you may have heard that the Energy Task Force chaired by Cheney prior to 9/11 collected

. But did you know that a secret document written by the National Security Council on February 3, 2001 directed the N.S.C. staff to cooperate fully with the Energy Task Force as it considered the

? In other words, it is difficult to brush off Cheney's Energy Task Force's examination of Iraqi oil maps as a harmless comparison of American energy policy with known oil reserves because the N.S.C. explicitly linked the Task Force, oil, and regime change. Indeed, a former senior director for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian affairs at the N.S.C. said “

” (see also

).

in order to justify the war.

And Cheney was probably

.





And, according to former British Defense Secretary,

.

the chief architect of the Iraq war -

.