was the war in iraq really about oil?

Was the war in iraq about oil or was it about somthing else?

Oil...

Population control...

Facilitating the Israeli empire...

The Bilderberg Group's decision...

Expansion of US military spending...

Take your pick, I guess.

"The war in Iraq" is pretty broad. There are a lot of contributing factors to the "war in Iraq". And it's really hard to get any information that's not biased nowadays!

The 2003 invasion of Iraq by a multinational force officially began on March 20, 2003. U.S. President George W. Bush stated that the objective of the invasion was "to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people".

- Wiki

I wish it was just for oil. An objective as clear as that would make it all pretty simple and easy. Just carpet bomb them all and start pumping into U.S. tankers. This would assume that oil would be nationalized by the U.S..

The broad reason for Iraq is, IMO, to get leverage against Iran and lend support to the Iranian people for regime change. Iraq was supposed to be chump change. A sort of symbolic toppling to let the entire region know democracy for all of them was not only possible but inevitable and we are here for support.

It doesnt look like thats going so well. Timing is all off. The force is too small.
A few pockets of Iraquis have embraced democracy and are doing very well. The current trouble is providing protection for these people.

Iraq as a symbol wont work if thug rule and militant Islam prove they can suppress it.

We dropped the ball bad. Thers still time to fix and finish but Washington bull wont let it happen. Theyll just bicker and fight while our soldiers die.

When did we start fighting wars with suits in Washington and not uniforms on the ground, thats what Id like to know.

Greg Palast gives a good talk on the Iraqi Oil situation. He reckons that the war in Iraq was about more than oil, military contracts,increased control etc, the neocons did very well out of the war in so many ways, so many contracts, war is good for business. Anyhow Palast covers the oil angle. He says that they are in Iraq not to take out oil, but to restrict Iraq from selling oil, so that they could control the market more and up the prices of oil, claiming there were big oil shortages, and that is exactly what has happened since the start of the invasion of Iraq, oil prices have gone up very significantly.

video.google.com...

www.youtube.com...

I think that it is partly because of oil. One cannot dismiss the fact that the oil companies (Exxon, for example) have made money hand over fist during the years that Mr. Bush has been in office. And, I have to agree that there are some pretty extensive sources out there which discuss this aspect and more.

Furthermore, another thing that can't be ignored is the building of the pipeline in Afghanistan. That was an apparent fact--especially when it came down to appointing the "new leaders" in the country to help make this issue a possibility.

As of Greg Palast, he has done some spectacular work on this area. It is a recommended read to see what he has done for BBC.

[edit on 13-3-2007 by ceci2006]

your right exxon made $350.5 billion last year. you would think that some of this could go to something more useful like the road conditions or founding for the build of cleaner running cars, and even if it doesnt go to any of that some of it should atleast go tolowering gas prices.

Originally posted by truthseeka
Oil...

Population control...

Facilitating the Israeli empire...

The Bilderberg Group's decision...

Expansion of US military spending...

Take your pick, I guess.

Oil: Most definently. Do we NEED the oil? No. I think we would rather use up foreign oil before tapping our own. For 2 reasons. 1. We are greedy like that and 2. We can.

Facilitating the Israeli empire: ......God im sick of this crap..

The Bilderberg Group: No, not really, I would put it more along the lines of the wealthy elite of Britain and America alone, as all other European countries kind of got the kick in the !%! from this war.. France especially.

Rich people will always hold power of the poorer people, and will often use the poor to do their bidding to increase their wealth. In the words of Slim, the soon to be richest man in the world from Mexico "With great wealth comes a great responsibility to create more wealth"

Expansion of US military spending: Close, I see it more as keeping it at about the same post Soviet fall level.. not to much to bankrupt but enough to add billions into the economy.

Take your pick: Never do nations go to war for one reason alone, but when the collective reasoning can have an outcome of even greater expected good.

The war may be tragic, and it is blown out of proportion daily.. and every one worries about the troops and the little kiddies in Iraq and such, but you have to admit one thing.

