LaRocco: It’s an astounding admission
Idaho’s Sen. Craig: It Really is About Oil
By Jill Kuraitis, 7-19-07
Tuesday’s debate in the U.S. Senate over whether to reduce U.S. forces in Iraq (Levin Amendment No. 2087), a motion which was ultimately rejected 52-47 (1 absence) the next morning, included a floor speech by Idaho Senator Larry Craig in which he said,
“What happens to the world energy supply if Iran does gain more control in the Middle East? What are the realities of the consequences of an Iran that possibly could gain control over 54% of the world energy supply? They could place a choke hold over the Strait of Hormuz and possibly in sea lanes in the region, severely limiting the supply of oil to the world market. That is not just a reality that the United States must face, but a reality for the world. I have worked very hard with my colleagues to lessen the U.S. dependence on foreign oil. However, we are not yet capable of raising production in the United States because we have been blocked by the other side of the aisle from doing so. Therefore, a premature withdrawal from Iraq could have dire consequences with our economy and energy supply; but would also have the same effects on the world economy.”
Using a provision in Senate rules, Craig added two paragraphs, including the one above, to his speech after the presiding officer cut him off.
Craig’s Democratic opponent in the 2008 election, former Congressman Larry LaRocco, talked with New West of his reaction when he watched the speech on C-SPAN and later looked up the text online.
“Craig rose to his feet on the floor of the Senate to say we should not begin a responsible withdrawal of our troops because of oil…it’s an astounding admission, and it’s in black and white.
“This is the kind of rationale that many people have suspected, but now he has confirmed that it’s no longer about security, it’s no longer about squashing terrorists - he’s putting the lives of our great men and women at risk for oil,” LaRocco said.
Citing Craig’s statement saying, “I have worked very hard with my colleagues to lessen the U.S. dependence on foreign oil. However, we are not yet capable of raising production in the United States because we have been blocked by the other side of the aisle from doing so.” LaRocco said, “He’s blaming Democrats for not working with him on energy policy – policies that were made in secret – for our dependence on foreign oil? It’s circular thinking.”
Senator Craig’s office has not yet responded to New West’s request for clarification of his position. UPDATE: See below. But Craig’s website has his bullet points about why he voted against Levin-Reed:
The Levin-Reed amendment would:
• Require the President to begin withdrawing combat troops from Iraq in 120 days.
• Set a deadline for completion of this withdrawal of April 30, 2008.My position on this amendment:
• It is very dangerous for the Congress to mandate combat decisions. We are politicians, not military commanders.
• The Constitution vests in the President, not Congress, authority as Commander-in-Chief. This amendment usurps the President’s authority to command the armed forces.
• In May, we passed legislation requiring the Commanding General in Iraq to provide us a progress report on the war in Iraq.
• General Petraeus and our soldiers deserve to have the time to finish their mission in Iraq.
• There are serious U.S. national security implications for a failed Iraqi state, including a more dominant Iran in the region and disrupted energy supply for the world market.
• This amendment would say to our enemies that we do not have the resolve as a nation to defeat our enemies and embolden their efforts to attack us here at home again.
“Craig’s silence all along on the Iraq war and his failure to challenge the Bush administration’s failed policies - even after the casualties mounted - led me to suspect there is something else beyond terrorism in his silence. And now we know,” said LaRocco.
UPDATE: Thursday, Sen. Craig followed up with NewWest.Net/Boise with these thoughts:
The United States remains committed to helping the people of Iraq lay the groundwork for a peaceful and prosperous society. I support American efforts to assist Iraqis in providing security and stability for their country as they continue to build their capacity to provide that security for themselves.
A premature U.S. withdrawal form Iraq would likely lead to a civil war that could spill over into a broader regional conflict. The humanitarian costs of either a civil or regional war would be unimaginable. Iran would—as it does now in Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza—inflame the conflict to increase its influence in the region
U.S. involvement in Iraq has never been about oil. However, in any serious discussion of the potential consequences of a premature withdrawal from Iraq, we must face the economic reality of a regional anarchy and the growth of an Iranian empire which would leave Teheran in control of much of the oil reserves and sea lanes for oil shipments from the Middle East. Iraq is the key to regional stability, and plays an enormous role in energy stability for the world oil market.
The region of the Middle East most at risk from Iranian influence sits on 54% of the world’s oil reserves. Should Iran become a regional hegemony, Teheran would not hesitate to use oil as a weapon—as they have not hesitated to kill innocents around the world with their support for international terrorists.
The United States is, unfortunately, dependent on foreign oil. It is necessary that we take steps to ensure that we move away from our dependence on foreign oil, but also to ensure the flow of oil that runs our, and the world’s, economy remains free. I joined with Senator Dorgan to introduce the Security and Fuels Efficiency (SAFE) Energy Act to increase conservation, alternative fuels, and production to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
Economic and energy security plays a role in our national security interests, not only in Iraq but also in the region.
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The 52-47 vote, of course, was a majority in favor of cutting off debate (cloture), but not the 60 vote super-majority required.
By the Senators' public statements, and this vote, we might assume that the same narrow majority were also in favor of the amendment. So, if the Republicans had not used procedural manipulation, and given the issue the up or down vote they used to pretend was the honest thing to have (when it was their majority, and their favored nominees under consideration), the amendment would have passed.
With all that said, considering Craig's remarks, there is something to be said for the "stunt" -- sometimes the truth slips out when we're under stress.
If we didn't push them on their convictions we'd be blamed for being spineless. It seems very appropriate to me to get these members of Congress on the record now because the closer we get to election there will be mass defection so they look good come election day.
And talk is cheap. Many of the Republican Senators that have broken publicly with the president backed him on this vote. They say one thing but do another. Now they have to answer to the voters on why their words are different from their actions, why strategic redeployment is in our national interests in '08 but was not ok in '07, and for the lives of those soldiers who will die today, next week and next year.
Senator Craig, where were you when these same national security questions were being raised by the professionals in our state department, intelligence, and the Pentagon in 2003? The power to wage war is a Constitutional power vested in the legislature. Aren't you abdicating that power to the executive. Why would a Congressman do that? You continue to rubber stamp a man and a policy that have clearly failed, whose failure was predicted by our professionals in government and whose advice you chose to ignore.
And what are you talking about? Your answer to lowering our dependence on foriegn oil is to increase production here? You've blocked every conservation policy proposed. I don't understand how you can have one and not the other. You are out of step Senator. Your vision of our future is composed of endless war, gray skies, oily beaches, carcinogens and helping the wealthy dip into our wallets. You and your rubber stamp need to go.
I think the entirety of Senator Craig's speech should have been included in this article as well as a link to his web-site that has a lot more information on his position. http://www.criag.senate.gov
Clear that New West is a campaign ally of LaRocco, not an independent news source for the West.
Members of Congress of both parties have been to Iraq many times, and they don't all come away with the same conclusions. It's up to We the People to decide what wars we fight, and we hire competent Generals and fire incompetent ones as need be.
The website you wanted to refer us to is of course http://www.craig.senate.gov/ (Spelling matters.) Thanks for the suggestion. I went to his site and watched his video, and read the text. Your suggestion to post the entirety of his speech is nonsense for a commentary article; having a link to it would be a good idea, though. Calling our attention to the additional comments that he didn't deliver is entirely appropriate under the circumstances.
As a loyal supporter of this administration, filling time for a filibuster, complaining about "raw politics," it strikes me as disingenuous, at least. Craig knows a few things about raw politics. He says "now I hope we can have the vote, move on, and get to the final passage of the defense authorization act..." (about 2:00 in his 1st stream segment) even as HE AND HIS PARTY ARE BLOCKING "THE VOTE" ON THE AMENDMENT.
