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US approves Israel plan for Iraqi oil

by How it all fits together
Jerusalem, Aug 24. (UNI): The United States has approved Israel's request to transport Iraqi oil from the city of Kirkuk to the Haifa port and has asked Israel to prepare a plan to renew the link, Army Radio reported.
Following the approval, the Israeli Infrastructure Minister Yosef Paritzky told the Radio that he intended to leave for Washington within two weeks to discuss the project in meetings with US officials.

"I intend to examine the idea of an oil pipe, but the contacts are only preliminary," Paritzky said.

Sources involved in the project were reported in the daily Ha'aretz to have, however, expressed apprehensions considering the instability in Iraq but nevertheless, were weighing the option given the far-reaching economic implications of such a project.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/03242204.htm
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by ItsThe Oil, Stupid
Iraq-Israel oil pipeline 'to reopen'
By Anton La Guardia
(Filed: 21/06/2003)


Israel's finance minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, predicted yesterday that the British-era oil pipeline from Iraq's northern oilfields through Jordan to the Israeli port city of Haifa would be reopened.

"It won't be long when you will see Iraqi oil flowing to Haifa," Mr Netanyahu told a group of British investors in London. "It is just a matter of time until the pipeline is reconstituted and Iraqi oil will flow to the Mediterranean."

The pipeline was closed during the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948 and has never been used since. Its rehabilitation would dramatically enhance regional economic co-operation after decades of war and mutual suspicion.

But the project is unlikely to become reality before a permanent settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/06/21/woil21.xml


Israel seeks pipeline for Iraqi oil

US discusses plan to pump fuel to its regional ally and solve energy headache at a stroke

Ed Vuillamy in Washington
Sunday April 20, 2003
The Observer

Plans to build a pipeline to siphon oil from newly conquered Iraq to Israel are being discussed between Washington, Tel Aviv and potential future government figures in Baghdad.
The plan envisages the reconstruction of an old pipeline, inactive since the end of the British mandate in Palestine in 1948, when the flow from Iraq's northern oilfields to Palestine was re-directed to Syria.

Now, its resurrection would transform economic power in the region, bringing revenue to the new US-dominated Iraq, cutting out Syria and solving Israel's energy crisis at a stroke.

It would also create an end less and easily accessible source of cheap Iraqi oil for the US guaranteed by reliable allies other than Saudi Arabia - a keystone of US foreign policy for decades and especially since 11 September 2001.

Until 1948, the pipeline ran from the Kurdish-controlled city of Mosul to the Israeli port of Haifa, on its northern Mediterranean coast.

The revival of the pipeline was first discussed openly by the Israeli Minister for National Infrastructures, Joseph Paritzky, according to the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz .

The paper quotes Paritzky as saying that the pipeline would cut Israel's energy bill drastically - probably by more than 25 per cent - since the country is currently largely dependent on expensive imports from Russia.

US intelligence sources confirmed to The Observer that the project has been discussed. One former senior CIA official said: 'It has long been a dream of a powerful section of the people now driving this administration [of President George W. Bush] and the war in Iraq to safeguard Israel's energy supply as well as that of the United States.

'The Haifa pipeline was something that existed, was resurrected as a dream and is now a viable project - albeit with a lot of building to do.'

The editor-in-chief of the Middle East Economic Review , Walid Khadduri, says in the current issue of Jane's Foreign Report that 'there's not a metre of it left, at least in Arab territory'.

To resurrect the pipeline would need the backing of whatever government the US is to put in place in Iraq, and has been discussed - according to Western diplomatic sources - with the US-sponsored Iraqi National Congress and its leader Ahmed Chalabi, the former banker favoured by the Pentagon for a powerful role in the war's aftermath.

Sources at the State Department said that concluding a peace treaty with Israel is to be 'top of the agenda' for a new Iraqi government, and Chalabi is known to have discussed Iraq's recognition of the state of Israel.

The pipeline would also require permission from Jordan. Paritzky's Ministry is believed to have approached officials in Amman on 9 April this year. Sources told Ha'aretz that the talks left Israel 'optimistic'.

James Akins, a former US ambassador to the region and one of America's leading Arabists, said: 'There would be a fee for transit rights through Jordan, just as there would be fees for Israel from those using what would be the Haifa terminal.

'After all, this is a new world order now. This is what things look like particularly if we wipe out Syria. It just goes to show that it is all about oil, for the United States and its ally.'

Akins was ambassador to Saudi Arabia before he was fired after a series of conflicts with then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, father of the vision to pipe oil west from Iraq. In 1975, Kissinger signed what forms the basis for the Haifa project: a Memorandum of Understanding whereby the US would guarantee Israel's oil reserves and energy supply in times of crisis.

