----- Original Message -----
From: "Adelaide Institute" <info@adelaideinstitute.org>
To: "John Kucek" <jlkucek@juno.com>
Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 5:59 AM
Subject: Re: CCLNews> Its the Oil, Stupid ! <Fwd>


Thank you for this.

 I do not think that the one excludes the other. It is naturally not only
the oil, and perhaps that was what was suggested by stating the matter
 categorically.

 However, if you follow our argumentation on our pages, then you will
perhaps notice that one assertion will always be accompanied - sometimes implied  -
 by the statement: This, but not only.
So it is with the oil issue.

 We have focused more on other matters because we have supporters who see 

the world through 'Holocaust' - Revisionist eyes, and that is somewhat limiting even though

 the key to undoing the Israeli state (dismantling its present structure) lies in the

 'Holocaust'-gas chamber lie.

 Most of the world's problems cannot be reduced to a single

 factor - and we shy away from those who are single-issue advocates, for example stating
that all the world's ills are a result of a Jewish conspiracy. That this is one
 of the major factors is a fact, but it is not the only one.
For what it's worth.
 Fredrick Toben

 ----- Original Message -----
 From: "John Kucek" <jlkucek@juno.com>
 To: <charles@christiancommonlaw-gov.org>
 Cc: <news-editorials@christiancommonlaw-gov.org>;
 <Info@adelaideinstitute.org>
 Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 5:56 PM
 Subject: Re: CCLNews> Its the Oil, Stupid ! <Fwd>


>  Gary North is a Judeo-Christian.
>  Duke says "It's Not About Oil, Stupid!"
> I believe Duke.

 JLK


 The Iraqi War:
 It's not about the oil, stupid!
by David Duke
 Broadcast Date 11-29-2002
 www.davidduke.com

 Representative David Duke at Al-Jazeera Satellite Network in Qatar

 I just returned from Bahrain and Qatar. In Qatar I appeared on one
 of the most-watched television satellite channels in the world,
 Al-Jazeera. An audience of 70 million saw and listened to me
 expose the Jewish supremacist traitors in the U.S. Government who
 have sold out America to Israel. In violation of the United States
 Constitution, the Jewish-dominated U.S. State Department actually
 protested my appearance and tried to suppress my freedom of speech
 as an American citizen. More on that a little later, but first, I
 want to turn to one of the big lies about the coming war on Iraq,
 that lie is that Big Oil interests, rather than the Zionists, are
 behind the planned war.

The Zionists are masters at deception. Like the bait-and-switch
 sales tactics of American retail giants, some elements of the
Jewish-dominated media in America have floated the idea that the
 coming war in Iraq is about oil. Sounding like a genuine dissident
 viewpoint, some patriots have unwittingly help spread this myth.
 One antiwar pundit adopted this theory and headlined, "It's about
 oil, stupid!"

These claims were originated simply to deflect the blame for the
war from Israel and its fifth column in America. The warmongers
 anxiously want this war NOT to appear to be the result of the
 Israeli Fifth Column trying to strike down Israel's enemies one
by one. By floating the idea that the war is about oil, a resource
 vital to America and Europe, the suggestion is that somehow it
 is in America's and Europe's economic interest to invade Iraq.
 The implication is that the war will somehow allow us to grab
 the oil, and so it will be good for the economy and the common
 man. Of course, the idea that we will just grab the oil is simply
 preposterous. Whatever new regime is in charge of Iraq will sell
 the oil at normal world spot prices!

 A lot of good antiwar people have been deceived by this tactic,
 and are parroting the idea that it is big Oil that really behind
this war. The Bush family ties to the oil industry are often cited
 in this scenario. And frankly, it is one thousand times easier
 in America to speak about conspiracies of the big bad Oil
 companies than to speak of the more open and more obvious Jewish
 conspiracies. Talk about big Oil conspiracies and some will call
 you wrong, but no one will accuse you of the great blasphemy of
 our age, the most evil of all heresies: so-called "anti-Semitism."

 But really, does big Oil or America have a strong economic
 motivation for this war? A few obvious facts coupled with plain,
 old-fashioned reason will show you that the war against Iraq
 holds no real advantage for big Oil, in fact it offers them
much peril. As far as concerning American and European economic
 interests at large, the war in Iraq will have devastating
 consequences, to say nothing of causing anti-American political
 unrest and horrendous terrorism.

Today, I will examin the economic consequences of the Iraqi war.
The first question is "Do we have to go to war with Iraq to get
 its oil?" The answer is: "Of course we don't." We bought oil
from Saddam Hussein before the Gulf War, and we can buy it now.
 If America, by this war, makes a regime change in Iraq, the
 American government is not simply going to pump the oil out of
 the ground and put the proceeds in our treasury. Those in
political control in Iraq will still control the oil and still sell it to
the world at the international prevailing spot oil prices.

And let me make this very clear, Iraq has the second largest
oil reserves in the world. Giving Iraqi oil easier access to
the world's markets will, after the flurry of wartime higher
oil prices, eventually depress the price of oil. What does this
mean to the big American and European oil companies who have
the great bulk of their oil investments in the United States
(such as in Texas, Louisiana and Alaska), in the North Sea,
 in Russia and in South America? Opening up the Iraqi market
(and Iraq will need to sell huge quantities of oil after the war
devastation) will ultimately mean, bottom line, depressed
prices for oil reserves that Big Oil actually owns! The war will not help
their profits but in the long run only hurt them.
That is why Russia, a nation with large oil reserves but less Jewish
influence, rightly opposes the war, knowing it will
 ultimately hurt their own oil business.

 So, in the final analysis, Big Oil has no long-term interest
 in the overthrow of Saddam. And it must be admitted that Big Oil
 has no strong interest in normalizing relations with Iraq either.
 For if America normalizes relations with the current Iraqi regime,
 the oil will flow freely, just as it would if sanctions lifted
after a so-called regime change. Either way, regime change or
 normalized relations would not necessarily be good for the Big
 Oil companies.

Relayed by Doug Everingham
----------
From: Don Chisholm <donchism@magma.ca>
To: gaiapc@envirolink.org
Subject: Fwd: [energyresources] Digest Number 1568
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 8:01 AM
-----------

FYI, a little more about the upcoming oil war.
Don



_______________________________________________________

Message: 20
Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 15:55:02 -0000
From: "Adam Whaley" byrlip@lineone.net
Subject: Gary North's REALITY CHECK 198

Sorry about the length, not available on-line without subscription.
Adam.

Gary North's REALITY CHECK
Issue 198  December 16, 2002
A DELIBERATE NO-EXIT STRATEGY

Sunday evening, December 15, should go into the history books
as the day that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld emphatically
assured Americans that the Administration's willingness to invade
Iraq is in no way connected to the issue of oil.  "60 Minutes" ran
an interview by Steve Kroft in which Rumsfeld made this statement.
Rumsfeld could not have been more emphatic.

Kroft then interviewed other interested parties, all of whom
assured him that oil is a factor in America's foreign policy goals
in Iraq.  Nobody who appeared on the show believed Rumsfeld.  That
means that the producers of "60 Minutes" didn't believe him,
either.

Iraq has 130 billion barrels of proven reserves of oil.  This
is the second-largest national source of oil after Saudi Arabia.
Saddam Hussein has cut deals with Russian and French oil
companies, leaving traditional Anglo-American oil companies out of
the loop.  Anglo- American oil companies have been the dominant
Western participants in the extraction of Middle Eastern oil ever
since oil was discovered there.

If the United States invades Iraq, it will win the war at
some price.  This nation's government will then be in charge of
establishing control over the sale of oil.  It will not do this
directly.  It will install a puppet regime.  The hatred of the
United States in Iraq is sufficient so that the United States
government will not be able to let democracy work without its
intervention.

Once the United States military has established control over
the oil fields, which I assume it will do at the beginning of the
invasion, Iraq will not be able to feed itself.  Control the flow
of oil, and you control the only thing worth controlling in Iraq.
The government will topple.  Even if it doesn't, who cares if the
U.S. government controls the oil?

At that point, the oil-drilling concessions will be handed
out by the United States government's puppet regime.  "Y'all
come!"  This will buy off Europe's foot-dragging politicians, who
will be able to go to their voters and say, "fait accompli."  They
will have offered token resistance to the United States, which is
all that European voters expect.  Now they will reap the rewards,
either directly by the participation of their national oil
companies or indirectly by enjoying a lower price of oil.

REPLACING OPEC
The United States buys most of its imported oil from Canada
(15%), Mexico (12%), and Venezuela (14%).  Middle Eastern
countries account for 24% of our imports, which is still in the
range of half of our consumption.

