Latest / Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News / Israel pushed US to war in Iraq for cheap oil. Are they doing it again in Iran?

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Israel pushed US to war in Iraq for cheap oil. Are they doing it again in Iran? · Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News

0:11
It's the tip of the spare in the epic battle to defend the United States of America.
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The National Security Hour exposes the wolves in sheep's clothing and the nefarious plots to undermine and destroy U.S.
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national security.
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Hello and welcome to the National Security Hour.
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Thank you for joining us on the mission.
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The National Security Hour is the tip of the spear in the epic battle to defend the United States of America.
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I'm Brandon Weinkert, your friendly neighborhood host.
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You can catch me right here every single Wednesday night at 8 p.m.
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Eastern.
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And you can follow me at We the Brandon on Twitter X.
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I'm really excited today.
0:57
We're joined by somebody who I have followed from afar, and I'm really happy we could connect because his book on the oil war in Iraq, I think is so good and also so prevalent to what's going on in the Iran War today that I had to talk to him.
1:13
His name is Gary Vogler.
1:15
He's a former official with the coalition provisional authority, who, which that organization is very controversial, but but Gary was it sounds like always on the money.
1:25
And Gary, without further ado, it's great to have you here.
1:28
Why don't you tell us the name of your book as well?
1:30
Okay, well, thank you very much, Brandon.
1:32
I appreciate you bringing me on.
1:34
The uh yeah, I I wrote I've written two books.
1:37
Uh the first book was in 2017, and it was uh titled Iraq and the Politics of Oil, and it was published by the uh University Press of Kansas, and then I was approached by several people to write a condensed version uh and update it with uh uh some oil agenda items.
1:57
Uh and uh the uh because in the first book I denied the fact that there was an oil agenda for for 12 years, and when I researched for my first book, that's when I discovered that there was an oil agenda to that war.
2:10
And so I cover in the second book, it's entitled Israel, winner of the 2003 Iraq Oil War, uh Undue Influence Deceptions and the Neocon Energy Agenda.
2:23
And in this book, it's a short version, it's less than 100 pages, but it truly focuses in on the the uh uh neocon energy agenda that they were so deceptive, you know.
2:37
I I was part of the pre-war oil planning.
2:41
Uh I was in Iraq for 75 months, and it took me 12 years to figure out all the details of this oil agenda.
2:49
Uh and so I felt like at that point I had to share uh with the American people.
2:55
In fact, when I came to the realization back in 2015, uh it was an amazing transition because when you're in denial for 12 years about any oil agenda, and you transition to acceptance of the truth, it's not easy.
3:13
Uh I was angry for so many days.
3:16
I couldn't sleep at night.
3:18
Uh, and it really impacted my uh uh my metabolism, my health.
3:24
Uh the uh my wife had to rush me to the hospital a Sunday afternoon because I thought I was having a stroke because I hadn't slept for three days, and and uh fortunately I I've been on blood pressure beds ever since.
3:37
Uh and I and I learned how to control my my uh my anger.
3:43
Uh, but every once in a while when I talk about this subject, I still get pretty angry.
3:48
And at night I'll I'll wake up uh thinking about this thing.
3:51
So we'll try not to make you too angry, but just so you know, I was angry too when I read it when I read your book.
3:57
I was uh you know, I I just so you know the audience knows this.
4:00
I I long ago was a neoconservative because as a Republican that was what you were.
4:05
And after I went to go work in the government, uh, and I I saw on Capitol Hill the way the neocon interventionist agenda really works.
4:15
Uh you get very mortified and you realize these people are not doing good for the country.
4:20
They are not, they're not doing the right thing.
4:23
There's other ulterior motives, and your book really hints at that.
4:26
And just to be clear, the thesis of your book is very plain, it's very simple to understand.
4:32
Yes, it was an oil war, which of course we always used to say, no, it's not, no, it's not, but it wasn't an oil war for America.
4:39
It was an oil war for Israel.
4:41
Why don't you know?
4:42
I I know we were going to start in a different spot, but since I think we should just start here, because I think we can relate this to what's going on in Iran eventually too.
4:49
So what what is the kind of gist of your book?
4:53
Well, the uh you know I was I was the key player when when we first went into Iraq.
4:59
I was the guy that talked to all the uh uh uh the the news reporters that came out and wanted to talk to someone in the in the uh news section.
5:08
I I was told by the folks at the NSC to keep my name out of the press, so I was always the background guy.
5:15
And and and I denied the I was looking at oil agendas involving the major oil companies.
5:24
I worked for mobile and ExxonMobil for 21 years, and so it was easy for me to see that there was no agenda involving uh the the major oil companies, and and that's what the press was saying that they involved uh uh Bush and Cheney and their their oil patch friends down in Texas.
5:42
And that was I I could never find that.
5:45
In fact, there was there was a gentleman by the name of Phil Carroll, who was the retired CEO of Shell, uh who came out and joined me in uh the middle of May 2003.
5:58
And and when Phil and I his the first meeting we had, we sat down in in the morning, and he said, Gary, if I see anything close to an oil grab out here, I'm immediately resigning, getting on the next plane out of here.
