US planned to invade Saudi Arabia, Kuwait Abu Dhabi to capture oil fields
LONDON -The USA and Britain were prepared to use force to secure Arab oil supplies during the Oil crisis of 1973, say media reports quoting a secret document released by the British intelligence in London yesterday. "The United States seriously considered sending airborne troops to seize oilfields in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi during the 1973 Arab oil embargo," said media reports quoting a top-secret British intelligence memorandum released yesterday. It also revealed that the US was planning to replace some disobedient Arab leaders in the Gulf region The US considered various options including the replacement of Arab rulers with "more amenable" leaders. They planned a short airborne operation to snatch away precious oil fields from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi, the report suggested.
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The apparently declassified report, which indicates the secret maneouvering by the US British imperial policy makers, cited a warning from then defence secretary James Schlesinger to the British ambassador in the US, Lord Cromer, that Washington would not tolerate threats from "under-developed, under-populated" countries and that "it was no longer obvious to him that the United States could not use force" Seizure of the oilfields, the memo said, was "the possibility uppermost in American thinking . . . reflected, we believe, in their contingency planning". The document, dated December 13, 1973, and sent to then prime minister Edward Heath by Percy Cradock, head of Britain's Joint Intelligence Committee, also discussed the likely scenario for a US invasion, possible British help, and how the Arabs and the Soviet Union would respond.
Arab members of OPEC imposed the embargo on the US and other Western countries in October to try to force them to compel Israel to withdraw from Arab territories. The embargo, which lasted until March 1974, cut off only 13 per cent of US oil imports but caused steep petrol price increases worldwide.
"At the time US officials hinted that retaliation was possible but did not describe the form it might take. At a news conference on November 21, 1973, secretary of state Henry Kissinger declared: "It is clear that if pressures continue unreasonably and indefinitely, then the United States will have to consider what countermeasures it may have to take," said the Guardian and Washington Post reports about the major revelation.
In his memoir Years of Upheaval, Kissinger wrote: "These were not empty threats. I ordered a number of studies from the key departments on countermeasures against Arab members of OPEC if the embargo continued. By the end of the month, several contingency studies had been completed." Neither Kissinger nor Schlesinger responded to requests for comment.
The report said that the British document describes in detail various countermeasures like replacement of Arab rulers with "more amenable" leaders or assembling a show of force, which were deemed unworkable. The reports suggested that an airborne military operation was the most feasible alternative, although "a move of last resort" The minute details of the report reveled that two brigades were needed for the initial force, one for the Saudi operation, one for Kuwait and possibly a third for Abu Dhabi. Schlesinger's interview with Lord Cromer was distinctly unfriendly. "Couthness is not Schlesinger's strong point," the ambassador said in a cable.
But it was the substance of Schlesinger's remarks which set alarm bells ringing. "(One) outcome of the Middle East crisis," he told Lord Cromer, "was the (sight) of industrialised nations being continuously submitted to (the) whims of under-populated, under-developed countries, particularly (those in the) Middle East."The document noted that military action could trigger a confrontation with the USSR, lead to a long occupation of Arab territory and deeply alienate Arab and Third World public opinion. "The greatest risk of such confrontation in the Gulf would probably arise in Kuwait where the Iraqis, with Soviet backing, might be tempted to intervene," it said, presaging Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait..
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