Why did Bush invade Iraq? $6-20 TRILLION minimum

Take the current price of oil, about $60 per barrel, and assume that won't change much (the general trend will be up though) and multiply that by the range of estimates of unpumped oil in Iraq. The Brookings Institute says the DOE lowballs it at 112 billion barrels but some estimates are as high as 300 bbl.

112 billion x $60 = $6.7 trillion

300 billion x $60 = $18 trillion

If you fool around with different pricing scenarios, it's not hard to imagine those numbers being a lot higher, particularly as other oil reserves run dry, the prices run up, and the Persian Gulf is the last place with easily recoverable oil.

Bush forced the Iraqis to denationalize their oil, cancelled Saddam's contracts with other countries, and gave them to American companies.

Everything else Bush has done has been about cronyism or suckering the religious right enough to vote for him so that he can practice cronyism.

Why is it so hard for the press, the Democrats, and even most in the "progressive" press to say out loud that Bush went there to steal oil and give it to his friends?

Russia is looking to throw Exxon out on it's ear. The rest of the world is probably actively boycotting every other American export with the way that the corporate media is treating the Republicans now.

Iraq's oil to us, so if they make anything, they come out ahead.

the chinese are going to be looking for some payback when they get stiffed by the fall of the petrodollar.

they'll use our debt against us--or just stop buying it.

nationalize the factories we moved there and turn to producing for their own people.

Chinese don't.

margin they get selling here.

That's the good side of "globalization" It's harder for the big dogs to fight because they have their hands in each other's pockets.

that's where the hostile takeover plan of Iraqi national oil was hatched. That scumbag Scalia covered for Dick, he ought to be indicted for warcrimes as well.

context of the US invasion of Iraq. The first such mention of "oil" was completely voluntary, at the end of his opening statement. And the other two times, in a long response to "Steve", the reporter had not asked him about oil! Dubya is not even pretending Iraq is about spreading "democracy" anymore.

I was shocked. The last time I remember Dubya using the word "oil" in the context of Iraq was in 2003, when he was speaking directly to the Iraqi people: "Do not destroy oil wells"!

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From http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061011-5.html :

"We can't tolerate a new terrorist state in the heart of the Middle East, with large oil reserves that could be used to fund its radical ambitions, or used to inflict economic damage on the West. By helping the Iraqis build a democracy -- an Iraqi-style democracy -- we will deal a major blow to terrorists and extremists, we'll bring hope to a troubled region, and we'll make this country more secure.

With that, I'll take some questions, starting with Terry Hunt. ...

The stakes couldn't be any higher, as I said earlier, in the world in which we live. There are extreme elements that use religion to achieve objectives. And they want us to leave, and they want us to -- and they want to topple government. They want to extend an ideological caliphate that is -- has no concept of liberty inherent in their beliefs. They want to control oil resources, and they want to plot and plan and attack us again. That's their objectives. And so -- and our strategic objective is to prevent them from doing that. And we're constantly changing tactics to achieve that objective. ...

It is conceivable that there will be a world in which radical forms, extreme forms of religion fight each other for influence in the Middle East, in which they've got the capacity to use oil as an economic weapon. And when you throw in the mix a nuclear weapon in the hands of a sworn enemy of the United States, you begin to see an environment that would cause some later on in history to look back and say, how come they couldn't see the problem? What happened to them in the year 2006? Why weren't they able to see the problems now and deal with them before it came too late, Steve?

And so Iraq is an important part of dealing with this problem. And my vow to the American people is I understand the stakes, and I understand what it would mean for us to leave before the job is done. And I look forward to listening how -- what Jimmy Baker and Lee Hamilton say about how to get the job -- I appreciate them working on this issue because I think they understand what I know, and the stakes are high. And the stakes are high when it comes to developing a Palestinian state so that Israel can live at peace. And the stakes are high when it comes to making sure the young democracy of Lebanon is able to fend off the extremists and radicals that want to crater that democracy.

