Heath Ledger Was Right About The War On Iraq

"It's Not A Fight For Humanity, It's A Fight For Oil"

By Darryl Mason



Heath Ledger, like the million other Australians who marched against the War On Iraq, was right, as Paul Bignell details in the UK Independent (excerpts) :

Plans to exploit Iraq's oil reserves were discussed by government ministers and the world's largest oil companies the year before Britain took a leading role in invading Iraq, government documents show.

Five months before the March 2003 invasion, Baroness Symons, then the Trade Minister, told BP that the Government believed British energy firms should be given a share of Iraq's enormous oil and gas reserves as a reward for Tony Blair's military commitment to US plans for regime change.

The papers show that Lady Symons agreed to lobby the Bush administration on BP's behalf because the oil giant feared it was being "locked out" of deals that Washington was quietly striking with US, French and Russian governments and their energy firms.

The Foreign Office invited BP in on 6 November 2002 to talk about opportunities in Iraq "post regime change". Its minutes state: "Iraq is the big oil prospect. BP is desperate to get in there and anxious that political deals should not deny them the opportunity."

The 20-year contracts signed in the wake of the invasion were the largest in the history of the oil industry. They covered half of Iraq's reserves – 60 billion barrels of oil, bought up by companies such as BP and CNPC (China National Petroleum Company), whose joint consortium alone stands to make £403m ($658m) profit per year from the Rumaila field in southern Iraq.

Lady Symons, 59, later took up an advisory post with a UK merchant bank that cashed in on post-war Iraq reconstruction contracts.

Rupert 'Always Wrong On Iraq' Murdoch knew all about the deal making on Iraq's oil future, and could barely keep his trap shut, boasting a month before the war :

"The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy, if you could put it that way, would be US$20 a barrel for oil. That's bigger than any tax cut in any country."

A bit later, after publicly giving his full and solid backing to the war, Rupert Murdoch explained why, in his deluded old man fantasy world, the War On Iraq was likely to fuel economic recovery :

"We're keeping our heads down, managing the businesses, keeping our profits up. Who knows what the future holds? I have a pretty optimistic medium and long-term view but things are going to be pretty sticky until we get Iraq behind us. But once it's behind us, the whole world will benefit from cheaper oil which will be a bigger stimulus than anything else..."

People actually believed that. They really, really did.

At least, until the truth about Australia's ongoing involvement in the War On Iraq became a little clearer in 2007 :



Amusingly, it was Rupert Murdoch's own Australian media empire that spread this bit of truth far and wide. At least they did for a few hours, until Don't Make Rupert Angry censorship survival instinct kicked in and they tried to make their own headlines disappear and went delete crazy on one of the biggest stories of the past decade.

From The Orstrahyun, July 6, 2007 :

The phone calls from John Howard's office to the head office of Rupert Murdoch's News Limited in Sydney yesterday were less than pleasant.

The News.com.au website, the main portal for Murdoch's network of Australian newspaper websites, reaching some more than 1.5 million Australian readers per day, ran a number of headlines claiming John Howard had said that oil was now a key reason to stay in Iraq. Some of the headlines said the Iraq War was a war for oil. Just like all those protesters back in early 2003 claimed it would be.

By the time Howard moved to deny he said anything such thing, it was too late. The story was out, columns and articles had been written and sent to the printers for today's news racks, and there was no going back.

John Howard's office knew there was little point trying to get Fairfax newspapers to retract their stories, in print or online. Howard Admits War For Iraq's Oil was the story many journos for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age had been waiting more than four years to write.

But Howard knew the Murdoch media were likely to play ball. If not in print, then at least online, where news.com.au now reaches more Australians than the same company's newspapers do, in print.

But even until the early afternoon today, almost 24 hours later, some of the Murdoch websites were still carrying 'Howard Says Iraq War For Oil' headlines and stories, even though the main news.com.au site had rewritten headlines and stories, inside its own archive, and published the following correction....oh sorry, clarification :

An earlier version of this story from the Australian Associated Press incorrectly reported the Prime Minister as saying oil was a reason for Australia's continued military presence in Iraq.

He said "energy", but as we all know, "energy" is "oil" when it comes to the Middle East, unless Howard is thinking about cutting natural gas deals with Iran sometime soon.

The phone calls from Howard's office to News Limited HQ clearly worked.

News.com.au chose to blame Australian Associated Press for supplying the wire news story that claimed Howard had admitted to a war for oil in Iraq.

Here's the pre-furious phone calls from Howard's office Uncorrected Version as it appeared online yesterday :

And here's the spiffy new Corrected Version :

Note that the sub headlines now put the words relating to 'Iraq War For Oil' squarely in the mouth of defence minister Brendan Nelson, when it was also Howard who publicly talked of needing to "secure" energy resources in Iraq and the Middle East.

