Iraqi oil production skyrocketed since illegal 2003 US invasion – in accordance with plans outlined by US officials.
A 2011 email to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shows how the U.S. pressured Iraq’s new allied government to increase oil production in order ‘to pay the greatest dividends’.
U.S. State Department officials stressed that ‘Iraq is potentially one of the largest oil producers in the world’ but lamented that it was not meeting its full potential.In the email which was released by the State Department in response to a Freedom of Information Act request they outline plans ‘to help move the country in the right direction’ — that is to say, to increase Iraq’s oil production by at least 150 percent in the next five years with the help of ‘oil contracts with international companies’.
Less than five years later the U.S. had exceeded its goal with Iraqi oil production up 175 percent.
Since the illegal U.S. invasion in 2003 Iraq’s oil production has skyrocketed – while domestic consumption has only slightly increased.
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