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Oil barons played a role in Saddam's Garden of Eden destruction

By Judi McLeod
Monday, May 23, 2005

Charleston, S.C.--Only Saddam Hussein could make an arid desert out of the ancient Iraqi marsh considered by biblical scholars to be the Garden of Eden.

While there is no doubt that revenge was in the Butcher of Baghdad's heart when he cut the water flow to the marsh following 1991's Gulf War, part of his motive originated from cutting breaks for business cronies. In draining the marsh, Saddam's intent was to punish the Marsh arabs who opposed his rule. To the heartless Saddam, it made no difference that the arab culture had lived there for thousands of years.

Saddam cutting breaks for business cronies is a little-known aspect of the ancient arab marsh story.

"France's largest oil company, Total (formerly TotalFinaElf) had negotiated lucrative oil contracts with the Hussein regime after Gulf War 1 to drill in Southern Iraq." (The Real Coalition of the Bribed and Coerced, GeoPoliticalReview, October 8, 2004). "These negotiations took place in anticipation of an eventual weakening or lifting of the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq, thereby allowing them to immediately execute said contracts worth approximately $650-billion. Without Saddam in power, those oil contracts would naturally be void, so France had incentive to keep him in power to maintain their competitive advantage. On a related note, the destruction of the homeland of the "Marsh arabs" in Southern Iraq (much publicized after the fall of Baghdad) was reportedly done by Saddam at the bequest of Total representatives after coming under repeated attacks during their oil speculating endeavors in the region."

In other words, ensuring the physical safety of the agents of France's biggest oil company, of which the Paul Desmarais Montreal-based Power Corporation is the biggest shareholder, had a hand to play in the deliberate destruction of what many regard as the cradle of civilization.

International and Iraqi experts are now working to restore the marshlands. although they'll never be the same again, they can at least be partially salvaged.

Only a mad man could design and carry through on a project of such massive destruction. In the end, the destruction of the marsh was eight long years in the making. Called in for wrecking duty was all of Iraq's earth-moving machinery. Dams were built, chief purpose of which was to drain the marsh, uprooting the 500,000 people who lived there or on its edges.

The result, Curtis Richardson of Duke University told Jack Gruber of USa Today, was "an ecological and human disaster".

"Richardson, head of an international team studying and helping to restore the marsh, said that by rerouting waters from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Saddam cut the flow to a vast area of the marsh.

"as it dried up, the marsh area turned into a desert. Fine sediments once underwater dried and were lifted aloft by winds, creating immense dust storms.

"`Some cities had to plow the dust like snow' to keep the streets clear,'" Richardson said.

You can hear the heartfelt cries of the displaced people of the marsh when they tell stories of the past. The cries of the thousands of birds who made the marsh their migratory stop were suddenly silenced.

Signs of life began to return to the area after Saddam's statue was toppled in the 2003 U.S. led invasion of Iraq. The determined Iraqi people soon set to work on breaching dams and allowing water to flow back into the arid desert that used to be their marsh. Thousands of displaced people and thousands of birds began returning home.

The war-weary people of the marsh are not holding out for a full restoration. Practical, they are ready to help nurture what was once theirs.

Tyrants down through the ages have robbed us of global antiquities. In 2001, Taliban troops fanning out over the countryside in afghanistan began destroying all statues, including two 5th-century statues of Buddha carved into the mountainside.

By eliminating antiquities in piques of rage and retaliation, they are, in effect, erasing early mankind's footprint on earth.

Fate catches up with tyrants like the Butcher of Baghdad in the end. Meanwhile, the tyrant's business confreres merely move on to the next oil patch.

The anti-war crowd were more right than they wanted to be when they told us it was "all about oil".


Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com


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