The sub headlines were also edited to remove the dead giveaway line 'Another Reason Is To Uphold Prestige Of US, UK', to be replaced with the far more Freedom And Democracy Agenda-friendly 'We'll Stay Until Iraq No Longer Needs Us, Says PM'.

But perhaps more importantly, note that on both the 'corrected' and 'uncorrected' stories above, the byline clearly reads "By Staff Writers And Wires".

AAP may have supplied a story that claimed Howard said Australia had an interest in staying in Iraq to secure future oil supplies, which is, of course, exactly what he said, but unless the byline is a total lie, more than one journo rewrote or added to the text and headline and sub headlines before it went online. Hence "by staff writers and wires".

But to Howard's utter horror, that correction, sorry clarification, only made it onto the story on the main news.com.au site.

The calls for clarifications to the story must not have gotten through to other city newspaper editors and staff in Murdoch's network. Unless, of course, they chose to ignore the clarifications because the story didn't need any clarifying at all. It was true.

And if that was the case, then good on them for not following directions from head office, via the Howard office.

The below pages were all still online through the Murdoch online stable at 10-11am today, and later.

From the Adelaide Advertiser :



Australia's biggest selling daily newspaper, The Herald Sun, ran the following editorial today, hitting the presses before it could be pulled, and staying online, unchanged, well into the late morning :



The Tasmania Mercury still had this up on their site at midday :


And the Murdoch site in Perth still had this posted after midday today :



Even though the story of Howard's Iraq Oil Slick was running up hundreds of comments an hour on websites around Australia, any mention of it was gone from the news.com.au front page by 10.30am this morning.

Over at Murdoch's flagship 'The Australian' newspaper website, at least three key columnists weighed in supporting Howard's claim that he didn't say what he said, and it really didn't matter even if the prime minister and the defence minister did say what they said. Which they did.

Just to jog your memory, here's a reminder of what John Howard had to say about claims that the, then, still coming War On Iraq was about something other than WMDs and deposing Saddam Hussein back in February, 2003 :

"No criticism is more outrageous than the claim that US behaviour is driven by a wish to take control of Iraq's oil reserves."

And here's what the Murdoch media's favourite political whipping post, Greens Leader Bob Brown had to say in that same week, in 2003 :

This is not Australia's war. This is an oil war. This is the US recognising that, as the economic empire of the age, it needs oil to maintain its pre-eminence.

Back then, 76 percent of Australians were opposed to a War On Iraq.


By midday today, the Australia In Iraq For The Oil scandal was making international news, in a big way.

And the hundreds of headlines from around the world were immune to Howard's attempt to reframe his own comments, and those of his defence minister. They went in hard, using Howard as the first leader of a Coalition Of The Drilling country to finally admit the truth about a war so blackened and poisoned with so many lies :

Herald Sun, Melbourne : PM's war for oil

Daily Times, Pakistan - Oil key motive for Iraq involvement: Australia

The Scotsman, Scotland - Oil keeps Australia in Iraq

The Independent, UK : Australian troops 'in Iraq because of oil'

RTE, Ireland : Mideast oil priority for Australia

The BBC : Australians 'are in Iraq for oil'

Turkish Press, Middle East : Oil a factor in Australian role in Iraq: minister

Voice Of America : Australia Says Oil Key Motive for Involvement in Iraq

The Guardian, UK : Oil a factor in Iraq conflict, says Australian MP

Xinhau, China : PM: Australian troops to stay in Iraq for oil

Aljazeera : Australia admits Iraq war about oil

Forbes : Australia says securing oil supply means no Iraq withdrawal

Press TV, Iran : Aussies in Iraq for Oil

Gulf News, United Arab Emirates : Oil 'key factor for Australia's role in Iraq'

Stratfor (key military intel site) : Australia: Oil A Reason For Iraq Presence

Alsumaria, Iraq : Oil supply is an essential factor

Zee Tv, India : Mid-east oil crucial to our future: Australian PM

Alalalam News Network, Iran : Australia: Oil Means no Iraq Pullout


Some of those same news sites ran Howard's attempts to deny that he said what he said, but his retraction was given mostly backwater coverage. Those international editors knew, like some editors of Murdoch's Australian newspapers knew, that Howard was trying to scam them.

Like he tried to scam the entire nation back in late 2002 when he said he hadn't decided whether or not he would send troops to Iraq, when they were already in the Gulf. And in early March, 2003, when Howard said he hadn't decided yet whether or not commit troops to the coming war, when some of those already deployed troops had already written letters to their children in case they died during the fighting.

