Author: Greg Palast, 2006,

ISBN: 0525949682

The following review was contributed by: Paul Lappen: CLICK TO VIEW Paul Lappen's Reviews

Here is another compendium of political and corporate con men who would sell
your future and your children's future to the highest bidder (or give it away to
their political friends).

Everyone thinks that George Bush had a secret plan to seize Iraq's oil.
Actually, there were 2 secret plans. The neo-con/Pentagon plan involved
privatizing, or selling off, Iraq's vast oil reserves to foreign companies. When
all those oil wells start pumping, ignoring their OPEC quota (insurgency? what
insurgency?), the world market would be flooded with oil, causing the price to
plummet. OPEC would be forced out of business, and, coincidentally, Saudi
Arabia, the real target, would be forced to its financial knees. A problem with
this is the assumption that the oil fields would remain undamaged in an American
invasion. Also, it would be silly to think that Saudi Arabia would sit back and
let this happen. Whenever other OPEC countries have ignored their quota, the
Saudis have opened their oil spigots, flooding the market and causing the price
to drop, forcing the offending country into bankruptcy. Also, the major oil
companies made it very clear that privatizing Iraqi oil would not be acceptable.
But they had no problem with the privatizing of the rest of Iraq, including the
sale of banks and water companies, big tax cuts for wealthy Iraqis, a complete
elimination of tariffs and new copyright laws protecting American companies.

The State Department/Council on Foreign Relations plan involved keeping the
Iraqi government as is, especially the state oil monopoly. It also envisioned
the removal of Saddam Hussein as taking no more than THREE DAYS. Hussein would
be overthrown, some Iraqi general dismissed by Hussein in the 1980s (it didn't
matter who) would come in by parachute, he would be given the keys to Iraq's
political and security apparatus, and snap elections would be held in 90 days to
legitimize everything. Simple, no? Once the Pentagon got wind of it, the
three-day part didn't last very long.

Saddam Hussein's "crime," the reason he was removed from power, had nothing to
do with being a tyrant, or WMD, or gassing the Kurds of Halabja. When it came to
oil production, one week he would suddenly decide to support the Palestinian
cause, and not pump any oil at all. The next week, he would forget about the
Palestinians, and pump right up to the Oil for Food limit. Singlehandedly
turning the world oil market into a yo-yo upset Big Oil and the Council on
Foreign Relations, among others. It's all about control of the oil market, and
Hussein was not cooperating.

This book is about much more than just Iraq. Palast goes into great detail about
how the 2000 and 2004 elections were stolen by the Republicans. Any number of
methods have come to life, from using supposed lists of felons, to sending not
enough machines to black districts, to machines in those same districts that
miscount or don't count votes at a much greater rate than in white districts, to
uncounted paper ballots in the tens of thousands. In Native American districts
in the Southwest, if one accepts the "official" results, many Native Americans
would drive miles and miles to the polling place, and specifically NOT vote for
President. What are Democrats doing about this, if only to be sure that it never
happens again? Little or nothing. This book also covers subjects like
globalization, New Orleans, No Child Left Behind and Enron.

By themselves, any of the chapters in this book are worth the price of the book.
Put them together, and this book easily reaches the level of Wow. It's an
extraordinary piece of journalism, and is extremely highly recommended.