The Commander in Chief and the civilian leadership of the DOD failed miserably, both in starting this misbegotten war, and in prosecuting it. It is most definitely a valid role for the Congress to play to withdraw the authorization they gave to it, whether directly, or by controlling the funding, as the Consititution requires it to do.
We'll see about anything in September being "fair and honest and factual"; this administration has respected Generals only so far as those Generals say what they want to hear.
11 million people marched in the streets of cities around the world in the spring of 2003 asking Bush not to start a war on Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, and a place where the UN weapons teams had found no WMDs. To launch a war like that would be no more legal than Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.
We figured the Iraq war was likely an oil grab by two men (Bush and Cheney) with strong ties to the oil industry.
But now we know this was in fact, a War for Oil. Nearly 4,000 US kids have died to US oil companies can privatize another nation's resouces.
Craig has now admitted as much on the Setate floor.
But the proof has been in for a while. Here are the maps of Iraqi oil fields used by Cheney's secret energy task force meetings.
They were made public by a lawsuit brought by the conservative watchdog group, Judicial Watch.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/iraqi-oil-maps.shtml
What does it prove? That Cheney and his energy cabal wanted to privatize Iraqi oil for US firms as early as March 5, 2002. Long before Bush's war in Iraq was launched.
I think you and I have different drafts of the US Constitution though. The "people" do not hire and fire generals and they certainly do not chose which wars to fight.
If you meant hire and fire the civilian leadership (ie: president and congress) then I see your point and agree.
Point of clarification though, I was not under the impresion that Ms. Kuraitis's articles were comentary or opinion. They are written in a news format as opposed to a columnist.
If they are editorials I agree that no fairness type journalistic ethics apply. But if they are meant to be news stories I stand by my comments that they are not really even close to non-bias.
The news here is that Craig's conclusion to his remarks during the filibuster was that this is a war about oil, and LaRocco's response to that conclusion. The rest of the remarks were more or less stock soundbites, but that conclusion stands out in contradiction to the earlier statements about the purpose of going to war. You remember, don't you? WMD, and a direct threat to our security? Then deposing "the tyrant." Then bringing democracy to Iraq. Now, the GOPTRUTH: the war is about ensuring US access to oil supplies.
The levels of irony are too deep to parse. If we'd used more subtle coercion, more effective economic incentives, and less testosterone, Iraq's oil production would be higher, the price of oil would be lower, we'd be more secure, and have more military resources to apply to the real terrorist threat we face.
And hundreds of thousands fewer dead and maimed.
Let's imagine the Administration had had the courage to tell the truth up front. "We need to go to war in Iraq to ensure our access to Middle East oil." Somehow, I don't think the Congress would have rolled over quite so easily for that force authorization that Bush treated as a declaration of war and a blank check.
How will you feel when they ask to extend it again?
Quagmire, my boy. They are stalling for time, waiting to get out of office and pardon themselves on their way out the door.
When accountability is requested, where are you?
So the September report, guaranteed at this point to be a mixture of spectacular failures and mediocre successes is to just be ignored by the American people, by our Representatives in the Legislature and by the Generals that were fired because they didn't follow the Bush message so we can wait some more, and then some more again.
It all makes sense, suddenly I understand that its an absolute necessity to ignore the will of the American people in order to achieve nebulous goals and softened benchmarks in order to "win".
Because it's all about "winning", even though there is no prize to compensate you for everything you gave up along the way, like the lives of 3600+ American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, oops, I mean Al-Queda operatives.
You say you want them to answer for their results. 5 years of results, Craig. Where are we after 5 years? A stronger Al-Qaeda in Pakistan, a stronger Taliban in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia is bankrolling the insurgency as well as supplying fighters and weapons, yet we're supposed to ignore that.
And you don't think a discussion of this magnitude serves any purpose? Do you maybe think that is exactly why we are here today, 5 years later and Iraq is still on the verge of outright chaos? Do you think that maybe thats why there are no benchmarks, no goals, no endpoint in sight? You don't want to debate it, and neither does any other Republican, because you can't defend a nebulous plan that isn't really a plan, but more just "stay the course".
