Is oil now the reason we stay in Iraq?

Question

According to Bush "Oil is a reason to stay in Iraq". Fear is the Bush mantra again, he has used it before. Iraq makes no difference in world oil production. BTW, Cheney is going hunting on Election day. Anyone want to tag along? His last duck hunting trip to Texas cost tax payers about $650,000 one way.

BTW, The National Debt is projected now at $9 trillion over ten years. The Iraq war will cost working class tax payers over $2 trillion. Republicans always want someone else to pay for their mistakes. Now you know why the Capital Gains Tax cut was so important to the Republicans in 2004.

BTW, the quote above was taken from a Bush speech. I said it was about oil when we Invaded, long ago. I was told it was not about oil by many Republicans. Now it's Bush saying "oil is a reason to stay in Iraq". That would be a Flip Flop..

VEDA, yes I read that. Did Bush read and understand the PDB he was given?. Before Sept. 11th.. Even Clinton and many Democrats were not told the truth about Iraq by the FBI and CIA.. Are you aware that it was not Iraq who attacked the USA on Sept. 11th. Slick, that was Bush's buddies in oil the Saudis. As to National Security, is that why Republicans want to drill in ANWAR? So they can steal the National Reserves we have in case of war?

Let me see if I have this straight? Bush says "it's about oil" and I have my head in the sand? I said it was about oil before the invasion of Iraq. That was before Bush said it was about "WMDs" and before Bush said it was about "democracy".

Answer 1

We are still there because the Bush Administration can't admit they blew it.

The only interest we ever had in Iraq was the oil.

Answer 2

Though many of us are not sure if we agree with the initial start and reasons for the war- at this point we need to finish up to get out- I do think there is an end in sight- though its probably hard to see if you've lost someone or your over there- any war sucks-we all know that. Iraq happens to be sitting on some of the biggest oil reserves in the whole area by the way, but more than that it is surrounded and ready to be "absorbed" by those who not only hate the west with a passion but have weapons to possibly hurt us and Isreal and those theywant out of the way that are closer- if we look at all the nuts and bolts, we do have to stay at least long enough to get out decently both for us and for the Iraqi people. Government always overspends- its disgusting but I'm sur we could find lots on the other party's side to quack about too- the whole thing needs revision! Wouldn't it be nice to to be able to vote for someone to DO THE JOB?

Answer 3

Why did Bush say, "Oil is a good reason to stay in Iraq."? So i wager the authentic actuality has come out. Does he even care about the troops and the Iraqi human beings??? further information 9 minutes in the past said it on CNN. Lou Dobbs speaking about it. Cnn does not continually tell the actuality. they often times say issues to make human beings seem undesirable or twist issues round to do an same component. he might want to have suggested that yet suggested more effective that became not actual quoted that would want to describe why he suggested it.

Answer 4

i think oil is the reason although they wont say it loudly wait a miniute dont ramsfeild said to european countries that wont help us in their war in iraq "we wont let them have piece of the cake" do u know what is that cake it is oil company contracts. do u remember what was the main reason? the biological weapons that might threaten us security? is that right?yep they r laying because they did not find any evidence of that weapons. oooh sorry iraq we did not kill alot of people for lie we brought u the freedom :)!!!! the freedom????? but sorry we have taken out the security.
do u know how many people die every day because of this? go and find out ur self
hint lock at the job that president and his secritery were dong before they rule us :(
bestwishes with the cake

Answer 5

Apparently you have no understanding of why the oil is so important and the protection of the free flow of oil is even more important. Only if you have chosen to remain blind, would you not be aware of the manipulation of the oil over the past year or so.. Do you have any inclination what can be done when oil is used as a bargaining chip for capitulation?????? Bush has made this point vividly clear..If you are incapable of understanding the importance of blackmail, go ahead and keep your head in the sand.

Answer 6

The mess is too great to leave it that way, although the cost does not warrant the stay & the situation gets worse as the fear of the local people increases that the occupiers have no plans to exit.

No matter what the US does we have lost a great deal: diplomaticly, economically, morally, militarily.

Is Iraq better off today? More than 1/2 million people dead.

It looks like no one knows what to do.

Answer 7

It's all part of NATIONAL SECURITY . What part of that don't you like ? Are you aware of the letter to President Clinton from the Senate Committee on Armed Services on Oct . 9 , 1998 , signed by prominent democrats , John Kerry ; Diane Feinstein ; Joe Lieberman and many others who URGED CLINTON TO ATTACK SADDAM over WMD'S ? What was that about Slick ?