Oil is priced in terms of supply and demand internationally.
An increase in supply that lowers the price of oil in the Middle
East also lowers it in Venezuela.

The Western alliance depends on oil.  Oil is the most
important commodity.  To maintain its leadership of this alliance,
the United States government must see to it that the price of the
central commodity stays low.  China and Asia are coming on-stream
economically, which means the demand for oil will rise.  The CIA
has estimated that by 2015, 75% of Persian Gulf oil will go to
Asia, with only 10% flowing to the West.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/globaltrends2015/#link8c

The United States must defend the interests of the alliance
by bringing new supplies into production.  This was what the
invasion of Afghanistan was all about: establishing protection
over a new pipeline from the Caspian Sea oil fields, either
through Afghanistan and Pakistan and into the tankers, or through
Turkey.  This pipeline is important if Russia is not to control
this flow of oil.  The Great Game of the 19th century -- Russia,
Turkey, England, Afghanistan, and India -- is still being fought,
but only by surrogates.  For a good analysis of the pipeline
issues, see the September, 2001 article on Turkey and the
pipeline, which is posted on the Web site of the joint
Israeli-American organization, the Institute for Advanced
Strategic & Political Studies.

http://www.israeleconomy.org/strategic/strat13.pdf

Once the United States government controls the output of the
Iraqi oil fields, the world will see whether OPEC has controlled
prices to the detriment of the Western alliance and Western oil
companies.  The critics of big oil have always said that big oil
was in cahoots with OPEC.  As the price of oil has risen, the oil
companies' profits have risen.  The oil companies have denied
this.  Now we will see who was telling the truth.

Oil's price, as with every commodity's price, is established
by its price at the margin.  The price of the latest barrel of oil
sold is imputed to all of the barrels of oil remaining to be sold.
It does not take a great increase in supply to lower the price of
oil.  An extra million barrels of oil a day will drop the price if
buyers expect this added output to continue.  Iraq's oil fields
are capable of providing far more than an extra million barrels of
oil a day.  This is why the United States has in effect capped
Iraqi wells by its oil-for-food embargo.

As soon as U.S. military control is established, we will see
who is really in control: (1) a politically created and
politically defended cartel of oil suppliers or (2) consumers.  If
the price of oil stays above $25/barrel, we will know that OPEC
and the Western alliance have been in agreement on the higher
price of oil.  If we are regaled with explanations about
"maintaining orderly oil prices" when the U.S. Army can simply
open the spigots, we will know that the interests of politicians
and their oil cartel allies are dominant, and the interests of
consumers are going to be sacrificed as surely as the interests as
taxpayers are.  If the windfall profits of the invasion go to
consumers through lower energy prices, we will know that OPEC
really was the enemy of the powers that be.

Once the spigots are controlled by the United States, OPEC
will fall into line.  The United States will have the ability to
cut the revenues of Saudi Arabia and the rest of the OPEC
countries.  Because governments always expand expenditures to meet
revenues, any drastic restriction of revenues will topple existing
oil-exporting governments.  Once the United States controls the
marginal supply of oil, it will also control the regimes of the
Middle East.  It can then get regime changes any time it likes.
Problem: there will be more than one regime change because there
will be only one price of oil.

The problem with regime changes today is that they are likely
to produce radical, anti-Western regimes.  This is why the United
States still has 5,000 troops in Saudi Arabia.  These troops can
keep the pipelines open if some Al-Qaeda-type regime takes over.
When there are 250,000 American troops in the region, most of them
stationed in Iraq, geography will be in our favor militarily.
Iraq borders on Iran and Saudi Arabia, the two other major oil
producers in the region.  This means that U.S. troops will be able
to guarantee open spigots.  It will also mean that revolutionaries
will be less likely to establish hostile regimes.  They will have
to content themselves with assassinations, terrorism, and guerilla
actions.  But this is their specialty anyway in the international
division of labor.  They are the disloyal opposition.

The United States government will be able to bust up the OPEC
cartel as soon as its military controls Iraq's oil fields.  The
United States government will set the price of oil because it will
set the output of Iraq.  It will be able to drive the price of oil
down to $10.  If the goal is to serve consumers' interests, the
price of oil will reflect this within six months -- or six weeks
-- after the U.S. Army controls Iraq's oil fields.  On the other
hand, if the price stays above $20, let alone $25, then the
invasion of Iraq is all about controlling politics in the region,
not providing low-cost energy to the world.  The quid pro quo will
be oil for political influence, not oil for production.  That
policy will be anti-Palestinian.