6:13
And I looked at Phil and I smiled and I said, Phil, glad you said that, because if you see it, let me know.
6:21
We'll leave together.
6:22
Okay.
6:23
Yeah.
6:24
And uh, and I didn't see that.
6:26
I was so close, but I didn't I didn't see this oil agenda, but it became pretty pretty obvious that the thing was out there, but I had I had denied so much.
6:37
In fact, in um I guess it was in July of uh 2000 and um uh three.
6:46
Uh I was out there uh and and I got this strange call from Pentagon saying that uh you know we need to know the status of what they were saying with this guy Mike Mikkowski was saying, and he he's an interesting character.
7:02
I talked about it.
7:02
I want to get into him too, because he he, yes, I wanted to get into him.
7:06
Yeah, please keep it.
7:07
Yeah, well.
7:09
But but he he phoned.
7:11
I was in Baghdad, and the phone rang multiple times, and I picked it up, and the phone had just been installed that day.
7:18
And so I was surprised.
7:19
I thought, I thought it was the uh the Army Camo guys testing out their lines.
7:25
Uh I said hello after about 12th or 15th ring.
7:30
And and he said, Gary, and I said, uh who's this?
7:34
He said, This is Mike, Mike Mikowski.
7:36
And I said, Mike, I hadn't talked to him in three or four months, maybe longer.
7:40
And I said, How'd you get this number?
7:41
And he said, Oh, I've got ways.
7:43
And he said, Look, we've got this top top urgent thing that we need need to find out.
7:49
And I said, uh, I said, What is it?
7:51
And he said, we need to know the status of the Kirkkook to, he said, Hafu.
7:56
Now, apparently Hafu is an old uh Hebrew pronunciation of hypha.
8:01
And so I did not recognize the name.
8:04
I had I'd studied the the oil infrastructure of Iraq for the last seven, eight, nine months, and there was I had never seen a pipeline called Kirk Cook to Hafu Pipeline.
8:16
In fact, I had not seen that there was that pipeline called Kirk Cook to High Taipha, but it hadn't hadn't been operational since 1948.
8:25
Uh but anyway, he said he needed to know the status of this thing, and it was top urgency.
8:30
The people at the at the head of the uh Pentagon needed to know.
8:34
And I said, Is that Doug Feith?
8:36
And he said, uh no, above him.
8:39
Well, there was only really one guy above him, and that was Paul Wolfowitz.
8:43
Uh, and I said, so I assumed it was Paul.
8:46
Uh but uh anyway, he uh I said, well, I know where where Kirk Cook is.
8:52
Where is this hafu?
8:53
And he said, out to the West.
8:54
Again, the deception kicked in.
8:57
He he didn't tell me it was in Israel, and I said, out to the West, where he said, near near Syria.
9:03
And I said, Oh, okay.
9:04
I said, uh, I said, there's some there's some rumors that uh that Saddam puts uh some WMD in um in the pipelines to Syria.
9:15
Is that true?
9:16
And he said, he said, Well, I can't, I can't discuss that.
9:19
It's uh this is this line's not secure.
9:21
And I said, okay.
9:22
Well, I'm going out to talk to the the guy that we had essentially appointed as the oil minister, uh, and I'll go through this.
9:29
So I I went out to the oil ministry, uh, went through this laundry list of things that I talk about.
9:34
Then finally I get to the last thing, and I said, Look, I got this uh inquiry coming in from the Pentagon.
9:41
Uh, we need to know the status of the Kirkkook to Hafu pipeline.
9:45
Well, when I asked this gentleman, Thamar Godbon was his name.
9:49
Uh, he he tended up.
9:53
And I thought he was back or something.
9:59
Is there something wrong?
10:00
And he said, Gary, you do not want me to ask that question of this organization.
10:05
And I said, uh, okay, I'm game.
10:07
What's what's the problem?
10:08
He said, he he said, there are a lot of people in this country, and definitely a lot of people in this ministry that think that the primary reason why you guys came into this country was to take our oil and send it to Israel.
10:20
If I go out with a question like that, you will just be confirming what their thoughts are.
10:25
And at that point, I said, he said, in fact, he said the Kirk Cook to Haifa pipeline.
10:31
And that's when it dawned on me that I'd been conned by this neokon back at the Pentagon.
10:37
They do that.
10:39
And yes, and uh, and so I said, Well, don't do anything.
10:44
I said, forget I ask you unless I get back to you.
10:47
I need to go back and talk to uh uh Bremer about this.
10:51
Well, I went back to the um and that's Al Paul Bremer, who was the head of the coalition provisional authority, just so everybody.
10:58
Yeah, yep.
10:59
Keep going.
11:00
So I went back, I went back to the the palace, and I was uh sitting in my office, kind of expecting this call from uh Mike at uh 4 p.m.
11:09
our time in Baghdad, which was eight or nine in the morning uh Eastern Standard time.
11:16
And sure enough, he called and he said, Go, okay, Gary, what's the status?