Answer 8

NOW it's about the OIL.

During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, President Bush and his aides sternly dismissed suggestions that the war was all about oil. "Nonsense," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld declared. "This is not about that," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

Now, more than 3 1/2 years later, someone else is asserting that the war is about oil -- President Bush.

As he barnstorms across the country campaigning for Republican candidates in Tuesday's elections, Bush has been citing oil as a reason to stay in Iraq. If the United States pulled its troops out prematurely and surrendered the country to insurgents, he warns audiences, it would effectively hand over Iraq's considerable petroleum reserves to terrorists who would use it as a weapon against other countries.

"You can imagine a world in which these extremists and radicals got control of energy resources," he said at a rally here Saturday for Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.). "And then you can imagine them saying, 'We're going to pull a bunch of oil off the market to run your price of oil up unless you do the following. And the following would be along the lines of, well, 'Retreat and let us continue to expand our dark vision.' "

Bush said extremists controlling Iraq "would use energy as economic blackmail" and try to pressure the United States to abandon its alliance with Israel. At a stop in Missouri on Friday, he suggested that such radicals would be "able to pull millions of barrels of oil off the market, driving the price up to $300 or $400 a barrel."

Oil is not the only reason Bush offers for staying in Iraq, but his comments on the stump represent another striking evolution of his argument on behalf of the war. The slogan of "no blood for oil" became a rallying cry for antiwar activists prior to the March 2003 invasion and angered administration officials. "There are certain things like that, myths, that are floating around," Rumsfeld told Steve Kroft of CBS Radio in November 2002. "It has nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil."

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Saturday that Bush's latest argument does not reflect a real shift. "We're still not saying we went into Iraq for oil. That's not true," he said. "But there is the realistic strategic concern that if a country with such enormous oil reserves and the corresponding revenues you can derive from that is controlled by essentially a terrorist organization, it could be destabilizing for the region."

Some analysts, however, said that Bush is exaggerating the impact of Iraq's oil production on world markets. Iraq has more than 112 billion barrels of oil, the second-largest proven reserves in the world. But it currently pumps just 2.3 million barrels per day and exports 1.6 million of that, according to the State Department's tracking report on the country, still short of what it produced before the invasion.

That represents a fraction of the 85 million barrels produced around the world each day and less than the surplus capacity of Saudi Arabia and other Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, meaning in a crisis they could ramp up their wells to make up for the shortfall, analysts said. The United States also has 688 million barrels of oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, enough to counter a disruption of Iraqi oil for 14 months.

Even if Iraq did not sell oil to the United States, it would not matter as long as it sold it to someone because the international market is fungible and what counts is the overall supply and overall demand, according to analysts. If Iraq cut off exports altogether, it still would not have the dire effect on the world market that Bush predicts, they said. The price of oil began rising dramatically in 2002 as the confrontation with Iraq loomed, but many factors contributed, including increasing demand by China and problems in Nigeria, Venezuela and elsewhere.

The world, in fact, has already seen what would happen if Iraqi oil were cut off entirely, as Bush suggests radicals might do. Iraq effectively stopped pumping oil altogether in the months immediately after the invasion. And yet the price of oil has never topped $80, much less come anywhere near the $300 or $400 a barrel Bush cited as a possible consequence of a radical Iraqi regime withholding the country's oil.

"They're a minor exporter," said Edward Morse, managing director and chief energy economist at Lehman Brothers. "They have potential to be a greater exporter. But it's ludicrous to suggest someone could hold the world hostage by withholding oil from the market, especially a regime that needs money."

Disruptions of oil supplies certainly affect the markets, but not as drastically as Bush suggested, Morse said. He noted that Venezuela's capacity has fallen by 1 million barrels a day since President Hugo Chavez came to power there and yet it has not given him any geopolitical leverage over the United States even though he is an avowed Bush foe. But Morse agreed that Iran, for example, could "play mischief" because it already effectively controls much of Iraqi oil in the southern part of the country.

Fratto, the White House spokesman, argued that even if radicals could not move the markets dramatically with Iraqi oil, they would use the country as a base to topple other governments in the Middle East such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, which would give them "a lot more oil to blackmail with."

Answer 9

Its always been the reason hasn't it?