Your not kidding! I sure didn't hear about this! What does everyone think about American soldiers staying longer to help this 'new economy' in Iraq keep it together??
I wonder why we want to help Iraq change hands over into a new economy so much? Hmmm..... Hmmmm....

"If the lion lies down with the lamb, the lamb must be replaced frequently." --Attributed to Martin Luther In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist violence of September 11, 2001.

This is an article by the New York Times- it was released in 2003 :
Just What Does America Want to Do With Iraq's Oil?
by Timothy O'Brien

Attention shoppers: Iraqi oil is for sale.

On Thursday, exactly two weeks after the United Nations Security Council lifted 13 years of economic sanctions against Iraq and gave the United States a firm grip on one of the world's most bounteous oil spigots, Baghdad put 10 million barrels of crude up for bid.

Although Baghdad is still mired in crime and no weapons of mass destruction have surfaced in Iraq, Washington is helping market Iraqi oil with all due haste. A former Shell Oil executive heads a panel supervising Iraq's oil fields and crude will now be sold directly to refiners, thus eliminating a middleman role once dominated by Russian oil traders. French refiners also once enjoyed a healthy foothold in Iraq before their government wound up on the wrong side of the United Nations war debate, giving a leg up to enthusiastic American and British refiners, which couldn't deal directly with Iraq during the sanctions era.

Call it a coup de petrole.

And since Iraq has the world's second-largest pool of known oil reserves, the Bush administration's handling of the money that flows from those fields is certain to ripple far beyond Iraq's borders - particularly because some two-thirds of Iraq's estimated oil bounty remains untapped.

Although Iraq's oil industry is being overhauled in a way that creates welcome opportunities for Fortune 500 oil giants, American authorities promise that oil riches will be spent on Iraqi reconstruction and humanitarian aid. Even so, Iraqis and others Middle Eastern countries remain wary about possible American shenanigans with Iraqi oil and are watching sales to see whether the United States waged a war of liberation or a war of occupation.

"People in the region and beyond have a great suspicion of U.S. intentions; and with the U.S. and the U.K. in control of the second-biggest pot of oil in the Gulf region those suspicions will be reinforced," said Judith Kipper, co-director of the Middle East Studies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "I think they're unfounded suspicions because the U.S. won't play games with Iraqi oil."

"But since the U.S. and Britain have been busy trying to get U.N. sanctions against Iraq lifted, and haven't been perceived as being as busy restoring public services in Iraq, the perception that this is about oil is reinforced," Ms. Kipper added. "And in the Middle East, perception is everything."

Iraq's oil numbers are humbling.

The country has 112.5 billion barrels of known reserves, second to Saudi Arabia's 262 billion-barrel mother lode. The United States, Mexico, and Canada combined have only 64 billion barrels, and that supply is aging. Venezuela (78 billion barrels), Africa in its entirety (77 billion barrels), Russia (65 billion barrels, including the Caspian), and the entire Asia-Pacific region (44 billion barrels) also are comparative half-pints.

Other Middle Eastern oil titans like Iran, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates have oil reserves in the 90-billion- to 98-billion-barrel range. But those fields pump at a much fuller tilt than Iraq's outmoded, jury-rigged operations.

Once Iraqi oil pumps are back to speed, and the country's untapped fields are probed, it could become an even greater force within OPEC and the world oil markets. As Vice President Dick Cheney once observed in warning of Saddam Hussein's oil aspirations, whoever sits atop the Middle Eastern oil market has a ``stranglehold'' on the global economy.

It will take time for these dynamics to play out. Oil analysts say it will be at least five years, or perhaps a decade, before Iraq's oil output ramps up fully; it will cost at least $5 billion, they say, to rehabilitate its oil fields. So no tidal waves of oil from Iraq just yet.

The United Nations resolution lifting sanctions requires that Iraq's oil profits be deposited in a fund to benefit the Iraqi people.

The United States and Britain will oversee the fund, with outside monitors, including the United Nations, checking their work. Some analysts say that Iraqis, not the United States, will prove to be the dominant force in this new oil equation.

`"The fundamental decisions about the future of Iraq's oil industry will inevitably be made by the Iraqi people because those decisions will shape Iraq for the next 30, 40 or 50 years," said Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates. "Those are decisions that a sovereign nation makes, not the United States government."

But that leaves the question of how much leverage over Iraq's future the United States has acquired simply by having ousted its government and now by determining the circumstances and timetable for the transition to a provisional Iraqi government. So other analysts think America will exercise much greater influence than Mr. Yergin predicts.

"I expect the United States to continue to play a strong role in the Iraqi oil market five years from now," said Michael Klare, a political science professor at Hampshire College. "It may not be directly, but the U.S. will have substantial power over who taps Iraq's oil market."

As time goes on, Iraq's oil riches may be seen as the limus test of Washington's intentions in Iraq. "I don't think we went there for the oil, and I don't think we went there for the things the White House said we went there for either," said Vahan Zanoyan, chairman of PFC Energy, a business consultancy. "The main reason was to consolidate our position as a superpower."

To dispel the notion that fossil fuel is what took the United States to Iraq, Mr. Zanoyan recommends a well-known remedy: daylight.

I still think that we were probably there for the oil- but why the Bush family wanted that war so much is beyond me, I guess with time the truth will come to light...it always does!

"If the lion lies down with the lamb, the lamb must be replaced frequently." --Attributed to Martin Luther In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist violence of September 11, 2001.

Wow. This is great! I agree, more stories like this should be shown. I think because of politics and the economy, the Iraq war is sort of like a footnote in what's happening in this country. It's pretty sad.

nerd, what does that have to do with the troops?

Well GS, maybe you should consider me the MSM because I posted it back the day it happened in CammieSugar!!

Yay points for us!

here's the link to the video if you're interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aAU1XE8MQk

this is super cool!

If I was MSM Michelle Obama would never be compared to Jackie O :sneaky:

er crap is it :shifty:?

bah!

there we go!

Why would anybody want to keep this a secret? Thanks for posting, this should never have been ignored.

It doesn't fit with the theme of every soldier desperately wanting out and feeling pressure etc., that the media wants you to think.

The Media is Out of Control!

It would seem to contradict pretty much 95% (so it seems) of what is reported by the media. How awful they wouldn't be pleased to be able to report such a contrast. Americans don't care about the media; We just want to know! Positive, negative, neutral, factual. So long as it isn't filtered. I wonder now just how much has indeed been successfully filtered. Crazy.

THis is absolutely amazing. I listened to that video twice that haus posted, and it moved me so much. The second time through I noticed too that when the troops repeated back the line Against All Enemies they put a HUGE emphasis on that phrase. I don't know why I noticed that, but I did.

It disgusts me that the Media is SO damned biased! My son walked in while I was watching and I explained a bit about this to him. He goes "Why wouldn't they show something like that" and so I told him a little bit, and his 17 year old response to me was "That's the biggest load of bulls**t I've ever heard!" LMAO

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If you always do as you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten.