overcome foreign resistance to the outward reach of American energy companies

How do you overcome this "foreign resistance"? Well, as the famous Prussian war strategist Karl von Clausewitz stated:

"war is merely the continuation of policy by other means."

In May 2001 Cheney was as put in charge of a domestic terrorism task force - supposedly to protect the nation according to a statement by Pres. G.W. Bush:

Therefore, I have asked Vice President Cheney to oversee the development of a coordinated national effort so that we may do the very best possible job of protecting our people from catastrophic harm. I have also asked Joe Allbaugh, the Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to create an Office of National Preparedness. This Office will be responsible for implementing the results of those parts of the national effort overseen by Vice President Cheney that deal with consequence management.

Cheney did nothing depsite the warnings.... until the aftermath - then he made sure the 300 page US Patriot Act was passed (see Enabling Act of 1933). Meanwhile Bush and Cheney both "asked" Sen. Daschle not to investigate 9/11- which is something that has never happened in US history after a national tragedy (Pearl Harbor, JFK, RFK, Oklahoma City bombings, etc). http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/01/29/inv.terror.probe/ Along with a subservient press, that event paved the way for the pre-planned invasion of Iraq. The world was not amused - with the largest protests in history taking place Feb 14-16, 2003 (estimated to have included 12 million people in 700 cities, representing 60 countries). One of the reasons for the rampant "anti-Americanism" around the globe is the realization of Bush and Cheney's geostategy re hydrocarbon energy supplies. Even some decent British MP's object. For example: In 2003 former British MP Meacher has characterized US strategic maneuvers as revolving around a “bogus” war on terror. After reviewing the goals outlined in PNAC doctrine, Meacher concluded that “the ‘global war on terrorism’ has the hallmarks of a political myth propagated to pave the way for a wholly different agenda — the US goal of world hegemony, built around securing by force command over the oil supplies required to drive the whole project.” On what evidence can Meacher and others point to? Here's a few facts: In May 2001, four months before 9/11, General Franks reviewed war plans that were to be used in the upcoming campaign in Afghanistan. Around that time, Michael Klare observed that US military planning had become increasingly defined as providing “resource security as their primary mission.” Although this was hardly addressed in the US media, in April 2002 Franks testified that one of his key missions as commander of the Persian Gulf-South Asia region was to provide “access to [the] region’s energy resources.” The funny thing is that these US policy makers are not really taking about "access" at all - which all industrialized economies have to oil and gas deposits - they are disguising their true intent with Orwellian terminology. The post 9/11 US military base structure belies the real agenda - which is all about US strategtic control or domination of the world's energy supplies. Period. While it is true the US Navy plays an important role in keeping the sea routes safe for the transportation of oil, it is interesting to note that in the months prior to 9/11, US policy planners were increasingly devising military frameworks around potential energy issues. According to Klare’s book, Blood and Oil, a top-secret document dated February 3, 2001, directed the “NSC [National Security Council] staff to cooperate with the NEPDG in assessing the military applications of the energy plan.” What other country uses "energy policy" and "military applications" in the same breath? It gets worse... According to Jane Meyer of The New Yorker, who has reportedly seen a copy of the document, it envisioned the melding of two White House priorities: “review of operational policies toward rogue states” [such as Iraq/Iran] and actions regarding the “capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.” Klare deftly appraised the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review and related US joint energy-military policy documents as follows:

In fact, it is getting harder to distinguish US military operations designed to fight terrorism from those designed to protect energy assets. And the administration’s tendency to conflate the two is obvious in more than just the Gulf and Caspian areas. In Latin America, the US Southern Command has been ordered to strengthen the Columbia army’s ability to defend oil pipelines against guerrilla attack — again on the basis of expanding the war against terrorism. In the Caucasus, the European Command is doing its part in the war on terror by training Georgian forces to protect the soon-to-be-completed Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline; terrorism and the vulnerability of the oil supplies are also providing the justification for Eurcom’s efforts to enhance America’s power-projection capacity in Africa. Recent strategy documents prepared by US government officials, remarks by high-ranking members of the US armed forces, and the building of new overseas military bases amount to an open declaration by both the civilian leadership and military commanders that the military’s role in the new century is not limited to protecting the Constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic, but include gaining access to, or more accurately, domination over, the world’s largest oil reserves — all under the guise of the “war on terror.”

The governments of Europe, Russia, and China are naturally resisting the Bush administration’s destabilizing imperial strategy. Meanwhile, US political leaders continue to use ambiguous and euphemistic phrases to justify their imperial goals such as fighting evil, protecting freedom, and spreading democracy. Despite these proclamations, most industrialized and developing nations engage in legal trade agreements with the nations that export their natural resources such as oil, and typically leaders do not resort to Orwellian phraseology to justify faraway wars against “terror” or obfuscate their agendas with misleading but impressive-sounding slogans. According to Cheney’s energy plan from 2001, US oil consumption is projected to grow by an additional 7.5 mb/d by 2020. Current global production is around 84.5 mb/d, which is stretching the supply of all oil producers. Saudi Arabia has not increased its oil production since 2003, and OPEC's president stated in 2004 that there was no extra supply. In 2005 senior Saudi Arabian energy officials were reported to have privately warned US and European counterparts that OPEC would have an “extremely difficult time” meeting projected oil demand by 2015 to 2020, stating that there will be a 4.5 mb/d gap between what the world is projected to need and what the kingdom can provide. If these sentiments by energy experts are accurate, one must ask how the projected 18–20 percent increase in demand by 2020 will be met. Technical data on oil discovery and production, in conjunction with analysis by numerous veteran oil geologists, clearly indicate that an of additional oil supply 7.5 mb/d to the US may be possible under only one ominous scenario: strategically using the US military to redirect to America oil exports from the Middle East earmarked for China, India, Japan and the EU. It is farcical to even ponder whether or not Cheney knows about Peak Oil. So, let's recap the events 2001-2005: current US geostrategy, as articulated by PNAC documents and subsequent National Security Strategy policy, is a bold attempt to justify unilateral US military action anywhere on the globe (and in space) to maintain US hegemony and secure the oil that feeds it. This remarkable merging of foreign policy with overt military force projection provides further evidence that plenty of US policymakers are acutely aware of global Peak Oil and its implications. An understanding of these connections easily explains current geopolitical tensions and the growing expansion of US military deployments in the Middle East, Central Asia, West Africa, and Latin America. The modus operandi of the Bush/Cheney administration — since day one — is obvious for those who follow the facts...

If you want to rule the world, you need to control the oil. All the oil. Anywhere. — Michel Collon, Monopoly (2000)