[Baron Munchausen]

You are thinking too simplistically. Sure, Bush and Cheney are looking out for their own interests. Just like the Saudis are looking out for their interests by trying to keep the price of oil in a certain range. If it goes too high, people can't afford to continue consuming and the economy crashes. End of profits. If it goes to low, the price doesn't cover production costs (drilling wells, building tankers and refineries, paying bribes to politicians, etc.). End of profits. There is a 'zone' that they want the price of oil to stay within.

So yes, the war could have been about oil. Because securing the supply from the second largest known reserves in the world is a good way to stabilize the price for the long-term future. The new Iraqi regime will have essentially the same interests as the Saudis. They want the price to be high enough to make a good profit, but not so high that it drives the Western economies down. That way they would get maximum return on their resource, and so would their corporate partners in the US (and other western countries).

Personally, I think the oil is just a perk. It's far more likely that the war was simply imperialism. The US can't have this dictator defying them for years and years and maintain credibility as ruler of the world. Gotta get rid of him. It was obviously not for any of the stated reasons. They kept changing to suit the moment. He was just grasping for whatever 'hot button' he could find to over-ride the objections. But it seems equally unlikely to have been about oil. The development of Russian and other central-asian oil reserves is well underway. We'll be swimming in oil within 10 years. We could have left Iraq to wither and die for the rest of the century with no problem to oil supplies.

[ June 07, 2003, 23:13: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]