WASHINGTON: “No blood for oil” is the common cry of those who oppose an Iraq war, from Western peace protesters and many Arab leaders to South Africa’s former president Nelson Mandela.

To these critics, the case is clear: a White House led by former oil executives is using the world’s strongest military to invade the country with the second-largest proven oil reserves on Earth.

“Nonsense,” US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld replied to that charge in a CBS television interview in December. “It has nothing to do with oil, literally nothing.”

Britain’s Foreign Office Minister Mike O’Brian made the same point: “The charge that our motive is greed — to control Iraq’s oil supply — is nonsense, pure and simple.”

The allies have dismissed the oil motive as a conspiracy theory favoured by those unwilling to see that Saddam Hussein is a menace who has threatened his neighbours and might help terrorists to launch catastrophic attacks. Still, in discussing a possible invasion, Washington and London do not deny that the “black gold” beneath the desert sands of the Middle East lend strategic importance to the entire region.

The United States, the world’s largest economy, has a huge thirst for oil, accounting for a quarter of global petroleum consumption, and demand for foreign energy supplies is growing, says the 2001 National Energy Policy.

“On our current course, America 20 years from now will import nearly two of every three barrels of oil (it uses) — a condition of increased dependency on foreign powers that do not always have America’s interests at heart,” said the paper, also known as the Cheney report.

Will US troops and tanks enter Baghdad to allow Chevron-Texaco and Exxon-Mobil to grab Iraq’s 112-billion-barrel proven reserves?

No, says Secretary of State Colin Powell, who pledged in early January, “The oil of Iraq belongs to the Iraqi people.”

“Whatever form of custodianship there is, ... it will be held for and used by the people of Iraq,” he said. “It will not be exploited for the United States’ own purpose.”

With oil reserves exceeded only by Saudi Arabia, Iraq now pumps about 1.5 million barrels a day for export. Industry experts believe, once UN sanctions or Saddam are gone, that Western know-how and equipment could increase output to at least 6 million barrels a day.

The scramble is on, and Russia, France and China have long had contracts pending with Saddam’s regime. US and British companies, which largely ran the Iraqi oil industry before it was nationalized in 1972, have discussed the issue with Vice President Dick Cheney, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The opposition Iraqi National Congress has been ambiguous about whether existing contracts will be honoured by a post-Saddam regime, but some exile leaders have hinted that they may be favourably disposed toward companies from liberator nations.

Former CIA head James Woolsey has told a US daily that France and Russia, permanent members of the UN Security Council, “should be told that if they are of assistance in moving Iraq toward decent government, we’ll do the best we can to ensure that the new government and American companies work closely with them”.

Ariel Cohen, a Middle East expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, has suggested that “the Bush administration can help the new Iraqi government achieve fundamental structural reform with massive, orderly and transparent privatization of the economy, including the oil industry”.

If a ground war against Iraq begins, US special forces are scheduled to first secure key Iraqi oil installations, to prevent Saddam from torching oil wells as he did in Kuwait in 1991, sparking an environmental disaster, news reports have said.

And if an interim US military government takes over, a White House faction has argued, it should take Iraqi oil as the “spoils of war” to pay for the occupation, according to a Newsday report.

Powell pledged a US force would “follow religiously international law”. Pentagon and State Department lawyers are now debating how to interpret a historical legal thicket dating back to the 19th century, The Wall Street Journal reported this week.

Whatever the outcome of the looming oil scramble, a pro-Western regime in Iraq would weaken Saudi Arabia’s dominant power over oil prices and policies through the world cartel, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

“Iraq’s privatizations of its oil sector, refining capacity and pipeline infrastructure could serve as a model for privatizations by other OPEC members,” Cohen suggested, “thereby weakening the cartel’s domination of the energy markets.”—dpa