Kissinger was also master of the American plan in the mid-Eighties - when Saddam Hussein was a key US ally - to run an oil pipeline from Iraq to Aqaba in Jordan, opposite the Israeli port of Eilat.

The plan was promoted by the now Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and the pipeline was to be built by the Bechtel company, which the Bush administration last week awarded a multi-billion dollar contract for the reconstruction of Iraq.

The memorandum has been quietly renewed every five years, with special legislation attached whereby the US stocks a strategic oil reserve for Israel even if it entailed domestic shortages - at a cost of $3 billion (£1.9bn) in 2002 to US taxpayers.

This bill would be slashed by a new pipeline, which would have the added advantage of giving the US reliable access to Gulf oil other than from Saudi Arabia.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,940250,00.html

An old Israel-Iraq oil line ... reopening?

By John K. Cooley

ATHENS – Nothing could be better designed to undermine the coalition's promise that Iraq's oil should benefit its own people than Israel's proclaimed wish to "reopen" a long-unused pipeline from Iraq's Kirkuk oil fields to Israel's Mediterranean port of Haifa.
Israel's National Infrastructure Minister Joseph Paritzky was quoted in a March 31 Ha'aretz article saying that Israeli and Jordanian officials would soon meet to discuss reviving the line. Built by the British in the 1940s, the line crossed west from Iraq through Jordan to British-ruled Palestine (today's Israel). Upon the 1948 birth of Israel and the immediate eruption of war with Iraq, Jordan and other Arab neighbors forced its shutdown and the diversion of Iraqi oil through a branch line to Syria.

Arabs reacted with predictable fury to Mr. Paritzky's suggestion that the oil of a post- Hussein Iraq could flow to the Jewish state, to be consumed or marketed from there. Jordan's information minister instantly declared the story about Israel-Jordan meetings "devoid of truth," because Jordan's "relations with Israel are now very cold."

Despite the wishful thinking among President Bush's neoconservative and pro-Israel advisers, a post-Hussein Iraq is unlikely voluntarily to warm to Mr. Sharon's government. Since 1948, Israel and Iraq have been implacable foes. Unlike Egypt, Jordan, or Syria, Iraq has never been willing even to discuss an armistice with Israel, let alone a peace accord like those Israel signed with Egypt and Jordan - this despite some wishful mediation attempts by US and other Western business interests during Saddam Hussein's presidency.

Technically, Baghdad has been in a continuous state of war with Israel since 1948. It sent armies to fight Israel in 1948 and 1967, and to back up Syria's defense of Damascus in the October 1973 war. It has supported several Palestinian guerrilla and terrorist organizations, and during the current Palestinian intifada, Hussein subsidized families of Palestinian suicide bombers and other activists. Israeli officials have been rejoicing over the US-led war coalition's elimination of Iraq as a principal strategic foe of the Jewish state.

Nevertheless, the authoritative Cyprus oil journal Middle East Economic Survey (MEES) reports that the Washington hawks may insist that the next Iraqi government rebuild the Kirkuk-Haifa oil line, probably with major US firms. Walid Khaddouri, the MEES editor, explains that the idea actually involves building a whole new pipeline because the old one has been "cannibalized" and dismantled over the years, leaving no more than its old route traced on maps. This would add at least a billion dollars more to postwar financial burdens.

The idea is economically tempting for Israel and some of its friends, especially those whose firms might profit from such a project. Oil-poor Israel, MEES reports, wants high-quality Kirkuk crude oil for its Haifa refinery. Israeli refineries currently use Russian, West African, Egyptian, and other crude oils.

Politically, the scheme is a potential bomb. Its implementation could ignite a new explosion in the chain of reactions to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, now beginning to reverberate throughout the troubled Middle East.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0423/p11s01-coop.html
by more
New Iraq may recognize Israel, bring financial relief
DOUGLAS DAVIS

Jerusalem Post Service

JERUSALEM -- A peace treaty with Israel will be "top of the agenda" for a new Iraqi government, according to the New York Observer newpaper.

Quoting State Department sources, the paper said Iraqi National Congress head Ahmed Chalabi, who is favored by the Pentagon to lead a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, "is known to have discussed Iraq's recognition of the state of Israel."

U.S. intelligence sources also told the newspaper that Chalabi and other senior INC figures are understood to be involved in talks with Washington and Jerusalem over the construction of an oil pipeline from Mosul to a terminal in Haifa.

A pipeline that linked Mosul and Haifa during the British Mandate has been inactive since the establishment of Israel in 1948, when the pipeline was redirected to Syria.

