Eager to Tap Iraq's Vast Oil Reserves, Industry Execs Suggested Invasion

Two years before the invasion of Iraq, oil executives and foreign policy advisers told the Bush administration that the United States would remain "a prisoner of its energy dilemma" as long as Saddam Hussein was in power.

That April 2001 report, "Strategic Policy Challenges for the 21st Century," was prepared by the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy and the US Council on Foreign Relations at the request of then-Vice President Dick Cheney.

In retrospect, it appears that the report helped focus administration thinking on why it made geopolitical sense to oust Hussein, whose country sat on the world's second largest oil reserves.

"Iraq remains a destabilizing influence to the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East," the report said.

Hurricanes May Increase in Gulf as El Nino Shifts in Pacific

(Bloomberg) -- A shift of warming patterns in the Pacific Ocean may mean more seasons of increased hurricane activity in the Atlantic and more storms entering the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico, according to a study in the journal Science.

The warming of Pacific waters -- a phenomenon called El Nino -- has been moving toward the central Pacific, meaning more storms will form in the Gulf and Caribbean, researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology said in the study. Traditionally, when the eastern Pacific warms up, hurricane activity in the Atlantic falls.

WTO admits some trade limits may be necessary to stop climate change

GENEVA (AP) — The World Trade Organization acknowledged Friday that some limits on free trade may be necessary to stop runaway climate change — provided the restrictions aren't a cover for protectionism.

"WTO case law has confirmed that WTO rules do not trump environmental requirements," the global commerce body said.

Import taxes on goods coming from countries that fail to meet environmental standards might be among the measures exceptionally permitted under global free trade laws, WTO said.

Iraq Oil a Big Draw for Chinese

HONG KONG — As the world’s second-largest and fastest-growing consumer of oil, China is showing increasing interest in oil fields in a country that had seemed until very recently to be firmly in the American sphere of influence for natural resources: Iraq.

Chinese oil companies are expected to bid in Iraq’s oil field auctions that are set to start Tuesday, although Sinopec, the China National Petroleum Corporation and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation all declined to comment Monday about their bidding strategies.

...After six years of war, few Americans or Iraqis may have expected China to emerge as one of the winners in Iraqi oil fields. But signs of stability in Iraq this year, and a planned American pullback from Iraqi cities this week, just happen to coincide with an aggressive Chinese push to buy overseas oil fields.