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Strategic Petroleum Reserve
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is the nation's first line of defense against an interruption in petroleum supplies. It is an emergency supply of crude oil stored in huge underground salt caverns along the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico. Wye
Memorandum.... During the middle of October
1998 a summit, hosted by U.S. President Bill Clinton, was held at Wye River,
Maryland. The Israeli delegation was headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
and included Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon, Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai
and Minister of Trade and Industry Natan Sharansky. As a result of the
negotiations, the Wye River Memorandum was signed by Prime Minister Netanyahu
and Chairman Arafat. The Memorandum consists of steps to facilitate
implementation of the Interim Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza Strip of
September 28, 1995 (the "Interim Agreement") and other related agreements….so
treaty to clarify property lines, territories,
etc. dual containment
Clinton policy designed to
weaken and control both Iran and Iraq through strict economic sanctions and
diplomatic isolation. oil swaps with
Iran Oil companies have long eyed the Iranian route as a quick and cheap solution to get crude oil out of the landlocked Caspian region, but have been hampered by US sanctions, which prohibit trade with Iran. Instead, the US has supported costly and complicated pipeline routes that bypass Russia to the north and Iran to the south. Crude swaps are a relatively simple and cheap way of exporting oil without investing in big infrastructure projects such as pipelines, as the oil is only shipped a short distance and the receiving country hands over the same amount at an export point. Under the swaps agreement, Iran takes crude oil from Central Asian producers through the port of Neka for its northern refineries in exchange for Iran's Persian Gulf crude, which is easily exported to other markets. Currently, the Kazakh oil is tankered across the Caspian from the port of Aktau and Turkmen output is piped across the border to Iran.
Seymour Hersh
Coming off "The Dark Side of Camelot," his controversial book about the Kennedy years, the investigative reporter is back tackling another big, messy topic: Gulf War Syndrome, the mysterious and debilitating illness that has affected an estimated 90,000 veterans of the Persian Gulf War with symptoms including memory and weight loss, nerve damage and severe fatigue. In his new book, "Gulf War Syndrome: The War Between America's Ailing Veterans and Their Government" Hersh blasts apart the psychological theory and blames the government -- including Gulf War heroes Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell -- for exposing the troops to dangerous chemical agents, then abandoning them. In Hersh's view, the powers that be had so much invested in the Gulf War being seen as a clear-cut victory that admitting negligence was impossible. |