I'm always amazed at how people ignore Bush and Cheney's obvious goals in Iraq. As far back as late 2002, readers of the WaPo could see that the administration's goal was to install a government in Iraq that would be indebted to, and dependent upon, the US, for its security. In return, this new government would "privatize" Iraq's oil infrastructure, making American companies owned by Bush & Cheney's friends quite wealthy.

The details have changed (Chalabi is out, and the weak government we're trying to prop up is now a Shiite / Kurdish coalition government), but that's all.

Our goal is still to support a weak government that will grant "us" a very valuable franchise. Bush will stick with this goal, even though most of the Iraqi factions don't want to see Iraq's oil production licensed to American companies.

And that's why this war will never end, or wind down significantly, on Bush's watch -- what you see is more or less what they want, only with a bit less bloodshed, so that the US companies can actually operate in relative safety in Iraq. The Sunnis, and probably most of the Shiites, will never acquiesce to these privatization plans, so the fighting will continue, despite temporary lulls in the fighting.

What's amazing to me is that the American press doesn't even discuss the economic side of this war. I haven't even seen anything written in the western press about how the oil law that we want passed not only gives a share of the oil revenues to the Sunnis, but also sets up the rules for privatizing Iraqi oil production, and that this aspect, as much as the revenue sharing parts, are unpopular with large segments of the Iraqi parliament. Somtimes you just have to read the English versions of the Arab press.

hey, this fiasco war in iraq is not about economics- i thought it was all about freedom democracy liberty etc. isn't that what our leader told us? and you can't expect the media to question his fighting spirit...

invade Venezuela?

Or better still simply buy off Saddam (A lifetime pass to Disneyland Paris and his own tropical island perhaps).

After all,lets not be squeamish about this. If they can do deals with Gaddaffi, they could have done deals with Saddam to get their hands on his oil. Would have been cheaper too and Iraq could have reverted to its 1980's role of being a block to Iranian ambitions.

This war has always been about the oil. Never was about spreading democracy. The biggest lie though was that the Iraqi oil was going to pay for this war. We the taxpayers are closing in on a trillion $ for this war.

Overthrowing Saddam was revenge for him making GHB look foolish.

Oil is certainly a factor. And we would invade Venezuela if we thought we could get away with it. Remember what we did to Salvador Allende?

That said, life is never quite that simple. It's about oil for some (Cheney) and about bringing democracy to the benighted for some (Wolfowitz, neocons) and about other things as well all blended together in one colossal mistake.

Yup, I think that's right. I think the neo-conns really thought they could completely rewrite the rules in the ME. But in my own defense, I *was* talking about Cheney, and what he and Bush want from the war.