ECONOMICS FIRST OR POLITICS FIRST?

Some of you may remember William Seidman.  He ran the Federal
Deposit Insurance Corporation under Reagan, and he took over the
government's Savings & Loan bail-out program.  Earlier this year,
he gave an interview to the Grand Rapids, Michigan Peninsula Club.
This speech was reported by the GRAND RAPIDS PRESS and picked up
only by the World Socialist Web Site.  Seidman emphasized the
economic implications of a U.S. military victory in Iraq.

A US war against Iraq is "probably the most
bullish thing I can think of," William Seidman, a
senior economic adviser under four US presidents,
told his audience at the posh Peninsula Club.

Seidman, a commentator for CNBC, was an
adviser to presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and
Bush senior. He is the former chairman of the
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and also
headed the Resolution Trust Company, the federal
agency created to bail out the scandal-ridden
savings and loans industry in the 1980s. He
served as a consultant on the junior Bush's
transition team, and maintains close ties with
top administration officials.

According to the Grand Rapids Press, which
was alone in reporting the remarks, Seidman told
the meeting that he had just come from a State
Department briefing in which US plans for a
military occupation of Iraq were outlined.

Removing the Iraqi government and installing
a US military regime that would control the
country's oil fields is "at least as important as
eliminating weapons of mass destruction," he
said. "Getting control of that oil will make a
vast difference in all sorts of things, but
particularly the price of oil."

"We are planning to set up a MacArthur-like"
government in Iraq, the ex-official said
enthusiastically, referring to the US occupation
regime established in Japan at the end of World
War II. "If we are in Iraq, nobody can use oil as
a weapon."

Seidman suggested that establishing US
military rule over the Arab country would also
strengthen Washington's hand in relation to the
other top Middle East oil producer, Saudi Arabia,
effectively crippling its ability to set an
independent oil policy. "Having two major oil
producers not part of any radical Muslim or any
other unfriendly government," he said, would be
"a huge additional factor in the world's
economy."

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/oct2002/oil-o16_prn.shtml

All of this is obvious, but none of this is discussed by the
media, including "60 Minutes."  The Administration's goal of
invading Iraq is not about destroying weapons of mass destruction.
If it were, we would have invaded North Korea long ago, which is
the real producer of such weapons, and says so publicly.  It's
about the gaining control over the weapon of marginal pricing.

If control over Iraq were about consumer sovereignty, there
would be no no-fly zones in Iraq and no oil-for-food embargo on
Iraq's oil exports.  The world's consumers would have been
enjoying additional oil for a decade, which would have forced down
the price of oil.  But American policy is not about forcing down
the price of oil.  It's about placing in the hands of the United
States government the terms of oil's production at the margin.
This is the most important single economic lever in the world
economy and the only major economic lever than the United States
government does not control.

PERLE'S 1996 REPORT

Richard Perle is the chairman of President Bush's Defense
Policy Board, a civilian advisory group.  He co- authored a paper
in 1996, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,"
which was published by the previously mentioned Institute for
Advanced Strategic & Political Studies.  The report is still
on-line.  It calls for the establishment of a new balance of power
foreign policy in Israel -- the same system, it might be added,
that twice led England into world war, and which twice required
the United States to bail out England.  The report made
suggestions to the Likud Party, which is Ariel Sharon's party.

Benjamin Netanyahu's government comes in with a
new set of ideas. While there are those who will
counsel continuity, Israel has the opportunity to
make a clean break; it can forge a peace process
and strategy based on an entirely new
intellectual foundation, one that restores
strategic initiative and provides the nation the
room to engage every possible energy on
rebuilding Zionism, the starting point of which
must be economic reform. To secure the nation's
streets and borders in the immediate future,
Israel can:

Work closely with Turkey and Jordan to
contain, destabilize, and roll-back
some of its most dangerous threats.
This implies clean break from the
slogan, "comprehensive peace" to a
traditional concept of strategy based
on balance of power.

Change the nature of its relations with
the Palestinians, including upholding
the right of hot pursuit for self
defense into all Palestinian areas and
nurturing alternatives to Arafat's
exclusive grip on Palestinian society.