Just like the debate in the Senate, where Republicans bravely took a stand to not take a stand and spent the whole night talking out of their collective asses in order to avoid responsibility for this cluster that you deem has "no purpose".
Congrats Craig, you're willfully apathetic. I think that deserves a special Medal of Freedom.
And you so readily accuse Democrats of politicizing it. Hypocrit.
Lets talk about "the Generals". You mean these Generals, the ones that tried to talk the President out of invading: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1822-2002May23.html The same very able Generals that have been discarded on the dustbin of retirement because they couldn't finallly achieve the pie in the sky goals of this idealistic administration. These generals who were overruled by the civilian leadership in the Defense Department several of whom are now disgraced and gone back to the neocon holes they crawled out of. Generals whose predicitons on this war have come to pass. Generals like:
Former chairman of the joint chief of staff Colin Powell; Retired Army Major General Paul Eaton; Major General John Batiste, who commanded the Army’s 1st Infantry Division in Iraq in 2004-2005; Major General Charles H Swannack Jr. who headed the 82nd Airborne Division; Major General John Riggs, former head of the Pentagon’s Objective Force Task Force, General George W. Casey and General John P. Abizaid, Major General Paul Eaton, head of training of Iraqi army troops in 2003-2004, and of course Marine General Anthony Zinni, who headed the US Central Command, responsible for Central Asia and the Middle East.
Each of these Generals questioned the conduct of the war and warned that Rumsfeld's leadership on the war would be disasterous. And many of these same generals thought the Iraq invasion were contrary to our national interests. But they were ignored, cajoled, politically demonized ala Joe Wilson, and assailed by the same civilian leadership you are defending, ironically with the ridiculous defense that they should listen to the yes men civilian leadership rescued from certain anonymity of Pentagon retirement to be the standard bearers for the doomed policy.
Your party has politicized the war and the Pentagon just like you
politicized FEMA and the Justice Department and likely every other branch of government and look what you've done to this country. We are hated by the family members of the Iraqi dead, you're trying your damndest to make an enemy of two billion Muslims, we have earned the distrust and enmity of our traditional allies, and Osama bin Laden still walks the planet. And you did it all because you mistakenly thought it would secure our undying thirst for oil. Clearly Republicans have earned the right to be dismissed from leadership. Your imperialsm should be rejected and you need to start helping us restore what dignity remains in the word democracy.
So while our avowed and ever changing purpose for the invasion was portrayed as much loftier in the media, the plain fact of the matter was and is that but for Iraq's "strategic resources" we wouldn't be there. No critically thinking educated person can honestly dispute that. Hell even Wolfowitz admitted to it.
And one last thing to Craig. Dems are still mightily pissed off about Tora Bora. If Rumsfeld hadn't refused to send more DOD forces to Tora Bora we could've chopped the head off that snake and Osama would no longer be walking the earth. But Rumsfeld would not deploy those forces in 2002 because they were already earmarked for Iraq. I know Afghanistan lacks oil but that's where the enemy was. I look forward to a Democratic administration so we can finally achieve a measure of justice for the victims of 9/11 rather than do everything we can to increase the ranks of al Qaeda and make more enemies in Iraq.
The primary mission of CENTCOM at the time was, as I recall, "to ensure US access to Middle Eastern oil." At the time, the concern was over radical Shi'ite Islam in Iran doing all the things that Senator Craig complained about in the floor speech referred to in Jill's article, not to mention a Soviet invasion of Iran to control Iranian oil. (Of course, for you history buffs, the Soviets had their hands full in Afghanistan and were no more likely to invade Iran than England was. The Brits had ruefully learned their lessons about interference in the Middle East in the 19th and early 20th centuries). The Russians have yet to learn this lesson, and may never do it, since the Russians consider the Middle East to be within their primary sphere of interest.
