Understanding the relationship between big oil and the war against Iraq:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ptzml1qQvZE

Who would have thought we would see $100/barrell oil...?

I have some old Walt Disney VHS tapes to sell you if you actually believe this isn't a factor. . .

The truth is, if you are going to have a systematic debate about War, you will always have proponents and opponents. In the deciding conclusion, it's a person's prejudices which determine their measure of what is 'right'. Have you ever heard of an objective war?

Would the people who are screaming that this is the main reason we went into iraq please grow the *uck up!

Yup heres the true reason for going to Iraq. BLOOD FOR OIL! I just have to say Rest in peace all of the Iraqi civilians and coalition/iraqi troops Its terrible that america has turned to killing its own and foreign people for its oil AND YET there are people on here who have approved off the death of fellow human beings so their gas prices may be reduced. I just hope all the people who have rated this as a good reason for the deaths of so many human beings read this and realise what they have supported:(

Bad reason for anyone with a conscience, unfortunately thats not an issue with our administration. THAT is THE reason the US is there. BTW our gas prices have absolutely nothing to do with oil in Iraq. Some people are truly ignorant.

Yeah, this was a big part of the reason. Look how well this turned out, gas is so cheap now because . . .

Why not we got rid of Saddam why shouldn't American companys be involved in the recreation of the Iraqi oil business. No lets, let the Germans and French get in there after all they did so much to help the Iraqi people keep Saddam in power.

Sadly...that's the ONLY reson we are over there. Our young people are dying daily so that US oil companies can make money in that region. I am appalled at the level of greed that exists in our White House.

This is the only issue. We need that oil to sustain our Western lifestyle at the level it is now. The Arabs have the oil. History has shown and the future will prove that, rightly or wrongly, peacefully or by force, we are going to get that oil.

Iraq is sitting on the second largest Oil deposits in the world, 6 of the 10 most profitable companies last year were in the oil industry a huge change from before the invasion

A pretty sad country if we've come down to this.

We are the land of waste and greed and more waste and greed. The majority of people drive big gas drinking cars and trucks and complain about $2.00 a gallon gas. Then they go get in their big SUV and drive to the polls and vote a straight republican or democratic ticket because their father was a republican or democrat and their grandfather was a republican or democrat. Do you think the average voter has a clue or cares about the future Americans that will be paying the huge cost of very bad decisions that are leaders are making for all of us now? If they did I do not think George W. would be in office now. There are lots and lots of so called bad guys around the world today but we pick and choose for the benefit of the economy. The economy that waste more that any other nation on earth. The large corporations own this nation, not the people anymore. Anyone that doesn't believe this is living in a glass dream world. The corporations have the politicans in their back pocket. Look at the voter turnout in the US, it's a joke, the American people seem to have given up and are happy to let the large corporations and drug companies make all the decisions for them. The american economy is hell bent on consumption and waste. How many TV ads do you see that tell us to save anything? I read somewhere that if everyone on earth lived like we do that it would take the natural resources of five planet earths. So when we go to the pump lets think about our sons and daughters that died that we may in Iraq so we can have more of everthing. Lets think about George W. and his policies of gutting the clean air air act. Lets think about all the people driving Hummers to look cool and boost their ego. An don't forget the HorsePower Race we have going on in American with GM, Ford, Chrysler and others. I saw a TV add the other day it said, our truck has 500 HP and can out run all the trucks in the same class. This is why we need higher gas pricesin America. I honestly think if it were 25.00 a gallon people would still get involved in the voting process. I have said enough. Wake Up America!!!!!! Get envolved!!!!!!!Vote for someone!!!!!!!!Think for yourself and make a change for our future. Thanks All.........

i just want to clear some things,,, first of all, buying something from someone else is when you give them money and they give you something in change,, the united states gives japan the money to get the high-tech products,,, where is the money that the united states is giving iraq for the oil,,, guess what they arent giving them money,, they just save them friom a terrible leader,,, give me a breakkk why iraq and no someone closer than them i mean iraq is not he only country with bad leaders,,, another thing is that iraqs terrible leader has been there how many years 10, 20, maybe 30?? oh no im sorry he has been in power about 45 years,,, old george bush could take him out of power when he was president of the united states, he didnt,,, why would 45 years after a terrible leader comes in to power the united states decided to take him out of power i mean i just dont get it,,, another thing,,, you think gas prices are really high,,, i just want to let you know that the united states is one of the countries with the lowest gas prices in the world,, go to england and the gass price is 4.50 dlls a liter so dont complain about stuff that do not make any sense

The U.S. doesn't STEAL from other nations. That's like saying we steal high-tech products from Japan and Hong Kong. We buy it from them just like we buy oil from other middle-eastern countries. I'll agree with Redoedo's comment and similiar ones. I won't doubt that the U.S. could use their oil. Good Lord! Have you seen gas prices lately? I'd like to see us tap into our own reserves and become less dependent on foreign oil but the Sierra Club and like-minded idiot organizations have tied our hands through litigation.

