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Our Purpose
The invasion and occupation of Iraq in and of themselves are violations of international law; that is, war crimes, criminal activity.
Military strategy and tactics being applied in Iraq involve war crimes that continue to be committed on a wholesale basis. Fundamental respect for Iraqi citizens, for their well-being, security, human and civil rights, is being denied on a daily basis by United States forces in the interest of achieving the United States’ primary goal in Iraq, the control of that nation’s oil. No amount of military “success” will cleanse this record.
The fact that millions of Americans, including politicians and journalists, have been duped into supporting this adventure does not change its illegal, criminal character.
The world’s leading privately-owned oil companies, ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, as well as some of their smaller colleagues are, on the basis of strong circumstantial evidence, co-conspirators. Their extraordinary profits since the invasion of Iraq are beyond war-profiteering; they are ill-gotten gains as a result of violations of international law and at the cost of over a million deaths.
And the relentless, illegal pursuit of oil in Iraq is a major factor in driving up world oil prices, a process that is undermining millions globally in their daily struggle to sustain life.
The purpose of this website is to help end the occupation of Iraq and to bring to account those who are responsible for it.
Nick Mottern, Director, Consumers for Peace.org
(Click here to see our specific goals.)
| News |
ExxonMobil Stockholderes Face a Profound Choice
By Kevin Young and Nick Mottern – ConsumersforPeace.org- The Iraq War is responsible for about 12 percent of the current price of gasoline in the US, according to economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Studies.
- Congress’s Joint Economic Committee has estimated that “oil price increases from 2003-2008 due to the Iraq War reduced total U.S. income Gross Domestic Product by a total of approximately $274 billion.” That was before oil hit $120/barrel.
- In the US and around the world, the oil price hike is raising prices of food and other basic human needs, in some places causing food riots.
- As Dean Baker noted in May 2007, “military spending diverts resources from productive uses, such as consumption and investment, and ultimately slows economic growth and reduces employment.”
- University of Massachusetts economist Robert Pollin and researcher Heidi Garrett-Peltier, writing in March 2008, point out the potential benefits that reducing military spending in favor of social spending would have for the US economy:
Every $1 billion spent on a combination of education, healthcare, energy conservation and infrastructure investments creates between 50 and 100 percent more jobs than the same money going to Iraq. Taking the 2007 Iraq budget of $138 billion, this means that upward of 1 million jobs were lost because the Bush Administration chose the Iraq sinkhole over public investment.
Phone: (972) 444-1000
Email: Go to www.exxonmobil.com and click on “Contact”.
Address: ExxonMobil
5959 Las Colinas Boulevard
Irving, Texas 75039-2298
Consumers for Peace gathers information on Iraq oil issues and works with local organizers seeking to end the occupation of Iraq. It promotes the ExxonMobil, Shell, and BP War Boycott. The authors may be contacted through www.consumersforpeace.org
Shell Denies War Profits; Refuses to Aid War Victims
By Nick Mottern, Director ConsumersforPeace.org
In spite of findings by Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and other noted experts, Royal Dutch Shell plc rejects the idea that any part of the current spike in oil prices and its record profits, are directly traceable to the Iraq War.
Shell, the world’s second largest privately held oil company, made its position on war profits known in a letter to ConsumersforPeace.org, responding to a request that it contribute its war profits for the last five years, estimated at $28 billion, to a total $80 billion fund to benefit Iraqi, U.S. and other coalition war victims.
“The proposals in your letter are based on the contention that there is a direct casual relationship between profits achieved by some oil companies in the last few years and increases in the oil price linked to some degree to the war in Iraq,” Shell says in the letter dated March 7 and authored by Roxanne Decyk, Corporate Affairs Director.
“We reject this contention:” the letter continues, “the oil price fluctuates in response to many and various factors, and it is not possible to identify any one cause, or attribute any specific portion of profits to such a cause, in this way. We do not, therefore, accept your suggestion of payment of a specific sum into the kind of fund you have described.”
ExxonMobil, the largest privately held oil firm and BP, the third largest, were also asked by Consumers for Peace to contribute estimated five-year war profits of $38 billion and $19 billion respectively to the aid fund. Neither firm has responded at this writing.
Shell also rejected a request that it lobby for an end to occupation of Iraq and the observation by Consumers for Peace that it had been involved in pre-invasion discussions with U.S. officials. “Shell does no get involved in political activity of the kind you suggest, the letter said. “ Your insinuation that Shell was involved in consultations with the U.S. government prior to the invasion is also entirely without foundation.”
With respect to a proposed Iraq oil law that could lead to extraordinary profits for oil firms, the letter said: “Shell is not, nor has it engaged in any lobbying about the specific form that the legislation should take, but it is no secret that we, alongside other oil companies, hope to see a legislative framework in place as soon as possible.”
Shell’s position on war profits is contradicted in “The Three Trillion Dollar War”, just published, authored by Professor Stiglitz, who teaches at Columbia University, and Professor Linda Bilmes, of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
“…if America went to war in the hope of securing cheap oil, we failed miserably,” they write. “We did however, succeed in making the oil companies richer. ExxonMobil and other oil companies have been among the few real beneficiaries of the war, as their profits and share prices have soared. Meanwhile, the economy as a whole pays a big price.”
Their study finds: “If even half of the difference between the current price ($95-$100 a barrel) and the price before the war ($25 a barrel) is attributed to the war, then the oil costs of the war today are $35 a barrel…”
This analysis is consistent with that of Dr. Dean Baker, Co-founder of the Washington, D.C. based Center for Economic and Policy Research, who has estimated for Consumers for Peace that “the price of oil is probably about $10 to $20 a barrel higher because of the war.” This, he says, is because of the war-caused drop in Iraq oil production and fear in the market that the war will spread and further disrupt oil supplies.
“If (oil) prices were 10-20 percent lower,” Dr. Baker says, Exxon’s profits might be 20 – 30 percent lower.” This analysis was applied to the profits of Shell and BP to arrive at the estimates of their war profits.
Dr. Baker also estimated that about 40 cents out of $3/gallon gasoline represents war profit.
With respect to Shell’s involvement in pre-invasion discussions, the Washington Post reported that White House records showed that on April 17, 2001, staff members of Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force met with “Royal Dutch/Shell Group’s chairman, Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, Shell Oil chairman Steven Miller and two others.” The content of the discussions are not known because Mr. Cheney went to court to block disclosure of task force records. However, it appears the task force had access to information on Iraq oil fields and competitors for access to Iraq’s oil that was prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency.
The Post also reported that Darci Sinclair, a Shell spokesperson, asked about the task force meeting “said she did not know whether Shell officials met with the task force, but they often meet with members of the administration.”
Phillip Carroll, a former Shell official, is reported to have been one of a group of oil people who entered Iraq in 2003 with invasion forces as an advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority, that was set up to manage the occupation.
Read Royal Shell Letter Read War Profits Shell
War Profiteering by Big Oil