Dear Tom,

I enjoy reading your dispatch. You had recommended I should read Tom Barry to understand the inner connections of this administration. It was a great recommendation. I have learned alot in the last few months. None of it pleasing but better informed than ignorant.

I'm hoping you have read about the new Carnegie report: Origins of Regime Change in Iraq

There has been some speculation on recent discussion lists that the energy meetings of Vice President Dick Cheney were actually being used to discuss post-war reconstruction of Iraq's energy industry.

This premise makes alot of sense when you consider Cheney wouldn't turn over his notes or agenda That and Cheney commissioned a report "Strategic Energy Policy Challenges For The 21ST Century" from the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy of Rice University and the Council on Foreign Relations(CFR). Meetings were held thru December, January, and February 2000–01. Convenient timing.

Cheney was also a member of the Committee to Preserve American Security and Sovereignty (COMPASS) which published a letter to President Clinton that advocated the rejection of the Kyoto Treaty. Signed by Cheney and 11 others, they made their views well known and shared them publicly.

and (which I know you know already......)

Dick Cheney was a founding member of the Project for the New American Century in 1997. In advance of the quadrennial review, PNAC published a report Rebuilding America's Defenses on which the current National Security Strategy is based.

It starts to make alot of sense that Cheney's energy meetings were about alot more than energy policy and wether or not conservation would play a role. For once, his refusal to turn over the notes makes perfect sense if he was hiding an invasion of Iraq.

I'm enclosing excerpts from the Baker report. I'm hoping you might find some use for it. If Cheney's meetings were about post-war Iraq reconstruction and the oil industry, we have been more seriously lied to than any of us could have thought.

Best wishes,
Susie

PS I think you will recognise some of the language and themes used below.

Strategic Energy Policy Challenges For The 21ST Century

Excerpt from Section I (e) under Recommendations is as follows:

Review policies toward Iraq with the aim to lowering anti-Americanism in the Middle East and elsewhere, and set the groundwork to eventually ease Iraqi oil-field investment restrictions. Iraq remains a destabilizing influence to U.S. allies in the Middle East, as well as to regional and global order, and to the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East. Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export program to manipulate oil markets. This would display his personal power, enhance his image as a "Pan Arab" leader supporting the Palestinians against Israel, and pressure others for a lifting of economic sanctions against his regime.

The United States should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq, including military, energy, economic, and political/diplomatic assessments. The United States should then develop an integrated strategy with key allies in Europe and Asia and with key countries in the Middle East to restate the goals with respect to Iraqi policy and to restore a cohesive coalition of key allies. Goals should be designed in a realistic fashion, and they should be clearly and consistently stated and defended to revive U.S. credibility on this issue. Actions and policies to promote these goals should endeavor to enhance the well-being of the Iraqi people. Sanctions that are not effective should be phased out and replaced with highly focused and enforced sanctions that target the regime’s ability to maintain and acquire weapons of mass destruction. A new plan of action should be developed to use diplomatic and other means to support U.N. Security Council efforts to build a strong arms-control regime to stem the flow of arms and controlled substances into Iraq. Policy should rebuild coalition cooperation on this issue, while emphasizing the common interest in security. This issue of arms sales to Iraq should be brought near the top of the agenda for dialogue with China and Russia.

Some of the Task Force members who contributed to this report are:

KENNETH LAY former Chairman and CEO of Enron Corporation.

JOHN A. MANZONI is Regional President for British Petroleum in the eastern United States.

STEVEN L. MILLER is Chairman of the board of directors, President, and CEO of Shell Oil Company.

EDWARD L. MORSE is currently Executive Advisor at Hess Energy Trading Co.

DAVID O'REILLY has been named Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer for Chevron/Texaco.

JEFFERSON B. SEABRIGHT is Vice President of Policy Planning for Texaco Inc

ENZO VISCUSI is Group Senior Vice President and Representative for the Americas of Eni, the Italian-based integrated energy company, where he also serves as Chairman of Agip Petroleum Co. Inc

CHUCK WATSON is the Chairman and chief executive officer of Houston Dynegy Inc.