The paper noted that the resuscitation of the old pipeline would transform economic power in the region, bringing revenue to Iraq, cutting out Syria, solving Israel's energy needs, and reducing domestic energy costs by more than 25 percent. It would also create an easily accessible source of oil for the United States.

A former senior CIA official was quoted as saying that "it has long been a dream of a powerful section of the people now driving this administration and the war in Iraq to safeguard Israel's energy supply as well as that of the United States.

"The Haifa pipeline was something that existed, was resurrected as a dream, and is now a viable project, albeit with a lot of building to do."

During the 1980s, when Saddam Hussein was considered an ally of the West, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger developed the concept of a pipeline running from Iraq to the Jordanian port of Akaba.

The pipeline was built, and an agreement has been quietly renewed every five years, with special legislation which permitted the United States to stock a strategic oil reserve for Israel, at a cost to the United States of $3 billion in 2002, even if this entailed domestic U.S. shortages.

Israel currently relies on oil supplies from Russia, and National Infrastructure Minister Yosef Paritzky has estimated that the construction of an Iraq-Israel pipeline could cut Israel's fuel costs by more than 25 percent.

http://www.jewishsf.com/bk030425/i20a.shtml
by ANGEL
""US approves Israel plan for Iraqi oil
by How it all fits together Sunday August 24, 2003 at 01:34 PM""

If the U.S. wants this Project to be reality then they need to Make that Palestinian State now, If the U.S. can free the 24,000,000 or so people trom the brutal Saddam, Surely they can free some 3,500,000 Palestinians from the Brutal Israeli Occupation and Oppression....Then the Arab Population can say see the U.S. is being Fair.....
Once this conflict is solved, It will be much easier for Israel and the U.S. to have normal relations with the Arab Population. End the Hypocrisy and double standards to remove the hate.. the question Why do they hate us??

To know why this conflict is on going (retaliation)
we have to see who is killing whom???
CLICK HERE > http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/deaths.html

For a Possible Solution:
CLICK HERE > http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/06/1618616.php

For Details on this Solution:
CLICK HERE > http://nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=56156&group=webcast

If you know someone in a position to do something get this Possible Solution to them..So they can analyze it, maybe it can help the situation....What is being done now is not working to well....
by ANGEL
""Quoting State Department sources, the paper said Iraqi National Congress head Ahmed Chalabi, who is favored by the Pentagon to lead a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, "is known to have discussed Iraq's recognition of the state of Israel."""(by more)

As we have seen in the Conference in Egypt and in Jordan many Arab Nation will recognize Israels Right to exist if Israel will allow the Palestinian People to have their Small Country free from Israeli Occupation and Oppression..
To end the resistance to the Occupation you have to end the Occupation that allows for the resistance….

Once we have the Palestinian State it well become easier for the U.S. and Israel to deal with the Arab Population because the Arab Population can say see the U.S. is being Fair.....


by ANGEL
""US approves Israel plan for Iraqi oil
by How it all fits together Sunday August 24, 2003 at 01:34 PM""

If the U.S. wants this Project to be reality then they need to Make Jordan assist it now, If the U.S. can free the 24,000,000 or so people trom the brutal Saddam, Surely they can free some 5,000,000 Israelis from the Brutal Palestinian Terror and Mayhem....Then the Jewish Population can say see the U.S. is being Fair.....
Once this conflict is solved, It will be much easier for Israel and the U.S. to have normal relations with the Arab Population. End the Hypocrisy and double standards to remove the hate.. the question Why do they hate us??

To know why this conflict is on going (retaliation)
we have to see who is murdering whom??? The Palestinians are murdering Israelis. The Israelis hardly murder Palestinians.
CLICK HERE > http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/deaths.html

For an Impossible Solution:
CLICK HERE > http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/06/1618616.php

For Details on this Non-Solution:
CLICK HERE > http://nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=56156&group=webcast

If you know someone in a position to do something, get this Impossible Solution to them..So they can analyze it and summarily reject it ....What is being done now is not working too well....
by ANGEL
""Quoting State Department sources, the paper said Iraqi National Congress head Ahmed Chalabi, who is favored by the Pentagon to lead a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, "is known to have discussed Iraq's recognition of the state of Israel."""(by more)

As I think I have seen in the Conference in Egypt and in Jordan many Arab Nations will recognize Israel's Right to exist if Israel allows the Palestinian People to have their Small Country free from Israeli Occupation and Oppression.. but I know better.
To end the resistance to the Occupation its not even enough to end the Occupation that allows for the resistance….