Read The Full July 6, 2007 Post Here

------------------------------

So when are we going to have an investigation into the real reasons why Australia became involved in the War On Iraq?

When are we going to have an investigation into Howard government foreign minister Alexander Downer's meetings with some of the world's biggest oil companies in 2002-2004?

When are we going to have an investigation into the false intelligence circulated so enthusiastically by the Howard government and the Murdoch media back in 2002 and early 2003?

Taxpayers who were swindled of almost $20 billion over eight years for the War On Iraq deserve the truth.

The thousands of Australian soldiers who served in Iraq, the hundreds physically & psychologically wounded, those who committed suicide after they got back, the families ruined, deserve nothing less than the truth.

November 2000 : Saddam Hussein announces Iraqi oil will be priced in euros, not US dollars.

March 2003 :




Mid-2003 : Iraq's oil goes back to being priced in US dollars, not euros.

November 2009 :

“The idea that an oil company was participating in the drafting of the Iraqi Constitution leaves me speechless”

100,000 to 1 million : Number of Iraqis estimated to have been violently killed during the War On Iraq.

5 million : Number of Iraqi children left orphaned by the War On Iraq.

6000 : Approximate number of coalition government and American private corporation soldiers and agents killed during the War On Iraq.

1 in 4 American soldiers returning from Iraq require ongoing medical and mental health care.

70% of Iraqi children are believed to be suffering trauma-related symptoms as a result of the War On Iraq.

(source)

115 billion barrels : Iraq's estimated oil wealth

340,000 barrels : Estimate of oil consumed by the Pentagon per day.

Possessing the world's largest fleet of modern aircraft, helicopters, ships, tanks, armored vehicles, and support systems - virtually all powered by oil - the Department of Defense (DoD) is the world's leading consumer of petroleum.

.

Australia Prepares To Withdraw Troops From Iraq

Howard Tries To Blackmail Maliki Government

Pass Contentious Oil Law Now So Australian Energy Giants Can Feast On Iraq's Oil-Rich Future

Facing political obliteration at the November federal elections, prime minister John Howard is preparing the Australian public, and the media, for an announcement, within weeks, that Australia will withdraw most of its combat troops from Iraq in the first half of 2008. After the election.

John Howard spoke with US president George W. Bush during the week and apparently got the okay to begin talking up an Australian troop withdrawal.

The conditions for Australian troops to stay on in Iraq are impossible for the Maliki government to achieve and Howard knows it :

"...prompt, concrete measures are needed not only to secure Iraq's future, but also to ensure regional stability and continued constructive international engagement".

The opening sentences in the story published in today's issue of 'The Australian' are remarkable for displaying the utter disrespect and contempt with which Howard now views the democratically elected government of Iraq. The threatening nature of Howard's letter to Maliki is clear :

John Howard has demanded the Iraqi Government make faster progress towards resolving the country's political differences...

In the letter, Mr Howard urges Mr Maliki to move decisively on political reconciliation within Iraq, and outlines a number of measures he should take.

Naturally fast-tracking the vastly unpopular new Oil Law is one of the chief "measures" Howard demands Maliki get sorted. Now. Or face troop withdrawals. It's almost blackmail.

If the Maliki government actually cared.

Iraqi government ministers who don't laugh out loud at this will just be insulted.

Prime Minister Maliki and senior ministers of his government said earlier this year that Australian troops were not essential to Iraq's security, and they could be withdrawn at any time.

While the Oil Law is meant to see a greater sharing of the pre-war level oil revenues amongst the majority Shia, the Kurds and Sunnis, it will also allow great swathes of Iraq's oil infrastructure to be handed over to foreign-owned oil corporations, including Australian oil giants, whose investment is needed to repair all those pipelines and refineries handily targeted by insurgents, or outside agents, and degraded by almost a decade of crippling sanctions.

Sanctions that were backed heartily by the Howard government, while simultaneously turning many blind eyes to the shockingly corrupt bribes worth hundreds of millions of dollars handed over to Saddam Hussein by the Australian Wheat Board from the late 1990s up until just before the invasion and occupation of Iraq began.

Howard's letter "demands" Maliki get his political shit together. The "demands" are mostly for the benefit of his Australian audience. Which is why the supposedly "Top Secret" letter from Howard to Maliki was leaked to The Australian's Greg Sheridan.

From Sheridan's story :

The top-secret letter was transmitted electronically to the Australian embassy in Baghdad and hand-delivered to Mr Maliki's office by the Australian ambassador to Iraq, Mark Innes Brown. The hard copy was later sent in a secure diplomatic bag.

So how did Greg Sheridan get his hands on it? Did he crack the electronic encryption of a diplomatic cable? Or did he run a pen scanner over the letter before it was tossed into the embassy mail bag?

