U.S. Oil Wants to Work in Iraq
How to Raise Nation's Output After Possible War

Excerpted from The Wall Street Journal

January 16, 2003
By Thaddeus Herrick

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Executives of U.S. oil companies are conferring with officials from the White House, the Department of Defense and the State Department to figure out how best to jump-start Iraq's oil industry following a war, industry officials say... While the Bush administration is loath to be seen as waging war for oil, industry officials say Washington is leaning heavily on the expertise of the U.S. oil industry so that it is prepared to address its top postwar priority: funding a new Iraqi regime with oil revenue.

"If we go to war, it's not about oil," says Larry Goldstein, president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation in New York. "But the day the war ends, it has everything to do with oil."

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The Bush administration is eager to secure Iraq's oil fields and rehabilitate them, industry officials say. They say Mr. Cheney's staff hosted an informational meeting with industry executives in October, with Exxon Mobil Corp., CheveronTexaco Corp., ConocoPhillips and Halliburton among the companies represented. Both the Bush administration and the companies say such a meeting never took place... Since then, industry officials say, the Bush administration has sought input, formally and informally, from executives and industry experts on how best to overhaul Iraq's oil sector. An industry expert said Tuesday that State Department officials met with as many as two major oil companies and an industry consultant as recently as last week.

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