It was not even until 2009 that international oil companies entered Iraq’s market. According to two former Bush administration officials, the unmistakable message from the Bush White House was that the US intervention had nothing to do with oil. “President Bush could not have been clearer that intervention had nothing to do with Iraq’s resource wealth,” said one of the former Bush administration officials. Jaffe advised the Bush administration on the difficulties of restoring Iraq’s damaged oil fields. “There has been massive destruction to Venezuela’s oil infrastructure and the environmental damage in and around the key Lake Maracaibo reservoirs is monumental.