11:19
And I said, Mike, I said, you did not tell me that this pipeline was the cur the Kirk Cook to Haifa pipeline.
11:27
I said I said, uh, look, I said that's a very, very sensitive topic.
11:34
I said, I need for you to put your request in writing.
11:38
Tell me why you need it and exactly what you need, and I'll sit down with Ambassador Bremer.
11:44
And at that point, I heard clang, he hung up the phone on me.
11:48
Uh-huh.
11:48
Okay.
11:50
And I didn't, I didn't hear anything more, but then I learned months later that he called this guy, Thammer Godband.
11:59
At that point, we we had given uh a lot of the Iraqis cell phones, and so they could be contacted direct.
12:06
Somehow he got a hold of Thomer's telephone number, and he phoned him direct and and got a status from from Thomer that the the pipeline had, you know, it was well, the story on the pipeline.
12:20
It was built in 1934 and it operated from 1934 to 1948, and when when uh Israel came into existence, the king of of Iraq said, hey, we're not sending our oil to to Israel, and so they shut the pipeline down.
12:35
Uh and uh it and couldn't export any oil for a couple years until they built a new pipeline through Syria.
12:43
And uh the pipeline was sitting out there in the desert desert not being used, so a lot of the uh sheikhs out in the desert, you know, dug it up and used it for transporting water.
12:53
Uh and so the pipeline no longer existed.
12:56
Okay.
12:57
But they believed it did.
12:59
Well, yes, here here's they they believed that it did, and in Mossad believed that it did.
13:05
Okay.
13:05
So they're that bust the myth of Mossad's infallibility, then when it comes to intelligence.
13:11
That that wasn't the only thing that they were screwed up on.
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But but they they were convinced that the pipeline existed, okay.
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And and in fact, and in fact, the um this is a good story.
13:24
You'll appreciate this.
13:25
Do you know uh Steve Cole, the uh the Yeah, uh I I've met him many times when I was involved with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, he would come out and talk.
13:34
Yeah.
13:35
Yeah, he's the famous journalist, yeah.
13:37
Yes, yeah, I think he's currently the dean of journalism at uh Columbia.
13:41
I think last I heard he was.
13:43
That's the last I heard too.
13:44
Okay.
13:45
Well, he came out, he came to my house in uh September 2008 to interview me for a book that he was working on.
13:51
Was it the Exxon Mobile book?
13:53
Yes, yes, it was.
13:55
But but uh anyway, he he sat me down and we were sitting here in the kitchen, and he said uh uh, you know, he asked me a great question.
14:05
In hindsight, he must have known I was in denial, but but but rather rather than asking me if there was an oil agenda of the war, he said, Gary, was there anything anything bizarre that happened to you in Baghdad in the first couple of months while you're up there?
14:18
And I said, No, I said I can't think I said we we did a heck of a lot of stuff.
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I said we were busy, and he said, bizarre.
14:26
He said, they said, uh, was there anything bizarre?
14:29
And I said, uh, I thought for a minute, and uh I said, yeah.
14:33
I said uh the hypha pipeline.
14:35
And he said, What the hell's the hypha pipeline?
14:38
And I said, exactly.
14:39
Those were my words when I was told that it was the number one priority at the Pentagon uh back in uh the summer of 2003.
14:47
Well, in his book, if you read his book on chapter 11, I think it is, it's called the Haifa Pipeline.
14:54
Yeah, and in there, he went and and he he apparently asked Mikowski about uh this call, and uh and tried to get from from Mike why he asked the question.
15:06
Mike said, Well, it was the Israelis who wanted it.
15:09
It wasn't uh Fife or or Wolfwitz.
15:13
Well, since that time, I've learned that the Israelis were in Fife's office almost daily in 2003.
15:22
Uh, you know, and and it was uh people from the embassy, which was probably Mossad, which Mike, we you know, we learned or I learned that Mike was most likely a Mossad asset of some type.
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19:05
Years later in the St.
19:06
Louis Post.
19:07
He might grew up in St.
19:09
Louis.
19:09
And he he uh he did some work uh for uh a congressional aid to uh one of his senators for a while, but in 1989, he left the United States to go to Israel.
19:23
He was 25 years old then, and and in the interview, he was going to the interview, he was going to have to join the IDF for a while, and then he was going to uh go into government foreign service is what he said.
19:37
Well, the the the guy who was working with the CIA who sent me that that uh article at the time, I said, What's it mean to go into the foreign service?
19:46
And he said, Gary, 98% of the their foreign service is Mossad.
19:52
Of course.
19:53
Okay, and and I in the uh I've talked to three other retired CI.
20:00
Guys who have read my book, they all agreed that's Mike.
20:07
If he wasn't an agent, he was set for from us.
20:12
And if you look you today, he's the chief executive officer of Jinsa in town.
20:17
Jinsa stands for the Jewish Institute for National Security.
20:21
And I was told back in 2003 that Jinsa was nothing more than a front for Mossad.
20:26
Okay.
20:27
That is what I have heard for years.
20:30
Okay.
20:31
Well, it and when I wrote my first book uh in 2017, uh I I did I didn't the agenda was was actually in chapter 20, mostly it was one section.
