Admiral Dennis Blair: "We Sent Troops to Middle East…Because of Oil-Based Importance of Region"

onMar 26, 2014 @ 11:54 PDT

At the just-completed U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing titled, “The Geopolitical Potential of the U.S. Energy Boom,” Admiral Dennis Blair — former Director of National Intelligence, President and CEO of Institute for Defense Analyses and Commander in Chief of U.S. Pacific Command — admitted what’s still considered conspiratorial to some.

Put tersely: the U.S. and allied forces launched the ongoing occupation in Iraq and occupy large swaths of the Middle East to secure the flow of oil to the U.S. and its global allies, explained Blair.

Blair began his analysis lasting just over a minute after a line of questioning (beginning at 1:02:56 in the video below) coming from U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) about TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, “energy as an instrument of geopolitical power” and geopolitical tensions in Venezuela.

By Steve Horn

Steve Horn is the owner of the consultancy Horn Communications & Research Services, which provides public relations, content writing, and investigative research work products to a wide range of nonprofit and for-profit clients across the world. He is an investigative reporter on the climate beat for over a decade and former Research Fellow for DeSmog.

Analysis

uk/How Will Reform Rule Affect Local Climate Policy?

ByAdam Barnett

onMay 13, 2026 @ 08:23 PDT

Farage’s party has shown over the last year that it will attempt to block and reverse clean energy initiatives in its new councils.

Series: Defending Democracy from Dirty Money

Series: Defending-UK-Democracy

Event | Off the Record: How to Talk to Journalists, Lawyers, and Activist Organizations

ByDeSmog

onMay 13, 2026 @ 05:23 PDT

Join a May 19 discussion on how advertising and PR professionals can help journalists hold the industry to account, featuring DeSmog investigative reporters.

Oil Pipelines Align With Jesus, Danielle Smith Tells Christian Leaders

ByMary Stuart and Geoff Dembicki

onMay 13, 2026 @ 04:00 PDT

The Alberta premier gave a biblical justification for oil expansion at a Christian conference featuring Conservative MPs and provincial cabinet ministers.