This is the real challenge of the 21st century. I like to tell people we're in an ideological struggle. And it's a struggle between extremists and radicals and people of moderation who want to simply live a peaceful life. And the calling of this country and in this century is whether or not we will help the forces of moderation prevail. That's the fundamental question facing the United States of America -- beyond my presidency. And you can tell I made my choice."

http://www.iags.org/iraqpipelinewatch.htm

These are the attacks on pipeline and production facilities just since April 30, 2006.

326. April 30 - Iraqi Police discovered a Katyusha rocket near Kirkuk. The rocket had been placed on a pile of rocks at an angle with a timer attached, possibly targeting the Northern Oil Company. Iraqi EOD disarmed the rocket without incident.
327. May 6 - six engineers working for Iraq's state-owned Northern Oil Company were kidnapped while they were returning from a meeting in Kirkuk.
328. May 8 - insurgents attacked an oil pipeline with an IED at 45 km south from Baghdad. There were no casualties in the attack, but the oil pipeline had to be closed due to the blast. The pipeline carries oil from Dora refinery in Baghdad to Musayyib power station.
328. May 10 - attack on an oil pipeline pipeline carrying oil from Daura refinery to Mussayyib power station.
329. May 15 - attack on pipeline in the Daura refinery.
330. May 16 - insurgents assaulted a car park in northeast Baghdad, killing 18 people and injuring at least 37. Iraqi police said the gunmen shot five guards who were looking after the garage in the Shaab neighbourhood. They then detonated an IED on a parked oil tanker. The bomb killed 13 people.
331. May 20 - a member of the Facilities Protection Service was killed having been shot by two unknown gunmen in the Hayy ar Risalah district of Basrah.
332. May 21- gunmen killed two policemen working in the Oil Protection Facilities in the town of Ar Riyad 40 miles southwest of Kirkuk.
333. May 21 - in al yusufiyah, insurgents detonated an IED on an oil pipeline, starting a massive blaze.
334. May 21 - two Oil Protection Service officers were killed in a drive-by shooting in Tikrit.
335. May 28 - a local government worker who works in an oil refinery was murdered. He was shot twice in the neck in the Abu Al Khasib region of Basra Province by four unknown males on two motorbikes.
336. May 31 - insurgents carried out a rocket attack against an oil pipeline in Riyadh.
337. May 31 - a three vehicle convoy was escorting a pipeline repair team from the Ministry of Oil when it was ambushed with an IED in the Rasheed District in south-western Baghdad. After the initial explosion insurgents then engaged the convoy with small arms fire from a plantation near the Al Taji Gas Factory. Two Iraqi police officers were wounded in the attack.
338. May 31 - a security patrol was ambushed with two IEDs the Ad Daura Oil Refinery in southern Baghdad. It is reported that one security officer was wounded in the attack. 339. June 1 - in northern Iraq gunmen opened fire on Col. Ziyad Tariq, deputy-commander of the oil protection force in Kirkuk, killing him and a bodyguard and wounding another bodyguard as they left a restaurant. Also, a maintenance unit from the oil protection force was attacked by gunmen southwest of Kirkuk and two members were wounded.
340. June 6 - four Northern Oil Company employees were kidnapped on their way to the Ajeel oil site.
341. June 8 - Gunmen in Baghdad kidnapped the director general of the State Company for Oil Projects, Muthana al-Badri in Aazamiya, northern Baghdad.
342. June 9 - in Kirkuk gunmen attacked soldiers guarding a pipeline, wounding three of them and killing one civilian. also on the road between the oil-refinery town of Baiji and Tikrit, gunmen killed three oil engineers.
343. June 12 - six people have been killed in a roadside bomb attack in the southern Daura district in Baghdad. The blast targeted a bus carrying workers to Baghdad's main oil refinery and comes a day after al-Qaeda in Iraq vowed to carry out large-scale after the killing of its leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
344. June 16 - an employee of the Northern Gas Company was similarly shot dead near the oil city of Kirkuk.
345. June 27 - a suicide car bomb exploded at a gas station in Kirkuk, killing at least three civilians and wounding 14 people who were lined up to get fuel.
346. June 27 - three Iraqi policemen from a unit assigned to protect oil facilities in northern Iraq were injured by a roadside IED. A security source said the three men were injured when a bomb exploded as their patrol passed by in an area north of Kirkuk.
347. July 3 - early morning attack section of Yumurtalik pipeline in the city of Hassan about 40 miles southeast of Kirkuk.
348. July 9 - a sabotage attack along Iraq's vital northern oil export route to Turkey fractured both pipelines and repairs will take at least two weeks.
349. July 11 - insurgents killed an engineer working for the North Oil Company, along with his driver, while he was heading to work in Kirkuk.
350. July 11 - insurgents attacked a convoy carrying security personnel tasked with protecting oil facilities south of Mosul, killing at least 10 troops and injuring scores of others. The troops had been ambushed while on a routine inspection of oil pipes in the region. 351. July 13 - attack on a security patrol of the Northern Oil Company in Kirkuk killed three policemen and wounded six civilians.
352. July 16 - the head of Iraq's North Oil Company, Adel Qazaz, was kidnapped in northern Baghdad.
353. July 28 - attack near Samarra on a pipeline connecting Bayji and the Daura refinery.
354. July 31 - Iraq’s northern pipeline carrying crude from the northern oilfields to Turkey's Ceyhan port was sabotaged and ruptured, delaying the restart of export from a previous attack on 9 July 2006.
355. August 13 - insurgents shot and killed a colonel in the Oil Protection Facilities, a security body charged with guarding Iraq's oil infrastructure. He was shot while waiting at gas station north of Tikrit, 110 miles north of Baghdad.
356. August 13 - approximately 63 Iraqis were killed and another 140 wounded when bombs exploded in the vicinity of a building, rupturing a gas pipeline and causing a gas explosion near the Hawra market in southeast Baghdad.