20:50
Well, a lot of people that read the book, you know, that went past them apparently.
20:54
But but there was a guy who worked in the same building as Jinsa who who apparently stall it, and he he threatened me uh with some phone calls, and and uh I was able to get enough information off of the collar ID to when I hired a private investigator, he traced the guy back to the same building where Jinsa is located, of course.
21:18
Uh and and uh and so we we he assessed my the threat and uh uh you know we've we I've done some things to prove my security, yeah.
21:31
But he said that the there were several uh offices in that building that were not part of GISA, but every one of them were very, very suspicious.
21:40
Fortunately, I this uh private investigator had retired from the FBI, and he told me he was going to report it to the FBI.
21:50
Of course, the FBI is not going to do anything.
21:52
No, no, the FBI is a political organization masquerading as a law enforcement organization anyway.
21:57
Uh and it's funny, you know, not to get off topic here, but there is a reason that they had to shut down Doge with Elon Musk, because remember, Elon Musk was not just going after the nonprofit sector uh in DC.
22:10
He was going after office space, and a lot of those offices in DC are very suspicious.
22:15
There's a lot of weird unmarked things going on in these offices in DC.
22:21
They're not they're front organizations, is what I mean to say.
22:24
Um, I lived there for a long time and I worked there for a while, and I know exactly what you're talking about with Ginza.
22:31
It plays out in multiple buildings across the nation's capital.
22:36
So Mikovsky is possibly, probably, in your estimation, some kind of a Mossad plant.
22:44
He's married to Doug Fife's brother.
22:48
I or I mean yeah, uh sister, sister, sister, sorry.
22:53
Um Doug Fife is in-law.
22:55
And uh well, if if if he is, that's news to me.
22:59
Oh, I thought you said that he was.
23:01
I'm sorry, I thought in the book you said he was an in-law.
23:03
Well, that that's yeah, the the that's what he told us.
23:07
Oh, okay.
23:09
Okay, here's a story.
23:10
Let me tell that full story that did Doug Fife know this guy, or was this just some guy?
23:15
Yeah, okay.
23:15
Yeah, no, fight Fife was the guy that hired him.
23:18
Uh so but but the yeah, that the what happened was let me tell you the full story.
23:24
There we I was sitting there, I was talking to Clark Clark Turner.
23:27
Clark and I were we were putting together this this team, uh reporting to a political appointee, uh Mike Mobbs.
23:35
Okay, and Mike had no experience in oil, but Clark Turner had had was from DOE, Department of Energy, and he had worked oil in the uh first Gulf War as an army major, and I had 21 years in the oil industry, so we were sitting there trying trying to assess all the guys that were on our team and who would help us out.
23:54
We had uh Seneca Johnson from state, she had worked in uh the Near East Asia Bureau for 10 years.
23:59
So she was we knew what her her contribution would be.
24:03
We had this guy Frosty from CIA, who was a uh graduated from a Texas university.
24:10
We knew how he could help us, but we said, we don't understand this guy, Mikkowski.
24:15
What's his, you know, what what are his uh talents that uh he can help us with?
24:19
So I said, Well, let's go talk to him.
24:20
So we left my office and we went to Mike Cubicle, about 20, 30 feet away.
24:25
And Mike was working at his desk, typing away something.
24:28
And I said, Mike, can we ask you a question?
24:31
And uh he stopped and he looked, and and we said, We're my uh Clark and I are trying to see what your role is going to be on the uh this team.
24:40
We'd like to know what your strengths are, what experience you have.
24:44
And he said, She, so you want to know why I'm on the team.
24:47
And we and I looked at him and I said, Well, yeah, we why are you on the team?
24:51
And he said, I'm Doug Feith's brother-in-law, and he turned around, he started finished his his email, and I said, Brother in law, and and uh so Clark and I started walking away, and I said, I aren't there nepotism laws, and and Clark looked at me and he said, Gary, he's he's not his brother-in-law, he just doesn't want to share with this what his background is.
25:12
Yeah, and so that was kind of that was the first hint that Mike was a little bit different than the rest of us that were on that team.
25:20
Uh, and then there were many other hints.
25:22
Uh, probably the biggest one was probably about a month later when he walked into our skiff, our secure area, and I could tell he was angry.
25:32
Uh and I said, Mike, you okay?
25:35
And he said, I just came from my third interview for my top secret clearance, and they refused to give me my interview.
25:42
Well, I I kind of smiled, I was laughing a little bit, and he said, What's so funny?
25:46
And I said, Congratulations, you're the first person that I met that needed more than one interview to get your top secret clearance.
25:53
I said you must have a pretty interesting background.
25:56
And he he always said was they don't like my friends in Israel.
26:00
Uh okay, so that was another big hint that uh that he his he was a very conflicted individual.
26:07
I would say so.
26:08
And just to be clear, his role was as basically sort of the point guy at the Pentagon for CPA.
26:16
Was it the whole CPA or just oil uh oil?
26:21
Just oil.
26:22
It's pretty important role, pretty important role.
