Once in office, Dick Cheney commissioned a report on behalf of his oilfield buddies (Cheney was CEO of Halliburton from 1995 until being elected/appointed vice-President in 2000) titled, ‘Strategic Energy Policy Challenges for the 21st Century’. The report was supposedly produced by ‘An independent Task Force, sponsored by the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy of Rice University and The Council on Foreign Relations’. One of the participants in the discussions leading to the production of this report was ‘Kenny boy’ Lay; none other than the now disgraced (and supposedly deceased) ex-CEO of ENRON and major contributor to the Bush/Cheney 2000 campaign fund. Another of the signatories of this report was Thomas F. McLarty, Vice-Chairman of Kissinger McLarty Associates, listed as ‘an international strategic advisory firm’. An Independent Task Force? Need I say more?

However, one of the lesser known but most significant participants in the production of this document was one Matthew Simmons, President of Simmons & Company International, a specialised energy investment bank. Simmons is also a member of the National Petroleum Council and Bush/Cheney Energy Transition Advisory Committee and past Chairman of the National Ocean Industries Association. Whilst Colin Campbell takes the credit for re-awakening interest in the work of Dr. Marion King Hubbert (he didn’t like the name Marion, so he had everyone address him as ‘King’), Matthew Simmons, who admits to first reading Campbell’s hypothesis in 1996, was instrumental in translating the basic tenets of Hubbert’s depletion theory into an investment context. All that remained was to get the principles of the theory into the mass consciousness. A strategy that would be absolutely critical in softening the public reaction to the growing realisation that Weapon’s of Mass Destruction would never be found in Iraq; as admitted by Paul Wolfowitz in 2003 that the myth of WMD’s was created for political expediency (link: www.truthout.org/docs_03/053103A.shtml

Consequently, it was essential that the American public were initiated into the theory of ‘Peak Oil’ as rapidly as possible. Only Mike Ruppert knows the detail of the circumstances which lead to his infamous interview with Matthew Simmons on August 18th, 2003. The reality is that this date was the turning point for Mike Ruppert; by early 2004 Mike had turned his attentions away from exposing the fraud of 9/11, focusing instead on promoting and popularising the theory of ‘Peak Oil’. As a direct result of his outstanding work on 9/11, the majority of his acolytes followed Mike blindly into the very plausible but selectively simplistic theory of ‘Peak Oil’. By encouraging Ruppert to incorporate the concept of ‘Peak Oil’ into ‘Crossing the Rubicon’, Simmons was able to ensure that the concept of ‘Peak Oil’ went ‘mainstream’, particularly amongst the 9/11 skeptic community, within a matter of months. The subliminal message being that even if the events of 9/11 don’t stand up to scrutiny and the attack on Iraq had been somewhat less than legitimate, these events were a necessity if we (the gas guzzling USA) are to retain our oil dependent life-style … ‘cos ultimately, we the (USA) come first; although the gentlemen of AIPAC & the ADL might have other priorities … but more on that particular issue another time!

Deutch, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, is a serious playmaker; a talent that Euan Baird, Andrew Gould’s predecessor as CEO of Schlumberger, would have been well aware of in selecting him to serve as a non-executive Director, despite the fact that there was a serious cloud over the legality of his activities and behaviour while head of the CIA, thanks largely to the tenacious investigative work of a guy by the name of … Mike Ruppert. It was reported that Mike Ruppert, single-handedly, cost CIA Director John Deutch his guaranteed appointment as Secretary of Defense after confronting him at Locke High School with hard facts about CIA drug-dealing (President Clinton pardoned Deutch on his last day in office). Based upon the circles in which they move, it is unthinkable that Deutch and Simmons (also a member of the CFR), would not have crossed each others paths on numerous occasions but if any confirmation were needed that these two major players have had considerable direct contact, look no further than an organisation called ‘Resources for the Future’, where both Deutch and Simmons serve as Board Members! Deutch’s membership the CFR, his previous membership of the intelligence community, coupled with his Phi Beta Kappa connections, would have been more than enough to ‘arrange’ for the highest profile 9/11 antagonist, to become the populariser of Peak Oil, either wittingly or otherwise!

As an aside, it is interesting to note that Deutch was invited to be the Phi Beta Kappa orator at Harvard in June 2005, delivering a speech to recent PBK graduates during which he questioned the wisdom of retaining US forces in Iraq. Co-incidentally, this speech was delivered exactly one month prior to the London bombings. In 2006, Deutch then chaired the Independent Task Force established by the Council on Foreign Relations to produce the report on ‘National Security Consequences of US Oil Dependency’, a role in which he was able to bring fellow Schlumberger Board Member Linda G. Stuntz to the attention of the CFR.

As a further aside, Jamie Gorelick, another Schlumberger Board Member and member of the CFR, was instrumental in ensuring that the 9/11 Commission stayed ‘on message’ … but more on her another time.

All that said, I do not advocate a continuation of ninety million barrel per day consumption … but who do you think owns all the patents on alternative energy? The oil & gas industry has much to answer for but by touting and perpetuating the myth of peak oil, my ex-colleagues in the oil industry are laughing all the way to the bank, cashing in stock options that lay moribund for almost twenty years but have in the past three years, provided them with access to wealth beyond their wildest imagination. Just take a look at the obscene profitability reported by all the major oil companies since 2003. If any of the big boys seriously believed in Peak Oil they would be investing at much higher levels in new seismic exploration, new drilling techniques, reservoir management and stimulation processes, as well as the construction of new drilling rigs. In fact, they could easily double or even treble the current level of investment and still report record profitability. Why don’t they do it? Because the theory of Peak Oil has no traction within the industry. Why don’t they argue against it? Would you, when you are reaping the phenomenal benefits in ‘Shareholder Value’?

Schlumberger and Halliburton, the two major global oilfield services companies, come closest to declaring their interest in perpetuating the Peak Oil mythology by sponsoring Colin Campbell’s Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO); not to be confused with an ASBO … although some might see some synergy between the two!

Meanwhile, Matthew Simmons & John Deutch make out like bandits, thanks primarily to the success in getting Mike Ruppert to take up the cause and popularise a theory that would have been far more difficult to implant in the wider consciousness, without his participation. Mike’s reward is poor health and life on the run.

I have this vision of John Deutch, wearing a wry smile as he monitors the SLB stock price while thumbing through his copy of ‘Crossing the Rubicon’, saying to himself, “Thanks Mike, you owed me.”

Selected supporting links:

www.fromthewilderness.com/ssci.shtml

www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id279/pg1/index.html

www.simmonsco-intl.com/files/depletion.pdf

www.environment.harvard.edu/navigation2/Simmons.pdf

www.oilcrash.com/articles/blackout.htm

www.slb.com/content/about/board.asp#jd

www.wtrg.com/prices.htm

www.harvardmagazine.com/commencement/05pbk-deutch.html

www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/EnergyTFR.pdf