[+/-] Cheney's war profiteering under scrutiny

Via Talk Left:

Dick Cheney stands at the intersection of the war in Iraq and secret meetings with oil company executives to shape energy policy. The administration’s consistent denials that the war had anything to do with oil may unravel if the oil executives are placed under oath and compelled to answer questions about the meeting with Cheney -- questions they evaded during their unsworn congressional testimony.

The Senate is demanding that executives from Big Oil return to testify about a secret meeting with Cheney on energy policy that took place soon after Bush came to office. The Big Oil men denied knowledge of the gathering in earlier testimony. But that testimony was not under oath so they cannot be charged with perjury. Cheney has been vigorously trying to keep secret what happened at this meeting. It is suspected the vice president and the oil companies hammered out an aggressive energy policy, and possibly discussed the administration’s plans to go to war in Iraq, well before 9-11. Cutting up Iraqi oil and the future of OPEC would certainly have been on the table. The new administration would certainly have needed the acquiescence of the oil industry in waging war in an area where the companies are so deeply involved. Oil has always been the bottom-line issue in the Iraq war—although in public Bush eschewed any interest in the subject, arguing instead he was just pushing the spread of democracy.