26:25
Um that's wild.
26:28
That's that's just wild.
26:29
And and and you know, we go ahead.
26:31
I'm sorry, go ahead.
26:33
Well, I was gonna say the the uh one of the guys from Exxon Mobile who uh was responsible for for Iraq contacted me and he said, Gary, who's this guy, Mikkowski that we're supposed to go through at the Pentagon for any information.
26:50
He said, Did he work in the industry?
26:52
I and I said, No, he said that's pretty obvious.
26:54
He knows nothing about the oil industry.
26:56
Why is he the point man?
26:57
I said, good question.
26:58
I said, if you figure it out, let me know.
27:00
Well, I think we know why.
27:01
I think we know why.
27:02
It's yeah.
27:03
So but we never can you never confirmed that he was or was not the in-law to Fife.
27:08
No.
27:09
That's pretty sure he was wild.
27:11
Yeah, so it's that's wild.
27:14
So you see, I I remember it was in the book, but I don't remember.
27:16
I must have not paid close enough attention.
27:18
I I just assumed that was why.
27:21
So Fife clearly knew this guy, though, and let this guy in this very important position.
27:28
And um, so we get into Iraq, and uh the cupboards are bare in terms of WMD, and uh the this was all a play for the oil.
27:43
Why did Israel want Iraqi oil?
27:46
What was going on?
27:47
Because in the book you talk about it, I'd like you to give a brief history of you know what what was the lead into why would Israel even care about Iraqi oil?
27:56
Yeah, yeah.
27:58
The uh excellent question.
28:00
And that that's the key.
28:02
That's the the big piece of the puzzle that allowed me to put everything together.
28:07
And that I had to go back in and uh there.
28:11
I had to go back and understand the energy security of Israel since since 1948.
28:20
Okay, and in and I define energy security as access to essentially crude oil at a at a good market rate or even a discounted rate is even better.
28:29
Yeah, a consistent access.
28:32
And from from the night 1948 until 1994, yeah, 1994, they got almost all of their oil from Iran.
28:44
Israel did.
28:45
Israel did, yes.
28:47
And it was, and it was uh if you understand that relationship with Iran from back then, uh it helps you understand that how close that was.
28:57
They the Shah, the Shah sent oil, and then in 1969, they actually solidified the relationship because they built this pipeline through uh Israel, uh, starting at the port of a lot on the Red Sea side and and it Ashkelon on the Mediterranean side.
29:18
And so the Persians, you know, they didn't want to depend on the Arabs uh to get their oil to their customers in the Mediterranean.
29:26
So they they developed this relationship.
29:30
Let me let me shut this window here.
29:32
Yeah, you're fine.
29:32
You're fine.
29:33
Okay.
29:34
Anyway, they developed this close relationship with the Persians, and they built this pipeline.
29:39
It's called called the uh Elat Ashkelon Pipeline Company, and it was a 50-50 joint venture between Iran and Israel.
29:48
And they were pumping oil through this pipeline, roughly a million barrels a day, and Israel would get their share, which was less than 200, less than 20 percent of it, and uh
30:00
A guy by the name of Mark Richard.
30:03
Clinton's buddy.
30:04
Yeah.
30:04
Yeah.
30:05
Mark Richie.
30:06
But he would he would take the oil.
30:08
And let me real quick, before we who is Mark Rich, so the audience knows.
30:11
Yeah, Mark Mark Rich was a notorious oil trader.
30:16
Uh and he was well known in the industry, but I've talked to oil traders with mobile that had been with mobile oil and traded oil for 20 years, Middle East Oil.
30:27
They knew he was very, very successful.
30:30
They knew he was very wealthy, uh, but they didn't know how he made his money.
30:36
And and when I told him about this pipeline, they you know, the light clicked on and said, Oh, that makes sense.
30:43
He had he had he had X he he took all the uh the oil coming off the pipeline, he placed it with his customers in Italy or or Spain or wherever.
30:55
And uh he was able to do it at a nice nice price and and make a very comfortable uh profit.
31:02
Uh and he expanded his business uh until in the early 1990s.
31:09
Well, he was found guilty uh in a court in uh New York for income tax evasion and trading with the enemy.
31:18
You know, the guy didn't pay a hundred million dollars in taxes.
31:21
Wouldn't you like to owe a hundred million dollars in federal income taxes?
31:24
I don't know if I would like being accused of trading with the enemy, but uh he was trading with the enemy, yeah.
31:30
So he was found guilty.
31:32
Classic.
31:33
Uh and and so it was it became very difficult for him to do a lot of business in the United States and other other countries.
31:41
Uh and and he he one of his uh employees tried to corner the zinc market uh and the company lost its shirt.
31:51
And so the the Rothschilds had to come in and bail out the company in in uh night 1994.
31:58
Wow, and they they decided that they wanted new management.
32:02
Uh and uh so they kicked him out.
32:04
They changed the name from Mark Rich A.
32:07
G to Glencore.
32:08
Yeah.
