Blood for oil? Documents reveal talks between Government and oil giants BEFORE invasion of Iraq

Telling the truth? Tony Blair said oil conspiracies about the Iraq war were 'absurd' but leaked documents have revealed ministers met with BP and Shell about Iraqi oil before the invasion

Tony Blair’s government discussed plans with British firms to exploit oil opportunities in ‘post Saddam Iraq’ five months before joining the invasion of the country.
Secret papers reveal that then international trade minister Baroness Symons told energy firms back in November 2002 that they should be given a share of the country’s huge oil reserves.
The Labour peer also lobbied the Bush administration on BP’s behalf amid fears the firm was being locked out of lucrative deals it believed the U.S. was striking with other countries.
The revelations, in minutes of meetings between oil executives and the Labour government in late 2002, appear to be at odds with their insistence Iraq’s vast oil reserves were not a consideration ahead of the March 2003 invasion.
After one meeting, in October 2002, Edward Chaplin, then Foreign Office Middle East director, is quoted as saying: ‘We were determined to get a fair slice of the action for UK companies in post-Saddam Iraq.’
As premier, Mr Blair dismissed suggestions oil was a motivating factor as an ‘absurd conspiracy theory’. Shell described suggestions it held talks with Downing Street ahead of the war as ‘highly inaccurate’ while BP denied it had a ‘strategic interest’.

 

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But minutes from an October 2002 meeting with BP, Shell and British Gas said: ‘Baroness Symons agreed it would be difficult to justify British companies losing out in Iraq if the UK had itself been a conspicuous supporter of the U.S. government throughout the crisis.’

The real cause for war? Reports of 2002 meetings between the government and oil firms show the role oil played in the decision to invade

In November 2002, BP told an advisor of Mr Blair’s: ‘Iraq is the big oil prospect. BP is desperate to get in there and anxious that political deals should not deny them the opportunity.’
The papers were not given to the Chilcot Inquiry into Iraq. Greg Muttitt, co-director of oil campaign group Platform, secured them using Freedom of Information requests.
He said: ‘They provide evidence of what many of us suspected: that oil was at the  centre of the Blair government’s thinking on Iraq.’ BP and Shell declined to comment last night.