Friday, January 2, 2004
US, UK had plan to seize West Asian oilfields in 1973: Report
Press Trust of India Washington, January 1
Britain and the United States seriously considered seizure of oil fields of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait during the 1973 Arab oil embargo which disrupted global oil supplies, according to a declassified British intelligence memorandum.
Under the plan, Britain would have seized the Abu Dhabi fields and the Americans the Saudi and Kuwaiti fields, says the document released on Wednesday night titled "Middle East--possible use of force by the United States".
It says that if there were deteriorating conditions such as a breakdown of the ceasefire between Arab and Israeli forces following the October 1973 West Asia war or an intensification of the oil embargo, "the American preference would be for a rapid operation conducted by themselves" to seize the oil fields.
It cites a warning from the then US Defence Secretary James R Schlesinger to British Ambassador to US Lord Cromer, that Washington would not tolerate threats from "underdeveloped, underpopulated" countries and that "it was no longer obvious to him that the US could not use force."
Seizure of the oil fields, the British memo says, was "the possibility uppermost in American thinking (and) has been reflected in their contingency planning."
The document, dated December 13, 1973, was sent to Prime Minister Edward Heath by Percy Cradock, head of Britain's Joint Intelligence Committee. Arab members of OPEC imposed the embargo on US and other western countries in October to force them to compel Israel to withdraw from Arab territories.
© Hindustan Times Ltd. 2003.