32:09
Uh and and uh, but what happened was Mark Mark Rich had such a great relationship with people in Iran, apparently, uh, that some were during that time, the transition, uh Iran stopped sending oil to uh to Israel.
32:27
And and uh uh that's when it Israel from 1990, late 1994 until 2003, October 2003, they had to go to the open market, they were getting a lot of their oil from Russia or Azerbaijan, and they were paying apparently a premium for it, and so it was costing their their economy dearly.
32:51
They they uh and at this time Netanyahu is the finance minister, is that correct?
32:56
And yeah, well, he he was the fine well, he was the finance minister in 2003, but back in the 1990s, I think he was prime minister for a while.
33:06
That's right.
33:06
I always forget that.
33:07
Yeah, you're right.
33:08
Yeah.
33:08
So Netanyahu has his hand in this thing, though.
33:12
It's hands written.
33:13
He he's very, very familiar with how important discounted oil is to his country.
33:18
You know, he's he was a good, he is a good businessman.
33:21
Very good, very shrewd.
33:22
Yep.
33:23
Yeah, and and so he understands that a discounted energy to to the economy of Israel is very important.
33:31
Okay, and so in the late 1990s, that this character Ahmed Chalaby starts showing up to uh to to talk to people like Netanyahu, Wolfowitz, Richard Pearl, the neocons, and saying, hey guys, you know, if you can help me overthrow Saddam with by using the U.S.
33:50
Army, and you make me the prime minister when I get into uh when we get into Iraq, the first thing I I will do is I will reopen the old pipeline from Kirkkuk to Haifa and turn Haifa into the Rotterdam of the Eastern Myth.
34:06
It should be noted that Mr.
34:07
Shalaby was a notorious shyster and huckster, and uh he was a a uh uh inveterate liar, uh pretty much about everything he said.
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The national security hour is the tip of the spear in the epic battle to defend the United States of America.
37:02
I'm Brandon Wykert, your host of action.
37:05
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37:09
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37:09
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37:13
We begin our final segment.
37:15
So do you believe real quick Shalabi or Shallabi rather actually believed the pipeline was viable?
37:21
Or was he just saying this to get support so he could do whatever he wanted to do?
37:25
You're exactly right.
37:26
In fact, in fact, the first time I read that he a book book, uh I it was 2009 or 2001, and I was working in Baghdad, and I read this book, and there was a lady who I worked with uh for the Corps of Engineers who I went to and I said, and she she worked for Chalabee before the war.
37:47
And I said, Did he really make these promises to these these uh uh neocons to these Jewish people back in the States?
37:55
And and she looked at me, she said, Gary, he only told them what they wanted to hear, and they wanted to believe it in the biggest way, and they did.
38:04
And she smiled and said, Okay.
38:07
But he had to have known that the pipeline didn't hit Challaby, but he he convinced the uh the neocons it was still there, and all he had to do was turn it turn the valve and let it flow again.
38:20
You know, let me ask you something as an oil man.
38:24
Had the Iraq war never happened, and had Israel been forced to remain on the open market purchasing oil from elsewhere.
38:35
What do you think that would have done to the Israeli economy?
38:40
Well, it was holding them back, there's no doubt about that.
38:42
The in fact, the uh their minister of infrastructure, a guy by the name of Joseph Pritsky in 2003, uh, and I didn't read this article until 2015.
38:54
This was one of the articles that was written in Haret's uh the Israeli newspaper, and and this was one of the articles that I read that just you know helped me to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
39:07
He said then it was it was written in March 31st.
39:11
Our guys hadn't even gotten to Baghdad yet, and he was celebrating the fact that uh they were going to get access to Iraqi oil before the end of 2003, and that's when he said, he said up until now, he said we've been paying a 25% premium, and now we're gonna get a nice windfall from this uh war going on in Iraq because we're they're gonna reopen the pipeline to uh to hypha uh and we're gonna get access to uh uh you know a lot of uh oil, a lot of inexpensive oil.
39:43
And and that's when I read that, then I started realizing these guys really believed that.
39:51
And that's yeah, that was their motivation for pushing for this war.
39:55
You know, the uh uh and that's when I started becoming.
40:00
Become very, very angry.
40:02
Yes, I I would be very and then I also read at the same time that uh in 2003 that Netanyahu was the minister of finance, and he went to London, according to an article I read to get uh the bankers in London uh to invest in increasing the size of this pipeline, the Kirkuk to Haifa pipeline.
40:28
He wanted to to uh transport more than a million barrels because his thought was well, what Chalaby said, we're gonna turn Haifa into the Rotterdam of the Eastern Mediterranean, you know, and make a lot of people wealthy.
40:43
In fact, there was another article that uh that I found it was written in uh I think it was 2004, March or April 2004.
40:55
It was an interview of Doug Feith's law partner, uh, a guy by the name of Zell, Mark Zell.
41:02
And Mark was very you could tell the tone of the article, but he was very irate with Ahmed Chalabi because he had not delivered on any of his promises to deliver oil to Haifa.
41:15
And Zell Zell had apparently established his law firm uh in uh Israel in anticipation of all this business, and it wasn't coming through.