Sheridan recently shed his last claims to credibility when he wrote lengthy, swirly tributes in his newspaper for disgraced NeoCon warpigs Paul Wolfowitz and 'Scooter' Libby. Naturally, he forgot to mention the extent of Wolfowitz and Libby's lies and propaganda in the pre-Iraq war hard sell period.

Sheridan is still good, however, for launching election-positive propaganda campaigns on behalf of his good friends John Howard and Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer.


Of course, Howard will likely choose to announce his new "cut and run" policy before the election, with the proviso that "events on the ground" in Iraq would determine the actual date for the troop withdrawals to begin. This would allow Howard to say before the election that he is withdrawing combat forces from Iraq, quelling another massive voter negative, and then change his mind and keep the troops in Iraq, by claiming security needs demand the troops to remain, if he somehow manages to win the election.

The proviso in Howard's own words :

"Our military commitment (is based) not on a timetable but on security conditions and capabilities of the Iraqi security forces."

But it's not all grim. Howard tried for some outright humour in the Maliki letter. Minus the irony :

Mr Howard warns that if the Iraqis fail to make progress, the public support for Australia's military deployment to Iraq may not be sustainable.

Some 70% of Australians opposed the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and more than one million Australians marched against the war in hundreds of events around the nation. More than 500,000 people filled Sydney's centre during a march in February, 2003, and in some small Australian towns, more than two-thirds of the entire population turned out for anti-war rallies.

Howard responded to the unity of the Australian public's demands for a non-violent approach to the problems in iraq, and the involvement of thousands of World War 2, Korea and Vietnam war veterans in the marches, by claiming they all were giving "aid and comfort" to Saddam Hussein.

The same dictator who, as we noted above, was being propped up at the time by the delivery of duffel bags from Australians stuffed with millions of dollars in cash, that Howard somehow didn't bother to notice, even though diplomatic and military phone lines ran hot for years with the news that the Howard government was allowing Saddam Hussein to collect hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes. Dozens of memos and letters warning him of the AWB bribery corruption crossed Howard's desk. He claims he saw not one such letter or memo.


There are other factors figuring into Howard's decision to withdraw Australian troops. They are needed back home to deal with local problems, primarily.

East Timor, where the Fretilin party won the majority of votes, but was stripped of its parliamentary power by a UN-backed presidential appointment, looks set to spend 2008 struggling with a low-level insurgency. Australia has to provide security in order to gets its big fat slice of East Timor's oil and gas reserves, despite the fact that the East Timorese people are some of the poorest in the world. If Australia doesn't provide security, no billions in oil and gas revenue will come our way.

Also, by mid-2008, the NeoCon propaganda campaign to rally support for attacks on Iran will have reached its climax, with strikes on Iran's nuclear energy infrastructure looking more likely by the week. If Australian troops are in Iraq when US-Israel strikes on Iran commence, they will become key targets of Shia militias and terrorists.

By admitting that he fears Australian will vote him out of office over the Iraq War, Howard has acknowledged that he really does use the Australian military like political pawns, and is prepared to "cut and run" and "abandon Iraq to terrorists" - to quote foreign minister Alexander Downer.


In recent months, Howard has been forced to limit his media-heavy tours of Australian military facilities due to growing disapproval and dissent amongst both senior and junior ranks. The rumour runs in a number of military family heavy communities that some army bases have refused, outright, to provide meet-and-greet walls of green for Howard during the election campaign. If he wants to visit, fine, but no media in tow.

Some 1500 Australian soldiers are now in Iraq, including 500 combat troops.

Opposition leader Kevin Rudd has already committed to withdrawing Australia's combat troops, and states the Labor position clearly on a recently launched website :

...we want a phased withdrawal of our combat troops from southern Iraq, in consultation with our allies and the Iraqi government. This would be part of a broader diplomatic effort to urge opposing Iraqi factions to resolve their political differences and end the civil war.

In conjunction with Howard's plans to announce "phased" troop withdrawals from Iraq, expect to see the spread of a new soft propaganda campaign from Howard, his ministers and his media supplicants on why Iraq has gone to hell :

"It's all Iran's fault."


Naturally, this will echo the current BushCo. and NeoCon anti-Iran propaganda campaigns. President Bush's office has probably already e-mailed the list of talking points to Howard and Downer. Who will, of course, then pass them onto handy journalists like Greg Sheridan at The Australian.


