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Politics : DON'T START THE WAR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (1331)	1/14/2003 11:40:06 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 25898

Pocketing the spoils of war (1/13/2003) oilandgasinternational.com The countdown has started. Most observers believe the buildup to more than 100,000 troops in the Middle East by the United States and United Kingdom - the biggest mobilization of American forces since the Gulf War for the US and the UK's biggest since its made war on Argentina over the Falklands 20 years ago - can be nothing but a prelude to the long anticipated invasion of Iraq and the war and occupation that will follow. Most of those same observers expect the military occupation of Iraq to be a difficult proposition for the colonially minded administration of George W. Bush, a destructive and sacrificial one for the Iraqis, and a costly exercise in 19th century adventurism for the American taxpayers. It is expected to last at least until 2005 and probably longer and be the final inflammation of Arab sentiment that alienates the rest of the Middle East for decades to come. The occupation is expected to cost US$12-48 billion, according to a US Congressional Budget Office estimate, thus to placate fiscal domestic critics and pay for that occupation, the Bush administration is said to be seriously considering using Iraqi oil to pay for the campaign, to be planning to appropriate revenues generated from Iraqi oil production as "spoils of war" to "take all the oil money until there is a new democratic government" in Iraq - despite US Justice Department warnings that those funds belong to the people of Iraq and should be held in trust for them. Certainly the oilfields of Iraq are seen by all concerned as at the heart of the pending invasion, but what is the priority? Iraq has the world's second-largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia, and the United States needs a dependable source of oil for the foreseeable future. By establishing a presence in Iraq, it will be positioned to wield an inordinate influence over the Persian Gulf, the eastern Mediterranean, and the Caspian region. It will be able to threaten Iran, keep Saudi Arabia under its influence, and, as an added benefit, protect its protégé Israel and keep Russia from moving into the Mideast via the multi-billion-dollar Iraqi oil and infrastructure projects it contracted with Saddam Hussein to do. But at what cost? Around the world, American petroleum industry personnel and those who could be mistaken for Americans are already experiencing security risks propagated solely by their nationality, by their symbolic representation of American policy. It doesn't matter whether they support that policy or not. Thus, if the Bush administration proceeds with a pre-emptive military invasion of Iraq, occupies the country under a US military regime, and opts to appropriate Iraqi oil revenues for its own ends, it changes the very nature of the United States in the world and puts all of us in greater danger wherever we are from those who would express their outrage with violence.