So how about this. . . Obstructing a just war for oil? I don’t think that’s the motive in play, but it is far more conceivable than accusing the US of going to war for oil.
WASHINGTON, March 14 (UPI) — French and Russian oil and gas contracts signed with the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq “will not be honored,” Barhim Salih, a leading Iraqi Kurdish official, said in Washington Friday, just before a series of high-level meetings with Bush administration officials.
“A new Iraqi government should not honor any of these contracts, signed against the interests of the Iraqi people. The new Iraqi government should respect those who stood by us, and not those who stood beside the dictator,” added Salih, who is prime minister in the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan government that controls Iraq’s eastern Kurdish area.
Russian and French oil corporations have each signed draft contracts with Iraq, to come into force only when the United Nations sanctions are lifted, for exploration, development and exploitation of the country’s energy resources — which geologists believe may be the world’s second largest after Saudi Arabia. The value of the draft contracts, if fully taken up, is estimated to have a potential of more than $20 billion.