But this war is not about oil....

[taranaki]

Yeah....riiiiiiiiiiight.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story...940250,00.html

[texan]

How else do you expect them to get the oil that will provide the life's blood of Iraqi economy out of the region and to a reliable port? You can't go into Iran with it, you can't and especially right now wouldn't want to go into Syria, Turkey is not likely to be a stable place to build it and Saudi Arabia definitely won't be interested in helping what's potentially their biggest competitor in the region either. Jordan and Israel are among our best allies in the region, as well as the only "friendly" road from Iraq to a major sea port.

And I don't trust one portion of that article, where a "senior CIA official" confirmed that people in the administration had been dreaming about a pipeline shut down in 1948. Who is this senior official and what reason might he have to speak to a UK web based news service instead of many other larger and more trustworthy news organizations?


And of course this war is about oil. Without it, Iraq never could have built a large enough war machine to invade Iran and Kuwait, or to build weapons of mass destruction.

[taranaki]

Originally posted by texan
or to build weapons of mass destruction.

Let's not go round on the WMDdebate again.

from article

and solving Israel's energy crisis at a stroke.

There's the real reason for the Israelis wanting the pipeline.They want their buddies in the U.S.to ensure that Iraq gives them first bite at the oil.It's quite obvious that there is no clear future for Iraq yet,surely if George Bush is sincere in his claims that he wants Iraq to be led by the Iraqis,they've got to decide for themselves how best to sell their product.

As to a port for Iraqi exports,how did Iraq manage before the sanctions? there is already one major port at Um Qasr in the south,for a secure facility that would be the logical outlet.Why rely on Israel?

BTW,the Guardian is not a web based news service.It's one of Britains oldest newpapers,a little biased to the left,but still a very credible news organisation IMHO.

[texan]

Originally posted by taranaki
Let's not go round on the WMDdebate again.

Fair enough, that road is pretty much exhausted in both directions anyway

There's the real reason for the Israelis wanting the pipeline.They want their buddies in the U.S.to ensure that Iraq gives them first bite at the oil.It's quite obvious that there is no clear future for Iraq yet,surely if George Bush is sincere in his claims that he wants Iraq to be led by the Iraqis,they've got to decide for themselves how best to sell their product.

As to a port for Iraqi exports,how did Iraq manage before the sanctions? there is already one major port at Um Qasr in the south,for a secure facility that would be the logical outlet.Why rely on Israel?

BTW,the Guardian is not a web based news service.It's one of Britains oldest newpapers,a little biased to the left,but still a very credible news organisation IMHO.

Of course the Israeli's are thinking about their own best interests first. I'm not sure what basis for decision making should come before that for anyone, so your point is lost on me. To be frank, it sounds like you are starting to buy into the "Zionist" theme a little bit . And on the point of Iraq determining how to best sell their own riches, I completely agree. But it should be noted that the US is the premiere nation for figuring out how to utilize petroleum, and therefore our ideas might not be all that bad.

As to the port argument, you are correct. But one port is not enough for the amount of oil Iraq could be (and should be) producing; that's one of the primary reasons Hussein invaded Kuwait back in 1990. Iraq has a gigantic amount of oil still in the ground but only one viable port into the Persion Gulf, they really need another outlet to ship from. A single oil spill could bring their entire economy to a halt almost instantly, so anyone concerned about their people's well being would do well to consider a secondary source for shipping out what will be their life's blood for a long time coming. But no, I don't consider this a purely altruistic plan. Of course having a major pipeline for them running through two US ally states gives us great leverage in the future. Again though, not acting in your own best interests first is not an intelligent thing from my viewpoint; altruism is suicide in matters of state.

And sorry about misjudging the news source, I hastily read a few blurbs from their site and mistakenly assumed the Observer was simply an independent internet based news source. I don't have much knowledge of GB's news services outside of the BBS. But I'm sticking to my guns on the point of contention; far too often US news services have, of late, spouted off as reliable news things from "senior officials" which are all too often unsubstantiated claims. Every time I see or hear that phrase, I nearly write off the following paragraph out of hand. If you can't list and verify the source, what's the point really?