We have seen this program adopted by Ariel Sharon's
government.  Netanyahu's government failed.

Then there are security considerations.  The report says:

Syria challenges Israel on Lebanese soil. An
effective approach, and one with which American
can sympathize, would be if Israel seized the
strategic initiative along its northern borders
by engaging Hizballah, Syria, and Iran, as the
principal agents of aggression in Lebanon, . . .

This has not been done yet.  Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon
in May, 2000, represented a major break with Israel's policy since
1982.  But that was done before the latest intifada began after
Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount in September of 2000, which
soon brought down Barak's government.  Syria remains a problem for
Israel.  So does Saddam Hussein.

We must distinguish soberly and clearly friend
from foe. We must make sure that our friends
across the Middle East never doubt the solidity
or value of our friendship. Israel can shape its
strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey
and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even
rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on
removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq -- an
important Israeli strategic objective in its own
right -- as a means of foiling Syria's regional
ambitions.

Unlike the anti-Syrian policy, the following is now in
progress:

Israel has a chance to forge a new relationship
between itself and the Palestinians. First and
foremost, Israel's efforts to secure its streets
may require hot pursuit into Palestinian-
controlled areas, a justifiable practice with
which Americans can sympathize.

What is "the clean break"?  It is a break with
America's control over Israel.

Israel can make a clean break from the past and
establish a new vision for the U.S.-Israeli
partnership based on self-reliance, maturity and
mutuality -- not one focused narrowly on
territorial disputes. Israel's new strategy --
based on a shared philosophy of peace through
strength -- reflects continuity with Western
values by stressing that Israel is self-reliant,
does not need U.S. troops in any capacity to
defend it, including on the Golan Heights, and
can manage its own affairs. Such self-reliance
will grant Israel greater freedom of action and
remove a significant lever of pressure used
against it in the past.
http://www.israeleconomy.org/strat1.htm

This is now taking place.  The United States government has
almost no influence to stop the violence on either side.  Under
Sharon, Israel is going it alone, not bothering to consult
Washington.  This is what Perle wanted in 1996, when he was
outside of the government.  It is what he wants now.

This program explicitly recommended the restoration of a free
market economy in the State of Israel.  So far, this has not
happened.  It also called for a cessation of American foreign aid,
which has not happened.

To reinforce this point, the Prime Minister can
use his forthcoming visit to announce that Israel
is now mature enough to cut itself free
immediately from at least U.S. economic aid and
loan guarantees at least, which prevent economic
reform.

What has happened is the creation of a plan for the United
States to take over Iraq, which will permanently place United
States troops in the Middle east.  This plan is generally
attributed to Perle.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/09/05/perle/

http://polyconomics.com/showarticle.asp?articleid=1634

The troops won't be home for Christmas -- ever.  Once in the
Middle East's tar baby, nobody gets out except with his tail
between its legs and his treasury empty, as Britain got out half a
century ago.

This is why I refer to Richard Perle as the Perle of great
price.

WILL THE UNITED STATES INVADE?

Today, the United Nations' weapons investigation team is all
that is keeping the U.S. from invading.  Hans Blix and his team
appear to be working diligently to discover what Saddam Hussein
says is not there.  The Administration has yet to release
documents showing that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.  The
inability of Blix's team to discover any such weapons will force
the United States either to back down or else invade without
justifying its invasion in terms of WMD.  For the U.S. to invade
while the team is still conducting its investigation would
demonstrate the Administration's contempt for world public
opinion.

The uncertainty regarding our invasion, Greenspan has said,
is one factor that is keeping American businesses from investing.
I think the economic problem is a lot more pervasive than
uncertainty about geopolitics, but there is surely uncertainty.
War is bad for business unless there is a rapid pay-off, such as
the cutting of oil prices in half.

CONCLUSION

I don't think Blix's team will find any weapons of mass
destruction.  Do I think the United States will invade anyway?
Yes.  I don't think this planned invasion is really about weapons
of mass destruction.  It is about the marginal price of oil and
the use of this pricing lever to influence politics in the Middle
East.  It is about cutting off funding to Muslim revolutionaries,
including Palestinian resistance groups.  It is about the balance
of power.  The Administration wants to determine which regimes get
changed, if any, and by which groups.  The oil lever is the
lowest-cost foreign policy tool at the government's disposal.
This will require American troops in Iraq on a permanent basis.

