La guerre contre l’Irak a-t-elle \u00e9t\u00e9 lanc\u00e9e pour verrouiller l’acc\u00e8s \u00e0 des r\u00e9serves importantes de p\u00e9trole (6% des r\u00e9serves mondiales de p\u00e9trole en Irak)? Les arguments, les th\u00e9ories de complot et le reste ne manquent pas pour une r\u00e9ponse qui se veut \u00eatre le contraire de n\u00e9gative. On conna\u00eet le d\u00e9bat et les d\u00e9batteurs qui sont en g\u00e9n\u00e9ral honorables et p\u00e9remptoires. Cette sorte de d\u00e9bat \u00e9carte en g\u00e9n\u00e9ral certains aspects du probl\u00e8me irakien qui ne manquent pas d’int\u00e9r\u00eat. L’un des plus paradoxaux et certainement le plus symbolique et le plus r\u00e9v\u00e9lateur nous est d\u00e9taill\u00e9 par Robert Bryce, directeur de la r\u00e9daction de Energy Tribune<\/em>. Voici des pr\u00e9cisions tr\u00e8s diff\u00e9rentes du courant sur la question Irak-p\u00e9trole, dans cet article de Bryce, dans The American Conservative<\/em> du 10 mars 2008<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tCi-apr\u00e8s, quelques extraits significatifs de l’article, portant sur la consommation de p\u00e9trole par les forces arm\u00e9es US en Irak:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00abToday the average American G.I. in Iraq uses about 20.5 gallons of fuel every day, more than double the daily volume consumed by U.S. soldiers in Iraq in 2004. Thus, in order to secure the third-richest country on the planet, the U.S. military is burning enormous quantities of petroleum. And nearly every drop of that fuel is imported into Iraq. These massive fuel requirementsjust over 3 million gallons per day for Operation Iraqi Freedom, according to the Pentagon’s Defense Energy Support Centerare a key reason for the soaring cost of the war effort.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t()<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbBut America’s presence in Iraq isn’t making use of the local riches. Indeed, little, if any, Iraqi oil is being used by the American military. Instead, the bulk of the fuel needed by the U.S. military is being trucked in from the sprawling Mina Abdulla refinery complex, which lies a few dozen kilometers south of Kuwait City. In 2006 alone, the Defense Energy Support Center purchased $909.3 million in motor fuel from the state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corporation. In addition to the Kuwaiti fuel, the U.S. military is trucking in fuel from Turkey. But some of that Turkish fuel actually originates in refineries as far away as Greece.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbIn 2007 alone, the U.S. military in Iraq burned more than 1.1 billion gallons of fuel. (American Armed Forces generally use a blend of jet fuel known as JP-8 to propel both aircraft and automobiles.) About 5,500 tanker trucks are involved in the Iraqi fuel-hauling effort. That fleet of trucks is enormously costly. In November 2006, a study produced by the U.S. Military Academy estimated that delivering one gallon of fuel to U.S. soldiers in Iraq cost American taxpayers $42and that didn’t include the cost of the fuel itself. At that rate, each U.S. soldier in Iraq is costing $840 per day in fuel delivery costs, and the U.S. is spending $923 million per week on fuel-related logistics in order to keep 157,000 G.I.s in Iraq. Given that the Iraq War is now costing about $2.5 billion per week, petroleum costs alone currently account for about one-third of all U.S. military expenditure in Iraq.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbSoaring fuel costs are largely a product of the fact that U.S. forces have been forced to defend themselves against improvised explosive devices. The majority of American casualties in Iraq have been due to IED attacks, primarily on motor vehicles. The U.S. military has spent billions of dollars on electronic countermeasures to combat the deadly devices, but those countermeasures have largely failed. Instead, the troops have had to rely on old-fashioned hardened steel. Since the beginning of the war, the Pentagon has introduced numerous programs to add armor skins to its fleet of Humvees.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbBut even the newest armored Humvees, which weigh about six tons, haven’t been enough to protect soldiers against the deadly explosives. Last year, Congress, the White House, and the Pentagon agreed on a four-year plan to spend about $20 billion on a fleet of 23,000 mine-resistant ambush protection vehicles or MRAPs. Last August, the Pentagon ordered 1,520 of the vehicles at a cost of $3.5 million each.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbThe MRAPs mean even greater demand for fuel from U.S. troops in Iraq. An armored Humvee covers perhaps 8 miles per gallon of fuel. One version of the MRAP, the Maxxpro, weighs about 40,000 pounds, and according to a source within the military, gets just 3 miles per gallon. The increased demand for fuel for the MRAPs will come alongside the need for an entirely new set of tires, fan belts, windshields, alternators, and other gear.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbThis swelling of the logistics train creates yet another problem for the military: an increase in supply trucks on the road, which demands yet more fuel and provides insurgents with a greater range of targets to attack.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbWhile the U.S. military chases its own fuel tail in Iraq, a country that sits atop 115 billion barrels of oilabout 9.5 percent of the world’s totalthe global energy industry is racing forward with new alliances and deals, many of which would have been unthinkable before the invasion. Those alliances have far-reaching significance for America’s foreign and energy policy. The world’s oil market is no longer shaped by U.S. military power. Markets are trumping militarism. As one analyst put it recently, dollars are replacing bullets as shapers of the geopolitical picture.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbThe importance of this point is obvious: as the effectiveness of militarism in controlling global energy trends is declining, the U.S. is spending billions of dollars a week in Mesopotamia on a war effort thatif John McCain is rightcould drain the American treasury for decades to come. Meanwhile, America’s key rivals, China and Russia in particular, are using their influence to forge economic alliances that are realigning the global balance of power. They are creating a multi-polar world in which America’s influence will be substantially diminished.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n