Galishnikov and Sa'id were emotionally and physically drained.
They'd each seen men and women die before. But this was different. There was a savagery to the killings that neither of them had experienced before, Both men knew the history of the region, and the risks of living there. But neither had ever personally witnessed a suicide bombing. They'd never seen people vaporized. Nor had they ever expected to see Americans attacked like this.
It had never dawned on them that they or anyone in this delegation might be in real physical danger. Like many people around the world, they some-times had mixed feelings about American foreign policy and the role of the United States in trying to advance — some would say "impose" — her brand of democratic capitalism around the globe. But also like so many non-Americans, they still subconsciously thought of the U.S. as somehow invul nerable to attack.
Obviously they were wrong. And now they knew it firsthand. From their "gilded cage" — Tariq's private quarters — neither man was being allowed to call home or send and receive e-mails. Not yet, anyway. They could, if they wanted, watch satellite television and monitor the Internet off two notebook computers, one for each of them. But neither wanted to think about how many people were wounded and dying above them. They'd had enough of bloodshed and suffering. They'd had enough of wars and rumors of wars, So, alone and unsure of what Bennett and McCoy were doing or how long they might be here, they kept the TV and computers turned off. Each man mostly kept to himself. One showered and shaved. The other drank tea and read a new John Grisham novel. Eventually, Sa'id fell asleep on one of the bunk beds while Galishnikov dozed off in one of the overstuffed chairs.
It was 6:23 a.m. Washington time, 1:23 in the afternoon in Gaza.
More information and analysis wasn't going to help. The president needed to get back to the Oval Office. He needed time to think and make some decisions. He thanked everyone for his and her counsel and asked each principal to continue coordinating throughout the morning through Marsha Kirkpatrick. He'd let them know what he finally decided through her. Agent Sanchez opened the door of the Situation Room and prepared to wheel the president out. Chuck Murray was waiting for them. He had to brief the press at 6:45 and had no idea what he was supposed to say.
"Jon," the president suddenly said, looking back ai the monitor. "You still there?"
Bennett was just beginning to unhook his microphone.
"Yes, sir, Mr. President. I'm still here."
"One more thing, young man."
"What's that?" Bennett asked, hoping to find out what the president was going to decide.
"Don't forget to call your mother."
And with that, the transmission went dead.
The two men couldn't have been more different.
Both Galishnikov and Sa'id were firstborn children. Both were born into poverty. Both were the first in their families to graduate from college and the first to become professionals, a petroleum engineer and an investment banker, respectively. Each of them was forced to leave his homeland in his early twenties, Galishnikov because he emigrated from Russia to Israel, and Sa'id because he couldn't make a living under the Arafat regime and had moved to the Persian Gulf where he became one of the world's wealthiest Palestinians. But that's where the similarities came to an end.
Sa'id was a fatalist. He had seen his share of hardship. For all their tough talk and lofty pro-Palestinian rhetoric, most Egyptians, Jordanians, and Sau dis — most Arabs, actually — despised Palestinians and treated them, at best, as second-class citizens. For some, this planted the seeds of victimhood. But not for Sa'id. Over the years he'd become more optimistic about life. He'd seen challenges turn into opportunities. He'd seen his small investments pay big dividends, and his start-up companies become behemoths. He was con vinced that his fate was not in his own hands. Deep in his soul he believed unseen forces were guiding him, keeping him from harm, giving him a mea-sure of success of which he'd never dreamed, and somehow protecting him from developing a hatred for the Jews that infected so many of his fellow Palestinians, and certainly each of his three brothers.
Galishnikov, on the other hand, was a pessimist of the first order. He was absolutely convinced that utter disaster was always just around the corner, Sometimes — like today — it was hard to argue that he was wrong. Even be fore the attacks of the last few hours, Galishnikov was convinced that everything the two men had worked for was falling apart. He worried par ticularly about the new dynamics in Iraq. Yes, he was glad Saddam was gone. But suddenly he faced a fearsome new competitor.
How much oil did the Iraqis really have? How many wells had been blown up and set on fire by Saddam's forces? How badly had Iraq's drilling, pro-duction, and refining facilities been damaged during the war? How badly had they atrophied during decades of neglect by dismal managers, poorly trained workers, shoddy workmanship, pathetic maintenance regimes, and the lack of readily available spare parts and supplies? And more to the point: how quickly could the Iraqi oil industry be revamped and brought on line, how much would it cost, who would pay for it, and how would it all affect Medexco, the joint Israeli-Palestinian petroleum company of which Galish nikov and Sa'id were cofounders?
Iraq posed an enormous threat to Medexco, Galishnikov believed. The business plan he and Sa'id had created for their joint venture hadn't envi sioned — much less factored in — Saddam Hussein and his regime being gone, the Americans and Brits being in control of Baghdad, and millions of barrels of Iraqi oil flooding the market within the next few months. How exactly were they supposed to deal with those new prospects? Even if through some miracle the Palestinian civil war now under way could somehow be brought under control — and even if Medexco's initial drilling, pumping, refining, and shipping centers could be completed and brought on line in the next eighteen to twenty-four months — how could they compete against a revitalized Iraqi oil industry?
After the Saudis and the Canadians (now with 180 billion barrels of proven reserves, thanks to advanced drilling and refining equipment just com ing onto the market), the Iraqis had the third-largest oil reserves in the world, with more than 112 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves. At one point — before the Iran-Iraq War — the Iraqis were producing as many as 3.5 million barrels of oil a day. More recently, they were producing only two-thirds that amount, and of course production had been shut down completely when the latest war with the U.S. and its coalition allies began.
But new reports coming out of CENTCOM suggested the country's southern oil fields could be back on line soon. They could begin producing more than a million barrels a day sometime within the next seven to eight weeks. The Rumeila South oil field alone could be producing half a million barrels of oil a day within a month or two, and production in the northern oil-rich cities like Mosul and Kirkuk could be even higher.
Iraq could be pumping 2.5 to 3 million barrels of oil a day by the end of the next year. Export sales could bring Iraq somewhere between $20 billion and $25 billion a year. Possibly more — possibly much more, especially since U.S. officials were saying that significant investments in repairs and new technology could double oil output over the next few years. Did that mean Iraq could really be in a position to sell upward of 7 million barrels a day?
Setting aside for a moment whether OPEC would allow the new Iraqi government to flood the market, neither Galishnikov nor Sa'id had factored any of that into their plans. Nor had Bennett and McCoy. And now Iraq would soon be getting not only U.S. and British help but U.N. and E.U. assistance as well.
Ibrahim Sa'id had been trying for weeks to convince his Russian partner that he was missing the big picture. First of all, Sa'id argued, it would require a massive investment of foreign capital — a minimum of $3 billion to $5 billion over the next couple of years — simply to get Iraqi oil production back up to pre-Gulf War levels from 1990 and 1991.