At present, oil companies from France, Russia, and China have
contracts to help develop Iraqi oil fields. Europe depends far more upon oil
from Iraq than America (only a tiny fraction of U.S. oil comes from Iraq,
about six percent). Oil from Iraq, indeed oil from the entire Middle East,
ranks higher among European national interests than American. For some
years, the United States has been moving to draw the preponderance of its
oil from our own hemisphere, mostly from Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela, and
to cut back steadily on its use of Middle Eastern oil, to the level now of
26 percent of its annual. Europe is far more dependent on Iraqi oil, and far
more involved with the Iraqi oil industry.