Word: petroleum
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...Saddam reigned over the region's dominant military power, an emerging political force and a country whose rich oil fields promised to make it an economic giant. Already, 8% of America's petroleum came from Iraqi wells, and American corporations were eager to help rebuild Iraq's shattered infrastructure. The Bush Administration decided to edge still closer to Iraq and to deal with the issue of Saddam's egregious human-rights record by using private pressure and the benefits of trade to gently prod him along a more responsible path...
Saddam can be accused of many things, but masking his intentions is not one of them. In May 1990 he told a gathering of Arab leaders in Baghdad that he considered oil production above the limits set for each producer nation by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to be an act of war. Kuwait was exceeding its OPEC limits at the time. But a senior State Department official dismissed the statement as "typical exaggerated rhetoric." Says the same official today: "I guess there is a lesson here: Take a tyrant at his word...
Much had been written about the inferno the Iraqis would create by filling trenches with burning oil. But in the Marines' sector, U.S. planes had burned off the oil prematurely by dropping napalm. The Saudis did encounter trenches filled with blazing petroleum and in some cases with water, but crossed them by the simple expedient of having bulldozers and tanks fitted with earth- , moving blades collapse dirt into the trenches until they were filled. It took only hours for the allied troops to burst through the supposedly impregnable Iraqi defenses and begin a war of maneuvers, sweeping right past some...
...real money will go to the giant construction and oil-service firms that will rebuild Kuwait's shattered petroleum industry. Bechtel Group, based in San Francisco, recently signed a $150 million letter of intent to manage the mammoth task, a job that analysts say could bring the company $6 billion in revenue over the next few years. Bechtel, which has operated in Kuwait for more than 40 years, is gearing up to hire 4,300 workers for the project. Other U.S. heavyweights likely to land big contracts include Fluor, based in California, a leader in petroleum projects, and Halliburton...
Bush, a former oilman, knows well the visceral animosity most people feel toward America's major oil companies. A survey by the American Petroleum Institute, the industry's trade group, finds that 72% of Americans view Big Oil unfavorably. A study by Chevron shows that 65% of citizens say they cannot believe anything the industry says about the gulf war. Most Americans think -- incorrectly -- that oil is more profitable than most businesses, a view that is reinforcing cries in Congress for a windfall-profits...