John Howard Finally Admits Iraq Was A War For Oil

Alexander Downer Hit Up Washington And Baghdad For BHP Iraq Oil Riches Only Weeks After Iraq War Began

Dec. 2006 : Stunning Drop In Australians' Support For Iraq War - Half Demand Troop Fast Troop Withdrawal

January 2007 : War Weary Nation Ready To Drive Howard From Office Over Iraq

Howard Hits Iraq Oil Slick As Truth Becomes A WMD

Murdoch's Media Rewrites Stories After Furious Calls From Prime Minister's Office

Howard : I Didn't Say What I Just Said

By Darryl Mason

The phone calls from John Howard's office to the head office of Rupert Murdoch's News Limited in Sydney yesterday were less than pleasant.

The News.com.au website, the main portal for Murdoch's network of Australian newspaper websites, reaching some more than 1.5 million Australian readers per day, ran a number of headlines claiming John Howard had said that oil was now a key reason to stay in Iraq. Some of the headlines said the Iraq War was a war for oil. Just like all those protesters back in early 2003 claimed it would be.

By the time Howard moved to deny he said anything such thing, it was too late. The story was out, columns and articles had been written and sent to the printers for today's news racks, and there was no going back.

The furore started early yesterday morning when online news stories began appearing claiming that John Howard was going to unveil a new defence strategy for Australia, and mention would be made that we had to secure oil supplies in Iraq, as part of that strategy.

Yesterday morning, before flying out for a visit to Indonesia, defence minister Brendan Nelson did a radio interview where he reacted to the headlines hitting news stands :

"...obviously the Middle East itself, not only Iraq but the entire region, is an important supplier of energy, oil in particular, to the rest of the world, and Australians and all of us need to think well what would happen if there were a premature withdrawal from Iraq."

The two words "oil" and "Iraq" in the same sentence were enough for Nelson's few words to become the main, and most controversial, story of the day.

By the time John Howard delivered his speech, shortly after Nelson's interview, the thrust of the story for most of the media, including the Murdoch media, was already fixed.

Howard's speech only added to the furore :

Addressing an Australian Strategic Policy Institute conference, Mr Howard said events in the Middle East had long been important to Australia's security and its broader interests.

"Many of the key strategic trends I have mentioned, including terrorism and extremism, challenging demographics, WMD aspirations, energy demand and great power competition, converge in the Middle East," he said.

"Our major ally and our most important economic partners have crucial interests there."

It was on for young and old. First Nelson, then Howard, had admitted that Australia was in Iraq for the oil.

Most Australian newspapers are still written in the late afternoon, early evening, of the day before they're published. The front pages, the editorials, the letters, were all set down before Howard's retraction of his own words, and Nelson's words, could impact. No doubt some editors chose to ignore Howard's ridiculous quibbling and denials that he said what he said, barely a few hours before.

After all, when it comes to the Middle East, "energy" is "oil" and everybody knows it.

Howard tried to roll back the unexpected emergence of some hot truth about the Iraq War late yesterday afternoon, but it was pointless. Clearly the word "energy" had disappeared from his vocabulary, now he had become obsessed with the word "oil" :

“We are not there because of oil and we didn’t go there because of oil,” Howard protested. “We don’t remain there because of oil. Oil is not the reason.”

And then it was on to defending America :

“Are people seriously suggesting that it won’t matter to Australia if America is humiliated?” asked Howard.

It's sad, indeed it's horrifying, to think that the prime minister of Australia doesn't grasp that the US has been steadily humiliated in Iraq, month in, month out, for at least two years, if not longer. There are few military analysts or historians of any credibility who would even think of trying to deny the very clear fact that an insurgency that didn't exist, according to Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, has all but laid waste to the most powerful military machine in the world.

The United States is now spending an estimated $20 billion on a program to replace all their armoured Humvees with the new, supposedly bomb proof, MRAP vehicles, because the Iraqi insurgency has been so effective at using World War 2 guerilla technology - IEDs, or improvised explosive devices - to disable, literally, thousands of Humvees and trucks in the past three years. 17,770 MRAP vehicles are on order to fight the Iraq War for the next decade.

John Howard's office knew there was little point trying to get Fairfax newspapers to retract their stories, in print or online. Howard Admits War For Iraq's Oil was the story many journos for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age had been waiting more than four years to write.

But Howard knew the Murdoch media were likely to play ball. If not in print, then at least online, where news.com.au now reaches more Australians than the same company's newspapers do, in print.

But even until the early afternoon today, almost 24 hours later, some of the Murdoch websites were still carrying 'Howard Says Iraq War For Oil' headlines and stories, even though the main news.com.au site had rewritten headlines and stories, inside its own archive, and published the following correction....oh sorry, clarification :

An earlier version of this story from the Australian Associated Press incorrectly reported the Prime Minister as saying oil was a reason for Australia's continued military presence in Iraq.

He said "energy", but as we all know, "energy" is "oil" when it comes to the Middle East, unless Howard is thinking about cutting natural gas deals with Iran sometime soon.

The phone calls from Howard's office to News Limited HQ clearly worked.