During my subsequent service in the US Army through the First Gulf War, both in conventional and unconventional forces, the primary concern has always been oil (and oil profits, let's not be naive here). It is no different now, despite all the talk of "democratizing" the Middle East. During the Reagan administration in the 1980s, there was some discussion of the so-called problem of "democracy" in the Middle East, but this issue always turned around having regimes in place that could be controlled by the US to ensure the flow of oil to the US and its western Allies. The US government could care less whether these countries have democratic governments. After all, we've been propping up some pretty reprehensible regimes in the Middle East, such as the Saudis, for a long time.
In other words, US policy in the Middle East has always been fundamentally about US imperial political and economic designs upon oil, which is a geostrategic problem, and thus upon having in place regimes that the US could control to maintain that geostrategic control.
That's what it's about folks. And that's all it's about.
Of course, US support of Israel, particularly after the Ariel Sharon inspired Lebanese invasion, has consistently undermined this geostrategic goal; whether people like it or not, US policy in the Middle East regarding Israel is one of THE fundamental problems behind so-called "terrorism."
What Americans have to consider is whether the United States will have any more luck in the Middle East than the Brits did.
That is, do Americans want a free republic or an tyrannical empire? The two are mutually exclusive.
...the Russians consider the Middle East to be within their primary sphere of interest.
Seems to have something to do with geography, eh?
The big question is how many more years it will take before the U.S. learns its ruefull lessons about interfereing in the Mideast... it was going so swimmingly when we got Saddam to balance off Iran in their private war. Even the little misunderstanding about whether or not it was OK to take over Kuwait got ironed out and commerce resumed to some extent... but I guess the US share was compromised, with too many other players getting in to participate? At least, the Bush/Cheney cabal didn't feel they were getting a big enough share.
Regarding Russian interest in the Middle East, yes, geography has something to do with it. As a matter of fact, Russia was competing with Great Britain for influence in the Middle East and south Asia in the 19th century. The competition never ceases, although sometimes the competitors do change.
People might also want to know that the reason we didn't overthrow Saddam Hussein in 1991 was to avoid what is happening now--full blown civil war.
In fact Robert one of the many who wieghed in was Defense Secretary Cheney himself who predicted in 1991 the catastrophe an invasion would do to Iraq. But since 1991 with the end of the cold war the treasury expenditures for fat defense contracts dried up. This hurt the bottom line of many defense contractors one of the largest of which was Halliburton, headed by Cheney in the mid to late nineties. Does this explain his change of opinion from 1991 to 1998? Or did his opinion really change? Did they need to create a new enemy with communism fading? Certainly the repetition of a Cheney talking point that Americans have to come to the realization that they will be in this fight for generations to come lends credence. That news ought to make Halliburton's shareholders happy. The paper today said they had record revenue. Cheney has 433,000 such stock options in a blind trust last I checked.
Now here's a question I have for all us capitalists out there. What did we get for this half trillion dollars we spent on the military intervention in the Middle East? Security? Stability in the oil markets or the region? Democracy for the freedom loving people of Iraq? Reitribution for 9/11? Please, someone name me just one goal achieved of those cited for invasion. That money had to go for somebody's benefit. I say follow the money and you'll find your Professor Harold Hill.
Pretty close to our worst nightmare, I'd say. Spectacular and colossal failure. We're beyond shock at how awful it turned out.
In Feb. of 2003, when some of us hoped we might actually be able to keep the leash on the dogs of war (but a year or more after it was in actuality the committed plan), I was prompted to write down my reasons against it:
http://fortboise.org/NoWar.html
I don't claim any stunning prescience, and certainly had not researched the issues as deeply as some did, but my list stands the test of time all too well: immoral, illegal, economic and political folly, beyond our skill to impose democracy, bringing us no closer to resolving the Israeli/Palestinian conflict that underlies the political morass there.
Hey, but at least we still have our cheap and guaranteed supply of oil, right?
Thank you for a contribution that would send tingles down the spine of David Duke.