We can wax philosophically about how it's so good that we've liberated the Iraqi people, but this is not the motivation for going into Iraq. Why haven't we liberated Tibet, Burma, the Basque Nation and others? There are geo-political and economic reasons why we went to war. Iraq, as the neo-conservatives constantly point out, made for an easy target with lots of natural resources to tap. It has been exposed recently that corporations close to the Bush Administration got no-bid contracts in Iraq. It certainly didn't surprise me. As President Andrew Jackson said to the winner goes the spoils. Oil was one of the top reasons why Bush took us into war. Oil is a strategic resource and because of this, the Middle East is much more important than some other parts of the world. That's the reality, and it's not necessarily evil like the liberals like to point out. We need oil and other countries need oil; stable energy markets are the cornerstone of a healthy world economy. Indeed, the strength of a nation is based on its ability to have stable sources of energy. Empires have risen and fallen over the past 100 years because of access and domination of petroleum reserves. Nazi Germany opened the war front with the Russians to access the Caspian oil reserves that would fuel their war machine. Luckily they never made it. Imperial Japan attacked the European Southeast Asian colonies with the purpose of accessing oil reserves in that area. Japan was a foe to be reconed with until the US managed to sink significant portions of their fleet. We won the Pacific War because we had domestic oil supplies and they didn't. We managed to cut them off from their new colonies oil supplies. The US starved the Japanese to death. Today, our forward strategy in the Middle East represents the US's attempt to dominate the world's energy markets. Yet, there are big issues with the methods the Bush administration are utilizing in the Middle East. Iraq itself is a very geopolitically sensitive area in a very explosive region. Today, the country seems to inching closer to civil war. In a very fragmented society like Iraq; any lack of cohesive leadership will lead to war. In the short term, it will help out our domestic producers in the form of spiked oil prices. In the long term, the instability can potentially go over borders, thus really disturbing the geo-political balance in the region and oil prices along with it. We are unwittingly losing our ability to control events in the Middle East by doing this. Preemptive action hasn't been good for the region as a whole. Exploiting their resources will only exacerbate the terrorist threat abroad and at home. The big problem with this forward strategy is that the Bush Administration is completely misreading the extent of our power. They believe that a mix of economic pressure and military power can bend the world to do our bidding, but that's not necessarily the case. As 9/11 aptly demonstrated, there are ways our opponents can hurt us without utilizing armies. Additionally, countries still control their own economic destinies. A quick way for embittered countries to do damage to us is to convert their currency reserves from the internationally traded US dollar to the Euro. But immediately, the best we can do now is engage in a fully open and competitive bidding process for oil. It doesn't look like this is happening though, so we're going to have even more problems in the Middle East because we are seen as imperialists. Really its all a lose lose situation here. The neo-conservatives want to take us back to the times of British Empire, but those days are long gone, they're ignoring this very important structural detail within the international system. The politics of nationalization have changed the Middle East and we have to work within that system. In short, we can't impose our ways on them. It has been estimated that we will be about 70% dependent on foreign oil supplies within 10 years. It's time that we start thinking about alternate energy resources besides petroleum. Our well-being can't hinge on the well-being of the Middle East, where any one event can dramatically raise oil prices, thus crippling our economy. Think it can't happen? Remember the 1970's and the oil shocks? Remember waiting in line for gas rations?

GIVE ME A BREAK! This was the primary and only reason for war in Iraq. I mean Donald Rumsfield was a primary advocate of Saddam Hussein back in the old days and America was the primary seller of weapons to Iraq. Was he an immensely evil dictator then? Yes, and America supported him just like America supports a variety of different evil governments who are complient to thier interests. Robert Mugabe today is far worse than Saddam was towards the end of his regime and yet he is complient with the US so they allow him to survive. Try finding alternatives for oil rather than beggining a war that kills thousands of innocents and causes national chaos. Think about it... over 11,000 dead and a state of perpetual anarchy for some smelly black liquid. Shows how much Bush values human life...

As long as it's not done by force, I'm for it. US companies should purchase the oil fields from their Iraqi owners, NOT steal from them. Thankfully, there is no reason to think this will happen; it will be similar to Japanese companies purchasing land in the US. Large, well-organized US companies doing business in Iraq will provide better facilities for the extraction of oil, as well as provide thousands of jobs for Iraqi citizens.

