Iraq - What Went Wrong?

[investordude]

I'm oppossed to the war and was at the time, as I thought Hussein was a bad guy but a lower priority than rebuilding Afghanistan.

But, I think its unlikely we attacked them for oil, as some have proposed, for the simple reason that we would have just taken the oil and stayed clear of the urban warfare that hobbled us. Defending an oil field is the kind of mission the militaries of the west are good at - its the guerilla warfare where friend and foe look alike and we don't want to harm civilians that we don't do well.

[Capn_Birdseye]

I'm oppossed to the war and was at the time, as I thought Hussein was a bad guy but a lower priority than rebuilding Afghanistan.

I agree with you investordude, but we in Britain were worried by Blair's, (as it turned out, false), claim that Saddam had missiles he could deploy within 45 minutes. This statement painted all sorts of frightening scenario's in people's minds, which was probably the reason for Blair uttering it in the first place. The dodgy dossier, built on exaggerated and tenuous intelligence was the cornerstone of Blair's headlong rush into war.

It is all about OIL. J P Morgan has nicely and neatly mortgaged Iraq'a oil production to American banks for the next 40 years with little chance that much will find its way to helping the poor Iraqi people in their everyday lives.
I'm sure, given the chance, this is how the Military/Industrial/Oil/Neo-Con complex would love to redraw the map of the Middle East:

[BenL]

JP Morgan is an investment bank. Do you have any evidence for it becoming an energy company? If we were so fussed about the oil, we would have done as France and Russia did and continued to trade with Iraq rather than take part in a multi-trillion dollar war. Even if the war was (against economic sense) for oil, we would have given control of the oilfields to BP, Esso, Shell etc. It has been kept for use by the Iraqi people. The only possible way one could argue it has been used for Coalition interests is the way in which (in a resolution passed 14-0 by the UN) some of the oil wealth was used to pay for reconstruction of Iraqi infastructure. But that hardly makes us a profit...

[Capn_Birdseye]

J P Morgan is not an energy company, its as you rightly say an investment bank, but you're missing the point. The part it plays is as a financial co-ordinator in terms of securing the oil assets against goods and services provided by Halliburton, Bechtel, etc.

Suggest you take a look at these links:

http://www.carbonweb.org/documents/m...designs_UK.pdf

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...War+Profiteers

[investordude]

In truth, US banks haven't done enough financial business with either Iraq or Afghanistan. If I as president had a war, I'd have put some pressure on the banks to do business there. You don't need to force that with legislation - just use the bully pulpet and keep the issue in the public eye.

I'd also have written enough of a first draft of their legal systems to ensure constracts get enforced, etc, so the banks agreed to sign on. But I think the antiwar folks make a mistake when they paint banks as the villain - you need banks to rebuild a nation.

Halliburton is a different story - we made a mistake by handing them contracts instead of local companies. The west is also ignoring the potential for Indian and Chinese companies to help us. Very few skilled people want to give up their comfortable lives to go live in Africa or Afghanistan. China and India have willing people who could help (just look at Africa and Chinese business emerging there)

[ZippyTheChimp]

But I think the antiwar folks make a mistake

The antiwar folks.

LOL

[investordude]

zippy, I guess I'm showing off I lived in other regions before. I still do the thing where I start saying y'all when I travel to certain parts of the country - by the way, I have to say y'all is a great innovation, as English is one of the only languages without a plural version of "you."

Yeehaw!

[Jasonik]

Yeah, who says folks?

I have great sympathy for the moderators -- who must refrain from using the ignore function.

[Ninjahedge]

The war itself was not for oil, but without it, we would not have had it.

It was to try to establish a more secure position in the middle east. We have no real solid stable allies there that would not be a significant drain on us or a possible liability. So, establish a democracy! Hooray! The people will rejoice, love us, and give us a military base filles with flowers and all the oil we can ship!

Not.

But the only reason we really need a base/position in that area is because of the oil. w/o it, there are not many other reasons to be mucking around out there. SO that brings us back to the whole "war for Oil" thing again.


Look at it this way. Afghanistan kind of liked us going in there and taking out the baddies. They did NOT like us piddling off anf going elsewhere before they could secure everything. Now, thanks to us, world Heroin prices are down and dealers everywhere are feeling the burn.