This is a deliberate no-exit strategy.  The Administration
plans to send in troops that will become as permanent as its 5,000
troops in Saudi Arabia.  How many troops will this be?  As many as
it takes to control the marginal price of oil.

The United States government is about to replace OPEC as the
pricing agent of world oil.  The name of the game is still cartel
pricing, but there will be different hands on the spigots.

The Great Game continues.  The flow of money out of the
latest winner's treasury will also continue.  That is the price of
victory in this game.  That is why nobody ever wins it.

Iraq has huge oil reserves and the world's cheapest lifting costs. 

That's why a war against Saddam could change everything.

Paul Klebnikov, Forbes,  http://www.forbes.com/, 10.28.02

Charting a military outcome in Iraq is dicey, and some say that a bad turn of events could mean $100-a-barrel oil. But after any brief disruption, the oil-market effects of a neutralized or pro-Western successor to Saddam Hussein are unmistakably positive. Iraq sits on 120 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, second only to Saudi Arabia's 260 billion.

"Since 1961, only in the years between 1973 and 1980 was there any exploration of Iraq's oil reserves," says Fadhil Chalabi, who was a ranking official at the Iraqi Ministry of Oil from 1968 to the mid-1970s. "During that short period there were many discoveries of giant oilfields, which could now be developed very easily."

Chalabi now directs the Centre for Global Energy Studies, a London think tank founded by Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, a former oil minister of Saudi Arabia. He has ominous news for the sheikh's countrymen: Iraq's real recoverable oil reserves could be double today's estimate. "Ultimately they could exceed those of Saudi Arabia," Chalabi says.

Therein lies a partial, though hardly party-line, answer to those doubters who say that an attack on Saddam would plunge Iraq into economic chaos. After the chaos, it is hoped, would come some oilfield development that would leave both Iraqis and the world's energy buyers better off.
Noteworthy about Iraq's oil industry is how much of it is going to waste--idle wells, rusting pipes and pumping stations that haven't been serviced in more than a decade. It's like a Colorado ghost town, abandoned since the silver-mining operation closed down, except that the silver is all still in the ground, and in unbelievably large quantities.

A lot of Iraq's oil lies in huge virgin fields, discovered in the 1970s before Saddam turned the place into a military bastion and untouched since. The Majnoun field, close to the Iranian border, contains recoverable reserves of 11 billion barrels. That's equivalent to a third of the proven reserves of the entire U.S. And Majnoun is only one of several monster Iraqi oilfields still waiting for the first pump to get cranking.
The oil in these Iraqi fields is low in sulfur and close to the surface. There will be no need to inject water or gas or chemicals in order to upgrade recovery. In short, it's cheap to produce. "Iraq has the lowest lifting cost in the world," says Chalabi. "I estimate it at below $1 a barrel, compared with Saudi Arabia, which is around $2.50 a barrel."

This is in a completely different league from, say, the Gulf of Mexico or the North Sea, where it can take $3 to $4 to lift a barrel to the surface.

Another reason that Iraqi oil production could take off quickly is that pipelines and terminals are already in place, although they are underutilized. The same is true with Iraq's many qualified engineers and technicians. (Saudi Arabia, in contrast, has to hire foreign engineers.) Moreover, through pipelines that terminate in Turkey, Syria and (potentially) Israel, Iraq has the ability to funnel most of its oil directly to the eastern Mediterranean, bypassing the Persian Gulf entirely.

At its peak in 1980, Iraq had the capacity to produce 4 million barrels a da

y. Since then, battered by wars, underinvestment and economic sanctions, production has declined to 2 million barrels. "Iraq will require a minimum of $30 billion in investments to develop its oil industry," says Chalabi. "With that, it could reach a production rate of 7 million to 8 million barrels a day in four to five years."

That's close to what Saudi Arabia produces today. With such a huge new supply of oil on the world market, prices might plummet. Saudi Arabia might lose its swing position within the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and the cartel itself might lose what little ability it has left to set prices.

"Iraq is a member of OPEC, but I don't think the other members would be able to restrain it, because Iraq will need every dollar it can get to rebuild itself," says Chalabi, who also served as acting secretary general of OPEC in the mid-1980s. "I could see the price for West Texas Intermediate going from $30 today to $15, and OPEC won't be able to do anything about it."

So Saddam's fall would be bad news for some of his rival regimes in oil-rich lands. But for the rest of the world, a gusher.