And....close the Iraqi oil industry to the Europeans and the Japanese. Soon the whole world will be on its knees. Wah ha ha ha <--evil laugh

This was the primary motivation for Handjob's moronic military misadventure, folks, and also a resounding insult to our men and women in the armed forces in that our military resources were needlessly and recklessly exploited and put at risk for the benefit of President Handjob's and Vice President Douchewad's buddies in the petroleum industry. Ditto a disservice to the American people who were BSed by the Handjob Administration that this unprovoked attack, destruction and occupation of a sovereign country was justified, based on a number of phony, specious and downright dishonest premises: WMDs that probably never existed, or if they did, were either so small in number or so old and degraded that they were no significant threat to anyone; the curtailment of a nuclear weapons program that Iraq was supposed to have, supported by so-called "intelligence" that anyone who's been reading a reputable newspaper in the past year knows was predicated on forged documents; striking a blow against terrorism, despite the fact that no concrete or significant connection was made, and will probably ever be made, between Iraq and 9/11 and Iraq and terrorism in general; forcing a "regime change" that is, "overthrowing a government" that is only one among many that is antithetical and hostile towards Western interests. As time goes by and more and more evidence comes to light that the justifications given by the Handjob Administration were fallacious and phony, Bushy and his boys are going to be confronted with a major credibility crisis, as the political midground is having second thoughts about the purported wisdom of this wanton act of aggression by our country toward another. Eventually, these second thoughts are going to morph into grave misgivings, and the end result, mark my words, is that Handjob's clumsy, maladroit and criminal efforts to grab oil and make political hay is going to backfire in his mealy, weak, mongoloid face. Very interesting to note that the first governmental contract to rebuild Iraq, which was not subject to open or competitive bidding, was granted to Haliburton, the oil services company formerly mismanaged by the other draft dodger in the Handjob Administration, namely, Douchewad "Big Time" Cheney. How convenient!!! What a coincidence!!! The American drooler faction, and the weakminded sheep who were herded along into supporting this fiasco, were really sold a bill of goods on this one, and the only palpable benefit that will be dervied from our trashing of a third world country will be one that lines the pockets of the petroleum industry. The noncomprehending American public were duped again, which isn't surprising seeing that the collective IQ of this country these days is about 74, and all the flag waving in the world isn't going to change the fact that the primary motivation for this exercise in carnage was to control the vast underground lake of fossil fuel lying beneath Iraq. So, folks, this latest charade perpetrated by the Handjob Administration was not about fighting terror, was not about liberating oppressed masses from the dominion of a tyrant, was not about neutralizing an enormous stockpile of biological weapons, was not at all about protecting our American Freedoms and Way of Life: this was all about using our military to protect the interests of U.S. corporations, specifically the oilmen. Don't kid yourself. If you think otherwise, you're operating under some heavy duty denial and self-delusion. But all of this is nothing new: the primary mission of our military over the past 40 years has been to protect U.S. corporate interests, and actually, the last time our military was used to protect our freedoms and way of life was during the Civil War. The last time it was necessary to utilize our military against foreign threats to our freedom was during the War of 1812. Read your history, knuckleheads, and you'll understand what I'm talking about. Finally, isn't it time that we stop relying so much on fossil fuels? Shouldn't all the wasteful, self-serving slobs that went out and bought gas-guzzling SUVs downside their vehicles for the sake of the common good of America? Aren't you all getting a bit tired of this nation being held hostage over an oil barrel? Haven't the U.S. energy industries been grossly remiss and irresponsible in terms of developing alternative energy resources? Why is the petroleum industry dragging its heels in regard to developing synthetic fuels? The technology is there already. Perhaps this is a matter that the fatcat lardass so-called "captains" of this industry, who, by the way, are almost exclusively conservative Republicans, being too lazy, short-sighted and greedy to seek alternatives that would be greatly beneficial in the long run but not quite so profitable in the short? America is the Land of the Greed and the Home of the Lame, my friends, and the vast majority of this nonsense is coming from those who are allegiant to the right side of the political fence. These are the true enemies of the American people, the true scourge of the American Way of Life, not welfare mothers or fuzzy-haired liberals making motion pictures in Hollywood or hanging out on college campuses.

This is not a terrible reason for war, but not an altogether terrible idea for post war reconstruction. I have read Iraqui scholars claim that many of their countries problems resulted because of the ownership of all their countries oil by the government. Therefore all the revenue went to Saddam, and not the citizens. This furthered the oppression of the Iraquis by Saddam, whose fortune is estimated between 2 and 24 billion.

Anyone who thinks that this wasn't the central reason for war is smoking something real good. I raq has the second largest oil supply in the world. While this is an actual reason it is wrong!

Anyone who thinks that this was not a factor in the President's decision is a bit naiive, considering his long history with the oil industry. However, I concur with BIGBABY that it was probably not our only reason for going into Iraq, but it certainly may have been somewhat of the deciding factor. I mean we went to war with Iraq in 1990 for the expressed reason of protecting our oil interests!

To be honest, I would say that oil had an influence on the war in Iraq. However, I really disagree that it was the top reason, or the only reason. I think that people who still think that this operation was all for oil is misinformed, or dumb. I consider the oil a prize for our victory, after all, who dosent agree with free lower gas rates?

Well, the government contracts are already being announced. A $7B contract for Haliburton and a $680M contract for Bechtel, a company for whom former secretary of state George Schultz sits on the board. While I don't believe that Oil was the primary reason for Bush's decision to go after Iraq, I think you would be naive if you say it wasn't a factor.