Word: opec
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...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...
...days before the invasion, when Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs John Kelly told a congressional subcommittee, "We have no defense-treaty relationships with any of the ((gulf)) countries. We have historically avoided taking a position on border disputes or on internal OPEC deliberations, but we have certainly, as have all administrations, resoundingly called for the peaceful settlement of disputes and differences in the region." Says Hamilton: "The Administration still believed Saddam was a guy they could work with. They were still taking that position right up to the day of the invasion." Like Saddam...
...Iraq with "beefed-up military muscles." Saddam contended that Saudi Arabia and certain emirates in the gulf were involved in this "conspiracy." Economic pressure had come into play, with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates violating the oil-export quotas that had been set down by OPEC. The price of oil had dropped from $21 to $11 per bbl., which, he said, "spelled economic ruin" for Iraq...
...even with Iraq and Kuwait exporting nothing), and with prospects for war in the Gulf interrupting supply getting less every day, some experts predict that oil prices may drop to as low as $10 to $12 a barrel. And while predictions vary, changes in the world economy have weakened OPEC and made it more difficult for the cartel to jack up prices...
Some lessons are hard to learn. Three times in the past two decades, the U.S. has been burned by its unbridled appetite for energy and its dependence on foreign oil. First came the OPEC embargo in response to the Arab-Israeli war of 1973. Iran administered the second oil shock six years later. Both episodes produced some national hand-wringing and a spate of conservation measures that cut imports in half between 1977, their peak year, and 1985. But when world oil prices collapsed in 1986, the nation's per capita oil consumption began to climb again, the fuel efficiency...