Once we have the Palestinian State by Israel it will become harder for the U.S. and Israel to deal with the Arab Population because the Arab Population can say see the U.S. is still not being Fair.....
by Shell Oil Co.
haifa001.jpg


http://www.palestineremembered.com


by ANGEL
""Free the People or was it the Oil....
by ANGEL Tuesday August 26, 2003 at 02:47 AM
End the double standard
by ANGEL Tuesday August 26, 2003 at 02:50 AM""(not the real ANGEL, posted by a coward who is afraid to use his/her own handle)

Correction:

Free the People or was it the Oil....
by ANGEL Sunday August 24, 2003 at 09:21 PM



""US approves Israel plan for Iraqi oil
by How it all fits together Sunday August 24, 2003 at 01:34 PM""

If the U.S. wants this Project to be reality then they need to Make that Palestinian State now, If the U.S. can free the 24,000,000 or so people trom the brutal Saddam, Surely they can free some 3,500,000 Palestinians from the Brutal Israeli Occupation and Oppression....Then the Arab Population can say see the U.S. is being Fair.....
Once this conflict is solved, It will be much easier for Israel and the U.S. to have normal relations with the Arab Population. End the Hypocrisy and double standards to remove the hate.. the question Why do they hate us??

To know why this conflict is on going (retaliation)
we have to see who is killing whom???
CLICK HERE > http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/deaths.html

For a Possible Solution:
CLICK HERE > http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/06/1618616.php

For Details on this Solution:
CLICK HERE > http://nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=56156&group=webcast

If you know someone in a position to do something get this Possible Solution to them..So they can analyze it, maybe it can help the situation....What is being done now is not working to well....



add your comments



End the double standard
by ANGEL Monday August 25, 2003 at 09:34 PM



""Quoting State Department sources, the paper said Iraqi National Congress head Ahmed Chalabi, who is favored by the Pentagon to lead a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, "is known to have discussed Iraq's recognition of the state of Israel."""(by more)

As we have seen in the Conference in Egypt and in Jordan many Arab Nation will recognize Israels Right to exist if Israel will allow the Palestinian People to have their Small Country free from Israeli Occupation and Oppression..
To end the resistance to the Occupation you have to end the Occupation that allows for the resistance….

Once we have the Palestinian State it well become easier for the U.S. and Israel to deal with the Arab Population because the Arab Population can say see the U.S. is being Fair.....



by ANGEL
Oh well, I'm a bit confused today...

""Free the People or was it the Oil....
by ANGEL August 24, 2003 at 09:21 PM
End the double standard
by ANGEL Tuesday August 25, 2003 at 09:34 PM"" (not the real ANGEL, posted by a coward who is afraid to use his/her own handle)

Correction:

Free the People or was it the Oil....
by ANGEL August 26, 2003 at 02:47 AM

""US approves Israel plan for Iraqi oil
by How it all fits together Sunday August 24, 2003 at 01:34 PM""

If the U.S. wants this Project to be reality then they need to Make Jordan assist it now, If the U.S. can free the 24,000,000 or so people trom the brutal Saddam, Surely they can free some 5,000,000 Israelis from the Brutal Palestinian Terror and Mayhem....Then the Jewish Population can say see the U.S. is being Fair.....
Once this conflict is solved, It will be much easier for Israel and the U.S. to have normal relations with the Arab Population. End the Hypocrisy and double standards to remove the hate.. the question Why do they hate us??

To know why this conflict is on going (retaliation)
we have to see who is murdering whom???
The Palestinians are murdering Israelis. The Israelis almost never murder Palestinians.
CLICK HERE > http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/deaths.html

For an Impossible Solution:
CLICK HERE > http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/06/1618616.php

For Details on this Non-Solution:
CLICK HERE > http://nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=56156&group=webcast

If you know someone in a position to do something, get this Impossible Solution to them..So they can analyze it and summarily reject it ....What is being done now also is not working too well....

End the double standard
by ANGEL August 26, 2003 at 02:50 AM

""Quoting State Department sources, the paper said Iraqi National Congress head Ahmed Chalabi, who is favored by the Pentagon to lead a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, "is known to have discussed Iraq's recognition of the state of Israel."""(by more)

As I think I have seen in the Conference in Egypt and in Jordan many Arab Nations will recognize Israel's Right to exist if Israel allows the Palestinian People to have their Small Country free from Israeli Occupation and Oppression.. but I know better.
To end the resistance to the Occupation its not even enough to end the Occupation that allows for the resistance….

Once we have the Palestinian State by Israel it will become harder for the U.S. and Israel to deal with the Arab Population because the Arab Population can say see the U.S. is still not being Fair.....
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