News.com.au chose to blame Australian Associated Press for supplying the wire news story that claimed Howard had admitted to a war for oil in Iraq.

Here's the pre-furious phone calls from Howard's office Uncorrected Version as it appeared online yesterday :

And here's the spiffy new Corrected Version :

Note that the sub headlines now put the words relating to 'Iraq War For Oil' squarely in the mouth of defence minister Brendan Nelson, when it was also Howard who publicly talked of needing to "secure" energy resources in Iraq and the Middle East.

The sub headlines were also edited to remove the dead giveaway line 'Another Reason Is To Uphold Prestige Of US, UK', to be replaced with the far more Freedom And Democracy Agenda-friendly 'We'll Stay Until Iraq No Longer Needs Us, Says PM'.

But perhaps more importantly, note that on both the 'corrected' and 'uncorrected' stories above, the byline clearly reads "By Staff Writers And Wires".

AAP may have supplied a story that claimed Howard said Australia had an interest in staying in Iraq to secure future oil supplies, which is, of course, exactly what he said, but unless the byline is a total lie, more than one journo rewrote or added to the text and headline and sub headlines before it went online. Hence "by staff writers and wires".

But to Howard's utter horror, that correction, sorry clarification, only made it onto the story on the main news.com.au site.

The calls for clarifications to the story must not have gotten through to other city newspaper editors and staff in Murdoch's network. Unless, of course, they chose to ignore the clarifications because the story didn't need any clarifying at all. It was true.

And if that was the case, then good on them for not following directions from head office, via the Howard office.

story continues below....
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From other blogs by Darryl Mason :

Go Here For The Latest Stories From 'Your New Reality'

Go Here For The Latest Stories From 'The Last Days Of President Bush'

Go Here For The Latest Stories From 'The Fourth World War'
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story continues....


The below pages were all still online through the Murdoch online stable at 10-11am today, and later.

You will notice that the headlines and intros are almost riotously scathing for the Murdoch media's notoriously pro-Iraq and pro-Howard coverage, especially considering the absolutely vile smears these very same newspapers spewed onto the more than 600,000 Australians who marched in opposition to the Iraq War, many of whom, including thousands of World War 2, Korea and Vietnam veterans, claimed it was going to be a "War For Oil."

From the Adelaide Advertiser :



Australia's biggest selling daily newspaper, The Herald Sun, ran the following editorial today, hitting the presses before it could be pulled, and staying online, unchanged, well into the late morning :



The Tasmania Mercury still had this up on their site at midday :


And the Murdoch site in Perth still had this posted after midday today :



Even though the story of Howard's Iraq Oil Slick was running up hundreds of comments an hour on websites around Australia, any mention of it was gone from the news.com.au front page by 10.30am this morning.

Over at Murdoch's flagship 'The Australian' newspaper website, at least three key columnists weighed in supporting Howard's claim that he didn't say what he said, and it really didn't matter even if the prime minister and the defence minister did say what they said. Which they did.

Columnist Matt Price even went so far as to write that Nelson was wrong, dead wrong :

"I don’t think oil plays any remotely significant role in the government’s Iraq strategy."

Hell, clearly a newspaper columnist would know more about Australia's reasons for staying in Iraq than the defence minister. Right?

By 9am, more than a hundred people had hit Price's blog to castigate him for spinning on behalf of the government, and most of the commenters mocked him soundly.

Just to jog your memory, here's a reminder of what John Howard had to say about claims that the, then still coming, war on Iraq was about something other than WMDs and deposing Saddam Hussein back in February, 2003 :

"No criticism is more outrageous than the claim that US behaviour is driven by a wish to take control of Iraq's oil reserves."

And here's what the Murdoch media's favourite political whipping post, Greens Leader Bob Brown had to say in that same week, in 2003 :

This is not Australia's war. This is an oil war. This is the US recognising that, as the economic empire of the age, it needs oil to maintain its pre-eminence.

Back then, 76 percent of Australians were opposed to a War On Iraq.


By midday today, the Australia In Iraq For The Oil scandal was making international news, in a big way.

