A couple of considerations, first present day:
Regarding Bush's policy, it's so stated that the US will leave Iraq if asked to do so. However, so long as the chaos and confusion reign it's more likely the US will not be asked to leave. Seems to me the Bush-Cheney strategy is to keep at least toe-hold Iraq.
And then there is the matter of the major military bases the US has built in Iraq (for what?), compared to the failure to provide utility services for Iraqis. So ask yourself: How is it that Saddam managed put Iraq's utilities services back together, after the first Gulf War, in relatively short time and without the vast resources of the United States? Yet we, America, can't do this?
Hawkman, I get the feeling the Bush-Cheney Administration wants present day chaos Iraq, both for 'inside' economic (read: war profiteering, oil, etc.) and geopolitical reasons (preventing a rise of a strong Middleeastern state, which Iraq potentially could have become).
But Bush has a policy that seems doomed to failure on both fronts: a) more and more, the greed of the Bush-Cheney insiders becomes exposed and there will be backlash; and, b) the present day policy is likely to enhance the strength of Iran which, in effect, ultimately (because we can't hang on in Iraq) will annex Iraq due to its strong Shite population--thus, Iran will have even more power to make oil deals with China and India, new-age competitors of the US.
How'd it come to this? My gut feeling is that the two percent who control 70 percent of the wealth in America (call 'em 'the greasy group') have long wanted Iraq's oil off the market, especially when a glut of investments went elsewhere following the fall of the Shah of Iran. A puppet installed by the US, the Shah always gave 'the greasy group' a 'good deal.'
With the fall of the Shah, America's cheap deal buddies became the Saudis--and those investments needed both protection and maturity. Oil investors NEVER wanted the "cheap" oil which would have resulted had Iraq's oil freely been entered into the market.
Consider also the likelihood that had Iraq been able to come back from lifted sanctions, its oil contracts logically would have gone to the French and Russians, not the US majors (you know who they are!). A successful Iraq meant that the ability to control the price of oil would have markedly changed and this certainly would have ruffled the feathers of 'the greasy group' with whom Bush and Cheney so closely linked.
Bottom line is America is in Iraq for reasons having nothing to do with what Bush and Cheney told the American public. We've been deceived--I've been deceived; you've been deceived!
Meanwhile, here's an excellent historical perspective of Iraq. Had Bush and Cheney should have read this, eh?
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