Response to Efraim Cohen, former "US Diplomat"

LETTER TO THE JERUSALEM POST
Utterly false charges March 6, 2011
Sir, – Ray Hanania alleges that “American politicians put their sights on [Iraq’s] oil and squeezed it for every penny possible through Halliburton, run by Dick Cheney before he became vice president” (“Freedom, democracy and ulterior motives,” Yalla Peace, March 2). Those charges are utterly false.

As an American diplomat, I was directly involved in designing and implementing the UN’s “Oil-for- Food” program during the mid- 1990s. Iraq was allowed to sell a limited amount of oil, with all proceeds held in an international bank and used to buy humanitarian supplies for the Iraqi people.

The price was set by a group of independent experts relying on the prevailing world oil market.

The US had no access to Iraqi oil other than through private companies competing with foreign companies for purchase contracts.

America received not a penny from the sales. Had its primary goal been to increase its own oil supply, the best method would have been to close its eyes to the threat Iraq posed, work to have UN sanctions lifted, and allow Saddam to sell as much oil as he wished.

I also served in Iraq after the Second Gulf War. During my time in Baghdad I participated in several high-level meetings regarding efforts to rebuild and protect Iraq’s oil industry. Not once did I hear anyone say that our goal was to increase US oil supplies.

Our efforts were aimed entirely at helping the Iraqis utilize their resources to rebuild their country.

Hanania says most Arabs view the war as having been “a move to grab Iraq’s oil resources.”

These Arabs are simply wrong.

EFRAIM A. COHEN 
Zichron Ya’acov 
The writer served as an American diplomat for nearly 25 years.


RAY HANANIA RESPONDS


Like many propagandists, Efrain Cohen twists the facts. My column focused on the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, which was driven by oil profit greed, greed which directly benefited Halliburton. But Cohen choses not to address that and to pretend that the embargo of the 1990s is the invasion of 2003. It's interesting to see that he was a U.S. Diplomat and now lives in Israel.


The facts of America's brutal and unjustified invasion of Iraq are spelled out well not just by Arabs but by many in the West, although certainly Cohen's agenda probably was to destroy Saddam Hussein, a former ally funded and backed by the Untied States during the 1980s in the decade-long battle against Iran fought by Iraq on behalf of the United States.


As an AMERICAN, it is clear where the real issues and distortions lie.


The US grabbed and controls Iraq's oil resources since the 2003 invasion and we have used those moneys we did not grab to build projects that made many American contractors like Halliburton wealthy including the $1 billion spent to build the most outrageous lush palace in Iraq, the American Embassy.


-- Ray Hanania