But Afghanistan did not really have any marketable resources. Poppies? Um, yeah. Pet rocks? PLENTY! But nothing that would make them a self sustaining ally. We would have to give them billions a year just to get cable TV and Israel would get jealous.

So, next step, Iraq. Relatively small, a dictator we helped establish, religious radicals surpressed by military regime, Enough oil to actually MAKE us money rather than cost us for an alliance. PERFECT!

We go in, sweep the dictator out, everyone is happy and instantly takes over, we build Wal-Marts, CostCo's and Exxon stations in every neighborhood and move out.


So the war was not FOR oil, but it was most definitey BECAUSE of oil. Slight, but significant difference.

Does it invalidate the positions on either side? Not really, but this black-and white diametrically opposed "debate" on oils place in the war gets us nowhere. The "libbies" should stop doing the "blood for oil" campaign, and the "Arse clenchers", Oh I am sorry, but "conservatives" is not an insult, yet. The "conservatives" should stop denying the influence that oil obviously had on the whole schmear.

Anywho. Most important thing now is how to solve this. The "surge" has helped in some areas, but, as the name implies, this is only temporary. How can we set up more than a "green zone" and get all the kiddies to play nice in the sandbox together? You think seperate sandboxes is the answer? Or just have a bunch of military standing in the middle of it for them to shoot at?

I don't know.

[investordude]

Yep, the best argument against the war is that the money would have been better spent kicking our addition to oil. But that opportunity may be lost in the short term.

I'm less confident than the media that the surge is working. Violence is down, admittedly, but I still think we should get out of there - we're arming Islamic extremists who just don't happen to go by the name Al Queda. Eventually, they'll start killing us just like bin Laden turned on us after we were no longer useful to him

[Jasonik]

Oil in Iraq

Click around here a bit.

[Capn_Birdseye]

Greenspan admits Iraq was about oil, as deaths put at 1.2m

Peter Beaumont and Joanna Walters in New York
Sunday September 16, 2007
The Observer

The man once regarded as the world's most powerful banker has bluntly declared that the Iraq war was 'largely' about oil.Appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1987 and retired last year after serving four presidents, Alan Greenspan has been the leading Republican economist for a generation and his utterings instantly moved world markets.
In his long-awaited memoir - out tomorrow in the US - Greenspan, 81, who served as chairman of the US Federal Reserve for almost two decades, writes: 'I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.'

Some reader comments from The Timesonline:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle2461214.ece

The American military has been reduced to a form of corporate welfare, serving only to protect Cheney's Haliburton employees while they steal billions of unmetered oil from the Iraqi people. Americans are paying to retrieve the oil, both in blood and with tax dollars, and then paying to receive the oil they already paid for when they buy it back at the pump.

Socialized expenses, privatized profits.

America: land of the greed and home of the slaves.

Amy, Jersey City, New Jersey, USA

______________________________

Its incredulous that anyone would not think that oil was the key motive for our invasion of Iraq. And it is even more so that we are still discussing why we went to war 4 1/2 years afterwards. Our reasons for going to war in Iraq are as old as history - simply put "conquer and plunder". During the "conquer" phase, a weak target is selected that has something you want - you then beat the hell out of them and later strut around flaunting your mettle. We saw this from Mr. Bush with "Mission Accomplished" and "Bring 'em on". But the real payoff is when you can loot their stuff - in this case oil. People might remember phrases such as "Iraqui oil will pay for the reconstruction", "$20 a barrel oil", and such. This was the administration's *real* energy policy. And its not without precedent - we did the same thing to the Spanish during the Spanish-American war, the Mexicans during the Mexican-American war and and certainly the American Indians during the Indian wars.

Warren Trimble, Grand Haven, MI, US

__________________________________

R. Hunt of Hunt oil was appointed to the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board by his close friend George Bush signed an oil agreement with the Kurds. You are right Mr. Greenspan, it is the blood of our soldiers for oil. It is time to impeach.


Vegan, Las Vegas, NV

[investordude]

I mean, on the war, he's just some guy speculating. Don't get me wrong - if Iraq didn't have oil or was located somewhere else, we would have ignored it. But I don't think the fact that our foreign policy puts a higher priority on crises in strategic country means we went in to steal Iraq's oil. If we wanted the oil, we would have taken it.

[lofter1]

What do you mean "would have taken it"?

Who do you think is profiting from Iraqi oil now?

[Jasonik]

I reiterate.