And the hundreds of headlines from around the world were immune to Howard's attempt to reframe his own comments, and those of his defence minister. They went in hard, using Howard as the first leader of a Coalition Of The Drilling country to finally admit the truth about a war so blackened and poisoned with so many lies :

Herald Sun, Melbourne : PM's war for oil

Daily Times, Pakistan - Oil key motive for Iraq involvement: Australia

The Scotsman, Scotland - Oil keeps Australia in Iraq

The Independent, UK : Australian troops 'in Iraq because of oil'

RTE, Ireland : Mideast oil priority for Australia

The BBC : Australians 'are in Iraq for oil'

Turkish Press, Middle East : Oil a factor in Australian role in Iraq: minister

Voice Of America : Australia Says Oil Key Motive for Involvement in Iraq

The Guardian, UK : Oil a factor in Iraq conflict, says Australian MP

Xinhau, China : PM: Australian troops to stay in Iraq for oil

Aljazeera : Australia admits Iraq war about oil

Forbes : Australia says securing oil supply means no Iraq withdrawal

Press TV, Iran : Aussies in Iraq for Oil

Gulf News, United Arab Emirates : Oil 'key factor for Australia's role in Iraq'

Stratfor (key military intel site) : Australia: Oil A Reason For Iraq Presence

Alsumaria, Iraq : Oil supply is an essential factor

Zee Tv, India : Mid-east oil crucial to our future: Australian PM

Alalalam News Network, Iran : Australia: Oil Means no Iraq Pullout


Some of those same news sites ran Howard's attempts to deny that he said what he said, but his retraction was given mostly backwater coverage. Those international editors knew, like some editors of Murdoch's Australian newspapers knew, that Howard was trying to scam them.

Like he scammed the entire back in late 2002 when he said he hadn't decided whether or not he would send troops to Iraq, when they were already in the Gulf. And in early March, 2003, when he said he hadn't decided yet whether or not commit troops to the coming war, when some of those already deployed troops had already written letters to their children in case they died during their war.

Howard's complete failure to keep the 'Iraq War For Oil' controversy in check couldn't have come at a worse political time for him. Today and tomorrow, the dreaded Newspoll surveys are taken, and Howard was counting on the poll, published early next week, to show the Liberal Party that is still a viable, respected, trusted and popular party leader and prime minister.

The rumours a few months back were if Howard didn't snap the polls back up in his favour by late July, his career was over. He would be rolled, and the federal election would be delayed until early 2008 to give time for a new leader to try and make his mark, and chase away some of the foul stench of the Howard years. If that's at all possible.

After 11 years as prime minister of Australia, John Howard stands today a doomed man. And he knows it.

And early next week, terrible poll numbers, and sweeping rumours of a leadership challenge, will confirm it for the entire nation.

Prime Minister Finally Admits Iraq Was A War For Oil

Blogocracy : Oils Ain't Oils, Apparently

Matt Price : Howard Didn't Say What He Said, And Neither Did Nelson

Howard Denies Linking Oil To Iraq

Rudd : Iraq Oil Claim Conradicts Goverment's Story

Government Admits Oil Behind Iraq Stay

Ninemsn Your Say : PM Links Oil To Iraq War

PM And Minister At Odds Over Iraq's Reasons

More Fury, More Outrage In Comments At The Courier Mail

Nelson's Iraq War For Oil Claim Spreads Around The World

"I Can't Believe I Voted For Him" - West Australians Rip And Shred Howard

The Very Best Of John Howard On The First Six Weeks Of The War On Iraq


John Howard Little Digger sculpture image grabbed from here


"....our goal is to make certain that the weapons that Iraq now has, chemical and biological and a capacity to develop nuclear weapons, are taken from Iraq. I don't believe the world can turn its back on that. If Iraq gets away with this, if Iraq stares us all down, she will certainly not abandon her weapons then." January 23, 2003

"..if as a consequence of that military action the current regime disappears, that circumstances in Iraq could well be a lot better, I’m certain they will be a lot better and that in a relatively short period of time the situation could stabilise in the way that it did in Afghanistan." February 7. 2003

"I think there’s a very big connection between Iraq and North Korea and the connection is this, if the Security Council and the world community can’t discipline Iraq it has no hope of disciplining North Korea." February, 16, 2003

"Iraq must be disarmed. We cannot afford to allow a rogue state like Iraq to retain chemical and biological weapons. Others will do likewise. North Korea will not be disciplined by the world community if Iraq is not disciplined." March 14, 2003

"I have no doubt at all in my mind, and many would agree with me, that the Iraqi people will suffer less if Saddam Hussein is removed." March 17, 2003

"You don't make parallels with history when you are dealing with contemporary events." March 18, 2003

"I think you’ve also got to remember that the suffering of the Iraqi people will be a lot less once this regime has gone..." March 19, 2003

"I want the Iraqi regime disarmed, I want Iraq disarmed. The question of what happens to Saddam Hussein to me is incidental. The aim is the disarmament of Iraq," March 19, 2003

"...we don’t have any quarrel with the ordinary people of Iraq, we don’t want to inflict any avoidable pain injury or death on them. We do have a big quarrel with the regime because it’s the regime that has defied the world in relation to its chemical and biological weapons. We mustn’t lose sight of what this is all about." March 20, 2003