So, even their mercenary excuses to invade IraqNam have been catastrophic failures

law enforcement does on drug traffic--the more product you stop, the more the product that gets through is worth. And in the case of oil, the total amount on the market determines the price.

I can't believe the audacity of this man. Not only was he planning to filter all that money to his private cronies, but he was planning to sacrifice our children to ensure that pipeline of green money stayed open. One can only wonder how things would have changed if he had taken a more socialist approach and would have been honest with the American people about his intentions, and made sure that he spread the wealth and kept social programs open for the poor and actually improved the economy for the middle class.

I have a fair amount of respect for LBJ on the domestic front, and have personally benefitted from some of his programs. But the war outweighed that in the public mind, and it probably would have in my mind too.

There was a good recent HBO movie about LBJ that seemed to imply he made the devil's bargain with the Wall Street types: let me have the Great Society at home, and I'll let you have the war in Vietnam.

Bush's failure is more total because he's trying to screw us in foreign policy AND domestic.

There's a question I have not been able to find an answer for, and more disturbingly, I've seen nearly no one of any importance--journalists, politicians--ask that question.

I would invade DU HQ for $20 trillion. But that's neither here nor there.

and we keep the money

We might be able to get Belize.

It's not worth trillions, but we would still come out ahead on the deal.

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The OP reminded us that we don't even have to go do it ourselves, and we can still get the money!

I didn't even think of that angle, but its true!

So, then, definately, hell yes. I would gladly send other people to invade for me for ten trillion

and poppy ripped us off for a trillion or two while he was in charge of repuke treasury looting

in earnings by companies such as Haliburton and George HW's consulting company.

Then of course there are earnings and profits by the MIC, companies that build weapons and bombs.

Best part is, this war can act like a taxpayer-funded dontation to the RNC.

BushCo gives profits and taxpayer funding to these companies, they turn around and funnel money into Republicans, rinse, repeat...

makes most of their money.

I would rank the profits differently, oil, defense, rebuilding. Does anyone have hard data on that?

a very select group of people is making a lot of money on a lot of fronts in this war.

you could just throw a dart at a map or pick an area no one else would care about.

on someone I was fencing.

I have fenced at KU for three years.

I can't imagine anyone possibly breaking an epee without impaling the victim, and it would be very difficult to break a foil.

But sabre blades, especially if they are distressed or bent at all, break easily.


Of course, you still gotta hit pretty hard to break em, lol



:rofl:

continuing through on the thrust. Fortunately, it didn't pierce her uniform, but it was a very Freudian moment.

I've seen A foil break, but only one. And it was pretty close to the tip.


Wow

a car lock.