41:26
Uh and uh I highly I highlighted that uh that article in the book as well.
41:33
I think it was the Sunday Guardian where that was, if I remember correctly.
41:37
Um, I don't know.
41:38
I I thought I thought that's what it said in the book.
41:41
But so they didn't get the oil through the so-called Haifa or Haifu pipeline.
41:48
Um what did Israel do?
41:51
Where did they did they did they get any Iraqi oil or was that all a bust?
41:56
Yeah.
41:57
No, no, that's and that's uh that's the key point.
42:01
You know, plan A what couldn't would not work because and why wouldn't it work?
42:06
Well, in in late July 2003, right after Mikowski inquired about this pipeline, the Iraqis Ministers started attacking their own pipelines.
42:20
Okay, at the time we didn't know why they were attacking their own pipelines.
42:24
Uh and and it I learned years later uh by the uh the guy that was the manager of the refinery there in Baghdad, a very sharp guy who uh who uh went to school in the UK, he spoke English better than I do.
42:40
But he uh he he told me years later, he said, Gary, he said the uh after that happened, I knew that the attacks had to be an inside job.
42:48
I said, Well, I knew that too because I but I didn't know who it could have been.
42:52
He said, Yeah, he said I there were about six guys that worked for me that the way they did the attack, it was key because it was going to shut down the pipeline or the refinery.
43:02
And he said, I called him into my office and I said, Hey, talk to me, what's going on?
43:07
Uh and and they all put their but their, you know, they just looked down on the floor, they were going back and forth, and they didn't say anything.
43:14
And I said, Hey, look, we've been going to the same mosque together for 30 years.
43:19
We've worked together, we've swept together, talked to me, and they pulled out a an Arabic newspaper uh from um uh from Baghdad, and it was just quoting the Haret's uh article from March of Um uh 2003 stating that the Americans were gonna send their oil to Israel and say Americans their oil to Israel.
43:50
I said, What did you tell?
43:52
And I said, he said, Well, if they were, I would help you blow up these pipelines.
43:58
Well, in uh September 2003, apparently Chalabi was under a lot of pressure to deliver oil to Israel.
44:08
So his plan B was he would he would have the SOMA organization within the ministry uh take oil uh uh offload it to at the port of Chehan in the Mediterranean and sell it to Glencore.
44:24
Okay, Glencore was the old Mark Rich company.
44:26
Glencore provided.
44:28
Just to be clear, so we remind everybody, Glencore at this point was basically bought out or run by the Rothschild.
44:37
Is that correct?
44:37
Because I know you said that earlier.
44:38
I just want to make that clear because Rothschild's keep coming up also with Jeffrey Epstein.
44:44
So anyway, please keep going.
44:47
Okay.
44:48
So the uh yeah, the plan was they were going to sell uh uh tankers to uh Glencore, and then Glencore could deliver it to Haifa or wherever uh for Israel.
45:01
Well, the guy who was the the head of uh the the organization, Somo at the time was a guy by the name of Mohammed Al Jabori, and he refused, he refused a chalaby.
45:12
He said, No, I'm not gonna sell to traders, Glencore.
45:17
And and and Mohammed was just honoring the uh the procedure that myself and Phil Carroll and and uh Jerry Bremer, uh Ambassador Bremer had agreed to in uh in June that no oil would be sold to traders because traders were notorious for causing corruption, and the U.S.
45:40
government did not want corruption while we were there running things, and so we we said you will only sell to companies with large refineries that will use it rather than traders who end up trading it for and whatever.
45:55
So and and besides Glencoring apparently they they were indicted for uh offering bribes to uh to uh somo a few years before that.
46:10
So they had a reputation.
46:12
Uh and and Mohammed Al-Jabori uh said no, he refused to.
46:16
So Achmat Chalabi had had Muhammad fired, had him replaced with a guy, and then in October 2003, uh they started selling oil out of Chehan uh Turkey to Glencore that was delivered to Israel.
46:32
Okay.
46:33
Now one of the things that happened starting in September, October, the pipeline attacks in in um from July expanded.
46:47
The main pipeline in the north that went through through Iraq up to Turkey and then out to the we couldn't keep that pipeline open.
46:57
It was being attacked every time it would get open.
47:00
Uh and typically that pipeline will export five to seven hundred thousand barrels a day a day, but we couldn't keep it open.
47:09
We didn't, we did not understand why the Iraqis kept attacking that pipeline.
47:14
And we we um because they don't want to go into Israel.
47:18
Well, he yes, exactly.
47:20
And he here's another thing.
47:21
The apparently Congress, I I left uh Iraq in 2004 after my first tour, and Congress appropriated 270 million dollars or somewhere in that range, uh, to essentially put in pipeline security in Iraq, and it was pushed by Mikowski and his his uh his associates, and Mike was the guy responsible for for uh executing uh in in at the Pentagon pushing that that program.
47:56
I I didn't find out about that till years later, too.
47:59
Uh but but uh when I showed up back in Iraq in 2000 at the end of 2006, uh that they tried they tried to put in this pipeline exclusion zone.