We suffered a huge economic burst (dot com) .. the words largest economic center was leveled to the ground.. we lost 1/5th of our military HQ "brain" .. we have initiated 2 wars that where won within months, sustained an occupation of both nations.. we have suffered the worst corporate scandals in American history.. we have suffered terror threats, we lost an entire metropolitan area and one of our most notorious cities.. massive immigration..

All in all, we have been through, I would say, the worst 7 years since WWII and OUR ECONOMY IS AT ALL TIME HIGHS!

Now, the people are not.. this is no 90's thats for sure.. but the fact that we where not slammed into a recession that turned into a depression like that of the 1920's is a testament to our strength and prevalence .. and I would bet the wars helped keep the economy up.

PS. Before Im slammed as a .. er.. "neocon" and "bush supporter" I would add that economies are rarely influenced by Presidents. The markets go up, they go down, and the President has no control. The only thing the President can do to effect the economy is F up big somehow.. Our leaders rather "special" and I am surprised he hasnt done something like that



[edit on 3/14/2007 by Rockpuck]

of course wars bring our ecconomy up. they present new jobs better wages and more hours. mabye this was one of the reasons bush sent us to war. o and sense u pretty much discreded everything that that other guy said what do you think the war is about Rockpuck

I'm surprised noone has mentioned the reason of oil CURRENCY as the main reason to go to war in Iraq... Is it really that unknown still, that people do not know about the whole oil currency bit? I don't profess to know all the details of the background of this angle on the story, but the gist of it is that Saddam was about to take his entire oil currency "stock" and convert it from american dollars into Euro's. He was going to transfer 10 billion dollars of american oil currency and more into Euro's. If he had done so, apparently it could have triggered an economic collapse in the american economy, as far as the value of the dollar is concerned. Of course Bush and America did not want this to happen, and had to put a stop to it. IMO, this was a just cause to take over Iraq in the minds of the american economy. IMO, it was a just cause to take over Iraq in the name of national security. If the american economy collapsed the national security would have been seriously jeopardized. So America was just in going into Iraq for that "economic" reason...

Now why Bush had to come out and give the excuse of WMD for the reason of attack, I do not know. Maybe that was another of his poor decisions, or maybe it was a decision of his bosses (PTB) to lay out that ridiculous excuse to the american public. Either way, it appears they were flying by the seat of their pants instead of using common logic to figure out their justification. Maybe they thought the american public would not understand the economic fallout reasons of oil currency transfers, and a simple excuse of WMD's is something that all americans could relate to as a threat to america's existance. The common man (including myself) may not have a clue of the complex intricacies of the way our dollars are "backed" and funded by opec oil currency, whereas even the most commonest of people can understand the threat of WMD's and how they can effect our everyday lives.

IMO, if Bush would have come out and said, "We have to go to war in Iraq to stop Saddam from transfering his oil reserves into Euro's and triggering an economic collapse in America. This is a matter of National Security, and if we let ruler's of the Middle East transfer their OPEC currencies out of American dollars, then America will fail. We must stop Saddam from this attack on our economy and at the same time, set an example out of him to let other Middle East rulers know that we take the funding of our economy by their oil dollars very seriously and will not tolerate any descension in this process.", America may have agreed and been more receptive and acceptable of this war over the longer term for this economic reasons.

There are many threads here describing this reason. Some related ATS articles on this to get you started on your search:

Iraq Invasion for Oil - Confirmed

The Federal Reserve's greatest nightmare

Was the War in IRAQ all about Oil?

Why We Really Went to War

Some other non-ATS sites to check out on this info:

BUSH'S DEEP REASONS FOR WAR ON IRAQ: OIL, PETRODOLLARS, AND THE OPEC EURO QUESTION

The Real Reasons for the Upcoming War With Iraq:
A Macroeconomic and Geostrategic Analysis of the Unspoken Truth

The Real But Unspoken
Reasons For The Iraq War