![](\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/images\/photo_greg.gif\")
<\/A>So says investigative reporter Greg Palast, left, who was interviewed on Democracy\nNow!<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> about his recent BBC Newsnight report detailing secret U.S. plans to
\nprivatize Iraq’s oil resources and the political fight it sparked with the oil companies. They resisted
\nprivatization because it would upset the OPEC monopoly and reduce profits for the oil
\ncompanies.<\/P>
\n
Carroll, who took control of Iraq’s oil production a month after the invasion, “stalled the In his BBC story<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> posted last week on <\/P> In fact there were two conflicting plans, setting off a hidden policy war between “Big Oil” appears to have won. The latest plan, obtained by Newsnight from the US State <\/P> In addition to watching his interview on Democracy Now!, you can go to Palast’s The tale has so many serpentine twists it’s counter-counterintuitive. And Palast shows once Paul Wolfowitz’s nomination to head the World Bank and John Bolton’s to represent the United States at the U.N., far from being promotions, signal a purge of neocons from policy-making positions in the Bush regime. So says investigative reporter Greg Palast, left, who was interviewed on Democracy Now! about his recent BBC Newsnight report detailing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1043","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-gP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1043\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/images\/wolfcard.jpg\")
<\/A>Wolfowitz is being “tossed out” of the Pentagon, Palast says, essentially at the
\nbehest of the supposedly non-partisan
\nwhich represents Saudi Arabia and the big oil companies among its clients. In his BBC report,
\nbroadcast this morning on D-Now!, Palast interviews Philip J. Carroll, the former CEO of Shell
\nOil USA, among others, to back up documents he has obtained about the secret privatization
\nplans.<\/P>
\n
\nsell-off scheme,” Palast reports, and Carroll’s “chosen successor,” a Conoco Oil executive, Robert
\nMcKee, “ordered up a new plan [from the Baker Institute] for a state oil company preferred by
\nthe [oil] industry.”<\/P>
\n
\nthe second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, Palast wrote:<\/P>
\n
\nTwo years ago today — when President George Bush announced US, British
\nand Allied forces would begin to bomb Baghdad — protestors claimed the US had a secret plan
\nfor Iraq’s oil once Saddam had been conquered.
\n
\n
\nneo-conservatives at the Pentagon, on one side, versus a combination of “Big Oil” executives and
\nUS State Department “pragmatists.”<\/P>
\n
\nDepartment was, we learned, drafted with the help of American oil industry
\nconsultants.<\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n
\n
\nWeb<\/FONT> site<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> to see some of the documents.
\nHe also links to his
\n“The neo-cons, once in command, are now in full retreat,” according to insiders and the
\ndocuments. “With pipelines exploding daily, the fantasy of remaking Iraq’s oil industry also went
\nup in flames.”<\/P>
\n
\nagain why he is a snake charmer in a class by himself.<\/B><\/A><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"