> Bush-Cheney Energy Strategy: Procuring the Rest of the World's Oil
> by Michael Klare
>
> When first assuming office in early 2001, President George W. Bush's
> top foreign policy priority was not to prevent terrorism or to curb
> the spread of weapons of mass destruction-or any of the other goals he
> espoused later that year following the September 11, 2001 attacks on
> the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Rather, it was to increase
> the flow of petroleum from suppliers abroad to U.S. markets. In the
> months before he became president, the United States had experienced
> severe oil and natural gas shortages in many parts of the country,
> along with periodic electrical power blackouts in California. In
> addition, oil imports rose to more than 50%% of total consumption for
> the first time in history, provoking great anxiety about the security
> of the country's long-term energy supply. Bush asserted that
> addressing the nation's "energy crisis" was his most important task as
> president.

>
> He and his advisers considered the oil supply essential to the health
> and profitability of leading U.S. industries. They reasoned that any
> energy shortages could have severe and pervasive economic
> repercussions on businesses in automobiles, airlines, construction,
> petrochemicals, trucking, and agriculture. They deemed petroleum
> especially critical to the economy because it is the source of two-
> fifths' of the total U.S. energy supply-more than any other source,-
> and because it provides most of the nation's transportation fuel. They
> also were cognizant of petroleum's crucial national security role as
> the power for the vast array of tanks, planes, helicopters, and ships
> that constitute the backbone of the U.S. war machine.
>
> "America faces a major energy supply crisis over the next two
> decades," Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham told a National Energy
> Summit on March 19, 2001. "The failure to meet this challenge will
> threaten our nation's economic prosperity, compromise our national
> security, and literally alter the way we lead our lives
> cont'd
> http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0113-01.htm