48:12
We spent a heck of a lot of money putting in this pipeline exclusion zone, and it doesn't didn't do any good.
48:18
They kept attacking the pipelines.
48:20
It wasn't until Topetraeus came in 2007.
48:25
Politic started to improve that the pipeline so we we essentially wasted probably 200 million dollars.
48:32
Did the Israelis get any of that oil for through that they did?
48:36
No, they did.
48:36
They did they they were getting uh parcels uh from 2000 October 2003.
48:42
They weren't getting as as much as is they wanted, as they wanted, but apparently they were getting some.
48:47
And that and that worked that what had then what happened in 2013 when ISIS came through, that pipeline was shut down for a while.
48:58
But the the Kurds, who have a great relationship with with Israel, they had their own production up in Kurdistan that they were developing, and uh they ran up a pipeline from Urbil over to uh the Turkish pipeline.
49:17
And so they started using the pipeline from 2013 uh to export all their oil to uh to Israel.
49:25
And and why that was so important was Baghdad considered all that oil was roughly four to five hundred thousand barrels a day.
49:32
They considered all that to be smuggled oil, and so Baghdad would go into the to courts like like they they tried to ship a a a um uh uh cargo to Galveston, Texas, but Baghdad had their lawyers in Galveston, had the judge issue a seizure order, and before the ship could come in and offload, uh they got word that they would be seized, and so they turned around and they took the the cargo back to uh
50:00
uh israel and offload it in ashkelon and and and and the Kurds tried to send oil to Canada too with no luck but but the only country that they could send it to where they there was no fear of seizure was Israel and so you had Israel with demand of roughly 2000 barrels getting four to five hundred thousand barrels so they became an an import export uh country for for uh Iraqi Kurdistan oil and they were making a ton of money from 2013 until two till march of 2023 for about 10 years they were making a real killing on on this huge oh and they were they were paying only a a highly discounted price to the Kurds because the Kurds couldn't sell it any place else and so and so the the Israelis were getting a huge discount on that that oil uh sorry go ahead and and so that went on until 2002 what happened in 2023 the pipeline was shut down okay because the uh well the Turks lost a uh an arbitration uh decision with Baghdad and so Erdogan said fine we'll just shut the pipeline down so in March of 2000 and 23 uh Israel had to go back out and find uh their oil on the open market so they were paying a premium from it and in 2023 so you had you had Netanyahu who had just come in under the in in the fall of 2022 gets hit with the bad news in in the spring of 2023 that he needs oil and and uh uh so where's he going to get discounted oil from my opinion he you know he he he's he becomes desperate at that point because he his country had had been living off a highly discounted oil and he knew he wasn't going to get any any discounted oil from Iraq anymore uh and so um things changed in late 2023 as we well know uh and in fact uh the the uh the one point I bring out in the book is Israel has no real onshore domestic production no but they do have very large gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean that they've been trying to develop in fact they wanted to take their economy off of uh oil and and like transportation fuels and and and only use compressed natural gas uh transportation and that was it's a great vision if you if you can do it but that's a lot of money to transition it's paying uh don't the Turks dispute some of those gas fields isn't there a lot of disputes with the Turks for the eastern med or am I mistaken in that well it was the the first the first dispute was with Lebanon yeah because the um a lot of those large gas fields uh it it traverses the uh the offshore area between Lebanon and um and uh Israel and a guy by name of uh Amos Hoxtein uh who worked in the Biden administration uh Amos was born and raised in Israel spent time in the IDF and all of a sudden he became a very important in the Biden administration years later but he negotiated a deal between Lebanon and uh Israel about uh four or five years ago uh that resulted in in uh uh Israel bringing in their their operator to uh to develop the field but but one of the things remember in in uh October 2023 October 7 2023 just after uh the the all the problems with Gaza one of the first things that uh that Netanyahu did was he went in and he seized all the offshore Gaza gas fields which were significant uh there was a very there's a very very large gas field right offshore Gaza that actually the Palestinians had signed a production sharing agreement with British gas back in the 1990s but the Israelis would not allow British gas to uh to execute yeah so so now uh after after 2023 you had Netanyahu going in and and seizing the the ownership of the the offshore feet fields thinking that okay he'll have access to all the gas there in the eastern mid and and they had huge plans of developing it and think in fact chevron shavron is is the largest uh oil company uh over there helping them develop that yeah they're still probably a few years away from that so they're they're gonna need oil uh for the next few years the play that's going on in Iran today is that also for Israeli oil benefits or is that not really related the way that Iraq was well my feeling is that if there's an oil uh incentive for this war it would be because Netanyahu once the old relationship that he had with Iran before 1995 to reestablish that because that was a great relationship they got discounted oil that was delivered to the pipeline they ran it through the pipeline and they they sent it off to the custom you know that in in I'm sure he would love to have that relationship back.
55:56
How's he going to get it back?
55:58
Good good luck with that I thank you for listening today.
56:01
And thank you for joining us on the mission the national security hour is the tip of the spear in the epic battle to defend the United States of America I'm your America always first host Brandon Winkert.
56:15
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57:01
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