"....on the scale of suffering I have believed for a long time that the people of Iraq will suffer less if he’s gone than if he’s left there." March 21, 2003

"...it is a very tyrannical regime and once it’s gone the people of Iraq will I’m sure have a much better life." April 2, 2003

"...if Iraq had disarmed and fully cooperated, then I don’t think people would have been arguing on its own for regime change." April 2, 2003

"...getting rid of the regime and thereby ensuring that Iraq does not retain chemical and biological weapons or a capacity to develop them in the future, that is the goal....I would say victory once the regime is gone." April 6, 2003

"...we won't be making a significant peacekeeping contribution. I would expect that as our military involvement winds down, and I'm not announcing that it's about to wind down, let me emphasise, but at some point obviously it will begin to wind down. I would think during the transitional phase we may retain during that transitional phase - I'm not talking about a period of 12 months or two years, but the immediate period of the transitional phase - we could retain some niche contribution of military forces in order to assist in the immediate transition phase. But we certainly don't intend to have a significant army of peacekeepers." April 10, 2003

"...the same thing with the civilian casualties. Of course there were. But you have to put that in the balance against the tens upon tens of thousands who have died in different ways as a result of this regime." April 13, 2003

"It was inevitable that when you topple a tyrannical regime and you took the lid off, it was inevitable there was going to be a period of some upheaval..." April 16, 2003

"It’s one thing, as I say, to have a short, sharp, highly professional, highly effective contribution when it’s really hot. It’s another thing to have a very long commitment of a large number of regulars."

"...it was a remarkable military victory, and a great tribute to the American military leadership." May 2, 2003

"...can I Mr President congratulate you on the leadership that you gave to the world, at times under very great criticism, at times facing very great obstruction...I think what was achieved in Iraq was quite extraordinary from a military point of view. I think the military textbooks will be replete with the experiences of Operation Iraqi Freedom for many years to come..." May 3, 2003

Alexander Downer Lobbied Washington, Baghdad In 2003 On Behalf Of BHP

Excerpts from this Sydney Morning Herald article :

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer, warned BHP Billiton that pushing for control of an Iraqi oilfield straight after invasion would be "very sensitive" because the US-led coalition had made it clear "there would not be blood for oil".

Despite this Mr Downer agreed he would raise the company's claim over the huge Halfayah oilfield with Washington and the head of the post-war occupation government in Iraq, Paul Bremer, according to documents released yesterday by the Cole inquiry into the Oil for Food scandal.

A highly confidential record of the meeting between Mr Downer and BHP Billiton executives written by the Department of Foreign Affairs details their discussion of the project in London in May 2003, only weeks after the Saddam Hussein government fell.

The document reveals an extraordinary effort by BHP Billiton to get its share of the Halfayah oilfield, one of the richest in the country, by lobbying the key players in postwar Iraq.

The executives told Mr Downer the company had already lobbied Arthur Sinodinos, the chief adviser to the Prime Minister, John Howard, and were about to approach Downing Street and the US Vice-President Dick Cheney.

In a frank assessment of the power structure under the occupation government in Baghdad, the executives told Mr Downer they had a key contact there, the former boss of Shell Oil in America, Philip Carroll, who had been hand-picked by the White House to advise the new Iraqi oil minister. Mr Carroll also had a number of Iraqi exiles with him who had worked for the Iraqi Oil Ministry.

"The Australian Government had said sincerely that it had not joined coalition forces on the basis of oil," Mr Downer is recorded saying. "Wise judgement suggested it was the Iraqis themselves who needed to be awarding the oil contracts.

"That said, Mr Downer agreed he would raise the matter both in Washington and in Baghdad with Paul Bremer. He would also have it raised with the Oil Ministry in Baghdad."

The document also clearly sets out of the first time that real relationship between BHP Billiton and the controversial company Tigris, its joint venture partner in Iraq.

Tigris has been accused in evidence to the Cole inquiry of being involved in a major fraud in the UN's Oil For Food program to assist Australia's wheat trader, AWB.

According to the document, Mr Harley told Mr Downer: "Tigris was responsible for maintaining relationships with [Saddam Hussein's] Iraq by working Oil for Food projects until a normal political situation could be established in Iraq.

"This arrangement was judged by all parties to give Australia the maximum chance of securing the Halfayah field investment."

The Cole inquiry also released a bundle of new documents from AWB and the UN supporting evidence to the Cole inquiry that AWB knowingly paid hundreds of millions of dollars in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime to maintain its wheat contracts in Iraq.

Several Iraqi documents written by Saddam Hussein's officials between August and December 2000 detail orders to Iraqi ministers to collect kickbacks and fees on humanitarian shipments to Iraq under the UN Oil for Food program and transfer the money back into government coffers.

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